If these children have been their parents' gifts and teachers, then these stories shared by struggling but resilient parents is a gift to all of us. They hold a mirror to our own perceptions and to the influence—good and bad—that we can have on those we are trying to help.

[T]he occasional trees, the stone-heaps, the marching fences, the stumps, the saplings, the cows, and the feeding sheep.

I went through a period of itinerancy in my youth.

Then yours she will never be! You are banished her presence; her mother has opened her eyes to your designs, and she is now upon her guard against them.