Pauline’s cakes and pies and tarts and custards and jellies and candies and cream confections were always received in the dining room with respect, gratitude, even joy. They were gifts, not something to be taken for granted, or commanded. She worked truly by inspiration, and she took special pains with lemony concoctions, hopeful of pleasing Selma. The feeling of a bond is not always a welcome or comfortable thing. Selma knew that some strand linked her and Pauline, but she was not ready to acknowledge it, and indeed she had no perception of its nature and quality.

Almost a side occupation for Pauline was her interest in and talent for remedies, which she learned from her father. Again: it was not for her to set up as doctor or veterinarian or nurse; but she had used many hours to watch Ezra at work over his mixings and brewings, and she learned his skill of remembering just how things would go differently with the veriest shade of difference in the preparation. Common ills might wax or wane by common cures; her only interest was in the odd, the special. She was happy in her way, and if she had secret dreams and longings, she shared them with no one.

Floyd shared himself with any and every one. He, too, was happy enough. If anything, he had too much of company. Someone was always in his blacksmith shed. He was a clever and conscientious workman. He had no patience with what “would do.” Everything must fit, be right, or it was wrong. He worked hard, and still found times to fish with his father, make a horseshoe-nail ring for a child, mend a pot, sit and talk or listen to an old man or old woman who sat alone.

Nor did he lack for womankind. Without brag or swagger he attracted women and needed them. He took favors offered when the offer was without strings, and he gave his own favors in a way that involved him only temporarily. He never sought or took an advantage, would not touch a girl who fancied herself in love. Open and amiable to all as he seemed and indeed was to a certain degree, he was a man of privacies and shades of feeling he himself had not begun to sort and understand.