hat it is I've
made it. Jase ain't ever done a hand's turn that he wasn't obliged to
do. I've chopped wood, and I've built corrals and dug ditches, and
Jase has puttered around and whined that he wasn't able-bodied enough
to do no heavy lifting. That there orchard out there I planted and
packed water in buckets to it till I got the ditch through. Them
corrals down next the river I built. I dug the post-holes, and Jase
set the posts in and held 'em steady while I tamped the dirt! In
winter I've hauled hay and fed the cattle; and Jase, he packed a bucket
uh slop, mebby, to the pigs! If he ain't as able-bodied as I be, it's
because he ain't done nothing to git strong on. He can't come around
me now with that all-gone feeling uh his; I know Jase Meilke like a
book."

There was more that she said about Jase. Standing there, a squat,
unkempt woman with a seamed, leathery face and hard eyes now quite
faded to gray, she told Billy Louise a good deal of the bitterness of
the years behind; years of hardship and of slavish toil and no love to
lighten it. She spoke again of Minervy, and the name brought back to
Billy Louise poignant memories of her own lonely childhood and of her
"pretend" playmate.

Half shyly, because she was still sometimes touched with the
inarticulateness of youth, Billy Louise told Marthy a little of that
playmate. "Why, do you know, every time I rode old Badger anywhere,
after that day you told me about Minervy, I used to pretend that
Minervy rode behind me. I used to talk to her by the hour and take her
places. And up our canyon is a cave that I used to play was Minervy's
cave. I had another one, and I used to go over and visit Minervy. And
I had another pretend playmate--a boy--and we used to have adventures.
It's a queer place; I just found that cave by accident. I don't
believe there's another person in the country who knows it's there at
all. Well, that's Minervy's cave to me yet. And, Marthy--" Billy
Louise giggled a little and eyed the old woman with a sidelong look
that would have set a young man's blood a-jump--"I hope you won't be
mad; I was just a kid, and I didn't know any better. But just to show
you how much I thought: I had a little pig, and I named it Minervy,
after you told me about her. And mommie told me that was no name for
it; it was--it wasn't a girl pig, mommie said. So I called it
Man-ervy, as the next best thing." She gave Marthy another wasted
glance from th