It was already warm and he wore no jacket, just linsey breeches and a pullover shirt with the lace hanging loose at the throat. He beat a straw hat against his thigh as he walked. When he came out of the grove of oaks that shaded his house he was walking down a double row of cabins in the quarters. There were twelve of them, sound buildings all, the gaps between the logs chinked tight and the plank doors and shutters properly whitewashed. Benjamin had built them, one by one as they were needed, drafting help as he required it from among the middle-sized boys in the quarters. There was one of those boys might make a pretty fair carpenter himself before he was through. Benjamin had steadied up right well since Nancy had been returned to him, and they’d got three more children besides the one she’d been carrying when Forrest went to buy her back from Coldwater. Women worked in their dooryards, cleaning skillets or cracking corn for the next meal. A shirttail baby with her hair braided into tight little nubs ran ahead of him, chasing after a cackling hen.
