“I never know. What goes on in Nick doesn’t show on the surface. Seems like every season has an ordeal in it for him.” Ellen smiled grimly. “At least so far he hasn’t taken it into his head to defend the trout against the fishermen! But I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s that set against mankind and on the side of the wild.”

“Joel will mind leaving Nick and you as much as anyone,” Cathy said.

“Nick and he are just a little crazy in the same way.”

“Joel is the sanest person I ever knew!” Cathy said.

“Here, drink this and have something to eat—no one’s attacking Joel. He’s a good, kind boy. Never thought I’d get used to that long hair but I have. We’ll all miss him.”

“I guess he never imagined a place like Willard. He feels just the way I do about it.”

“Yes,” Ellen sighed, and took her coffee back to the rocker where she sipped it. “I expect he does.”

“I wish I knew what he really wanted,” Cathy said.

“Maybe he doesn’t know that himself—he’s full of grand ideas but I haven’t seen more’n a vestige of practical good sense in any one thing he talks about doing.”

“Do you think women keep men back by being practical?” Cathy asked solemnly.

Ellen laughed. “Somebody has to.”

“I hate myself,” Cathy said miserably.

“What are you keeping Joel back from?”

Ellen did not have a clue as to what Cathy was talking about. So she was unaware that it took some doing to decide to answer that. Cathy looked at the worn, lined face and thought of all the living that had gone to make it so, like a beautiful worn piece of wood.

“Me,” she said. Tears stood in her eyes, and she just prayed they wouldn’t fall. She couldn’t start crying—that would be the end.

Ellen picked up her cup and turned it in her hands, not looking up.

“Yes, I expect so. High time he got out of here and left you alone.”

“Sometimes I want him to. It’s just so hard right now. I mean, I feel all crooked and mixed up and … somehow less. When he first came, I felt so much more than I had ever been before, or imagined being. Why is that?”