He still looked baffled.

"Giving me a ride up from the river."

Now he remembered. "Oh, I was just doing Minnie a favor. Shenever thought you'd stay a week, and here you've stayed for morethan a month already. She would have reamed me out royal if we hadto dig your corpse out of a snowdrift."

"Well, anyway, thanks." But she wasn't saying thanks for the ride,she realized. It was something else. Maybe it was the kids in the backseat. Maybe it was the way he'd talked to them. The way he'd kepton talking with them even though there was an adult in the car. Rainiewasn't used to that. She wasn't used to being with kids at all, actually. And when she did find herself in the presence of other people'schildren, the parents were always shushing the kids so they could talkto her. "I liked your kids," said Rainie.

"They're OK," he said. But his eyes said a lot more than that. They said, You must be good people if you think well of my kids.

She tried to imagine what it would have been like, if her ownparents had ever been with her the way Mr. Spaulding was with hischildren. Maybe my whole life would have been different, she thought. Then she remembered where she was -- Harmony, Illinois, otherwiseknown as the last place on Earth. No matter whether her parents werenice or not, she probably would have hated every minute of herchildhood in a one-horse town like this. "Must be hard for them,though," she said. "Growing up miles from anywhere like this."

All at once his face closed off. He didn't argue or get mad oranything, he just closed up shop and the conversation was over. "Isuppose so," he said. "I'll just have a club sandwich today, and a dietsomething."

"Coming right up," she said.

It really annoyed her that he'd shut her down like that. Didn't heknow how small this town was? He'd been to college, hadn't he? Which meant he must have lived away from this town sometime in his