The Sojourner by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The earth was stricken. The out-cropping granite in the bare pasture was the bones of the earth gnawed clean by the wolfish winds. Maples and oaks, hickories and willows were shivering skeletons. Pines and hemlocks were black and ominous against the gray November sky. Crows stretched evil wings on the ridgepole of the sheep-shed, waiting for a lamb to die. No snow had fallen to hide the nakedness of the year's old age. The sprouts of young winter wheat shrank in the cold, would die if not soon covered with the white protective blanket. Smoke from the Linden chimneys was torn as it lifted, scattered like ash across the low scudding clouds.

Ase was two weeks late in preparing to leave for Nevada. Nellie, monstrously swollen of legs, had been ill and delirious. She recovered, was cheerfully up and about again, insisted that he be on his way. Then Tim McCarthy, who was to take over the chores in Ase's absence, had overlapped with a return of his chest ailment and scarcely escaped pneumonia. Tim appeared, shaken and coughing, with his green flowered carpetbag, ready and able, he swore, to free his friend for the journey. Ase packed his father's old Gladstone with the few belongings he would need, his second best suit, extra shirts and woolen underwear, handkerchiefs, razor, comb and toothbrush. He now planned to spend no more than two days with Ben, whatever the circumstances in which he found him. Tim had followed him to the bedroom.