Each bite was a loud smack, like a breaking leaf. The bullfrogs had started bellyaching, like Emmett with a gas attack. It was amazing how long you could sit out in the wild and still not see many animals. They know I'm here, she thought. Even the squirrels know I'm here.
Squirrels are always on the other side of the tree.
You go around the tree and they sneak around to the other side. That's why you need a squirrel dog to hunt squirrels. Granddad Smith had told her. S AM lives in a world of things, not of abstractions, and sentences like these communicate her forthright responses in language that cats and dogs can understand. She also knows exactly what she wants to say, whether about the difficult process of growing up, the daily routines of country people or the larger national dramas that unite all sorts of people.