"Where have you been, young lady?" Wallace demanded when they came into the house though he'd seen her getting down with Kid and Ruth plain enough.

"I went to the revival," she answered with no shame.

"You mean you deliberately disobeyed me?" His eyes went to Ruth. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a commandment that says to honor your father and mother in the Good Book?"

"There is," Ruth answered, "but it doesn't mean blind obedience when God would ask something else. It does mean showing respect and kindness in all circumstances. I realize I shouldn't be butting in, but you did ask and I believe her motive was good as she was trying to reach out to her brother."

Wallace looked sorry he'd asked.

"And I was saved," Millie said excitedly.

"You let some extremist tell you what to believe over your own family?" Jed asked.

"Well, if Sister Ruth is an extremist then God is too because I'm changed and the Holy Ghost lives in me now," Millie defended. "I believed in God before, but He was distant from me because I didn't really know who He was or what to do with that knowledge. And there's nothing she preached that wasn't backed by the Bible, so don't go calling her names when you have no idea what you're talking about."

Millie's family stared at her as if they didn't recognize her, but Millie was too happy to notice and she told them, "I want you all to come to my baptism tomorrow. Sister Ruth said she would baptize me at the beginning of the revival, so if ya'll don't want to stay for it, you don't have to."

"Stop calling her Sister Ruth like she's got some kind of religious title. And I haven't changed my mind about attending the revival," Wallace said stubbornly.

"I just don't understand," Eleanor said. "You were already baptized when you were 8."

"I got baptized because you wanted to me to, Momma, because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. Now I'm getting baptized because that's what God wants me to do and because I want everyone to know I'm starting a new life in Christ. It makes sense to me now."

"Well, I'm going to go get some work done," Wallace said, seething with constrained rage. "I've wasted enough time tracking down disobedient children."

Wallace slammed the door and there was an unsettled silence.

"Can I see you outside?" Jed asked Kid in a low voice.

Kid said nothing but went outside with Jed. The women followed afraid it didn't bode well from both their expressions.

It turned out to be as they'd feared because Jed didn't invite him out to talk; he pulled back his right arm with his hand curled into a fist and hit Kid square in the eye.

Kid reeled for a minute and then charged with his head down like a bull, knocking him to the ground.

"Jedidiah!" Eleanor shouted, trying to intervene. "Kenneth! Stop it right this minute!"

They might as well have been deaf for all the attention they paid her as they continued to scuffle.

"I can't watch this," Eleanor said, turning and going back into the house.

Ruth and Millie continued to watch and call out occasional pleads to stop, but the black clods of dirt, different from the red clay soil of Virginia that Ruth knew, continued to fly as they tumbled in it.

Jed finally bested Kid; he held him roughly by the collar of his shirt, pinning him down with his lower half. Kid was too exhausted to knock him away and it looked like some of the fight had gone out of his eyes anyway.

"It wasn't enough that you killed Ben, you had to leave Momma and Daddy grieving for another son. Now you're trying to tear Millie away from them. I won't stand by and watch it happen." The words were more painful to Kid than any of the blows that had been delivered.

Jed stood and limped toward the house where Millie was waiting on the stoop, leaving Kid flat in the dirt.

Millie and Jed disappeared into the house while Ruth went over and offered her hands to help him up. "Come on. You need to be cleaned up."

He took them, groaning as she helped him to her feet. She opted to head toward a creek she'd discovered in her rambles yesterday rather than the house, knowing the brothers needed some time apart to clear their heads.

He sat down on the bank with some more groans and Ruth kneeled down in front of him, pulling out her handkerchief.

"You're going to have quite the shiner," she observed chidingly as she dipped the cloth into the chilly stream and then wiped away some of the dried and fresh blood on his face.

"It certainly feels that way," he answered, a cut lip garbling his speech.

"You ought to be ashamed fighting with your brother like that," she said, shaking her head.

"Me? Did I start it?" he asked resentfully.

"No, but you didn't have to finish it." She dipped the handkerchief in the cold water again and pressed it against his red, swollen eye gently.

He took it and held it there, the coldness soothing it some. "Yeah, well, it was a long time coming and maybe I deserved it. If it brought him some measure of peace and satisfaction then a fat lip and a black eye's worth it, ain't it?"

"Fighting doesn't bring peace. Only God can do that. Jed's as troubled about things as he ever was. Don't look like it did you any good either." She sighed. "At least you two didn't beat each other to death. That's a mercy. Anything feel broken?"

"We didn't hit as hard as we could have. It didn't do my looks any favors though, did it?" he asked with a small smile, hoping to distract her from a longer lecture.

It must have worked or she decided to spare him. "You weren't much to look at to begin with," she kidded.