The second time was when the newscast reported, “There is a suspicion now that the bomber has onboard a crew of Japanese spies. ‘Those Japs are sneaky types,’ said Lieutenant Colonel McGee. ‘I wouldn’t put much past them. And for all we know, Robert Madden is their inside man.’”

When Winifred phoned her mother she said levelly, “Mother, you must not believe everything you hear.”

Crying Alice’s helpful and elucidating response was, “Waaaah!”

The last time was after we heard that air force planes were now being told that if they came upon the Argot, they were to shoot to kill.

Winifred turned chalky white at this and returned her mother’s call. “Oh, Mother,” she whispered into the phone.

Her mother’s comforting response was, “Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle, waaaah!”

Because she had no family to support her, Winifred became coldly capable. After the third trip to Brookman’s she said to me, “Come on,” and pulled me outdoors. We had been sitting in the dining room with Sina, listening to the radio. None of us saying anything, taking turns pacing or looking out the window for the return of Wilfred or Zebediah.

“And we thought ghosts were frightening,” I said bitterly as Winifred dragged me through a field. “Where are we going?”

But Winifred just led the way out to the woods and along the coastal path until we got to the petroglyphs. There Winifred pulled her father’s letters out of her pocket as well as a book of matches.

“We must burn these,” she said.

Good thinking, Winifred!

“It’s lucky we didn’t tell Mother about them. She would have broadcast it all over Canada. And when Zebediah returns we must impress upon him that he is to say nothing of his correspondence with Daddy. They are shooting to kill.” She said the last without emotion, which is when I learned that sometimes when great emotion is at hand, little is expressed.

We burned the letters, and I must say it was a welcome reprieve from pacing around the dining room and waiting for more newscasts, but, of course, we went right back to it after that. There was no one in her family left to monitor the situation except Winifred and she was doing a darned fine job.

Afternoon drifted into evening. Gladys, who had been apprised of the situation, came in and out with tempting little charred treats, which I thought unusually sensitive of her, and she did not ask us to change the channel to bebop once.