Before I knew what had happened we had laid forcible hands on the bare little cell I had indifferently been inhabiting all these years and transformed it into the study of my dreams. We cut a window in the side that faces in the direction of the mountains and made a corking window seat out of a packing case, on which I piled cushions stuffed with thistle down. We papered the whole place with light yellow paper, tacked up my last year’s school pennants and put up a book shelf. This last proved to be a delusion and a snare, because one end of it came down in the middle of the night not long afterward and all the books came tobogganing on top of me in bed. As a finishing touch, I brought out the snowshoes and painted paddle that were a relic of my Golden Age, and which I had never had the heart to unpack since I came home. When finished the effect was quite epic, though I suppose it would make Hinpoha’s artistic eye water.
Of course, it will never make up for not going to college, but it helped some, and in working at it I got very well acquainted with Justice Sherman all of a sudden. We had long talks about everything under the sun, and he continually bubbled over with funny sayings. He confided to me that he had never been so surprised in all his life as when I told him I wanted to go to college. You see, he had thought we were like the other poor whites in the neighborhood, and I was like the other girls he had seen. He didn’t take any interest in me until I bowled him over with the statement that I had already passed my college entrance exams.
All this time I never hinted that I suspected he was not the simple sheep herder he pretended to be. I had given father my word and, of course, had to keep it. But one afternoon the Fates had their fingers crossed, and Pandora like, I got my foot in it. I had driven Justice over to Spencer in the rattledy old cart with Sandhelo. On the way we talked of many things, and I came home surer than ever that he was no sheep herder. Once when the conversation lagged and in the silence Sandhelo’s heels seemed to be beating out a tune as they clicked along, I remarked ruminatingly, “There’s a line in Virgil that is supposed to imitate the sound of galloping horses.”
“Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit angula campam,”
quoted Justice promptly.
So he was on quoting terms with Virgil! But I remembered my promise and made no remarks.
A little later I was telling about the winter hike we had taken on snowshoes last year.
“You ought to see the sport they have on snowshoes in Switzerland,” he began with kindling eyes. Then he broke off suddenly and changed the subject.
So Texas sheep herders learn their trade in Switzerland! But again I yanked on the curb rein of my curiosity. I apparently took no notice of his remark, for [just then a negro stepped suddenly from behind the bushes along the road and startled Sandhelo so that he promptly became temperamental and sat up on his haunches to get a better look at the apparition], and the mess he made of the harness furnished us plenty of theme for conversation for the next ten minutes.
“Lord, what an ape,” remarked Justice, gazing after the departing form of the negro shambling along the road, “he looks like the things you see in nightmares.”