Back in the big sala the twins faced their guest. “Do you like it?” Aron asked softly because of the echo.

“Yee-es,” she admitted hesitantly.

“Sometimes we play here,” Cal said boldly. “You can come here and play with us if you like.”

“I live in Salinas,” Abra said in such a tone that they knew they were dealing with a superior being who hadn’t time for bumpkin pleasures.

Abra saw that she had crushed their highest treasure, and while she knew the weaknesses of men she still liked them, and, besides, she was a lady. “Sometimes, when we are driving by, I’ll come and play with you—a little,” she said kindly, and both boys felt grateful to her.

“I’ll give you my rabbit,” said Cal suddenly. “I was going to give it to my father, but you can have it.”

“What rabbit?”

“The one we shot today—right through the heart with an arrow. He hardly even kicked.”

Aron looked at him in outrage. “It was my—”

Cal interrupted, “We will let you have it to take home. It’s a pretty big one.”

Abra said, “What would I want with a dirty old rabbit all covered with blood?”

Aron said, “I’ll wash him off and put him in a box and tie him with string, and if you don’t want to eat him, you can have a funeral when you get time—in Salinas.”

“I go to real funerals,” said Abra. “Went to one yesterday. There was flowers high as this roof.”

“Don’t you want our rabbit?” Aron asked.

Abra looked at his sunny hair, tight-curled now, and at his eyes that seemed near to tears, and she felt the longing and the itching burn in her chest that is the beginning of love. Also, she wanted to touch Aron, and she did. She put her hand on his arm and felt him shiver under her fingers. “If you put it in a box,” she said.

Now that she had got herself in charge, Abra looked around and inspected her conquests. She was well above vanity now that no male principle threatened her. She felt kindly toward these boys. She noticed their thin washed-out clothes patched here and there by Lee. She drew on her fairy tales. “You poor children,” she said, “does your father beat you?”

They shook their heads. They were interested but bewildered.

“Are you very poor?”

“How do you mean?” Cal asked. “Do you sit in the ashes and have to fetch water and faggots?”

“What’s faggots?” Aron asked. She avoided that by continuing. “Poor darlings,” she began, and she seemed to herself to have a little wand in her hand tipped by a twinkling star. “Does your wicked stepmother hate you and want to kill you?”

“We don’t have a stepmother,” said Cal. “We don’t have any kind,” said Aron. “Our mother’s dead.”

His words destroyed the story she was writing but almost immediately supplied her with another. The wand was gone but she wore a big hat with an ostrich plume and she carried an enormous basket from which a turkey’s feet protruded.