if she had tried before , she might have gotten something , but because he would n't speak , she would n't speak eitherdand to him , she realized , the pastdthose relatives , those red dirt roads , those stores , those dirt floor cabins with glassless windows ungraced by a single simple curtsey of a curtain , those incidents of hurt and harassment , those neighbor children who went dressed in smocks which had begun life as flour sacksdall of that was for him buried away like dead teeth beneath perfect blinding white caps .