Autumn | Page 9

sat hidden by vines which gave forth an odor sweeter than honey, the night was visible, pale and full of shadows. To the boy beside her, timid and ardent, the silence of her parents seemed, like the night, to be full of opinions.
"Well . . . shall we go for a ride?"
Anna called in to her mother, "I'm going for a ride with Tom."
"Don't be late," said her mother.
The two went down the path, and climbed into the buggy; soon the yellow lantern, swung between its wheels, rolled like a star down the road to Milford.
"Why so quiet, Tom?"
"Am I, Ann?"
"Angry?"
"Just thinking . . . so to say."
"Oh." And she began to hum under her breath.
"I was just thinking," he said again.
Then, solemnly, he added, "about things."
"About you and me," he wound up finally.
When she offered him a penny for his thoughts, he said, "Well . . . nothing."
"Dear me."
At his hard cluck the wagon swept forward. "You know what I was thinking," he said.
"Do I?" asked Anna innocently.
"Don't you?"
"Perhaps."
So they went on through the dark, under the trees, to Milford. When their little world, smelling of harness, came to a halt in front of the drug store, they descended to quench their thirst with syrup, gas, milk, and lard. Then, with dreamy faces, they made their way to the movies.
Now their hands are clasped, but they do not notice each other. For they do not know where they are; they imagine they are acting upon the screen. It is a mistake which charms and consoles them both. "How beautiful I am," thinks Anna drowsily, watching Miss Gish. "And how elegant to be in love."
Later Anna will say to herself: "Other people's lives are like that."
On the way home she sat smiling and dreaming. The horse ran briskly through the night mist; and the wheels, rumbling over the ground, turned up the thoughts of simple Thomas Frye, only to plow them under again.
"Ann," he said when they were more than half-way home, "don't you care for me . . . any more?" As he spoke, he cut at the black trees with his long whip.
"Yes, I do, Tom."
"As much as you did?"
"Just as much."
"More, Ann?"
"Maybe."
"Then . . . will you? Say, will you, Ann?"
"I don't know, Tom. Don't ask me. Please."
"But I've got to ask you," he cried.
"Oh, what's the good." And she looked away, to where the faint light of the lantern fled along beside them, over the trees.
"Is it," he said slowly, "is it no?"
"Well, then--no."
Thomas was silent. At last he asked, "Is it a living man, Ann?"
"No," said Anna.
"Is it a dead man, now?"
Anna moved uneasily. "No, it isn't," she said. "'Tisn't anybody."
But Thomas persisted. "Would it be Noel, if he warn't dead in France?"
"Maybe."
"You're not going to keep on thinking of him, are you?"
"I don't plan to."
"Then--" and Thomas came back to the old question once more, "why not?"
"Why not what?"
"Take me, then?"
"Well," she said vaguely, "I'm too young."
"I'd wait."
"'Twouldn't help any. I want so much, Tom . . . you couldn't give me all I want."
He said, "What is it I couldn't give you?"
"I don't know, Tom . . . I want what other people have . . . experiences . . ."
At his bitter laugh, she was filled with pity for herself. "Is it so funny?" she asked. "I don't care."
"Whatever's got into you, Ann?"
"I don't know there's anything got into me beyond I don't want to grow old--and dry. . . ."
"I don't see as you can help it any."
But Anna was tipsy with youth: she swore she'd be dead before she was old.
"Hush, Ann."
"Why should I hush?" she asked. "It's the truth."
"It's a lie, that's what it is," said Thomas.
"Do you hate me, Tom?" she said. And she sat looking steadily before her.
"I don't know what's got into you. You act so queer."
"I want to be happy," she whispered.
"Then . . . you can do as you like for all of me."
But as they rode along in silence, wrapped in mist, she drew closer to him, all her reckless spirit gone. "There . . . you've made me cry," she said, and put her hand, cold and moist, into his.
"Aren't you going to kiss me, Tom?"
He slapped the reins bitterly across his horse's back. "What's the good of that?" he asked, in turn.
"Perhaps," she said faintly, "there isn't any. Oh, I don't know . . . what's the difference?"
And so they rode on in silence, with pale cheeks and strange thoughts.

IV
MR. JEMINY BUILDS A HOUSE OUT OF BOXES
Mr. Jeminy liked to call on Mrs. Wicket, whose little cottage, at the edge of the village, on the way to Milford, had belonged to Eben Wicket for nearly fifty years. Now it belonged to the widow of Eben's son, John. Mr. Jeminy remembered John