The old woman listened to the chickens fussing. Dusk and chickens fussing and waiting for her husband to return from his chores and thinking about her children absorbed her being. She walked to the chicken house and addressed the chickens, "What's going on here." She went into the old structure which smelled like age old oil. She looked up in the old sapling rafters and spotted a five foot black snake. The old woman grabbed a hoe and took out her frustration on the snake. She threw the dead snake in the weeds behind the chicken house and with triumph, returned to the house. She checked on the warming dinner on the stove and opened the flour box and started making biscuits. The old woman heard her husband walking up the porch steps. She automatically got a plate from the cabinet and dished a good portion of rice, beans, pork chops and a large slice of cornbread, poured a large glass of milk and set it on the table while he washed up. She checked on the biscuits and went to the pantry and opened a quart of fig preserves. When the biscuits were done she sat in the kitchen and ate biscuits and fig preserves. Her husband asked her why she was not eating dinner but she did not reply because she was silently crying while she ate.