“Go, I will, you’ll see.”
“Well.”
“I’m like that. I couldn’t bear to see you marry Albert. I couldn’t bear it. I’ll go so far this town’ll never hear a buzz of me while time lasts.”
“Marry? That’s a long way off. I wasn’t thinken about marry.”
“Go I will. You’ll see. A long piece from here. You’re the only thing that keeps me here, you and my brother Reg.”
Reg was a good friend, a fine boy, she admitted. She looked vaguely at the passing sunlight, speaking aimlessly of Reg.
“I don’t care much for a whole mob of people. Don’t wish nobody no harm, but all the same ... I like you better’n anybody else on earth. I like a few people in a big way. You and Reg most. You most of all. It came to me about a month ago I liked you best, and nothing else I ever did in life amounted to a rap. It seems like nothing else I ever did mattered nohow. That’s how I look at it. I been studyen it out a right smart the last few weeks. Not one other God’s thing I ever done matters now. No matter what ’twas.”
She arose quickly and walked toward the door. Albert would be coming then, soon, the day’s work over. Conway walked toward the door beside her.
“Kiss me,” she said, leaning slightly near. “You will kiss me and go now. Albert will be here soon. I have to go on an errand for Grandfather. I don’t know what I’ll do. I haven’t been thinken about what you’re talken about. You kiss me. Good-bye, Connie.”
Albert had come back then, sooner than he had expected. Visitors from other counties where tobacco was grown had met in the town, and men from the farms lying close about had been conferring with these. Conway’s report of the busy day followed her through the house after his departure. Young women had given their time to the growers’ project, typing in the offices, writing letters, carrying the visiting farmers from place to place in their cars. She had kept at home all day and the trills had mounted; she had not known of the business in the town. “The pool is something, but I am something else,” she thought. She made ready for the call her grandfather had asked her to make for him.