Emmy Lou knew Albert Eddie, had known him for a long time as time is measured at seven years. He looked after her on the way to and from Sunday school even though he did it at Sarah's bidding, whereas Maud forgot her. Moreover, he had not wanted to come to the picnic, and, bond firmly established between them, neither had she. She surrendered her tickets into his hands to be inspected. She even credentialed them. The others had doubted them! "They're mine. My Uncle Charlie said so. To take anybody I wanted to take if I hadn't had to come here!"
Her tickets! Five by actual count and actual touch! To do what she pleased with! This plump little girl with the elastic of her hat under her chin, sitting alone at the picnic on a stone!
The conversation in the group became choric and to some extent Delphic, Emmy Lou, with her eyes on the tickets in Albert Eddie's hands, alone excluded.
"Follow the track!"
"Could she do it?"
"'Tain't so far she couldn't if we start now."
Four little boys, nearing nine, Albert Eddie, Logan, John, and Wharton, made Machiavellian through longing, turned to this little girl on her stone and made court to her as they knew how.
"Aw, you ask her! You know her!" from Logan to Albert Eddie.
Albert Eddie cleared his throat. He'd carried the basket. He'd carried the wood. He'd carried the water. He was bitter to desperate lengths, indeed, and in the rebound no good and obedient little boy at all but one gloriously afloat on seas of dire and reckless abandon.