a criss-cross of
wrinkles.

"Oh, I know those dopes. They're prob'ly down at th' canals--fishin' or
somep'n."

"Just the same, your mother will be frantic, dear. You should have told
her where you were going."

"I don't care," Marilou said with unadulterated honesty. "She'll be all
right when I get home."

Aunt Twylee shook her head and clucked her tongue.

"Can I have another glass? Please?"

The old lady poured the glass full again. And then she sprinkled sugar
down among the apple cubes in the casserole and covered them with a
blanket of dough. She cut an uneven circle of half moons in it and put
it in the oven. "There--all ready to bake, Marilou," she sighed.

"It looks real yummy, Aunt Twylee."

"Well, I certainly hope it turns out good, dear," she said, wiping her
forehead with her apron. She looked out the open back door. The
landscape was beginning to gray as heavier clouds moved down from the
mountains and pressed the afternoon heat closer, more oppressively to
the ground. "My, it's getting hot. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we
didn't get a little rain this afternoon, Marilou." She turned back to
the little girl. "Tell me some more about your daddy, dear. We Martians
certainly owe a lot to men like your father."

"That's what he says too. He says, you Martians would have died out
in a few years, if we hadn't come here. We're so much more civi ...
civili ..."

"Civilized?"

"Yeah. He says, we were so much more 'civ-ilized' than you that we saved
your lives when we came here with all our modern stuff."

"Well, that's true enough, dear. Just look at that wonderful Earth
stove," Aunt Twylee said, and laughed. "We wouldn't be able to bake an
apple cobbler like that without it, would we?"

* * * * *

A rumble of thunder shouldered through the crowded hot air.

"No. He says, you Martians are kinda likeable, but you can't be trusted.
He's nuts! _I_ like you Martians!"

"Thank you, child, but everyone's entitled to his own opinion. Don't
judge your daddy too severely," Aunt Twylee said as she scraped spilled
sugar from the table and put little bits of it on her tongue.

"He says that you'd bite th' hand that feeds you. He says, we brought
all these keen things to Mars, an' that if you got th' chance, you'd
kill all of us!"

"Gracious," said Aunt Twylee as she speared scraps of dough with the
point of her long paring knife.

"He's a dope!" Marilou said.

Aunt