need of Evelyn Walker's friendship (82)." It appears that Gloss attempted to show a little of Lydia's emotions, but though her point was expressed clearly, it was said far too dispassionately for the reader to care that Lydia was crying over the lost babies and loneliness.After a little while, in the mud next to the trail, the bear's tracks swung west, and following them she came down to the North Fork of the Meacham by a rough, straight way. The trail beside the creek was beaten flat and wide in hardened old mud; the only marks showing on it had set there after the last heavy rain. She looked for a little while without expectation, then gave it up. She had thought of going over to Tim Whiteaker's. I have had a bear after my goats. I wondered if you had had him around here at all. When she could not get it to sound unafraid, she rode the mule back along the Jump-Off Creek and home and afterward, for two or three days, slept poorly with the loaded shotgun on the little rug below her bed. (68)This excerpt is a wonderful example of both Gloss's descriptive detail and the lack of emotion in a situation where it should certainly be present. Here, Lydia is tracking a bear that came after her goats; any sane person would be feeling a bit more heart pounding fear, or something of the like, but, as typical of Gloss, this emotion is nearly omitted from her writing.Gloss painted a clear, believable picture of an independent pioneer woman's struggle to survive, but in her painstaking detail, she neglected a vital element of storytelling – character emotion....
