“Sister,” Stone Girl said, “she looks fat and jolly like Ohum, the Indian grandmother.”

“Maybe she is Piwitak, the aunt,” Simone guessed.

“No, she looks down at you with love like Guka, the mother. Sister, don’t call Allamuin, the scalp yell, to her.”

Stone Girl, in the bateau with Otter Boy, watched everything. The grandmotherly woman with the man beside her, came slowly down the bank. Her soft brown eyes shone at Simone, whom the priest had ordered out of the boat. She did not try to hug or kiss her, just took her hand and held it in both of hers while she looked at her with wet eyes. Then she came to the boat and took Stone Girl’s hand, too, welcoming her, giving her the same steady smile. Stone Girl could smell the motherly smell that came from her.

Simone held back as they all went up to the house together.

“Must I go in with them?” she begged to Stone Girl.

“Sister. She is nice. She is the Guka, mamma.”

“She cries!” Simone protested. “Why does she cry when I still breathe?”

“It’s the strange custom of the Yengwe,” Stone Girl said. “Never Laugh told me that when they are happy they cry.”

It was like at Madame Corbusier’s in the house except that now they were not Allogagani, servants. No, they were honored guests. Not for a moment was either girl allowed to do anything. They were made to sit at the table while the old mother stood over them saying that their inner parts must be empty after such a long journey and they must taste this and eat more of that. The father had sent a mill boy out at once on a horse with the news and presently the house was filled with older sisters who hugged Simone and brothers who pumped her hand up and down and children who stared at her admiringly, called her Aunt Simone, and plagued her with questions about the Indians.

Afternoon and evening Stone Girl could see Simone looking about her, wondering, puzzling. Is this all mine? her eyes said. Does this belong to me? Am I part of it, this house and the life in it, this Guka, mother, this Nocha, my father; these brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces? That night in bed with Stone Girl she tried to be her old rebellious self.

“Sister. We will run off together like I said but not right away,” she promised.

Stone Girl assented but in her heart she felt it would never happen now. Oh, lying here in the strange bed Simone made light of her own sisters and brothers and of their foolish wives and husbands, but Stone Girl guessed it was only to comfort the other, to try to make believe that nothing had changed. She kept calling Stone Girl sister, as of old, but the other knew with sober wisdom that now it was just a name. For all these years Simone had been a stranger among strangers, an exile in an alien land. Now suddenly she had reached home, the first she had ever known, with blood sisters and brothers, with a real Guka and Nocha, and Nilum in plenty, all with the same flesh as hers, and Stone Girl had become just Nitschu, friend.