Coming of age

Only nine years old during the main part of the narrative, Miranda is not yet interested in the stuff of womanhood, like her older sister Maria's violet talcum powder or wearing pretty dresses. When she puts on the ring her brother Paul finds among the empty graves in their family's cemetery, however, she begins to feel differently. Before, she had been content to play in overalls and a hired-man's hat, "scratching around aimlessly and pleasurably as any young animal"; now, wearing the ring, she suddenly feels an urge to "put on the thinnest, most becoming dress she owned, with a big sash, and sit in a wicker chair under the trees." It is as if she starts the transformation from child to woman.

That transformation is pushed further along when Miranda sees the pregnant belly of the rabbit her brother shoots. Paul takes the unborn baby...