The Last Runaway

At the end of Eighth Month (August), Honor performs household chores alone while the Haymakers harvest hay. Honor is too far into her pregnancy to help. When she finishes her work, she sits and makes rosettes, lamenting that she still has not found inspiration in the pieces of cloth she has been collecting. She drifts off, made drowsy by the heat. Digger wakes her, and she hurries to the field, realizing that she is late delivering dinner to the rest of the family. She arrives to find the Haymakers working. They stab their pitchforks into a stack of dried hay. A woman hiding inside shrieks and flees. Everyone looks to Honor, assuming that she is responsible for this hiding place.

Something “[breaks] in her head” as she realizes that nothing will make the other Quakers believe her as having nothing to do with this event (265). She walks back to the farmhouse, retrieving her shawl, her bonnet from Belle, a knife, and the small amount of money she has remaining from her travels from England. She packs a small store of food, candles, and matches. She laments being unable to take her grandmother’s sewing box but takes several small mementos, including the special pieces of cloth.