strangers without being scared, and preside at table, and use
language like this. Other settlers began coming into Greer, but
they were far away, and Brick and Bill don't like folks, so they
stayed shut up pretty close. But for three years I had the mother
and her baby to show me how to be a woman. Then came the soldiers.
Brick thinks a big cattle-king stood in with Congress, and he got
the soldiers sent here to drive out all the settlers because they
were beginning to farm the land instead of letting it grow wild for
the cattle. Anyway, all the settlers were driven out of the
country--and it's been four years since I lost my only friends in
the world--except Brick and Bill. What makes me and Brick and Bill
mad is, that the soldiers didn't have any right to drive out the
settlers, because Texas claims this country, and so does the United
States, but it's never been settled."

"But they didn't drive YOU out," Wilfred remarked inquiringly.

"You see," Brick explained simply, "we didn't want to go."

"It nearly broke Mrs. Featherby's heart to have to leave," Lahoma
added, "for they'd got a good stand of wheat and I think she liked
me 'most as well as I liked her. But Mr. Featherby came from Ohio,
and he had respect to the government, so when the soldiers said
'Go,' he pulled up stakes."

"We ain't got no respect to nothing," Brick explained, "that stands
in the way of doing what we're a mind to. The soldiers come to
force us out, but they changed their minds. I reckon they knew they
hadn't no morality on their side. Sure thing, they knowed they had
but very little safety, whilst occupying their position. None was