Elsa tried to hold back as much as she could for the winter, but after so many months of deprivation, she found her children’s joy at supper-time and their full bellies to be her undoing.

Many of the camp’s inhabitants, including Jeb and the boys, had moved on, looking for an extra few days’ work in fields farther away, but Elsa had decided to stay put, as had Jean and her daughters.

It was time for Loreda to be back in school.

On this Saturday morning, Elsa got out of bed and swept the tent’s dirt floor. She didn’t know how it was possible, but dirt grew overnight, in the dark, like mushrooms. She swept the debris outside and opened the tent flaps to let in fresh air.

Outside, a layer of cool gray fog lay over the camp, blurring the sea of tents. She pulled an old newspaper from the salvaged fruit box where they stored every scrap of paper they could find, and read the local news as the coffee brewed.

The aroma brought Loreda stumbling out of the tent, her dark hair a snarl of tangles, her bangs a fringe well past her jawline. “You let me sleep,” she growled.

“No work today,” Elsa said. “You start school on Monday.”

Loreda poured herself a cup of coffee. She pulled the bucket closer to the stove and sat down. “I’d rather pick cotton.”

Elsa wished she had Rafe’s gift for words, his eloquent way of shaping a dream. Loreda needed that now, she needed some spark to relight the fire she’d had before her father’s abandonment and hardship had snuffed it out.

Unfortunately, Elsa didn’t know much about dreaming, but she knew about school and the hardships that came from not fitting in. “I have an idea,” she said.

Loreda gave her a skeptical look

“We are going to have breakfast and go somewhere.”

“My joy is uncontainable.”

Elsa couldn’t help smiling, even as her daughter’s hopelessness wounded her.

Elsa made a quick breakfast of oatmeal cooked in canned milk and topped with sugar for the kids, and then hurried them to get dressed. By nine o’clock, they were headed out from the camp, walking through a brown field draped in diaphanous gray fog.

“Where we goin’, Mommy?” Ant asked, holding her hand.

She loved that he still held her hand in public.

“To town.”

“Oooh,” Loreda said. “What fun we’ll have standing in line for the few dollars we earned this week.”

Elsa elbowed her daughter. “No member of the Explorers Club is allowed to be unhappy on a Saturday adventure. New rule.”

“Who made you President?” Loreda said.

“I did.” Ant giggled. “Mo-mmy for President, Mo-mmy for President,” he chanted, marching on the soft, wet grass.

Elsa pressed a hand to her heart. “It is such an honor. Why . . . I never expected such a thing. A woman President.”

Loreda finally laughed and the mood lifted.

They turned onto the main road and walked all the way to Welty. By the time they reached the quaint little town, with its cotton-boll welcome sign, the fog had been burned away by a surprisingly warm sun. The mountains in the distance showed a new layer of snow. The trees along Main Street displayed their autumn finery.

“Wait here,” Elsa said outside the Welty Farms office. Inside, she got into line and waited her turn to cash her chit.

“Here yah go,” the man at the desk said, taking her chit worth twenty dollars and giving her eighteen dollars in exchange. Elsa rolled the money as tightly as she could, mentally calculating the total of their savings. It seemed like a lot now, but she knew it wouldn’t be much by February.

But she wasn’t going to think of that today. She returned to the street, where the children stood beneath a lamppost, waiting.

It was one of those sharp-as-a-tack moments when she saw them: Loreda, thin as a chicken bone in a threadbare dress and shoes that didn’t fit and long, raggedly growing-out hair; Ant, scrawny and with dirty hair no matter how hard Elsa tried to keep him clean, still—thankfully—fitting into Buster’s old shoes.

Elsa forced a smile as she walked out to meet them. Taking Ant’s hand, she headed down Main Street, where the shops were opening for the day. She smelled coffee and freshly baked pastries as she passed the diner, and the familiar smell of baled hay and bags of grain as they passed the feed store.

There it was: the destination she’d had in mind when they left the camp this morning.

Betty Ane’s Beauty Shop.

Elsa had seen the pretty little salon every time she came to town, seen well-dressed women coming out with stylish hair.

Elsa walked toward the salon. It was housed in an old-fashioned bungalow with a fenced yard out front.

Loreda stopped, shook her head. “No, Mom. You know how they’ll treat us.”

Elsa knew better than to make another hollow promise; she also knew that no matter how often you were knocked down, you had to keep getting up. She tightened her hold on Ant’s hand and opened the gate.

Loreda wasn’t following. Elsa knew it and kept going. Come on, Loreda, be brave.

Elsa and Ant walked up to the front door and Elsa opened it.

A bell jangled overhead.

Inside, the salon filled what had once been the bungalow’s parlor. There were two pink chairs stationed in front of mirrors. Cords lay snaked on the floor, gathered up at a machine in the corner. Framed photographs of movie stars lined the pink walls.