Then out of the mailcar door, the woman appeared, holding out a furious gray bundle. It wrenched itself from her grasp and rolled out onto the platform. It somersaulted into the child and then spun and righted itself, yelping in outrage. It roared hatred at the train and the people on it. The dog consigned the train to Hell. Johnson, the boy, backed away from him.

Sunset orange blazed on the side of the car. The woman still hung out of the doorway.

"Emma Gulch is her aunt! Lives east out in Zeandale!" she shouted. "Try to get word to her. God bless, child!" the woman waved with one hand and held on to her hat with the other. The air above the train shivered with heat. There was a wuffling sound of fire, and a clapping and clanking, and the brakeman did his dance. All of it moved like a show, farther down the track, fading like the light. The light was low and golden.

This was the time of the afternoon the little girl most hated. This was the time she felt most alone.

"What's your name?" Johnson asked her.

"Dorothy," said the little girl. She held up her white dress to make it sparkle.

"What's that stuff on your dress?"

"It's a theater dress," said the little girl. Her eyes stared and her mouth was puffy. "The theater people in Kansas City give it to me." She had stayed with them last night, and she liked them. "Are you going to stay with me?" she asked Johnson.

"For a little while, maybe."

"I'm hungry," she said.

"Well I ate up all my pie, or I surely would have let you have some."

The place was silent. The station had a porch and a platform and a wooden waiting room. The tracks ran beside a river. Dorothy could see no town. She recognized nothing. She pushed the hair out of her eyes. Nothing was right.