It was stuffy at night in the cabins, stuffy but warm. And smells are a matter of habit. So, if the air Was thick as black butter with the commingled smells Of greens and fried fat and field-sweat and heavy sleep, The walls were well-chinked, the low roof kept out the rain. Not like the tumble-down cabins at Zachary’s place Where the field-hands lived all year on hominy-grits And a piece of spoiled pork at Christmas. But Zachary Was a mean man out of the Bottoms, no quality to him. Wingate was quality. Wingate cared for its own. A Wingate cabin was better than most such cabins, You might have called it a sty, had they set you there; A Middle Age serf might have envied the well-chinked walls. While as for its tenants then, being folk unversed In any law but the law of the Wingate name, They were glad to have it, glad for Fire on the hearth, A roof from the dark-veined wind. Their bellies were warm And full of food. They were heavy in love with each other.