First Published: 1958.
Type of Plot: Ghost story.
Time of Work: 1930-1950.
Setting: London, rural Great Britain, and the British colonies in Africa.
Characters: Needle, Kathleen, John (Skinny), George.
Genres: Short fiction, Ghost story.
Subjects: Values, Love or romance, Interracial relationships, Religion, Catholics or Catholic Church, Life and death.
This episodic story begins with an account of how Needle got her unusual nickname: by reaching into a haystack on which she and her friends, George, Kathleen, and John, were playing and accidentally impaling the fleshy part of her thumb with a needle that lay hidden in the hay. After some minor first aid, George marks the occasion by taking a photograph, which serves throughout the story as a memento of the youthful friendship that these people shared — a friendship that survives, although in modified form, through a lengthy period of change as they mature.