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took a puff on his pipe, found it dead, fished a horseshoe nail from his shirt pocket, and began scraping out the dottle into an ashtray. "Charles, I'm not your father," he began after a thoughtful silence, "but I think I know what he'd say if he were here to advise you at this moment. He'd say this is one of those occasions where you have to be a businessman first and a friend second. As for me, I'll respect you as much for making a prudent business decision as I will for being loyal, so tell Jeffcoat yes. It's what you came here for, isn't it? Because you thought the town would prosper, and you, too, along with it? Well, you can't do that by turning down paying customers."
      Charles turned his gray eyes to Frankie. "Frankie, what do you say?"
      "I don't care if Papa doesn't care."
      "Emily?" He lifted his eyes to her and she had difficulty separating her distaste for Jeffcoat from the realization that Papa was probably right. Was she the only one in the place aggravated by the entire situation? Well, she hadn't their magnanimity, and she wouldn't pretend she did! With a flash of annoyance, she shot from her chair toward the front door. "Oh, I don't care!" she called back. "Do what you want!" A moment later the front screen door slammed.
      Emily's peevishness put an end to the games in the parlor. Charles rose and said, "I'll go out and talk to her."
      Edwin said, "Frankie, make sure you bury those fish guts before you go to bed." He went up to spend the remainder of the evening with his wife.
      The porch wrapped around three sides of the house. Charles found Emily on the west arm, sitting on a wicker settee, facing the Big Horns and the paling peach sky.
      She heard Charles's footsteps approach but continued leaning her head against the wall as he perched on the edge of the settee beside her, making the wicker snap. He joined his hands loosely between his knees and studied them.
      "You're upset with me," he said quietly.
      "I'm upset with life, Charles, not with you."
      "With me too, I can tell."
      She relented and rolled her head his way, studying him. She had grown up in an era when most men wore facial hair, yet she would never grow accustomed to it on Charles. His sandy brown mustache and beard were thick and neatly sculptured, yet she missed the clean, strong lines it hid. He had a fine jaw and a good chin, too attractive to hide beneath all that nap. The beard and mustache made him look older than he really was. Why would a man of twenty-one want to look like one approaching thirty? She stifled the critical thoughts and studied his eyes—intelligent gray eyes watching her now with the hurt carefully concealed.
      "No," she assured him more softly, "not with you. With all the work, and the worry about Mother, and now this new man coming to town and competing with Papa. It's all very upsetting." She turned her gaze back to the Big Horns and sighed before going on. "And sometimes I miss Philadelphia so badly I think I'll simply die."
      "I know. Sometimes I do, too."
      They watched the sky take on a blue tint and eventually Charles inquired, "What do you miss most?"
      "Oh…" She missed so many things—at that moment she could not choose one. "The skating parties and the round of visiting on New Year's Day and the summertime picnics. All the things we used to do with our friends. Here all we do is work and sleep, then work again and sleep again. There's no … no gaiety, no social life."
      Charles remained silent. Finally, he said, "I miss it a lot, too."
      "What do you miss most?"
      "My family."
      "Oh, Charles…" She felt tactless for having asked when she knew how lonely she herself would feel if she were suddenly two thousand miles away from Papa and Mother and Frankie. "But we're here for you anytime you need us," she added, because it was true. Because she could not imagine her home without Charles there most evenings and Sundays. Too late she saw the appeal in his eye and knew