“But how can he let himself be changed into a murderer?” Cathy asked again. “And he sounds quite happy! How can I ever find him again—the Joel you talked about?” The mature woman who had astonished her mother a few moments before had slipped away to leave a bewildered, passionate child. “Sometimes I think he likes the army!”

“Men like war, Cathy.” Eben reached out and put a hand on her shoulder as if to mitigate the cold words. “I don’t have much comfort to give you, do I?”

“I don’t need comfort. I want to understand.”

Christina had come back, impatient to be off, but Cathy was not to be stopped now. She stood there, small and intact among them, like a judge, and Christina had to listen as she pursued Eben relentlessly.

“You said a lot of good things about Willard as a gentle place, but there’s killing here too. Old Pete thought it was a joke to fling a dead woodchuck on our front doormat—do you remember, Gram?”

“Yes, I remember,” Christina answered. “It made me sick. But I expect that was sentimental—woodchucks do a lot of damage.”

“Sentimental?” the voice quavered. And Cathy turned away.

“Well, darling, it was a rather poor joke, I admit.” She stopped a second to give Cathy’s long fine hair a caress, and to whisper, “Talk to Ellen,” then, turning to Eben, she said firmly, “Come along, we really must go.”

Cathy watched Christina and Eben hurry off, her mother already in the car—she felt far away, cut off, lonely. Was Gram able to keep going because she had learned to shut things out? Cathy wondered. Was growing up a matter of learning to close doors on the unbearable? She leaned against the trunk of a maple, off to the side, and sang with the rest because that seemed as good a way as any of waiting to feel more able to cope.

It was another half hour before the band gave its last brassy toot and crash of cymbals, before the big drums were lifted away, and the men scrambled into the bus and left. The crowd dwindled, calling last good-bys as they got into their cars. Old Pete had gone long ago, and even the children—the few still playing on the green—were subdued by the heat. Cathy didn’t see Ellen anywhere, so she cut across the meadow, where a few Lovelands were still shooting arrows at a target, and over to the Comstock place, running the last few yards as if she couldn’t wait another minute. She flung open the door.

“It’s me—Cathy!” she called.

“Come right in, child.”

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Cathy said, sitting down in Nick’s chair by the table and pushing her hair back. “Oh, it’s too hot!”