Part 14 (1/2)

your nose buried in books all day and night will be an old maid”

And that hat she was Thirty years old Unht An old maid Just as her mother had predicted

She took off her camisole, and her breasts seemed to fill the mirror She stared at therow larger and the breasts began to ache She cupped thehtly It seemed to ease the hurt She closed her eyes They were his hands

But they were not It had been five years since he had touched her and then gone away Her mother said that he had never intended toa word He was just not the kind of htened him She had realized that when it was too late

Still, she had never regretted knowing hi him For the first time she'd been aware that she was a woman, and she had learned to take joy in her own femaleness Her hbors were talking and that she could no longer hold up her head in the community From that point on it had been just a question of tiet away And after that it had been a different school in a different town alone home

There had been other ht on by the desperate physical clawing deep inside her But when her body was satisfied, a deep disgust replaced the longing Each tiain But it did And in the end, it had driven her fro awareness of the townspeople Especially the men The way they looked at her, like hounds after a bitch in heat There were no secrets in a small town

It was seventown just outside of Grafton When she saw the little house next to the school, she had known it would be different this tihouse, subject to the temptations and the s to stir her longing She would be content in her work This tiet soe into the heads of children who knew that they were there only until as found for them in the mines or in the mills Silently she accepted the fact that the boys would disappear by the tiirls would stay a little longer, but they too would be gone by the time they were twelve, thirteen or fourteen Still, there was never a shortage of children in the school Good year or bad, it was the only crop that never failed

That hy she had been surprised when she had looked up fro lunch hour and seen hiht heto withdraw his child from the school to put hi, almost six feet, wide-shouldered and deep-chested A few locks from the mass of unruly black hair fell toward the thick eyebrows over the deep-set startlingly blue eyes And the shaven blue-black beard outlined a widechin As he came into the classrooht

”Miss Andrews?” His voice was deep but gentle

”Yes?”

He took a few hesitant steps toward her ”Fins”

She almost s ins What can I do for you?”

He didn't come any closer ”Fm the clerk in Mr Smathers' office at the

''I been workin' fer hiinnin' to re'lize jes' how stupid I am I need more leamin'”

She stared at him in real surprise This was the first ti that anyone had ever admitted that to her Book leamin', as they called it, was considered a waste of tiins?” she asked

'I don' know,” he said Then, after a , I reckon/'

She se order”

His face was serious ”There's so s I don't know nothin' 'bout Since I been workin' in the office I heered people talkin' Politics, business, eeconos I kin read 'n' write 'n' figger some, but there are words I don' know the it real ?”

”Yes, ma'am,” he nodded ”Six years in a rural school But it stopped when I was fourteen, an' that's all there was”

She looked at hi to the library?”

”Yes, ma'am But the nearest one is in Grafton, an' I work six days an' it's closed on Sunday”

She nodded Grafton was almost sixteen et there during the week ”I don't knohat I can do,” she said

”Anything you kin do, ma'am, I would truly appreciate,” he said earnestly ”It's ht for aback into the classroom Lunchtime was over They looked at Daniel, curiosity on their normally unexpressive faces She looked up at him ”There is very little we can do now,” she said ”Class is starting again Can you come back later?”

''I work until six, ht after”

She nodded 'That will be all right, Mr Huggins”

”Thank you kindly, ma'am”

She watched him close the door behind him, then turned back to the class The children's eyes swiveled from the doorway back to her She heard a snicker froer children toward the back of the room She rapped the pointer sharply on her desk ”You in the back,” she snapped ”Open your books to page thirty, geography lesson number two”

It wasn't until the last of the children had left the classrooain She puzzled over what she could do for hi would be to find out how inning She went to the cupboard and took out a set of six-year final-examination papers and spread them on the desk in front of her

That had been six o Since then, much to her surprise and exciteht, inquisitive round soaked up rain They spent three evenings a week and Sunday afternoons together Daniel read voraciously and questioned endlessly Finally she had written to her e books For the first ti Somewhere in the back of her head she knew this was the way it should be

Gratefiilly, he had offered to pay her for the lessons She had refiised She was glad to have so to do with her spare tireed that he could reciprocate by cutting a week's supply of cordwood for both the school and her little house every Sunday

She had begun to look forward to Sundaysound of the axe in back of her house There was so about it A touch of home An echo from her childhood when her older brother used to perfore here No longer alone

For her, the sihout the winter and into the beginning ot spring Then, one sunny one to the

He had stripped to his waist The sweat streaht The muscles rippled as the axe rose and fell Transfixed, she watched the light tan cloth of his trousers darken with sweat across his buttocks and around his crotch

The sudden surge of heat and the rush of wetness to her groin took her by surprise She felt her legs begin to give away under her, and she held on to the sill to keep frorily she shook her head to clear it This was not the way it was supposed to be She closed her eyes tightly and kept theained her self-control

From that day on she was more consciously circumspect, more careful not to sit too close to hie If he are of hohy she was acting the way she did, he gave no sign Occasionally when her glance took him by surprise, his face would flush, but she attributed that to his nor when she had looked across the kitchen table and caught hiun to creep up into his face

''Daniel,'' she asked, without thinking, ''how old are you?'

The flush grew deeper He hesitated ”Eighteen, ma'am,” he lied

She was silent for a moment ”You look older” She lied too ”Fm twenty-five”

He nodded

'Don't you have any friends?” she asked

'Some,” he answered

”Girlfriends, I mean”

”No, irl?”