atmosphere. "Are you sorry you like me?"

"No-o, I ain't sorry. A person's got to like something that's alive
and human, or--" Marthy was clumsy with words, and she was always
coming to the barrier between her powers of expression and the thoughts
that were prisoned and dumb. "Here's your bread 'n' honey."

"What makes you sound that way, Marthy? You sound like you had tears
inside, and they couldn't get out your eyes. Are you sad? Did you
ever have a little girl, Marthy?"

"What makes you ask that?" Marthy sat heavily down upon a box beside
the rough kitchen table and looked at Billy Louise queerly, as if she
were half afraid of her.

"I dunno--but that's the way mommie sounds when she says something
about angel-brother. Did you ever--"

"Billy Louise, I'm going to tell you this oncet, and then I don't want
you to ast me any more questions, nor talk about it. You're the
queerest young one I ever seen, but you don't hurt folks on
purpose--I've learnt that much about yuh." Marthy half rose from the
box, and with her dingy, patched apron shooed an investigative hen out
of the doorway. She knew that Billy Louise was regarding her fixedly
over the huge, uneven slice of bread and honey, and she felt vaguely
that a child's grave, inquiring eyes may be the hardest of all eyes to
meet.

"I never meant--"

"I know yuh never, Billy Louise. Now don't tell your maw this. Long
ago--long before your maw ever found you, or your paw ever found your
ranch on the Wolverine, I had a little girl, 'bout like you. She was a
purty child--her hair was like silk, and her eyes was blue, and--we was
Mormons, and we lived down clost to Salt Lake. And I seen so much
misery amongst the women-folks--you can't understand that, but mebby
you will when you grow up. Anyway, when little Minervy kep' growin'
purtyer and sweeter, I couldn't stand it to think of her growin' up and
bein' a Mormon's wife. I seen so many purty girls... So I made up my
mind we'd move away off somewheres, where Minervy could grow up jest as
sweet and purty as she was a mind to, and not have to suffer fer her
sweetness and her purtyness. When you grow up, Billy Louise, you'll
know what I mean. So me and Jase packed up--we kinda had to do it on
the sly, on account uh the bishops--and we struck out with a four-ox
team.

"We kep' a-goin' and kep' a-goin', fer I was scared to settle too
clost. I seen how they keep spreadin' out all the time, and I wante