I was too small to be tender. I liked my power. I was like a child with a new whip, which it goes about cracking everywhere, not caring against what.
I could not wind it up and put it away. Men were curious creatures, who liked me, and I could never tell why. Only one thing made me unhappy about it. I could not bear that they had left her for me. I liked her great dreamy blue eyes, I liked her slow walk and drawl. When I saw her sitting among the men, she seemed to me much too good to be among them. I would have given her all their compliments if she would once have smiled at me as she smiled at them, with all her face breaking into warmth, with her dimples and flashing teeth. But I knew it never could be. I felt sure she hated me, that she wished I was dead or that I had never come to the village.
