"Paul." She tried to say the name casually, making an effort to meet her mother's eyes as usual. It was as if they looked at each other across a wide empty space. Her mother seemed suddenly to see in her a stranger.
"But—good gracious, Helen! You're only a little girl!" The words were cut across by Tommy's derisive chant from the table, where he sat licking a mixing-spoon.
"Helen's got a feller! Helen's got a feller!"
"Shut up!" she cried. "If you don't shut up—!"
But he got away from her and, slamming the screen door, yelled from the safe distance of the woodpile:
"Helen's mad, and I'm glad, an' I know what will please her—!"
She went into the other room, shutting the door with a shaking hand. She felt that she hated the whole world. Yes, even Paul. Her mother called to her that even if she was going out with a beau, that was no reason she shouldn't eat something. Dinner wouldn't be ready till two o'clock, but she ought to drink some milk anyway. She answered that she was not hungry.
Paul would come by one o'clock, she thought. His mother had only a cold lunch on Sundays, because they went to church. He came ten minutes late, and she had forgotten everything else in the strain of waiting.
She met him at the gate, and he got out to help her into the buggy-seat. He was wearing his Sunday clothes, the blue suit, carefully brushed and pressed, and a stiff white collar. He looked strange and formal.
"It isn't much of a rig," he said apologetically, clearing his throat. She recognized the bony sorrel and the rattling buggy, the cheapest in Harner's livery-stable. But even that, she knew, was an extravagance for Paul.