“She rummaged in a battered bag beside her, brought out a dirty spoon, and began to taste the beans as if they were one of the jams of paradise.”

“My father was a Brownie, Sir;
My mother was a Fairy.
The notion had occurred to her,
The children would be happier,
If they were taught to vary.

The notion soon became a craze;
And, when it once began, she
Brought us all out in different ways -
One was a Pixy, two were Fays,
Another was a Banshee.”

“You have not been sticking your dirty fingers in my sauce,’’ Eve said, and pointed her wooden spoon
at him.
He quickly took the finger out of his mouth. ‘‘First off, they’re not dirty. I licked them first.”

“Sure,” she said, and hugged the laptop bag closer. “What could go wrong?”
Michael’s eyes flashed to meet hers in the rearview mirror.
Besides everything, I mean,” she said.”

“I asked her about life, and it was as if she rummaged around in a dusty chest to get me the answers.”

“She put a wedge beside my heart
And then she brought the mallet down
She sang no song to guide her work
I lost my heart without a sound”

“Still sneering, she looked at me quickly, and let out the clutch. I was thrown against the seat, then against the windshield. We were jammed between two other cars. She banged into one, and then into the other, her way of letting me know what a fool I had been.”

“All of these battered husbands are still with their wives. When a woman stays with a man who batters, we provide shelters to encourage her to escape. If she decides not to escape, we say she is a victim of “Battered Woman Syndrome."”

“Sure, politics ain't bean-bag. 'Tis a man's game, an' women, childer, cripples an' prohybitionists 'd do well to keep out iv it.”

“The name she gave was Caroline
Daughter of a miner
Her ways were free
It seemed to me
That sunshine walked beside her”