today Pete didn’t notice her; he kept right on talking to Ellen.
“I’ve lived here all my days,” he declared, “and no war ain’t going to push me out.”
“This war’s different,” said Ellen. “It’s pushed plenty others out, folks with money behind them, outside folk with richer land than ourn. The paper tells how they’re selling their stock and moving to town because of the loss of their boys or their hired help. Good farmers, too; men that’s able to get around.”
“You mocking my flesh?” asked Pete.
“No,” said Ellen, “there’s no call to mock it. It ain’t your fault you can scarce move from wherever you’re at.”
“A man has two ways of getting around,” said Pete; “one’s his feet, t’other’s his brain. My brain can walk faster’n any of them farmers you been reading about can run.”
“Huh!” sniffed Ellen. “Then why don’t you send your brain out to do the milking along of the rest of the chores, so Lot can get on with the plowing and planting?”
“There you go,” said Pete, “reading my inner mind. That’s just what I’m aiming to do.” He swiveled his eyes until they took hold of Meg. “Meg, who’s the huskiest lad in school?”
Meg thought fast. Johannath Storm was sturdy and by far the nicest boy, but he wasn’t the huskiest; besides, she didn’t know yet what old Pete was up to. “Reds Truman’s son,” she answered. “Teller, they call him, but he’s dumb. Rising eighteen and he’s only a sophomore at high.”
“Dumbness won’t hurt none,” decided Pete. “If you’ll fetch him out to see me no later than this afternoon, I’ll give ye two bits in real money.”
“I’ll bring him,” said Meg.
After breakfast she started for school. From the house, the lane swept wide of the fields to a drawgate, seldom closed. Then it turned sharp to the left, but should you face about, you could make out the masked entrance to an abandoned belt road that hugged the fences of Yocum Farm. Along all its length it was shrouded behind a tangled curtain of honeysuckle and greenbrier, and off it broke a fair maze of mysterious paths that dipped and spread through Oxhead Woods. But the lane she followed also held its share of mystery. Tightly enclosed by crowding laurel, holly and second-growth forest, it became a tunnel where silence was imprisoned. Here no screams could be heard; not on account of distance, but because sound couldn’t get out. At the lane’s end you didn’t just reach the County Road, you burst into it, drew a long breath and perched on the milk-can platform to wait for the school bus.
How was she going to corner Teller? Though they had seen each other often enough, they were scarcely acquainted. He reminded her of the Yocum dog, Rumble, who lived on a chain under the apple tree at home, his eyes red with perpetual rage, his skin the color of sand, and under it you could see every move of his big bones and knotted muscles. Teller was like that, and the only chance she would have at him would be the lunch hour, when he would rather play softball than eat.
That gave her an idea, and when he came rushing out, she stepped in front of him and let him knock her down.
“My!” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “My, but you’re clumsy!”
“Me clumsy!” cried Teller wrathfully. “You buck into me blinder’n a scairt rabbit and it’s me that’s clumsy!”
“I know,” said Meg with a sudden smile. “It was my fault. I did it on purpose because I wanted to ask you a favor.”
He swept his eyes up and down her, and ended by trading a leer for her smile. She made note that his sandy hair stood up in a brush between his big ears, for all the world like Rumble with his hackles raised.
“I guess you rate a favor,” decided Teller. “Name it.”
“Nothing much,” she said. “It’s for Pete Yocum out to the farm. He asked me to fetch you there this afternoon.”
“Can’t today,” said Teller. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Meg gave him a wide-eyed look tinged with sadness. “Sorry,” she said. “Tomorrow won’t do.”
“Oh, all right,” said Teller.
The County Road route had to be content with an improvised affair where the passengers sat facing each other, and during the ride Meg grew more and more uneasy over the way Teller would work his eyes from her feet to her knees and slowly up to her face. She left the bus sedately, but as soon as she was hidden from sight in the lane, she ran. She could outrun most boys, but not Teller. He caught up with her easily, seized her wrist and flipped her into the crook of his arm.
“Pay as you enter, sweetheart.”
The tussle that followed taught Teller that an impact can be so sudden it has no beginning. Next came the realization that his notion of feminine frailty was a dud. Had he tangled with a girl or a full-grown coon? Whatever it was, its flesh was too solid to pinch and it had heels that were kin to a road scraper, to say nothing of several other cutting edges that threatened to leave his skin in shreds. He gave up all idea of a conquest by force and asked no more than to free himself. The only way he could do it was to hurl Meg off bodily. He did. She landed on her feet, pulled down her rucked dress and picked up her books.
“I guess that’ll show you,” she panted, “you big lug!”
“Aw, shucks,” said Teller, looking her over admiringly, “all I wanted was a kiss.”
“Better keep your kisses till somebody asks for them,” said Meg, “even if you have to wait all your life.”
She hurried along the lane, and didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that he was following, because once in a while she could hear a catlike footfall. Teller was bred to the woods; you could tell by the way he walked. He caught up with her only gradually, careful not to offend her again. Neither of them said a word until they came to the belt road.
“Ever foller that path and them it leads to?” he asked in the lingo he used outside of school, the only language fitting for a man.
“Not far,” said Meg.
“I wouldn’t if I was you,” said Teller. “You’d ought to stay clear of timber tracts, specially Oxhead Woods. If I ever catch you west of the Yocum fence—oh, my! I’ll pay you back, sister, and you’ll pay me!”
Meg bit her lip, and when Rumble greeted them with a torrent of barks, thickening into growls that tore his throat, she eyed him speculatively. With a shrug of regret that his chain was so strong, she led the way into the kitchen and accosted Pete.
“Here’s Teller Truman,” she announced, “but you can keep your two bits. I want a dollar or nothing.”
“Eh, eh,” said Pete with a puff, “you’d think dollars growed thick as chinquapins. . . . Howdy, boy.”
“Howdy,” answered Teller.
He spoke absently because his eyes were skipping around like mad. It was hard to snatch them away from Pete and his puffing, the funniest sight on record, but there were other things to see. For years the Yocum place had carried a legend of opulence. Where else would you find a farm with an inside colored
