if you'd been a sister.
"The questions I want to ask you are: What do you do in Arizona, and are you ever coming home, and do you ride horseback, and don't you like to be with lots of people instead of just a few that someone else chooses for you, and what would you think of a boy who was afraid of snakes? If you say that he's a sensible boy -- that's what grandmother would say -- I'll never like you, never.
"If I only knew you and you were nice like the boys in the books I read, how many things we could talk over! I could ask you about all the things that really matter -- the things that grandmother won't even let me mention. Thomas, I'm really not too young to be told things. I'd grow up all in a minute if I could be with girls my own age. But I don't expect you'll understand, so I won't write any more. I've said some of the things that I wanted to and that makes me feel a little bit better."
She hesitated over the ending, and finally decided just to sign her name. Then without reading
