In the darkness by the broken shed Sam's mind turned from thoughts of his
mother to his sister Kate and of her love affair with the young farmer. He
thought with sadness of how she too had suffered because of the failings
of the father, of how she had been compelled to go out of the house to
wander in the dark streets to avoid the endless evenings of war talk
always brought on by a guest in the McPherson household, and of the night
when, getting a rig from Culvert's livery, she had driven off alone into
the country to return in triumph to pack her clothes and show her wedding
ring.

Before him there rose a picture of a summer afternoon when he had seen a
part of the love making that had preceded this. He had gone into the store
to see his sister when the young farmer came in, looked awkwardly about
and pushed a new gold watch across the counter to Kate. A sudden wave of
respect for his sister had pervaded the boy. "What a sum it must have
cost," he thought, and looked with new interest at the back of the lover
and at the flushed cheek and shining eyes of his sister. When the lover,
turning, had seen young McPherson standing at the counter, he laughed
self-consciously and walked out at the door. Kate had been embarrassed and
secretly pleased and flattered by the look in her brother's eyes, but had
pretended to treat the gift lightly, twirling it carelessly back and forth
on the counter and walking up and down swinging her arms.

"Don't go telling," she had said.

"Then don't go pretending," the boy had answered.

Sam thought that his sister's indiscretion, which had brought her a babe
and a husband in the same month had, after all, ended better than the
indiscretion of his mother in her marriage with Windy.