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granddaddy, had a farm about twenty yards ahead, right at the bend of the road and the last house before you got into the town proper. He had moved from Spence’s Mountain to be closer to his daughter, to a plot of land he’d bought from Thomas Gibson, her daddy’s cousin. Her daddy had been mad enough to spit when cousin Thomas did that — they had a big fight and her daddy almost killed Thomas. Now Thomas lived out of the valley, on Spence’s Mountain, and his side of the family had no contact whatsoever with the Gibsons still in the hollow.
    Sadie liked her granddaddy very much. Her daddy said he was a rich man who walked all over other folk as he saw fit to get his loot, but Sadie never believed that. She didn’t even believe he was all that rich; he sure didn’t show it.
    She turned off the road and down the dry ruts of the path leading up to her granddaddy’s barn. He came out of the barn carrying two buckets of milk.
    He was a tall old man, probably the lankiest she had ever seen. He walked as if all his legs and arms had been broken at one time or other. “What say there, Sadie?”
    “Hidey, Granddad,” she said quietly. She sat down on a fence rail and watched as he carried the buckets into a shed. He was out a few minutes later, fasteninga padlock on the door. He turned and glanced at her, a little embarrassed, by the look of him. She stared at the ground.
    “Sorry about that, Sadie. But you know if I dont lock it your daddy’s likely to sneak down here some evening and take my day’s milking.”
    “He’s never been here...” Sadie felt the tears coming. “He wont even set foot here!” She was crying too hard now, so she climbed off the rail and stalked back up the path. She didn’t know why she was so upset this time; her daddy and granddaddy were always snapping about each other to whoever would listen. She guessed she was just tired of it, was all. They both talked like the other was about the worst crook what ever lived, and the stories were all made up. Most of them didn’t even make sense.
    She could see the corner of Levitt’s General Store about a hundred yards ahead of her. The town was pretty full these days — folks were moving back from places like Ohio, and even as far away as Michigan. It was that depression people talked about, but nobody seemed to understand. All those families that moved away years ago looking for jobs were back because those jobs all went away. She had a cousin or two like that, who tried to get on at the mines but the mines weren’t hiring either. So they farmed — even though her granddaddy said the mountain land was the worst there was for farming. You had to have good river bottom land if you wanted to pull anything decent out of it. So people just hung around town, like something good might happen for them if other people just knew they were still alive.
    Used to be she knew every face in town. Now she reckoned it was getting to be a lot like the big cities — she’d see maybe a dozen people she hardly knew and it was a little scary not knowing which one might be a friend or who was up to no good. A lot of people she didn’t know were milling around in front of the store. She felt a little bit shy about going past them, but maybe it was best they didn’t know her considering what she was about to do. She suddenly started feeling that excitement she always felt when she went to town — wondering who she’d see, what might happen, what she might be able to slip into the pocket of her yellow dress. She wanted people to notice her, wanted them to notice her every time she went into town. They’d be thinking, Who is that girl in that pretty yeller dress? She wondered how she was going to manage that this time.
    Up on the left, just before you got to the store but halfway up the mountain above it, there were county wagons hauling off gravel and dirt and rock, what was left over after they plowed the rest over the slope. Mr. Levitt claimed they were