But they did not move
from their posts for they were women and the men and the children were
waiting to be fed.
Most of them were middle-aged, or the trail had made them look
middle-aged. A few were very old. Susan saw a face carved with
seventy years of wrinkles mumbling in the framing folds of a shawl.
Nearby, sitting on the dropped tongue of a wagon, a girl of perhaps
sixteen, sat ruminant, nursing a baby. Children were everywhere,
helping, fighting, rolling on the grass. Babies lay on spread blankets
with older babies sitting by to watch. It was the woman's hour. The
day's march was over, but the intimate domestic toil was at its height.
The home makers were concentrated upon their share of the
activities--cooking food, making the shelter habitable, putting their
young to bed.
Separated from Susan by a pile of scarlet embers stood a young girl, a
large spoon in her hand. The light shot upward along the front of her
body, painting with an even red glow her breast, her chin, the under
side of her nose and finally transforming into a coppery cloud the
bright confusion of her hair.
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