Do you want sugar and cream in your tea, Set? Or maybe lemon?" Darby opened the small refrigerator door and peered into its cool interior, seeking a small china bowl that held three slightly dried lemon slices. He had wanted to try a new recipe last week, one of his gourmet attempts which never seemed to come off quite as they were envisioned. The recipe had called for fresh lemon. His various tasteless food stuffs, however, were always served in interesting china. Perhaps chipped or cracked in places, but always visually beautiful and unusual in design. For the last three years, since Set had come to East Worthy, she had accompanied Darby on many forays into the world of flea markets and country auctions, finding a stray Haviland cup here or a silver Victorian brides basket there. In Darby Lambert's hands the piece would become a work of art, no matter how scarred or cracked or hidden under years of corrosion the object might be. It was the way he arranged his collections. Or sometimes the way he used the object. Now it was the dried lemon slices laying diagonally and overlapped in their ivy-edged bowl, ivy with deep pink roses. He placed it on the dark mahogany table before Set.
     "I never expect to see any thing like that again in my life," Set said. She squeezed lemon into her cup. The steam dampened her hand. "It was ghastly, absolutely ghastly. And I don't see how I can be fit to teach on Monday. Thank the gods I have the weekend to recover."
      "It certainly was a nasty scene. And what in God's name can Sowders have been doing here, anyway?" With silver bird-claw tongs, Dar dropped three sugar cubes into his cup. "Do you want some music, Set? How about a little Bach to sooth the nerves? You can bet your booty, I'll be looking into the reasons for this gathering here tonight." Dar settled into a plumb tapestry chair, balancing his teacup on the bolstered arm, its ragged frays holding the saucer in place. "I can't have persons crashing the gate, so to speak, at all hours of the days or night. And when I'm not here. I went beyond the bounds when I allowed David Owen to use the apartment for his stay. Somehow, I feel violated."
      "You feel violated. For heaven's sake, Dar, a man just died on your lawn tonight. You act as if it was a prom." She ran her hand through her light hair, tucking in a stray piece which had fallen from the coil of French roll at the nape of her neck. Some of the ash blonde strands gleamed under the dimmed light of Dar's kitchen-sitting room.
      "Now, let's not be testy, dear. Nathan Sowders was a Bible-thumping prig. I didn't like him. And to be precise, he departed this life from the drive-way, not the lawn."
      "Come on, Darby, he might not have been our style, but certainly he tried to do right. He was . . . he was involved. That's more than I can say for most people. At least he was passionate about what he did. He was always kind to me. The few times I met him. In fact, he was absolutely charming. Last night, after the lecture, I remember thinking when he shook my hand, "What a warm, firm hand. You could really make it in the corporate world. Good-looking, too, with a little less hair spray and a shorter cut." Set leaned on her cupped hands, her elbows resting on the table. She looked beyond the room, into the night, across the fields where the corn picker circled its eyes.. In the deep-set Gothic window, a lone electric candle cast shadows on the inlaid wood trim--dark chocolate walnut, next to cherry, and ash, she thought.. She remembered her first delight in coming to Shequonur, in belonging to a village community, of living with farmers, and churches, and Mennonites, and rolling Ohio fields. It was better than a Hardy novel.
      "Sowders was a little too Tammy Faye for me." Darby rinsed his cup and placed it in the drainer.
      "You can't seriously associate Nathan Sowders with the Jim Baker type. We're not talking Gospel table clothes and Christian theme parks. I know I'm not ingrown here, like you. But in the past three years I've felt the flavor of this community." Set took on her pursed mouth for a second. Then she dissolved in passion. "It's what I wanted, Dar. At least a hundred and fifty years of church suppers and farming. Maybe this guy was a little on the fringe, but there have got to be the extremities in any group. He gives - gave - a little texture."
      Darby appeared busy, arranging his newly-acquired Victorian ear vases along high shelves in the tiny room he called the parlor. Set could see him through the door, stretching up with a pink vase. Its ears were the color of raspberry sherbet. "God, he's got it on again." Although Darby had not put on the Bach, a deep, musical swept up to them from below. "I must say, I wouldn't have thought of it, but it's good. I think it's Gregorian chant."
      "He must have recovered,” Set said. She watched Darby scoot a yellow vase closer to its yellow twin, and then she gathered up their cups. "I think it would be a nice gesture, or perhaps a humane gesture, if we would offer him a cup of tea. Or maybe even just a few words of sympathy, or support, or something. How well did he know Sowders?" She placed the kettle on a burner. "Maybe he'd come up here."
      "He asked for his privacy and, God knows, I've tried to give it to him." Dar was abrupt. "Since he came in last Sunday, I've barely heard him stir below. Except for the chants. Sometimes pipe organ. He must have brought a barrage of tapes." His tone gained an ostentatious edge as he arranged a silver tray ceremoniously with sugar and creamer. "I think the two graduated, you know, from high school together. But that was long before my time. I'm but a youth, my dear." Like the roses and ivy bowl, the silver tray was a masterpiece of balance and texture.
      They made their way down the back staircase, the liturgical music becoming more distinct as they neared the large walnut door which set off the apartment. This two-room apartment had been carved out of a back room of the building and sported hints of the woodwork in the larger rooms at Shequonur.
      "Let me do the talking here, Set." A soft knock brought no response so Darby pounded more firmly. The door swung open within seconds and Set was surprised to see the woman with auburn hair standing before them. Her mouth was turned in a pleasant smile, but she appeared anxious as she spoke.
      "O, yes, Mr. Lambert, I see you must be wondering and concerned about Dr. Owen. I've stayed around to see if I could assist him after what had to be a difficult moment. Forgive me, you don't know who I am. I'm Faith McDowell." She extended a stocky arm. "David and I have known one another since his Oxford lectures. But please do come in. I know he'll appreciate the coffee, or is it tea?"
      Set, smiling weakly, looked over the rooms she had not seen in months. The downstairs apartment at Shequonur had originally been a dining area and kitchen when the estate was built in 1868. Darby had shown Set its peculiarities and beauties soon after they had become friends. The estate, or She as he sometimes called it, was his pride and joy. It was a living thing, a personality, a love for Darby Lambert. But what Set had been most impressed with when she first came to know the house was what she saw before her now. Even in the dim light, out beyond the parfait of oak and cherry knobs and spools on the west wall alcove, she could see it. A single candle burned red on a cheap end table in the sitting room and beyond that the glass of the conservatory gleamed through an ornately carved door which led out into its golden interior.
      Every time Set saw the conservatory she caught her breath. It was an anachronism, evidence of a time warp, and, most meaningful of all for Set, it was beauty set in wilderness. Here in the middle of the Midwest, rural Ohio, in the center of cornfields, like a secret totem to beauty, stood a piece of architecture which annexed a golden glass room. Having taught high school English for fifteen years, she had collected piles of post cards and packets on British estate life, for use in the classroom, particularly when she got into the Victorians. And so she knew that English estates were surrounded, at least, originally with farm life, and that these estates were often crumbling buildings, rambling this way and that, with outbuildings, and probably conservatories. She had not been to England--an embarrassing dry spot in her life and always the center of future plans--but she did know that Ohio did not ordinarily house that British tension of buildings. If there were totems to beauty, they had been advertised to death and then skirted by billboards which read in huge ripped paper: "Three Miles to Monument X." It became crowded and metropolitan. Even now these last protected areas had lost their Nineteenth-Century charm--she always thought of it as Currier and Ives. Barns were coming down and small houses, transported in pieces by trucks, were springing up like plastic mushrooms. There were few structures in the country which could be said to have this majesty of projection or form. It took size and earthy materials to have majesty.
      Shequonur, built from local rock and local trees, was inordinately large. It rose nobly in the middle of farmed fields, fields which stretched as far as the eye could see. Even from the second floor. On its rocky exterior, glowed the burnished stained glass room, intact and cared for. Darby had reason to love this place.
      Now in the dim gold light David Owen paused, an amber stain shifting over his shoulders. He stood at the conservatory door, a folder and book in his hand. The book was old, with tooled leather and gold etchings on the cover. When he extended his hand, Darby shuffled his feet nervously. "I'm so sorry that this event has occurred on your property, Mr. Lambert." His tone was cool, contained. But when he noticed the tea tray, he warmed slightly to their presence. "When you graciously gave me the use of this apartment, I didn't foresee a tragedy like this. I don't want to be the cause of your discomfort." Set watched him carefully, now that she could study him more thoroughly. At the pulpit he had been too distanced from her to provide this personal analysis. His fine features and carefully cut hair, just long enough at the back of his neck to curl rakishly over the collar of his tattersal shirt, imaged nonchalant intelligence. Tortoise-shell, thin-rimmed glasses hung in his hand and he pushed the sleeves of his cashmere sweater up to reveal the gleaming flat facet of an expensive watch. Its reptile band stretched through the dark hair on his wrist. Expensive but not flashy. That's what carried off the enviable look of suppressed opulence, or bookish wealth, for Set. She found it difficult to believe that this man had been born and raised in the community. He was as incongruous with East Worthy as Shequonur was with its cornfields.
      "Faith, would you please turn down the volume a bit? I'm sorry, perhaps you haven't met my friend?"
      "Yes, I introduced myself at the door, David. I've come to Ohio to hear Dr. Owen's brilliant analysis of Christian epiphany," she added.
      "Did you come far?" Set questioned. She wondered if this nondescript woman could have a particular, interesting meaning for Owen. She must have. She was in the apartment when everyone else had disappeared. Set looked at her again. Yes, she was nondescript except for her hair. It was cut in a short, bobbed style. Not an unusual cut, but the color was gorgeous. It drew the eye. But her clothes. Less than nondescript. They were mediocre in every way. They were not outrageously offensive for they "matched" in a dismal repetition of light blues and browns. They could have been purchased at the Lutheran thrift shop where Set sorted through boxes and scraped hangers along racks of second-hand sweaters, skirts, odd dresses. Set loved clothes . Antique buttons, belts, scarves, purses, hats-- all the accoutrement of vintage clothing in out-of-the-way shops. But Set knew she could carry off most events with her sense of color and drape. It was her one true talent in the fine arts. Clothes are fine art, she often proclaimed to herself in musty shops, and spent a great deal of time dreaming of color combinations foiled by particular settings. Faith McDowell's yellowed white blouse, set off by a clown pin at the throat, her A-Line knit skirt--obviously sewn from a Simplicity pattern--were outrageous in this setting: the golden room, a man with a tooled-leather book, appearing as if he had just descended from the cover of GQ or had been a property in a Ralph Lauren display. Set caught herself mid-thought. Faith was speaking gently, unaware of the callous critique performed upon her person. Set blinked her eyes, appalled at her own shallow perceptions and dissections. Whoever this woman was, she was there to help and she had certainly been gracious to them. She had every right to wear whatever she wished.
      "You might think it's far. St. Louis. I teach English comp in a small community college there." She smiled at David. Motherly, Set thought. Evenly matronly. Yes, matronly, that's what she is. ". . . and I knew that I just could not miss David's lectures on epiphany when I heard that he was going to give an extended presentation here in his home town." She placed her tea cup on the rickety end table and smiled again at David. "May I pour another cup for you, David? Or can I get something else for either of you? David has some cookies in his larder. From the IGA." David Owen did not comment and both Set and Dar shook their heads in a "no thank-you."
      Darby, who had been eyeing the room, making his balances and checks on the furniture and the curtains, turned to admire David's aesthetic demeanor in this space. "Well, three teachers of English in one room. It's almost overwhelming. But then, I don't know that you teach. Do you, Dr. Owen? That is, do you teach in a classroom like these two?" Darby was using his ingratiating tone and Set was annoyed. Before David could answer, a phone rang in the kitchen. Faith hurried from the couch and picked up the phone just inside the door of the kitchen. David did not try to stop her, and the three remained poised awkwardly, pretending not to hear Faith's soft mumble around the corner.
      But when she returned Owen's face changed. "It's a woman for you, David. She didn't give her name. Should I ask her to call back?"
      But he was already up and at the phone. The three could hear some vaguely agitated words from Owen, but their meaning was muffled. Faith coughed lightly and stood. She lined up, and then overlapped, three magazines, leaving exactly an inch showing at the edge of each cover. She aligned some folders, and random papers strewn on a card table. This rickety table had been Dar's attempt to use the excess clutter--mostly 1950's kitsch--sprouting from Shequonur's dank basement. Set glanced over the weighty titles on The Wordsworth Circle. A gloomy guilt smeared her eyes. She had not known there was such a journal, such a confounded specialized journal. And she was an English teacher. High school, yes. But still, an English teacher. How inadequate she felt. But then, this must be what it means to be a Doctor of Philosophy. Later, for herself, perhaps. Right now she would have to settle for her broad outlines on the Romantic Period. She would scrape together teasing, aberrant behaviors in Byron and Shelley. Any dramatic fact she could ferret out in order to teach her restless, irreverent students. She thumbed casually through the pages--"Wordsworth, Turner, and the Romantic Landscape: A Study of the Traditions of the Picturesque and the Sublime." A deft hand, a confident smile at the redhead, she lifted it with aplomb to the table. How utterly deficient, how inferior she felt in the presence of the mind housed in the elegant head of David Owen.
      He was at the door of the kitchen. "I'm sorry, but I’ve got to leave in about fifteen minutes. I so appreciate your concern." It was the most he had offered thus far.
      When Set clinked three silver spoons onto the tea-splotched tray, Darby eyed Owen, a benign smile curving his thin lips. "By the way, Dr. Owen, why . . ."
      "Please, why don't you call me David. The other sounds so affected, although I certainly don't mind the title with some persons."
      "I was wondering," Darby continued, "if Reverend Sowders was looking for you tonight. I mean, his comment seemed to indicate that he thought someone wasn't here. Isn't that what he said, 'He wasn't here.' I'm sorry to mention it again." Darby's forehead wrinkled. "I know it was horribly unpleasant for you. But was he looking for you? I know you were friends. It has occurred to me that he might have been looking for me. I feel somewhat responsible as manager, you know." Set heard her friend's managerial arrogance thread through these final words.
      David Owen stared straight into Darby Lambert's eyes. "He was not looking for me. We were not friends." He clasped a folder under his arm and lifted a camel-haired coat from the hanger on the walnut door. "I hated him."

The walls of the caboose rattled as Set brought in the alto part. She increased her volume with "by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Now the peddling was more strenuous, but also more filled with the spirit which should mark the delivery of "Since by Man came Death." She was killing two birds with one stone. Thirty minutes on her stationary bicycle and a hearty practice with Handel. It would be her third year performing The Messiah with the chorus at South Hill Mennonite Church.
      Set looked around. It was a dessert, a candy, a luxury. When she found that Aunt Margory had willed the caboose complex to her, Set was at first astounded, and then elated. As a child, she had visited the caboose three times and each time was an entrance into fantasy. In the second grade--her mother had told her that was the year--she first saw the thing for which she had no word . She remembered trying to identify it--the unnamable thing she was seeing. Was it a book? She knew books. She had learned words with Miss Collins. Near those words perched girls with perky bows and boys with kites. Dogs in the grass barked silent barks at the kites. But was she in a book now, with her mother? Her father was out in the car, waiting. Was it music? She had identified music as an entity the year before, recognizing the homogenized sounds sliding between the radio's plastic slits. These somehow connected with the wood blocks and tambourines she banged marching behind Teddy Smith. Miss Collins had led the toy band, holding high a shiny triangle she tipped delicately at each corner of the room. Maybe it was a house. It had walls, but these walls were more like the pages of a book. Or maybe it was a car, a very large car that had been changed to a house. Whatever it was, it was wild pleasure to the child who loved color and light.
      It was a caboose.
      The caboose had been dragged to a hilly lot filled with scraggly brush and several old pines. At that time, this parcel of land lay on the very edge of East Worthy. But by the time Aunt Margory died, the land comprised a section of the village proper. Three small eroded streets passed between the caboose land and the first farmed field. It had taken forty years for these village improvements to occur, although neither Set nor her Aunt Margory would characterize them as improvements. East Worthy grew slowly.
      The second time Set saw the caboose she was fully cognizant of its structure. She had anticipated the moment for four years. She had dreamed of it--walking into color. This time September Hunt was eleven and in the sixth grade. She remembered the grade because she had been assigned a state project, having to do with discussing "the most unusual spot you've ever seen in Ohio, and why you think so." This was to be accompanied with a photograph or a drawing. After Set had literally begged her mother for two months to return to the caboose, her mother had consented, against her will and "better judgment" to go. Aunt Margory was a "harpy of a woman," according to Set's mother who had no desire to incur another emotional scene with her aunt. Margory Dunlap was Set's mother's aunt--Set's great-aunt.
      The caboose was even better the second time, for as its concept had grown in the child's mind, Margory Dunlap had actually enlarged and enhanced the physical manifestation of that concept. The central structure--the caboose proper--had been added to on three sides, three small flimsy areas which had somehow gained the authority of rooms because they stood upright and contained objects. And more color. Set, the sixth-grader, realized now the source of her original wonder. Pausing at a rock here or a flower there as she walked up the flagstone path, she felt herself a royal party of one. Sprawling gardens of green and pastel spread themselves right up to a diminutive door where two cages hung from chains attached to a limp section of metal spouting. Inside each cage fluttered a single bird--to the right, an emerald green and to the left, a frothy white. Aunt Margory opened the door and sixth-grade Set knew why she thought she had been in a book the first time. Paintings were everywhere. Paintings hung in large ornate frames and the walls themselves radiated in color and form. Shelves, hooked up against the paint, held objects--plates and pitchers, growing with purples and yellows. But most intriguing for Set were the words--words painted on the wall, like print from a book, words encasing doorways, words above the window at the small kitchen sink. Some letters, larger than others, entwined with growing things, green paint vines and flowers and trails of gold filigree. The child could not speak for a full minute.
      "Margory,"--her mother had made her embarrassed to use "aunt" with Margory--"Margory, is this a painting or . . . or is it . . . like printing?" "Illumination, it is my illuminated manuscript and I live in it." Aunt Margory had cast a defiant look at Set's mother. It was a dream surpassed; not just that it was so absolutely gorgeous, but that it had been conceived by and carried out by an adult. Someone was living in a dream, someone had put away the straight lines, and dull rectangular rooms with flat beige paint, the two stuffed chairs and matching couch with a picture hung squarely above, usually involving a child hanging on a dog's neck, or a shepherd with trailing sheep. Someone had actually insisted on wild beauty, not just organized furniture . And it was Aunt Margory. That day Set memorized the words she saw painted in the sitting room, what Margory called the rear section of the caboose. While Set drank her Pepsi, served in a jelly tumbler with painted morning glories, she spoke the words over and over in her mind: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on." She didn't understand the meaning, but the sound of these words was like a drink of cool water to a thirsty man, or a thirsty girl. Set never forgot the day.

When Set inherited the caboose, she left the glowing illuminated walls as they were, except for a tiny closet of a room which was lit by a high window. It had been entirely white. Set called it the garden room because she kept her winter herbs in clay pots there on the ledge of the high window. And because it was there that she had found Aunt Margory's garden boots, still caked with mud, lined up against the white wall. Around the tiny window, Set had asked Darby to inscribe the words, "Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet." That is how she had first met Darby. She had heard that although he was "a little odd" he had a way with a paint brush and could probably fix her up with what she wanted. And that is when Darby first heard Set rage about Hopkins. His words were "living, vibrant, unexpected," she had almost shouted at the painter on their first meeting. She wanted to live "in" them, rather than on the outside of their color and sound.
      Now, from the Keats room, where she peddled to Handel, a grown-up September Hunt could read the wall, the Hopkins room, punctuated with three tiny pots of thyme, rosemary, and chives. When the digital numbers on her Lifestyler registered 30.00, she wiped her forehead with a towel, and turned down the CD player. The spinning metal wafer was just breaking into the "Hallelujah Chorus" and she knew why George the Third had spontaneously risen from his seat when he heard it.
      Within six weeks Set would feel the same power break from the mouths of the chorus when they sang the "Hallelujah" at South Hill. To be a part of the local Amish-Mennonite tradition, even in this small way, was a satisfaction that comforted deep in her psyche. She knew Darby didn't understand this part of her and he teased her about being a "Dutchman," but he had always lived here. Because he was immersed in rarity, he didn't quite understand the need in Set to align herself with these particular old ways. Mennonite dignity was a salve. These people were quiet, reserved, sang acappella in their Sunday services, and, if anyone could be said to carry on the intellectual spirit of the community, it was these people. Plowing the long furrows of corn and beans did not diminish their insistence on their children to perform at the highest level in her classroom. Set had witnessed this phenomenon during the past three years at East Worthy High School. There had been Abagail Kauffman and Jeff Lehman, Marty Yoder, Ken Harshbarger, others, many others, always at the top of their class. Bright, studious, disciplined. Darby didn't have to understand.
      She thought about David Owen. He certainly had performed at a high level at East Worthy High. He had made scholarship a badge, hadn't he? He sprang from the fields of East Worthy. She was curious to know if he was Mennonite. But then, probably not--he was speaking at Calvary Chapel.
      The door knocker's clank interrupted her thoughts. "Come on in, Dar. I'm just about ready. Let me change into my wandering clothes. Get a cup of coffee. I just made some. Hazelnut."
      "Well, I'm certainly beat after last night." Set peeked at his gangly silhouette in the door's light. "Do you know that the Doctor didn't get in until after one-thirty. This morning, actually. And that McDowell woman drove in after him. I went to bed soon after that. I really had had quite enough. I don't know when she left. Her car was gone this morning." He smacked his lips with disgust.
      "Really?" Set looked around the door, barely hiding herself with her white crepe blouse held before her. "That woman must have something I haven't seen if she's charming that handsome scholar." Set carefully eased the high-collar over her French roll. Her clean hair gleamed gold in the light. She buttoned as far as she could, smiling all the time in a small hanging mirror. She knew Darby was scanning the interior of the caboose.
      "My, aren't we the healthy woman-about-town. A real eighties--or should we say nineties--kind of femininity." The stationary bike still stood in the center of the sitting room.
      "Here. Button the top button, will you? And quit rearranging my room with your eyes." Set turned her back to her friend. "You would do well to develop your own physical program. I intend to be able to walk gracefully when I reach forty. Besides, I sing Handel while I'm peddling which makes the whole thing more than palatable. It's actually uplifting."
      He twisted the single button into its tiny loop at the nape of her neck. "I'm still rather appalled by Owen's statement last night. But on the other hand, it's understandable that he could detest Sowders. But when I think of the care he took with the man." He smacked again. "Amazing. Did you see his eyes when he said he hated him?" Leaning across the couch, Darby straightened a painting of hollyhocks and then fluffed a needlepoint pillow--rose and purple peonies.
      "Not only that, but wasn't he invited back to the old place by Sowders? I mean, Sowders would have had to have been the one to extend the invitation. Unless some church board, or something, asked Dr. Owen to speak."
      "Oh, the preacher must have done the asking. I think they knew each other. In fact, they probably graduated together. It sticks in my mind that they're part of that dissenter, mid-sixties flower-child group. Along with the other woman who was out there last night."
      "Which woman do you mean, Dar? You don't mean that cheap blonde Teresa Sowders? Or the Schmidt woman?" Set checked her purse for tissues. "Where is this place exactly that we're going? Am I going to be bowled over by the need to buy? I find it difficult to resist those mystery boxes, filled to the brim with laces and buttons. A sort of hyperventilation takes over and, when the auctioneer looks my way, I can barely control my hand."
      "Yes, Kathy Schmidt is the one I mean. And the place is about seven miles north of here. Amish territory. They'll be out in droves today. The men will be checking out good deals on old machinery and the women may be lunging for the same boxes as you. Could be a fist-a-cuff scene."
      Set laughed and tapped a birdcage hanging left of the door. "Now you and Will don't bicker while I'm gone." She spoke to a white cockatoo trailing a snowy tail, staring at her with a blank eye. On the other side the green bird perched ceremoniously on his wooden dowel. Set drew a key from her purse. "Those two are eating me out of house and home." She handed the key to Dar.
      "Oh, sure. I can just see one of those black-clad women strong-arming me. But I must say that I've often wondered exactly what these conscientious objectors would do if they were confronted head-on." She leaned near one cage and spoke to an emerald flutter. "Chaucer, I'll be back with food this afternoon. Dar, I need to stop off at Yoder's on the way back from the auction. Do you mind? The birds need replenished."
      "Didn't you see Witness ? That's what happens when a C. O. is confronted. Someone comes forward and protects him."
      "I'm talking about real life, Dar. Not a movie. I wonder if a father could stand by and see his child or wife injured. Stand by without lifting a hand to defend them. I know the laying down of arms has to start somewhere, but still, what would that Amish man do?" Her question was rhetorical. She slammed the car door, turned on the ignition, and turned onto the worn street, where she edged the Toyota around a pothole.
      The land north of East Worthy took on a different character from the fields which lay east and west of the village and includes the estate of Shequonur. Set thought about the subtle variations of the land, its folds and rocky places, its fields yielding up textures she could now define as corn or beans, specific crops. She hadn't been so attentive to these textures three years ago, before she inherited the caboose. The industrial, bedroom community Ludway, where, first, she grew up and, later, rented an apartment, did not lend itself to "field study." Laying just south of Toledo, it grew tall silver towers and smoke stacks on the horizon, and the cultivated fields which lay about appeared somehow generic, or massed produced, or remote, lying beyond the cemented lanes of I-75. She never saw anyone in the fields, or if she had, she couldn't remember him. The fields looked as if they produced grain for national bakeries. No handling, no sweat of the brow. Just mechanized, air conditioned, tape-decked harvesters, which probably sucked up the wheat, baked it in internal computerized ovens, applied labels, and pulled right up to the delivery door at Krogers.
      Set's thoughts were interrupted by Darby's voice. "I'm sorry, Dar, I wasn't tuned in. My mind was wandering to Ludway."
      "I said that Enid Fout called early this morning to offer her assistance in cleaning up at the spot of Sowder's demise. That's weird. She wanted an excuse to poke around, the battleaxe. I've never known of her offering help of any kind before. That is, not physical help. She's offered plenty of verbal help, and I use the term loosely. She usually has a few pointed verbal suggestions about the most personal direction of one's life. Do you know. . ." His words were cut short by Set's swinging the car severely to the right in order to avoid striking a plump, dark bird. Around its neck feathered a bright red ring. Pheasants openly skimmed the shorn fields for remnants of grain in November, but Set was still astounded by this spectacle on the road. To see a male pheasant stalking its way several feet from her eyes was a moment of bare beauty, a jeweled memory to wear ornamentally in her mind.
      "Oh." Set's word was soft. She didn't want to alter the moment.
      "Do you know that Enid Fout actually asked a woman," Darby persisted. "An unfortunate woman who was to have her leg amputated--I don't remember the reason--you don't know her, Set. Anyway, Fout told the poor soul, as she was being prepared for surgery, that her amputation was the result of sin in her life and would she like to come to the Lord. Right there in the hospital bed as they were to roll her off. I tell you, there is something frightening in that kind of unrelenting callousness. That was a horridly cruel act, and I can imagine that that is just the tip of the evangelical iceberg. So don't give me that bit about the spiritual enthusiasm of Enid Fout and her ilk. Anyway, what would there be to clean up at the estate?"
      "No, Darby, I admit that's a shockingly cruel act. But the woman was following her commitment, don't you think? Following what she believes to be good for another's soul. She's a little stiff and misses the mark at times, but at least she's centered and committed. And her offer of help, I'm sure, was given sincerely."
      Darby turned to watch the woods which ran close to the road. His silence answered Set, who had learned that they would not come together on this subject. She took up a different topic. "What was Mrs. Schmidt doing there last night, Darby? And those kids with Teresa? Well, even the Fouts? It's seems a little odd to me that all those people were in the driveway with Reverend Sowders."
      "Well, Enid let me know that she and her mate"--Dar pronounced the word "mate" viciously--"had just driven in the lane to deliver some literature on prayer groups to Dr. Owen. They saw the preacher's van and had just stopped their vehicle. That's when we pulled up. I don't know about the others. I figure the kids and Mrs. Sowders were in the van. But come to think of it, Mrs. Sowders was coming from their other car, wasn't she, when Lori was talking to her. The van belongs to the church. Maybe it was a church caravan or something. I don't know. I wasn't exactly counting bodies and cars and asking why everyone was in the driveway at Shequonur. I suppose, though, that Owen's presence had something to do with it. We already know that's why Faith McDowell was there. I'll find out later, after the funeral. I don't want to be as militant as Dragon-Lady Fout."
      "Oh, the funeral. I forgot. That poor kid Lori. She's always been so out-of-it in class. Well, not exactly out-of-it, but nervous, trying to go after something she didn't possess. But I suppose most teenagers are trying to find that indefinable something. Something that's daring and wild. And yet secure. But Lori seemed so--so internally agitated. Trying to walk a fine line of something. She was good, though. I remember last year, even before she had had me in class, she brought a paper plate of Christmas cookies after school, right before vacation. That's always such an emotion-filled time, scattered with goodbyes and Merry Christmases and hugs and lots of schmaltzy seasonal stuff. But there's nothing like it. Rushing in halls, little pathetic plays, and lots of food scattered amidst red bows on my desk. She said she was looking forward to having me in Advanced English. And I must admit, I respond to those little acts of adoration. But I remember thinking at the time, 'Who is this kid with the big earrings, dyed hair, and blue eye shadow ?' When I found out she was the daughter of the toe-the-line fundamentalist pastor, I was shocked. I never would have connected her with that group. When's the funeral, Dar? My classes are going to be messed up and I've got to prepare. Probably Monday?"
      "No, they're holding off until Tuesday, according to Fout, because Sowders has a brother coming up from Florida. He can't get away until Monday to fly up. By the way, that's the spot just ahead."
      Set saw a line of black rectangles edging the fence down a lane. The buggies, magnificent black leathers and woods, were harnessed to living power--sleek horses--mostly brown-- breathing fog into the air and pawing the frozen ground. The animals appeared to know exactly why they were there. Cars were parked randomly along the road and, at several intervals, among the buggies. Because of the crowd, Set pulled the Toyota along the road quite a distance from the lane.
      Even as she pushed the lock down she felt charmed. Two figures in winter black stalked forward toward a large gathering of people who stood near the house's dilapidated porch, flaking white paint. Closer, she could see that the worn house had been an architectural parfait in its prime. Ornate brick-a-brack surrounded the wide porch and original louvered shutters closed off the windows.
      A familiar agitation churned at her stomach. Intrusion. Rape. She felt this sense of crude aggression when she attended auctions. The lives of others--a man, a woman, children, perhaps, those who lived and worked these fields and moved about in this graying house--the lives of breathing individuals were scattered on the lawn and rummaged through. Their dwelling now was scrutinized boldly by cold eyes and fingered by nervous hands who had never painted the walls or swept the porch or mowed the lawn. Now September Hunt, a thirty-nine year old stranger, approached the remnants of those ones who had lived and breathed the air here; and she, too, was going to poke at their coffee pots and curtains and old buttons so that she could fill her own space. She was a scavenger and so were all the others who moved slowly along the tables evaluating tablecloths and salt shakers--lives spread, boxed, and tagged. Rude raptors pecked at the barn and hefted metal objects, axes and hoes, that stood in silent clusters around weathered sheds. For some barely articulated notion, Set could forgive the Amish men in beards and their women who looked over these objects--she could forgive them because she believed they understood the work-a-day value of the pots and pans and hoes. They were not, Set believed, purchasing articles to ornament a living room in a country motif. They were prepared to pay good money for items which had served some farmer well, serviceable tools that had not lived out their function. They would give the hoe a good home, make it work at what it was meant to do.
      At least, this was the scene she propped up in her mind as she approached the nearest table. A young, solemn woman--her winter wool bonnet encircling in a black frame a perfect-complexioned, oval face-- lifted a green and rose quilt. The Amish woman spoke in quick, soft words--unintelligible to Set--to a child who stood at the mother's skirt. The small girl, a miniature of her mother, in dark wine dress, tennis shoes, and square of shawl, chattered in return to her mother. Language emerged in the air as exotic and foreign to Set. Germanic. Unable to take her eyes away from these two, Set lifted a box and pretended to sort its contents; her eyes watched peripherally and her mind reeled with the romance of such a couple in such a setting. Did that young mother want the contents of the box because she secretly thought these random pieces were beautiful or because they would make her budget more secure if she saved here? And would her husband touch his beard and stroke her long hair at night? And would they laugh at their daughter when she spoke some ancient Germanic baby gibberish? What were their pleasures? And what, in God's name, could they be thinking of the vast coifed and perfumed world where they walked with coiled hair and black.
      Set knew "coifed" and "perfumed" didn't really suit the Ohio men and women who moved outside the Amish. Perhaps she should use the word "straight," maybe "religiously straight," but these were the only adjectives which seemed to present a foil for Amish simplicity. What could the Amish be thinking of an entire world which flowed over and around about, a foreign stream? And they a minority? Maybe that was it--they acted as a minority, just as any Black group or Asian group. But then Set realized she could not fully conceive of how any minority group might actually feel faced with majority power.
      Set lifted the corner of a damask table cloth and considered the white sticky tag with the price $12.50 penciled in. She turned up a starched corner and noticed only one small hole in a corner. That's when she saw the face. The woman was holding up a cut glass bowl against the dim sun. She was two tables away and, for a second, Set could not place this face with a name. But then, there it was. From last night, the sweet-faced woman with David Owen. Kathy Schmidt.
      Set's first thought was to call out an hello, but she reconsidered, realizing she knew Kathy Schmidt only by vague association. Beyond last night's strange gathering at Shequonur, she knew Kathy and Reuben Schmidt only by their presence at teacher-parent conferences where she had seen them—intense, smiling half smiles--in the hall. Set had seen the Schmidt names on absence lists and various memos--morning announcements, field trips, homecoming committees. Although she had not had the kids as students, she recognized them in the hall. Probably, the girl was a sophomore and the boy a freshman. In any case, Set decided now to hold her greeting with their mother. If she met Kathy face to face, she would speak. Set lifted a cut glass salt cellar and peered through its refracted light. Into the glittering cup passed a tall figure. It stood by the outline of Kathy. Carefully, Set replaced the salt cellar on the table and looked up to see--simultaneously--a wrinkled anxiety pass from Kathy's forehead and the intense slant of David Owen's shoulder.
      Now what, Set thought, could this mean? At first, she accepted the small event as coincidence. After all, she and Darby were here to check out what could prove to be an adventure in antiques and tucked-a-way Americana. David, with his love of antiquary--he had certainly revealed that in his literary tastes with Wordsworth and Hopkins--could have a legitimate, no, a perfectly valid, reason to be here at a farm auction. But Set, replaying the look of relief on Kathy's face, decided this was no coincidence. But, so what? Hadn't Dar said they graduated together? They are both life-time residences of the same community. Why could they not have planned this outing together? No, Set concluded, that's not the way it's done in this segregated community. Men and women do not make sophisticated plans to engage one another in afternoon outings. That's why she and Dar were in a category by themselves.
      Plans did not, or should not, evolve, particularly when the man and the woman looked like these two. David Owen was strikingly good-looking and, most of all, highly educated, which produced the swaggering, nonchalant appearance of mental opulence. What she had seen in him as he stood in the gold light of the conservatory. Kathy Schmidt was pretty, yes, even exceedingly pretty, with a kind of faded middle-aged sweetness wrinkling about her eyes. In the right get-up, Set thought, she could be striking. And good looks were always suspect. Kathy Schmidt, however, did not have the inner cutting edge, the style, or the panache to carry out the full measure which would place her in, or even near, the category of David Owen. She had the look of Simplicity patterns. Yes, that was it. She was Simplicity, not Vogue.
      Owen's face leaned near Kathy's head, whose eyes alternately gazed at a china dish and looked up, startled, into his eyes. "I've found a find," Darby chirped. He dangled a corroded ornate silver basket from a hinged carrier. "A bride's basket which can . . ."
      "Dar, look over there quick. Did you see who's here?"
      "Well, now, aren't we the observant one? Hmm, could there be something afoot between those two? Why don't we give them a little charge with a happy hello?" David's shoulders hunched over toward Kathy's round face. Neither looked toward Darby when he took a step toward them.
      Set tugged at Darby's overcoat. "No. Let's wait. Don't they seem a little agitated for auction hopping?" But then David Owen turned away from Kathy. Set saw his hair curling over the back of his camel coat, even at a distance. She kept her eye on that rakish hair as long as she could, even when he passed the horses and cars that punctuated the fence.
      Kathy drifted to the end of the table, aimlessly lifted several butter pats, and watched the dark figure move down the lane. Her face flushed pink. But when she turned her face aside, she smiled her even teeth into two familiar faces.
      Carefully turning over a pat, she examined it for several seconds, and smoothly turned her shoulders in the direction of her observers. Set kept her eyes on two rows of white teeth and met Kathy's open hand. Kathy's voice was controlled, pitching imperturbably between phrases.
      "Well, are you two making some wonderful finds? Miss Hunt, are you interested in antiques? And, Darby, I suppose you're increasing your glorious silver collection? Did you see who else was here?" she added quickly. "Dr. Owen. It was so strange to see him here. You know, David and I knew one another in school. It's good to have him back with us--in the community, in East Worthy." She stopped short, looking down the lane. "Last night was terrible, but the Lord must have some plan, some reason, don't you think? I've seen you at the church for the lectures. " Her comments seemed strangely disjointed to Set, but Kathy continued to smile that honey smile along her white teeth.
      "Will Dr. Owen be completing his lectures, Mrs. Schmidt? I can certainly understand if the whole thing is brought to an abrupt stop." Set's expression was benign.
      "I think he intends to continue. Reverend Sowders would have wanted it that way. But he needs a little time to compose himself after Nathan's death." She adjusted one shoulder several inches further from Set. "David was here, strangely enough, just to clear his mind after last night," she added. "I've got some hungry kids waiting for me and so I've got to run. Reuben and I have heard some wonderful things about you at the school, Miss Hunt. Our community values fine teachers. Perhaps I'll see you at the church later." Kathy Schmidt did not wait for a response, but lifted one brief, unthinking smile toward them, and turned toward the lane.
      Set and Dar watched her walk, dodging icy puddles of dark water.
      A few minutes later, a sleek gray car raced along the road, lacing its metal sides through the fence posts which marked the borders of the auctioned farm.