"It was not defiance only that made me study her [Martha] so, although our cat-and-mouse games did become a kind of battle. It was also because she with a deliberation bordering on the unseemly, set herself apart from what a woman should be and was as surprising as a flood or a brush fire. She had a will, and a demeanor, as forceful as a church deacon's. And she had a tongue, the sharpness of which would gut a man as quick as a Gloucester fisherman could clean a lamprey eel" (Chapter 1, p. 7).

"For all Grandmother was soft and gentle, she was also persuasive, and like water wearing down rock she worked on Mother until she agreed to attend [church] services on the morrow. Mother said under her breath, 'I'd rather eat stones'" (Chapter 1, p. 12).

"Henry was 13, slender and dark. To my mind he was a furtive and...