The Little Room, and Other Stories

by Madeline Yale Wynne

HE saw her first on a Wednesday in May. She was sitting on the back door-step, doing nothing but just watching him plow. It looked as if that was what she was doing, so he tried to seem a little more unconscious than he had, when he really was unconscious, and every time he turned at the end of the furrow he glanced up at her from under his soft felt hat, which he wore pulled low over his eyes. She sat still, and he plowed ten furrows; the field was small; the apple-trees were in blossom, but the air was cool. He thought she would go in soon, but she sat with her hands idly in her lap. He had never seen a girl sit still for so long before; what was she waiting for? It seemed as if she wanted to speak to him, but that could not be. Who was she, anyhow? He didn’t know anybody lived in the house; they must have moved in very lately, maybe yesterday, and maybe she really did want to ask him something; perhaps they hadn’t brought any potatoes with them—could she want to ask him if he had any to sell? Perhaps she was lonesome; but a boy couldn’t go and talk to a girl just because she looked lonesome. How slim she was, and she didn’t look a bit like the Legget girls, who lived in the white house at the Crossing. How pretty the house looked with someone in it; he liked a brown house best anyway; it was a pity his mother had taken a notion to paint their own house white—it never had been the same to him since then.

Now the girl, whoever she was, was going in. No, she was just standing up to see him better; how queer! She was more slender than he first had thought, and foreign-looking, too, with black hair and eyes, and her hair was braided in two long braids—it made her look young; how old was she, anyway? He had plowed now till he was almost opposite to her door, and only three apple-trees distant. If she sat there till he plowed to the corner of her garden he would say ‘Good-afternoon.’

He plowed till he was within two furrows of the corner. He had not looked up at the end of the last furrow, and now he was turning again towards her. She was gone.

Thursday, he carried out the potatoes to plant. It was warmer than yesterday, and the south wind was blowing off the apple-blossoms. They fell from her garden into the furrows on his land, and he dropped the potatoes into pink and white rifts.

He looked almost every minute to see her come out of the door.

The house was very still, and they had not taken the boards down that had been nailed over the pantry windows to keep the storms from breaking the glass, and there were no curtains up. They couldn’t have been there long. Probably there was nobody but her and her mother, and they would have to wait for some neighbor to come in and help them take those boards down, and start the pump working. He would wash up after supper, and go over there. He could help them a lot before dark.

He would ask his mother to send over something to eat while they were getting settled. The neighbors always did that when folks moved into the neighborhood.

She was standing at the door now. It was certain she was older than he first thought—she must be seventeen, or even older; he would be nineteen in October.

She certainly wanted to speak to him; she didn’t exactly beckon to him, but she sort of waited as if she expected him to come. He laid the bag of potatoes down and vaulted over the fence. He stumbled awkwardly as he landed, and that was so ridiculous. She had a pretty, bright smile when he looked up after brushing off the soft dirt from his knees; it wasn’t a mocking smile either, only such a happy smile, as if she knew he would come. He stepped over the narrow bed of rhubarb, between the currant bushes, and then she was gone. Probably she had gone to call her mother. He waited a whole minute or more on the steps. Yes, she could have seen him quite well from there, better than he had seen her, because the sun had been in his eyes, and she was sitting in the shade.

She did not come out, and so he pushed the door open a little wider—she had left it almost half open. The hallway was dark at first, and it was not furnished. There was not even a mat at the door.