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Directly after Merle Weaver had prepared breakfast for her husband and herself, she sat down at the table across from him, with a cup of coffee held just below her lips, and said: 'You know, Jack, I thought all night long.'

'About that woman', said her husband.

Merle nodded. 'But about the little girl too. It's our fault really that she's alone in the world, that poor little girl, with nobody left - all of 'em dead that would have taken care of her, and it's our fault. It was a accident, but it's our fault.'

'My fault', said Jack. 'I ran the woman down.'

'Not your fault', said Merle. '
Our
fault. Though I don't know if it would have done any good
not
to run the woman down, 'cause she would have been sent up the river anyway, for murdering her husband, and it's probably just as well then that the little girl didn't have to testify in the trial. They say testifying in trials is real hard on little girls.'

Jack nodded. His wife had put a better light on it than any that he had been able to strike, but he still judged against himself. 'I still wish I hadn't done it though.'

Merle nodded. 'I wish we hadn't either. And that's what I was thinking about. I was thinking that maybe we ought to see what we can do about the little girl. I mean we don't have any money to give her, and for all we know, there may be insurance, but I wouldn't count on it, but I was thinking that maybe we could bring her out here to live.'

'You mean live with us?' said Jack.

Merle nodded. 'We could adopt her or something.'

'Would they let us do it? I mean, we run down her only surviving relative in the middle of the road, and are they gone let us adopt the little girl then?'

'She was a sweet little girl.'

'Oh, she sure was', agreed Jack. 'I'd sure like to do something for her, like you said. Maybe we
could
adopt her. I mean, it's all right with me if we do. I'd like to have a little girl, and seeing she needs somebody real desperate to take care of her, it might as well be us.'

Merle nodded.

'If they let us', said Jack, 'and if she wants to. She may not want to live out on a farm, but you 're right, and I think we ought to offer, because I think it's the least we can do, offer to adopt her.'

'You think she'd keep her own last name?' asked Merle, and so the conversation continued throughout breakfast, and both Jack and Merle were immeasurably heartened by the exchange. They were perfectly serious about this project, and had every intention of offering a permanent home to little Mary Shirley. They had a fair idea of the trouble involved in raising a child - and the expense - but what did that matter, when the child was in need, and they were to some extent responsible for her predicament?

i feel so foolish', said Merle, 'I don't know why we didn't think of this before.'

Jack nodded. 'People in Pine Cone must think you and I are the meanest people in the world, abandoning that little girl the way we did.'

Jack and Merle Weaver walked out through a long path of dewy red clover - glaring, brilliant red in the early morning light - to their barn. Here it was necessary to unload the bags of grain that they had purchased in Pine Cone the day before, from off the back of the truck. The single farmhand that they employed, who normally would have assisted Jack in this work, was off on the far side of the property, mending a section of broken fence.

Working together, Jack and Merle pulled the bags off the back of the truck and together carried them into the barn, where they stacked them near the rear door. After their third trip, on their way back to the truck, Merle's eyes caught the glimmer of metal in the sand near one of the rear tyres of the truck. She stooped and picked up a necklace, of simple, forthright design. She had never seen it before. She shook the sand off it, and held it close to her eyes.

'What you got, Merle?' said her husband.

She handed him the piece of jewellery.

'This yours?' he asked.

'No', said Merle, 'don't know where it come from, Jack.'

'Where'd it come from though?' Jack asked.

'Right there in the dirt', said Merle. 'You saw me pick it up, right then, didn't you?'

Jack shook his head. 'It didn't drop out of your pocket?' he asked.

'What'd I be doing with something like this? You know I don't have nothing like this.'

'Maybe it fell off the truck', said Merle's husband. 'Maybe that woman we ran down in the road was wearing it yesterday, and it came off her neck getting jostled around in the back when we was on the way back to Pine Cone.'

'Maybe', said Merle, 'maybe you're right.'

There was a pause. Jack handed the amulet back to his wife. 'You think it's worth anything?' he asked.

'I can't tell', his wife replied.

'Is it gold, you think?' he asked.

'Gold's gold, not black', Merle pointed out.

Jack stepped forward and pointed to the gold band in between the wider bands of jet. 'There's gold right round in there, between the black part. Maybe it's all gold, and just part of it's painted black

'Maybe you're right, Jack.'

'Maybe it's worth money.'

'If it's gold, then it's bound to be worth something', said Merle.

Jack looked cannily at his wife. 'Hold it up to your wedding ring, and compare 'em', he said. This seemed a brilliant idea to him, a way to ascertain whether the necklace was really of gold or not.

Merle held up the amulet next to her wedding band, and examined them both in the light of the sun.

'Can't tell, still can't tell', she judged, after a moment.

This was a thing not in their experience, the finding of an object that might be valuable, and something that very certainly did not belong to them. In any of its multitudinous forms, luck had rarely made an appearance on the Weaver farmstead.

'What you think we ought to do about it?' asked Jack quietly.

'You think we ought to tell the sheriff?' his wife replied.

'Can't keep it, not ours', Jack stated, simply.

Merle shook her head. 'We ought to take it into Pine Cone, when we go over and see about that little girl.' Her husband nodded. 'You think they'll think we took it?' The idea occurred to Merle suddenly, and just thinking that she might be considered a thief appalled and frightened her.

'Nobody's asked us where it was, or if we had seen it.'

'Maybe they don't know about it. Maybe they don't know it's missing yet. Maybe we ought to take it in right now.' Merle was

upset to hold on to something that so definitely belonged to someone else.

'We'll go in this afternoon. That'll be soon enough', said Jack. He knew that his wife was nervous, and so tried to console her. 'We're not sure now, Merle, that the thing did belong to the woman that was killed on the bridge, and it might just not have, for all we know. But we'll take it in to the sheriff and leave it with him, and if somebody's missing the thing, then he'll step forward and claim it. And we'll go back by the Baptist preacher's, and see about that little girl. That poor little girl!'

Merle stared a few moments at the amulet in her hand, absently feeling for the catch, wondering whether she ought not to put it around her neck. It was a heavy piece, and would feel good. She had had a heavy necklace once, when she was a little girl, but not since then.

But she shuddered; there was something about this necklace that she didn't like at all. Besides, it didn't belong to her. She glanced at her husband, stiffened her shoulders, and dropped the amulet into the waist pocket of her dress.

Merle Weaver smiled to herself as she began work that moming, exulting that she had discovered a way to expiate her and Jack's guilt over running down that poor woman, at the same time that she provided herself with a permanent cure against loneliness. That little girl - they couldn't even remember her name, they had been so upset at the time - would come out to live with them, and they would raise her as if she were their own child. They had had a boy themselves, about ten years back, but he died in a rainstorm on the last day of August, hit in the head with a bolt of lightning when he was dragging in a croker sack of pecans out of the downpour. That little girl had grown up in town all her life, Merle thought, but she didn't have anybody else, the sheriff said, and probably she would be wanting to stay in Pine Cone, with all her friends at school. Where did they send children who didn't have any place to go? Merle supposed there were orphanages, but she didn't know where any were located, and she couldn't imagine that it could be a very happy existence there, with no one to love you especially. She had high hopes that the little girl would come to live with them, and Merle even decided that the little girl could keep her own name if she wanted to, whatever that name might happen to be.

'Oh', said Merle to Jack, when the last of the sacks had been transferred from the back of the truck, 'I'm just looking forward so much to having that child out here with us.'

'Well', cautioned Jack, 'we haven't got her yet, and we may not get her, you know. I don't know much about how these things work.'

'But she don't have nowhere else to go. Used to be, somebody's mama and daddy died, somebody in the church would take 'em on, but I don't think that happens much any more. They say there's not enough money, and the other children don't take to it or something.'

'Well, Merle, if she wants to come, and they'11 let us take her, then she'll be here. And there's nothing more to be said about it till we get into town. I don't want you thinking about it, 'cause what if we don't get her? Then you'll be disappointed, and I don't want that. I don't want to see you unhappy

Merle nodded, and went to feed the pigs. She resolved to say nothing else, but the excitement would not go away.''Merle stepped merrily up on to the lowest rail of the fences that encircled the pigpen, located next to a blank wall of the barn. She leaned forward against the upper rails to maintain her balance while she tossed ears of corn, from the crib by her side, into the pen. She delighted in hearing her sows and hogs squealing, and loved to watch them plough through the earth and mud after their morning's food. Merle was sorry that this chore came so early in the morning, because it was her favourite task of the day. She knew every pig from every other, and to most of them she had given names; she had come to know them for intelligent, ifnot affectionate, creatures. And, it happened, they were the only thing on the farm that produced profit year after year after year.

Two ears of corn slipped over the edge of the crib, and fell just inside the pen. One of the larger sows rushed over to get at them, and in so doing, brushed against Merle's foot. She stumbled on the rail, and barely managed not to fall; but in the process, the amulet slipped out of her pocket and disappeared into the mud on the inside of the pen. Merle was very annoyed by her own clumsiness, and set her lips in malediction against herself.

She turned to see where her husband was. In a moment he emerged from the barn, scratching his head, and approached her.

'I've done gone and dropped it in the pen, Jack.'

'What'd you drop? That thing we found?'

Merle nodded. 'Dropped right out of my pocket, I don't know how.'

'Where'a it go?' Jack moved over to the fence, and stared over into the mud. The animals were still squealing in pursuit of their breakfast.

M. rle pointed directly downwards over the rail. 'Right down there', she said. 'It was right there, Jack. Because when I knew it had fallen I looked over and saw it sliding under the mud, and then Louise must have stepped on it, because I can't see it no more.' Louise was the great sow that had knocked against Merle's foot.

'You want me to go after it?' said Jack, and without waiting for a reply, he began to scale the fence. 'You show me where it went, and I'll find it.'

But his wife held him back, grabbing the straps of his overalls. 'No', she said, 'it was my fault, so I'll look for it. Got to do what's right.'

'You gone ruin that dress', her husband said, with kind concern, 'and I really don't mind doing it.'

it's my fault', his wife repeated, if I hadn't found the thing, we wouldn't be having this trouble now. Now you just stand here and help me down over into the pen.'

Merle climbed over the fence, and her husband held her hand so that she would not fall headlong into the mud. The wet earth was ankle deep, and Merle bent over gingerly, toeing the mud with her shoe trying to locate the amulet. All the while, she and Jack talked reassuringly to the pigs, who were a little alarmed to find a human in their pen. But Merle was unsuccessful, and could not turn up the amulet.

'Fell right here', she murmured again, with annoyance. 'Jack, you go get me a broom or something, something with a long handle, maybe that'll help.'

Jack stepped down backward off the rail and went into the bam. There he looked around a bit, but saw nothing that would be of use. The broom that usually stood on the inside of the front door was missing. He thought a moment, and then went through the barn and out to the truck. From the back he pulled a pitchfork, and then plunged it idly into the ground, thinking that this, with its long prongs, would be just right for retrieving a necklace out of the mud of a pigsty.