[JulieRNR21]

Parsi:

Perhaps they removed the 'stump' because it was an eyesore; or so that area could be tilled & planted or the author simply created their working together as a 'male bonding' device.

Maybe Marian & Shane were attracted to each other but both had too much character & loyality to Joe to act on it. I think you are seeing way too many 'sexual overtones' in the story.....maybe you should take a cold shower....LOL

[another cricket]

Maybe Marian & Shane were attracted to each other but both had too much character & loyality to Joe to act on it.

Oh they did. In that parsy has it right.

"We have battered down words that might have been spoken between us and that was as it should be."

He is wrong on the weirder stuff that he sees but dead right on this. That is what makes Shane's sacrifice so powerful.

a.cricket

[parsifal]

Maybe. But I got to thinking today about the end of the book. How did Marian keep Joe "down on the farm." She took him over to a "pole" that Shane had planted. She told Joe to try to wiggle the pole, but he couldn't. In other words, Joe could not uproot Shanes' very rigid pole planted in the fertile soil.

Strangely, this made Joe feel better. Now if you wuz a psychologist and somebody came to you and told this was a dream that they had been having, what would you say? parsy the diagnostic.