He sank into a chair. "That's good. It's all right then."
"I shouldn't go as far as to say that." She resumed her knitting. "They read my letters," she announced in a loud whisper.
"What letters?" he asked.
"Now Almon, don't pry."
"I'm sorry, Mother. I only thought there might be something I could do about it."
"Don't be ridiculous, Almon. What could a boy do about such things?"
He was silent, despondent. "Oh, Mother...." He wanted to say that it was too easy to dismiss all questions as having too many answers or none at all—to say that the simplest questions, the ones apparently most irrelevant or meaningless were least susceptible of reply. What he wanted to say was true enough—or rather, it was true, but not enough. There were no answers, yet everything was an answer of sorts. "Oh, Mother," he said, "I don't know."
"Of course you don't," she agreed sharply. "Here, wind my wool for me."
Obediently he picked up the strand lying on her lap and began looping it around her outstretched hands. The yarn was kinked and lusterless. "Where do you get your wool?" he asked conversationally.
She cackled. "Now dear boy, don't try to catch me on one as old as that. I simply will not say from the sheep I count when I'm going to sleep. I just won't."