ed
the dishes, since she had given her word to do it. The dishpan was
even more unpleasant than experience had foretold for her; and of
Marthy's somewhat meager supply there seemed not one clean dish in the
house. The sympathy of Billy Louise therefore waned rapidly; rather,
it turned in upon itself. So that by the time she felt morally free to
spend the rest of the afternoon as she pleased, she was not at all
sorry for Marthy for having lost Minervy; instead, she was sorry for
herself for having been betrayed into rashness and for being deprived
of a playmate.

"I don't s'pose Marthy doctored her right, at all," she considered
pitilessly, as she returned down the lilac-bordered path. "If she had,
I guess she wouldn't have died. I'll bet she never gave her a speck of
sage tea, like mommie always does when I'm sick--only I ain't ever,
thank goodness. I'm just going to ask Jase if Marthy did."

On the way to the root cellar, which was dug into the creek-bank well
above high-water mark, Billy Louise debated within herself the ethics
of speaking to Jase upon a forbidden subject. Jase had been Minervy's
father, and therefore knew of her existence, so that mentioning Minervy
to him could not in any sense be betraying a secret. She wondered if
Jase felt badly about it, as Marthy seemed to do. On the heels of that
came the determination to test his emotional capacity.

At the root cellar her attention was diverted. The cellar door was
fastened on the outside, with the iron hasp used to protect the store
of vegetables from the weather. Jase must be gone. She was turning
away when she heard him clear his throat with that peculiar little
hacking, rasping noise which sounded exactly as one would expect a Jase
to sound. Billy Louise puckered her eyebrows, pressed her lips
together understandingly--and disapprovingly--and opened the door.

Jase, humped over a heap of sprouting potatoes, blinked up
apathetically into the sudden flood of sweet, spring air and sunshine.
"Why, hello, Billy Louise," he mumbled, his eyes brightening a bit.

"Say, you was locked in here!" Billy Louise faced him puzzled. "Did
you know you was locked in?"

"Yes-s, I knowed it. Marthy, she locked the door." Jase reached out a
bony hand covered with carrot-colored hairs and picked up a shriveling
potato with long, sickly sprouts proclaiming life's persistence in
perpetuating itself under adverse circumstances. He broke off the
sprouts w