I don’t want to be afraid anymore.’ Chris heard this conversation through the screen door, wanted to go out, hold them, make promises but he could...’t. He didn’t have the courage as she showed no sign that she would tolerate such behavior. By the end of July he had to go back to the city for a teacher’s seminar for a few days. He warned Mrs. Sanders and Aunt Katherine again and again against Stephen and went unwillingly. It was that first time he left them alone since the beginning of the. He looked nothing like his father. He didn’t even look like his mother. He opened the lid to the ornately carved box, focusing on the picture of his grandmother and grandfather when they were young just inside the lid. Both blond and blue-eyed, Gabriel looked like no one in his family. His eyes rose to the mirror before him. His complexion was dark, naturally tanned and his hair was like a raven’s wing, jet, almost blue black. His nose was sharp, not snub, his lips full over a squared jaw.. I gathered my haphazard clan of followers and ruefully studied my options.There were almost five score of us including several scrawny children with the look of carrion birds and not of joyous childhood. The remainder of us was divided into the two genders with females outnumbering the males by a ratio of two to one. Why that had come about, I had absolutely no idea. I suspected it was the natural urge of the males to have a preponderance of females about them to preclude any lack of available. I swung the door open, and to my bitter disappointment there were not five naked women with beer and pork rinds. I wouldn't have complained if there were five naked women without either beer or pork rinds. Those particular five women, however, were also not there. There was a fully clothed Girl Scout with a red wagon full of short bread cookies.She smiled at me cheerfully. I smiled back. It is an impressive feat to haul a red wagon full of short bread cookies up an eight step concrete stoop,.