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“John and James got steers when they were twelve.” Her brothers had grain fed and sold them for beef, then used the profit to buy more steers and sold those too. James was on his third set and John was on his second.

“So they did.”

Her father sighed, and an argument in her favor—because merely wanting something was never a good enough reason in the Clemson household—revealed itself to Adele.

“If I had a steer, I’d take such good care of it.

And when it was fat enough, I’d sell it and buy two more.

And before long, I’d have a whole bunch of steers.

I’d earn my own money, see? Then I wouldn’t have to go off and get married.

Like Pauline. I could stay right here with you and earn my own keep. ”

“Oh, Dellie.” His bulk shifted, and the truck seat trembled.

In the dim, she worried he was about to laugh at her, but he was just fishing in his pocket for his pipe and tobacco.

He passed the tobacco pouch for her to sniff.

It smelled rich and loamy, with a hint of honey.

She passed it back, and he tamped some into the pipe with his thumb.

“You can’t imagine it now, but you’ll want to marry someone someday.

It’s just what happens when you grow up. ”

He lit the pipe and puffed. Adele waited, telling herself he’d most likely say no. It was silly to even hope.

“You really want your own steer?”

“Yes, sir. I really do.”

He puffed again. “Your mother will have an absolute conniption.”

Adele threw her arms around him and planted a kiss on his bristly cheek. He chuckled and said, “But you’ll have to take good care of it and do all your chores. I don’t want to hear any complaining about you not doing your share.”

“I’ll do everything she asks, Daddy. I promise.”

Adele kept her word about the chores, and Pauline, for a time anyway, kept hers about visiting.

She rode to the Clemson ranch a couple of times a week.

Sometimes Adele and her mother rode to Pauline’s.

But then Pauline got too big to ride a horse.

And then she had the first baby. A bald, bright-pink creature who fussed constantly and looked too much like Claude for Adele’s taste.

Pauline was tired and distracted, and just beneath her lilac smell lurked a hint of sour milk.

Adele turned her attention to her steer.

She fed it and watered it and combed it.

She led it into the turnout pen every day and mucked out the holding pen.

She talked to it and sang to it. Her father and brothers teased her, saying wasn’t it the prettiest steer they ever saw.

Adele didn’t mind—it was the prettiest steer on the Clemson property.

She named it Beanie because it had a white patch on its flank in the shape of a kidney bean, and then she hardened her heart against it. Beanie was headed to market. To the dinner table. Once he was big enough, it would be wasteful to continue feeding him good grain.

When the time came to sell Beanie, Adele wanted to go along.

But her father said they’d get a better price if she didn’t.

“They won’t think he’s as good as he is if they know a little girl raised him.

” She bristled at being called a little girl.

She was almost as tall as her brother John, who was allowed to go along while Adele stayed home.

Where her mother would badger her to work on her sewing.

“I’m sorry, Dellie,” said her father, “but it’s the order of things.

You want as much for him as you can get, don’t you? ”

She did. She stayed behind.

Her feelings were soothed somewhat when Beanie sold for more per weight than John’s best steer did. She handed the money back to her father and asked for two more.

“Now, Adele, that’s enough,” said her mother.

Adele and her father started to protest. “No, Jim, I’m putting my foot down. Look at the state of her. Running around all day in overalls. Can’t sew a straight seam. Useless in the kitchen. She’s a young lady now, and she needs to behave like one.”

When her father dipped his chin, Adele knew all was lost. He would defer to his wife.

He usually did when it came to Adele and Pauline.

Just as her mother didn’t interfere with his plans and instructions for James and John.

Letting Adele raise Beanie had been an exception to the way things ran in the Clemson household. Her mother was not fond of exceptions.

Adele put her money in a cigar box and stashed it beneath her bed. Every now and then, especially if she’d had a bad day, she’d pull the box out, count the bills and the coins, and picture the calves they could buy.

The months that followed were full of bad days, and she frequently pulled the box from its hiding place.

Adele had complained to her best friends, Susanna and Franny, about her domestic imprisonment, but they’d been more perplexed than sympathetic.

Only the year before, Susanna and Franny used to ride over and play outside with her.

They had jumped from the haymow into the unbaled hay below.

They’d swung high and higher on the swing her father had hung from the barn rafters until the ropes went slack and they felt their stomachs drop.

But lately Susanna and Franny just wanted to sit in the parlor with their ankles crossed and their skirts unmussed, comparing embroidery patterns.

They seemed to have crossed some border, invisible to Adele, and taken up residence in the world of Pauline and their mothers.

Adele sensed her friends trying to drag her across the border too.

She knew she ought to want to follow them.

She ought to want to cook a good pot roast and sew a straight seam.

To fill a hope chest with hemstitched linens and lacy underthings.

To dream of marrying and setting up house.

She did still pine for Dickie Greer. His hair had darkened to the color of wet straw.

He’d grown into his teeth at last. But Adele was a good three inches taller than he was, and he wouldn’t even look at her.

His cheeks remained smooth, but no doubt he’d turn pimply and sweaty and gangly any day, then grow into a man who would expect her to spend her life sewing and cooking.

“Well, what else would he expect?” asked Susanna.

Susanna and Franny asked after James and John every time they came over.

Wondering where Adele’s brothers were. (Out working at whatever their father wanted them to do.

Out driving the motor truck, stringing barbed wire, herding cattle.) Wondering what their favorite foods were.

(Anything put before them—they were constantly ravenous, and their mother never limited their portions.) Wondering whether they’d be going to the spring dance.

(Who knew? Adele certainly didn’t plan to go herself. Dances didn’t interest her.)

She began lighting out for the barn when she heard them coming up the drive. Let her mother entertain or shoo them off. “Your friends just left,” said her mother as Adele crept in through the kitchen door. “They’re probably not too far down the road. You’ll catch them if you hurry.”

Adele picked up a paring knife and started on the potatoes. “That’s all right. I’d rather stay here.”

Her mother sighed. “Suit yourself. And brighten up, young lady. No one likes a moper.”

This was true. Adele didn’t like them herself. But how was she supposed to keep from moping when a lifetime stretched out before her with nothing fun in it? How would her mother like it if someone told her she could never play the piano again?

“You should be proud of yourself, Adele.” Her head snapped up.

This was something new. “I mean it. I see how you’ve been trying.

That apple pie you made last week was delicious.

And your quilt is coming along beautifully.

Granted, it’s a simple pattern, but the blocks are uniform. And the colors are pretty.”

She stopped peeling potatoes and stared at her mother, waiting for the “but.”

“So we don’t understand, your father and I, why you’re hiding from your friends and acting gloomy.”

“Well ...,” Adele started, but her mother wasn’t finished.

“It’s not good for your features. All this frowning is going to carve lines in your face.” Adele suddenly saw her path forward. Before her mother could offer her yet another jar of cold cream, she interrupted.

“I know just what you mean,” she said.

Now it was her mother’s turn to stare. “You do?”

“Yes. I don’t want to ruin my features. I don’t want,” she lied, “to be an old maid. But it’s hard to smile when the thing I want the most isn’t allowed.”

“Oh, Adele. Not that steer business again.”

“Please, Mother. Listen for a moment. What if someone took your piano away? What if they told you that you could never, ever play music again?”

Mrs. Clemson’s face paled. “Well, I don’t see how ... it’s not the same thing. The piano is an appropriate pastime for young ladies. If you had only let me teach you—”

“But way back a long time ago, I bet the piano wasn’t considered appropriate for young ladies to play.

I mean, we have all these songs from Bach and Mozart, but we don’t have any from lady composers from way back then.

” Her mother’s eyes flashed. She loved making up her own tunes, just treble trills over left-hand chord progressions—nothing approaching Bach or Mozart—but Adele knew she was proud of them.

“What if someone told you that you couldn’t play your songs anymore? Wouldn’t you mope?”