Deborah told Selma she was too old to go barefoot, that she was indeed almost a young woman, and it was time she learned to behave like one. Selma said that shoes were not sensible for the places she walked; they were blockish and clumsy. When they got wet, they creaked and smelled and took days to dry out. She often found herself standing in the shallows of the creek to catch a water bug or to skim a cobweb from a tree limb that dipped to the water’s edge.

Lovey solved the problem with compromise. She made slippers from an old canvas weather screen and dyed the slippers red. They were pliant enough to please Selma and protective enough to satisfy her mother.

At twelve Selma was still happiest alone. She had submitted to her mother’s teaching her to read and write and do simple figuring, but she refused to learn any more, and Deborah did not press her, for gentlewomen had no need of education beyond the subjects fitting their basic gumption. Selma was at ease with all the Negroes on the place. She was uncomfortable with her kin and kind—even her father now. She loved him, but knew, alas, there was nothing she could do about that. He loved her, but never lost his shyness with her. Indeed, his shyness with everyone deepened as he grew into middle age, so that he found it hard to make decisions that involved people. The two who more and more often stepped in to make these decisions for him were Deborah and Roscoe.

Lovey was Selma’s friend. Ezra was almost a god. She followed him about until he learned to ignore her, which made her worship him the more. She watched the way he touched things, the plants he plucked leaves or flowers or stems from, the ones he left alone. Deborah was a big, uninteresting thing called a mother. Leon was a boy. Everything about him seemed to remind her of that. He smelled funny. He made noise. He had shorter hair. His clothes forked—why? Didn’t her trunk go into two legs too?

No one told her anything she needed to know. Her father was shy. Her mother was dull as corn bread—everything she said was dull, everything she did was predictable. Lovey was busy. Ezra didn’t notice she was alive. Aunt Nell was insane. So much for her family.

If she had no one, she did have things. She could watch ants by the hour, but embroidery and the Bible made her wish she was dead. She was company to herself, but she was alone, and she felt both loss and lack, although they had been caused largely by the way she felt and was.