She liked Kansas best. She wished they’d go back to Kansas. She liked the smell of the wind there. But Pop hadn’t wanted to join with the Free-Soilers And then the slavery men had shot up the town And killed the best horse they had. That had settled Pop. He said something about a plague on both of your houses And moved along. So now they were hiders here And whenever you wanted to ask Pop about the war All he said was that same old thing about the plague. She mustn’t call him Pop⁠—that was movers’-talk. She must call him Father, the way Mom, Mother wanted. But it was hard to remember. Mom talked a lot About old times back in the East and Grandmother’s house. She couldn’t remember an East. The East wasn’t real. There was only the dusty road and moving along. Although she knew that Mom had worn a silk dress And gone to a ball, once. There was a picture of Pop And Mom, looking Eastern, in queer old Eastern clothes. They weren’t white trash. She knew how to read and figure. She’d read