“Oh, you know all right,” said Almedy.

“But how?” persisted Lena.

“Oh, he walks home behind you from church or picnics,” Almedy finally answered. “Elbert walks home behind me.”

“What do you say to your fellow?” Lena anxiously asked, running a little to keep up with Almedy’s long strides.

“Nothing,” said Almedy.

“Doesn’t anybody ever talk to their fellow?” asked Lena.

“No,” said Almedy. “What’s there to talk about?”

Almedy was so busy milking or washing or working in the fields that she was a disappointment to the children as a companion. She spoiled their games, too, just like a boy would.

“I saw a fairy in the churn today and it was turning the butter into vanilla ice cream,” said Marcia.

“That’s a lie,” argued Lena. “I saw that fairy and it said it was churning chocolate fudge.”

“Did your fairy have on a purple hat with a silver bell?” Marcia asked. “Mine did, and a plume too. I saw it.”

“You saw your uncle’s shirttail flying around the corner!” snapped Almedy, so the game was spoiled.

Almedy was thin and hunched like Uncle Louie, with a sharp nose and chin, and sharp, sly, brown eyes. When they went swimming in the brook she looked like a boy because her hair was short from the typhoid epidemic at the orphanage the year before. Dressed up on Sundays when the neighbors stopped to take her to church, since Uncle Louie and Aunt Betts wouldn’t go, she looked more like a boy than ever, for the light blue straw hat sat up high on top of her shorn head and the made-over faded blue poplin dress hung limp on her thin scarecrow figure. The neighbors didn’t bring her all the way home but let her out a mile down the road, so Almedy always took off her shoes and carried them this distance to save them. Marcia and Lena would run down the lane to meet her, but Almedy never seemed glad. She showed them her colored Sunday school cards which she saved up, but she kept gloomy silence the rest of the way.

“What happened at church?” the girls would cry.

“Nothing,” said Almedy.

“Who was at church, Almedy?” Aunt Betts would ask later.

“Nobody,” Almedy said.

Some people had luck with their orphans, Aunt Betts said again and again to Uncle Louie, but Almedy was no comfort at all. You could get no more out of her than you could out of Tiddley Winks, and never a word of gratitude for their giving her a home. She was as good as gold in her way, but no company. Never mind, Uncle Louie said, she was a good worker, as good as a hired man in the fields and she was about the fastest milker he’d ever seen. He’d say that much for Almedy, and that was more than he could say for other folks’ orphans.

An orphan was different from people. It looked like people, ate like people, and could talk a little, but it was more like a horse or dog. Orphans were nearly always ungrateful and after you gave them a home and raised them they usually got into trouble or ran off with some fellow and you never saw them again. Marcia and Lena wondered how soon Almedy would run off with Elbert. When they saw her sitting out on the orchard fence every night after the supper dishes were done, her thin arms folded over her chest, skinny bare legs hooked through the rails for security, they wondered if she was planning to run away tonight. She kept her back to the farmhouse and faced the lane, though even in bright daylight she could never have seen beyond the thick trees to the Chapmans’ gate. She just sat there till bedtime.