Flushed and resentful, Durkin stood waiting for his wife to advance toward him across the yard. She had been beautiful once, but she now only reminded him of a nag set out to pasture after years of usefulness about the farm. She was as handy about the farm as she was about a stove, but that didn't mean he had to be grateful to her. He'd taken her in and married her, hadn't he? A woman of forty with two kids, a complaining woman who was always trying to meddle in his affairs. "You're back early, Will!" Helen Durkin said. "Yeah," he grunted, eyeing her bitterly. "Did you buy the fertilizer, and the barbed wire?" He shook his head, his lips writhing back from his teeth in cruel derision. "I bought something better," he said. His voice was harsh, edged with mockery. "A present for the kids." * * * * * Durkin reached into the car as he spoke, and hauled out the doll house. He set it down on the stony soil directly in front of him, and folded his arms, his eyes darting toward his stepson in surly challenge. "Come here, Robbie!" he called out. "Look what I've got for you!" Robert scrambled to his feet with a startled gasp, and Emily turned to look at her mother in bewilderment, Durkin glanced triumphantly at his wife, stepped back, and waited for the children to approach. Robert came forward slowly, stark incredulity in his stare. His sister followed at a less cautious pace, her fear swallowed up by the miracle that had taken place before her very eyes. Robert spoke first. "Golly, it's a little house." "A doll house!" Emily elaborated, falling to her knees, and staring in through the diamond-bright windows at a sight that made her catch her breath. In a room on the ground floor four dolls sat at a circular table. Before each was a knife and fork, a tiny plate and a double serving of wax vegetables. The husband doll wore a stiff, ill-fitting store suit, the wife a checkered gingham dress, and the two children blue denim overalls. The parents were wooden dolls, but Durkin had been forced to purchase the children separately, and insert them in the house. The children were made of some new-fangled plastic material which Durkin intensely disliked. But very lifelike dolls they were, and just the right size to lend wings to the illusion of a happy family about to break bread together. "That's me!" Emily cried excitedly. She raised a window, reached inside, and lifted "herself" out. The doll had dark hair and brown eyes, and Emily was an ash blond. But childhood is not a time for carping, and it has been well established that a completely unspoiled imagination can be sent soaring by a fancied resemblance in the twinkling of an eye. "That's me, isn't it, Mommy?" Emily insisted. "Isn't it?" She displayed the doll proudly to her mother, her eyes shining with unshakable conviction.