“Oh, Ellen, we’ve been friends since we were kids and went blueberrying and slid in your father’s hayloft. If I can’t say what’s in my mind to you, it’s just too bad.”

“I don’t know what brought you here but I’ve had enough of people suggesting that Nick should be sent up to the state hospital, I can tell you.”

So that was the trouble.

“Whoever said that?”

“I don’t know. Things like that get around in the air. Some people I know mind everyone’s business except their own.”

“Well, Nick is loved. Some people may be anxious lest he do himself harm, for all you know.”

“Some people really care. Know where he is now?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“He’s up at Jane Tuttle’s, that’s where! She telephoned over and said she wanted to see the man who was out to protect the wildlife instead of letting it be butchered. That’s what Jane Tuttle said.”

“She’s felt it keenly that New Hampshire permits the shooting of does.”

“She’s a great lady,” Ellen said fiercely.

“She certainly is,” Christina assented with a smile. “I guess none of us really know how hard it must be for someone as independent as she still is to be so dependent.” Christina was glad to grasp at a change of subject. This was something they could discuss without every quill of the porcupine Ellen standing up in menace—at least she hoped so. “Hannah has to be an intimate friend—it’s the only way to make life possible. But she’s not Jane’s equal in any way—intellect or sensibility—so she must sometimes seem like a crude jailer. Oh, how I admire Jane for managing it as she does, with so much love.”

“Hannah would die for her, that’s sure.”

“But isn’t it wonderful, Ellen, the way all the boys Jane used to take out on expeditions to bird-watch or look for ferns and mushrooms make a beeline for her whenever they come home, grown men now? John will be up there within an hour of his getting up here for Thanksgiving.”

“She’s grown old mighty well, that woman. Kept her head on her shoulders.”

“And a twinkle in her eye. She was so funny about Jem and the history. Remember?”

Ellen was standing in the window with her back to Christina, and her mind was clearly elsewhere.

“You think I should send Nick up to the doctors for an examination?”

“I don’t know, Ellen. We’ve seen some pretty hot fights in this town. It seems as if men go wild sometimes. I just don’t know. Maybe Jane will help about this. I would trust her judgment. I think she’s truly wise about people—a strange thing to say about an old maid like her, who never brought up a child of her own.”