Her legs struck such a quick, steady clip she’d passed everybody. Her body, keeping its urgent pace was the only distinction in the landscape. Her scrawny child’s frame rose like a giant’s over the stubble. There was not even a bird in the sky to offer companionship, no tree for one to roost in, no sprout of green to draw its eye. She squinted in vain over the gray earth and rotted stalks. She scanned a vista with no variation, no cloud. It neither threatened snow nor offered sun. No Brown Thrashers dipped or swerved low across on the horizon. No Sharpshinned Hawk glided a loose spiral overhead. Her feet, double-socked inside her boots, trip-tripped along while Frances thought of yesterday when Sarah had caught up and invited her to ride Mash. Mash was Sarah’s gray pony she sometimes rode home from school. Frances had climbed onto his broad warm back behind Sarah’s black braid with the feeling of a holiday. She had patted his firm flank, tapped a soundless beat there with her mittened hand and got Sarah to sing with her.