I liked that invitation ... she was plump to heaviness and sitting in the hammock crushed us pleasantly together.
This almost daily propinquity goaded my adolescent hunger into an infatuation for her,—I thought I was in love with her,—though I never quite reconciled myself to the cowlikeness with which she chewed gum.
She was as free and frank of herself as I was curious and timid.
"Johnnie, what small feet and little hands you have ... you're a regular aristocrat."
A pause.
I give her a poem written to her. She reads it, letting her knife stick in a half-peeled potato. She looks up at me out of heavy-lidded eyes.
"I believe you're falling in love with me."
I trembled, answered nothing, was silent.