Cindy couldn't cook, because her mother had never allowed her in the kitchen, and he and Cindy were so shy around each other that Jim feared they wouldn't exchange more than two words a day. Sure, things were going to be a lot freer around the place without her keeping a constant watch and without her constant bitching and dragging everybody to church three times a week, but things were going to be mighty dead too, and Jim wondered if he'd be able to tolerate that deadness.

At least in town there'd be other people close by to keep them both from dying of non-communication and boredom, he thought as he drove up the long, winding driveway toward the house and other farm buildings. Maybe it was time to sell the place and give up farming for good. He'd been complaining for years that farming was all work and no pay.

He parked the truck and found Cindy asleep on the porch swing, an open book lying beside her. Hoping not to disturb her, he tiptoed up the porch steps.

There was something different about her today, he thought as he looked down at her. She was more rosy-cheeked and more healthy looking or something. Maybe he just hadn't taken a close look at her in a long time, but she looked like a different girl.

She was barefoot, for one thing. Her mother would have thrown a fit to see Cindy lying there barefoot. Jim looked at the pretty young feet of his daughter and thought he hadn't viewed anything so beautiful in years. He resisted the urge to reach down and stroke them.

But there was more to the change he perceived in Cindy than her rosy cheeks and bare feet. She somehow looked more filled out than he remembered. It was as if she'd blossomed overnight from a little girl to a young woman. Her hair was down, dangling like gold silk off the porch swing, the tips of it nearly touching the porch. He'd never realized she had such long hair. Her mother would have thrown another fit to realize Cindy had grown her hair long.