"Think you're going to last the summer, Gwen?" Kate asked.

"Oh, Kate, I'd never have made it this long if it weren't for you… but I think so… maybe." She stopped and wiped her lips daintily with her napkin, glancing involuntarily at the crude table manners of the men and their rude silence. Delicate eyebrows lifted faintly in their direction. Her blonde hair was twisted high on her head and her fair skin was exposed by the scoop necked flowered cotton dress she wore. Simple as it was, it was much too dressy for summer on a ranch.

Kate shook her head slightly at Gwen, glancing down the long table at the ravenous males, bunched over their plates. No matter how few she thought she had for dinner, she always wound up with a full house. Frank, the foreman usually ate with them, then the boys, Eric and Angel, then there was the tractor salesman who'd conveniently stopped by at supper time to see Frank. Old Joe showed up frequently too, an Indian who still trapped up north when he could and who wandered all through the ranch country for free meals. Usually he managed to do some odd job of work before he left. Then there was Frank's no good cousin who just happened by. In the country you fed whoever "happened by". It was an unwritten law. Anything else would have been inhospitable.

The men went out on the front lawn to smoke after supper and to swap stories and belch. Gwen helped Kate clear the table and load the dishwasher.

"You know, Kate, I really want to help children… but sometimes I think the whole thing was a mistake, especially after I had all that trouble with the ghetto kids. They just didn't seem to care about school. I guess maybe that's my fault… but no matter what I tried with them… it just didn't seem to work."