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it was the things of this world carried off into the sky.
    â€œIt’s a twister,” Tom said, “a little twister. Run!”
    â€œI ain’t running,” I said. I planted my feet in the mud and faced the ugly thing. If it was my doom I might as well look at the thing fair and square.
    Tom stayed with me. I guess he figured it wasn’t any use to run either. He held up his stick as though it was a sword. The twister come on closer, and it was like looking into a furnace ofburning water. The wind raged with madness. My hat was jerked off and sucked into the wind. The handkerchief in my sleeve was pulled out and flung into the black whirl. My blouse was covered with spots of mud and my face was too. My hair was wet and my skirt was soaked. My blouse had pulled out at the waist and my Sunday shoes was wet and muddy.
    As the twister crossed the branch we could hear it sucking up water. Even above the roar of the rain and wind it sounded like the sky was swallowing through a big straw. All the water that fell as rain was being pulled up to the sky again.
    â€œNo use to hurry now,” I said. We walked through the pasture, splashing in big puddles. Tom’s suit was covered with mud and his new collar had melted. I held his arm and we walked like a couple promenading through the streets of Greenville. “Perfect weather for a stroll,” I said.
    When we got to the house Pa was standing on the porch, just out of the drip. “Was you caught in a flashtide?” he said.
    â€œWe got chased by your bull,” I said, “and by the Devil hisself.” Tom and me busted out laughing. Looking at ourselves on the porch, there wasn’t anything else to do.

CHAPTER THREE
    While Tom and me was courting, my brother Locke come back from the army on furlough, and his first night home we stayed up late. Locke was always a mighty talker, when he got going. He had served as a nurse on a hospital ship at Havana, and he had lived in Washington, D.C., and in the Philippines. He brought me a toy rickshaw from Tokyo. I fixed dinner for the whole family.
    â€œDo you go to church in the army?” I asked him.
    â€œMost of the time there’s no church to go to,” Locke said. He had never attended services with much enthusiasm when he was home. I was just needling him a little, to see what he would say.
    â€œI read the Bible from time to time,” he said, “and a book a friend gave me called
Science and Health
.”
    â€œWhy that’s Christian Science!” Pa said.
    â€œIt’s interesting,” Locke said. “It makes a lot of sense.”
    â€œI’ve heard it’s h-h-h-heathenism,” Joe said.
    I poured more coffee for David and Pa and a little for myself.
    â€œIt’s not heathenism,” Locke said.
    â€œThen what is it?” Pa said.
    â€œIt teaches thought is more important than anything else,” Locke said. “Afflictions of the body are mostly in the mind.”
    â€œThat’s foolishness,” Florrie said. “Locke, you always did have a quair streak.”
    â€œHave you studied it?” Locke said to her.
    â€œNo I ain’t, but I don’t need to. If I’m constipated it’s not in my mind but in my guts.”
    â€œHow can you criticize what you haven’t read?” Locke said.
    â€œI thought you wanted to be a doctor,” Lily said, “and was studying medicine.” She stuffed her handkerchief in her sleeve.
    â€œI
am
studying medicine,” Locke said, “every way I can.”
    Everybody at the table was silent for a second. It was early summer and still not dark outside. A whippoorwill started calling from the trees out near the barn.
    â€œYou have seen a lot of the world,” David said.
    â€œWhat do the Rocky Mountains look like?” Lily said. “I have always wanted to see the Rocky Mountains.”
    â€œThey are mighty pretty,” Locke said, “and mighty