“I’m way off somewhere alone,” Cathy said, “way off from Joel and way off from Mother and Gram and Grandfather too …”

“Well, you’re still part of the human race,” Ellen said with a laugh. “You asked who to trust a while back. I’ve been thinking that in the long run one can only trust oneself—and even so, one is wrong to do that maybe half the time,” and she laughed again.

“The reason I love you, Ellen, is that you are full of darkness,” Cathy said.

“Darkness?” Ellen lifted her head, surprised.

“I mean you make everything sound worse, not better—so in a queer way, it is comforting.”

“Poor kind of comfort, I should think.”

“No, a good kind. It’s tough. Nothing like some tough comfort to chew on.” And at last Cathy smiled.

“Eben had a point about what summer people and natives exchange besides hard work and money, and maybe tough comfort, as you call it, is one of the things we have to give. I wouldn’t know why such orneriness was a help, but maybe it is.”

“How does one learn to trust oneself?” Cathy asked.

She was standing at the window now, her back to Ellen, looking out on the garden patch, weedy without Nick to keep it in order.

“Want me to come down and work in the garden some day?”

“Looks like hell, but it’s too late to trouble.” Ellen laid down the box of spools and took a drink of cold tea. “Pretty hot day to find the answer to a question like that. Never saw such a girl for asking questions!”

But Cathy knew that there would be an answer if she just waited.

“I have to know, Ellen,” she said earnestly.

“And maybe that’s my answer—you learn to trust yourself when you have to—when there is nobody else you can trust. I guess I learned it when I faced that schoolroom of children, about five boys taller, and some older, than I.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen, and scared stiff.”

“What did you do?” Cathy sat down again.

“Hit one boy on the head with a ruler and drew blood,” she said grimly. “Mostly I kept them at bay by … I don’t know how to say it…by being sure I could—and keeping my eyes open. I was quicker than they were, even if I was ignorant.”

“You were brave.”

“When your back’s against the wall—well, what else is there to be?”

“Some people might have run away.”

“Where to? I lived here. One thing I’ll say for Willard, the women never did run away—some men did. But then, it takes another kind of guts to admit failure and try something new. Men have that kind. Women are better at taking what comes, rooted where they are. Men … well, they take risks.”

“You took a risk by staying with those brutish big boys.”