She grew up feeling like an outsider to her family, especially her mother's suicide. Lucille and Ruthie very often felt “cruelly banished” (Robinson 81). As Lucille tries to make friends with other students at school, Ruthie realizes how withdrawn she herself has become. Ruthie grows up feeling like she doesn't belong, and when this feeling is reinforced by the townspeople's initial indifferent attitude, Ruthie makes the decision to follow Sylvie and become a transient. In Ruthie's case, it was age that affected her more than gender. Neighbors were quick to make sure Sylvie was stable enough to care for Ruthie. Robinson writes that Lucille and Ruthie were frightened when they first “heard of the state's interest in the welfare of children” (68). The laws created to protect her made her feel unsafe and that was what drove her to follow them