"Never mind," my father said. He spoke with resignation, even good humour the words which absolved and dismissed me for good.

I was on Flora's side, and that made me no use to anybody, not even to her. Just the same, I did not regret it; when she came running at me I held the gate open, that was the only thing I could do.

Laird called to them, "Let me go too, let me go too!" and Henry stopped the truck and they took him in.

My grandmother came to stay with us for a few weeks and I heard other things. "Girls don't slam doors like that." "Girls keep their knees together when they sit down." And worse still, when I asked some questions, "That's none of girls’ business." I continued to slam the doors and sit as awkwardly as possible, thinking that by such measures I kept myself free.

Who could imagine Laird doing my work

"And then I can use her more in the house," I heard my mother say. She had a dead-quiet regretful way of talking about me that always made me uneasy. "I just get my back turned and she runs off. It's not like I had a girl in the family at all."

What did she mean about Laird? He was no help to anybody.

"Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you'll have a real help."

It seemed to me that work in the house was endless, dreary, and peculiarly depressing; work done out of doors, and in my father's service, was ritualistically important.

. I was given jobs

It was an odd thing to see my mother down at the barn. She did not often come out of the house unless it was to do something – hang out the wash or dig potatoes in the garden. She looked out of place,

"I thought it was only a girl."

My father did not talk to me unless it was about the job we were doing. In this he was quite different from my mother, who, if she was feeling cheerful, would tell me all sorts of things – the name of a dog she had had when she was a little girl, the names of boys she had gone out with later on when she was grown up, and what certain dresses of hers had looked like – she could not imagine now what had become of them.

My mother thought that was not funny. In fact she disliked the whole pelting operation--that was what the killing, skinning, and preparation of the furs was called – and wished it did not have to take place in the house.

You really want to know what I was thinking of?”

Uh-huh

as though he had never touched them or come near them.

as though he were doing her a favor

He thought of the difficulties he had had arranging this rendezvous

She had become perfect for him

"Want a back rub?"

Oh, nothing. Nothing

For the first years of the new marriage, after he and Gwen had returned from a party he would wait, unconsciously, for the imitations, the recapitulation, to begin