* * * * *

Looking out from our back window, I could see Flora lolling, and I would
read or write a little and then the unrest would become too strong and I
would go down to her. Soon two potato knives would be working.

"Come and sit by me in the hammock."

I liked that invitation ... she was plump to heaviness and sitting in
the hammock crushed us pleasantly together.

This almost daily propinquity goaded my adolescent hunger into an
infatuation for her,--I thought I was in love with her,--though I never
quite reconciled myself to the cowlikeness with which she chewed gum.

She was as free and frank of herself as I was curious and timid.

"Johnnie, what small feet and little hands you have ... you're a
regular aristocrat."

* * * * *

A pause.

I give her a poem written to her. She reads it, letting her knife stick
in a half-peeled potato. She looks up at me out of heavy-lidded eyes.

* * * * *