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can’t agree on a selling price.”
    On the off chance that those quarrelsome siblings are finally ready to deal, he phones the oldest Hancock son after Ash leaves and bluntly tells him that the longer the house sits empty, the greater the chances of vandalism or deterioration.
    It’s a timely push. The very next day, they agree on an asking price.
    “I’ve been working on them two years, and now they want the money yesterday,” Clark says when he calls Ash and sets up an appointment to view the place. “I hear the Hancock daughter’s already ordered a brand-new 1946 Cadillac. It’s a fair price, though, and I’ll have to list it in tomorrow’s Ledger , so if you want it, you’d better get your offer in today.”
    It’s really more than Ash can afford, but Zell reminds him of the rent money from her half of the farm and she’s sure their fathers will help them.
    Only two blocks from First Baptist Church of Dobbs and the shops on Main Street, the location is so desirable that it will not stay on the market long. While less imposing than the Stephenson residence a few blocks farther from Main Street, the house has a warm and welcoming charm that their more formal childhood home lacks and Zell has fantasized about living there ever since she was a little girl.
    It’s too big for them now—“Four bedrooms,” Zell says, happily visualizing the children who will fill those rooms. “We’ll grow into it, though.”
    Sue knows it will break her sister’s heart if the house slips away when it is almost in their grasp, so to end the argument, she slides into the car, firmly slams the door, and heads toward Cotton Grove and the farm they inherited from their grandmother. The car is ten years old, the tires are worn, and the heater no longer works, but it lasted the girls through the war and Sue suspects that they will find the keys of a new one under the Christmas tree she plans to bring home today.
    In truth, she’s glad to be going alone. As much as she loves Zell, she is tired of hearing about bridesmaid dresses, whether the word obey should be left in the vows, the reception menu, and endless dithering over the honeymoon. New York and Broadway shows or a picturesque mountain inn?
    Now with a house to furnish, it will be carpets and curtains and whether to paint or paper those four bedrooms.
    If she were honest, Sue tells herself, she would admit that there’s a touch of jealousy in her impatience with Zell’s wedding chatter. Zell knows what she wants out of life and is diving into it headfirst, while she has nothing. Nothing she can put into words anyhow.
    When her parents ask about her plans after she and Zell come home from Goldsboro, all she can say is, “I want to live ! I want to make a difference. To matter !”
    “You’re not planning to become a missionary, are you?” asks an alarmed Mrs. Stephenson. Not that she thinks missionary work isn’t noble. After all, they are Missionary Baptists. But Baptists , not—God forbid!—Catholics. (At thirteen, Sue briefly toyed with becoming a nun and going to Africa to work in a leper colony.)
    “Why not try the law?” suggests her father. He will never admit that he favors one daughter over the other, but he worries that her restlessness might take her away from Dobbs. Even though Goldsboro is only fifty miles away, gas rationing has not allowed frequent visits and the big house felt lonely without their lively debates over the dinner table. “Women can do almost anything these days and the way you like to argue, you could do very well in a courtroom.”
    Mrs. Stephenson frowns. “Please, Richard. It’s bad enough that you keep defending every piece of trash in the county. Don’t encourage our daughter to join you.”
    “Now, Catherine,” he teases. “We’d give her nothing but respectable civil cases.”
    Sue laughs at that. “Oh no, you wouldn’t. It’s murderers and rapists or nothing.”
    “Really, Sue!” In a perfect world, no child of