She was a young, buxom woman, and she walked, singing, in the middle of the road, with a defiant swagger. Her hair was heavy and yellow like wheat straw. Her lips, colored purple from the wild grapes which she had been eating, were full, the under one drooping a little at the middle. Her face was whitened with a cheap powder to be had at the village store. Her bodice and her petticoat were of bright vivid colors. There was a crimson handkerchief tied around her neck, a cheap glittering bangle on her wrist, heavy, gilded earrings hanging in the lobes of her ears, and at her throat a breastpin of jet set in a lattice work of brass.
The School-teacher remained motionless. He watched the woman approaching in the middle of the road, her body swinging loose in her swaggering stride, and the full volume of her voice abandoned to her song.
She was halfway up the bend of the road before she realized that another was within sound of her voice. Then she saw the School-teacher and stopped.
The song ceased.
Her head went up and her eyes opened wide. She remained as though the power to move had been on the instant stricken out of her. Her foot advanced, her heel lifted, her mouth shaped to sing. Then, slowly, her face changed to an expression of profound astonishment.
The School-teacher did not speak. He did not move. The sun descending behind him slowly crept up the road to his feet, as though, bidden to withdraw from the world, it were loath to leave him.
The woman's face again changed. It became troubled. She moved now a few steps closer, softly, on tiptoe. Then, suddenly, with a swift gesture, she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. Her body shook as with a convulsion. The tears streamed through her fingers.
Until now the School-teacher had not moved. Now he came slowly along the road to where she stood. As he approached, the woman sank down huddled together, her face covered, her bosom heaving, her hands wet. He stood before her in the road looking down at the bowed head.
“Poor child!” he said.
The woman continued to sob. The eyes of the School-teacher deepened with a profound sorrow. He stooped over to put his hand on the coarse yellow hair, redolent with a cheap perfume. But before the descending fingers touched her, the woman sprang up and flew like a wild thing into the forest.