affair because she denied him conjugal relations, what she refers to as her "secret sin." She and Portius have declared an unspoken truce and live together amicably again, except that they never travel in each other's company if they both have to go to the same place. "Oh, all was cake and pie between him and her, but seldom did they go anywhere together. No, if both had to go to the same place, they were never ready at the same time. . . Oh, everything was fine as silk between them again. You couldn't tell a lick anything had ever been wrong, not when they were in the cabin. But when they went outside there was just this small thing between them for the sake of feeling right in front of other folks. It couldn't be . . . that she had almost let Portius off, but not quite?" The story of the Wheeler family is continued in the final work of the trilogy, The Town. Writing style Richter conducted extensive research in order to convey in his writing the mode of speech of the early 19th-century pioneers of the Ohio Valley, many of whom originally emigrated from Pennsylvania and the Upper South. (For example, they referred to "trees" as "butts".) In order to write a dialect to convey a historic sense, Richter used rare collections of old manuscripts, letters, and records that documented the speech of early 18th- and 19th-century residents. His sources included Historical Collections of Ohio by Henry Howe and Pioneer Pennsylvania, a compilation of archaic Pennsylvanian slang by Henry W. Shoemaker. In addition, he interviewed scholars and former neighbors of pioneer heritage whom he had known in his home state of Pennsylvania and in the Ohio Valley. Richter wrote that this early form of spoken language no longer survived in the Ohio Valley. He learned that it was found in some areas of the South and Southwestern parts of the country. He noted that, although it is often mistaken for a "native" form of speech there, it should be considered "a living reminder of the great mother tongue of early America." Major themes Family Sayward values family above all else. She expresses a strong loyalty to the ties of kinship, even if this loyalty is not always returned. Several members of her birth family, such as her father Worth, her brother Wyitt, and her sister