rnest, and the tragedy of such profound ignorance smote the man
sharply. Here was a girl of at least average intelligence and of
sensitive makeup; a girl with looks, too, in spite of her size, and no
doubt a full share of common sense--perhaps even talents of some
sort--yet with the knowledge of a child. For the first time he realized
what playthings of Fate are men and women, how completely circumstance
can make or mar them, and what utter paralysis results from the
strangling grip of poverty.

History hints that during the Middle Ages there flourished an
association known as Comprachicos--"child-buyers"--which traded in
children. The Comprachicos bought little human beings and disfigured
their features, distorted their bodies, fashioned them into ludicrous,
grotesque, or hideous monstrosities for king and populace to laugh at,
and then resold them. Soft, immature faces were made into animal
likenesses; tender, unformed bodies were put into wicker forms or
porcelain vases and allowed to grow; then when they had become things
of compressed flesh and twisted bone, the wicker was cut, the vase was
broken, leaving a man in the shape of a bottle or a mug.

That is precisely what environment does.

In the case of Allegheny Briskow, poverty, the drought, the grinding
hardships of these hard-scrabble Texas counties, had dwarfed the
intellect, the very soul of a splendid young animal. Or so, at least,
Gray told himself. It was a thought that evoked profound consideration.

Now that the girl was beginning to lose her painful embarrassment, she
showed to somewhat better advantage and no longer impressed him, as
bovine, stolid, almost stupid; he could not but note again her full
young figure, her well-shaped, well-poised head, and her regular
features, and the pity of it seemed all the greater by reason thereof.
He tried to visualize her perfectly groomed, clad in a smart gown
molded over a well-fitting corset, with her feet properly shod and her
hair dressed--but the task was beyond him. Probably she had never worn
a corset, never seen a pair of silk stockings. He thought, too, of what
was in store for her and wondered how she would fit into the new world
she was about to enter. Not very well, he feared. Might not this prove
to be the happiest period of all her new life, he asked himself. As yet
the wonder and the glory of the new estate left room in her imagination
for little else; the mold was broken, but the child was not c