Donna Tartt reads from True Grit… I said, "I would like to sell those ponies back to you that my father bought. We don’t want the ponies. We don’t need them." "That hardly concerns me," he said. "Your father bought these ponies and paid for them and there is an end of it. I have the bill of sale." I said, "I want three hundred dollars for Papa’s saddle horse that was stolen." He said, "You will have to take that up with the man who has the horse." "Tom Chaney stole it while it was in your care," said I. "You are responsible." Stonehill laughed at that. He said, "I admire your sand, but I believe you will find I am not liable for such claims. Let me say too that your valuation of the horse is high by about two hundred dollars." "I will take it to law," said I. "We will see if a widow and her three small children can get fair treatment in the courts of this city." "You have no case." "Lawyer J. Noble Daggett of Dardanelle, Arkansas, may think otherwise. Also a jury."… "You are impudent." "I do not wish to be, sir, but I will not be pushed about when I am in the right."

Reed: Roy Blount, Jr. Blount: She is trading hard in a way that real people, no doubt, traded hard. She’s using every advantage she has, including playing the widow and orphan card. I mean, she’ll use what she has to. She would never cry; you would never see her resort to tears. But she will pull out every card she needs to play other than that. Reed: Tope Folarin. Folarin: She kind of bullies him into that position, and eventually he acquiesces and does what she wants him to do. And so for me it’s a pivotal scene in the book, because here is where we really get a full sense of Mattie’s persona, her character, the force of her will."