“Have I?” Christina was astonished. “I don’t remember.”—She pushed all this talk aside. “How’s Nick?” she asked.

Ellen noticed that she had put out the cigarette.

“He doesn’t change much. Lately he’s got interested in making bird feeders—invented a new kind that he says will keep jays and squirrels out. You might like to try one, Christina—then he could see if it works.”

“Hasn’t he tried one himself?”

“Birdseed is expensive.”

Just there the perfect harmony between the two women showed a tiny crack or scratch on its surface. Ellen had learned long ago that Christina could never possibly imagine what her life was like, what it meant when a cold spell came early and the heat bill soared, how pennies must be counted. What made it worse was that Christina thought she understood.

Christina was dismayed. After all these years, I still do it, she thought to herself. But because her nature flowed outward, because she was an optimist and would not dwell on the darkness, she said at once, “I want to buy one for Cornelius.”

Ellen did not say thank you. She was animated at these moments by fierce, bitter pride. She said, “Nick will like that,” and got up.

Christina sat there thinking about Nick, the abnormally gentle son of a hard-hitting, hard-drinking man. Either he had been born lacking any masculine drive, or something had been beaten out of him young. He had been drafted into World War II, had come back silent and sick, and had spent five years in the state hospital. When he finally came home to the farm, his father was, perhaps mercifully, dead, and it was taken for granted that he would not ever again be asked to do a full day’s work. He puttered around, adored by his mother, with whom he communicated mostly without words.

While Christina thought about Nick, Ellen had been walking on, and now Christina tried to get up to follow, but found she was absurdly stiff.

“Give me a hand, Ellen, or I’ll never get these old bones perpendicular again.” Christina felt the strength in the wiry little body as Ellen gave a great tug. “Hurrah! We’re in motion. Do you think we could find the old trail and go home over the hill and back?”

“Is that what you had in mind?” Ellen smiled in spite of her crossness. The trail hadn’t been used for years. They were sure to get lost. But why not, after all? There was no one else in Willard who could get Ellen out on a crazy adventure like this. “Let’s give it a try. But what if we get lost?”

“We won’t. Besides, I brought my compass.”

“Old Pete saw us go—he’ll know if we never come back,” Ellen chuckled. “Send that clever hound of his after us.”