attended by snag-toothed children and hair-faced louts. And, as the mellow autumn ripened, her interest in him would intensify, she would “keep him in” for imaginary offenses, setting him, in a somewhat confused way, to do some task, and gazing at him with steady yearning eyes when she thought he was not looking.
He would pretend to be stumped by the exercise: she would come eagerly and sit beside him, leaning over so that a few fine strands of carrot-colored hair brushed his nostrils, and so that he might feel the firm warmth of her white-waisted arms, and the swell of her tight-skirted thighs. She would explain things to him at great length, guiding his fingers with her own warm, slightly moist hand, when he pretended not to find the place; then she would chide him gently, saying tenderly:
“Why are you such a bad boy?” or softly: “Do you think you’re going to be better after this?”
And he, simulating boyish, inarticulate coyness, would say: “Gosh, Miss Edith, I didn’t mean to do nothin’.”
Later, as the golden sun was waning redly, and there was nothing in the room but the smell of chalk and the heavy buzz of the old October flies, they would prepare to depart. As he twisted carelessly into his overcoat, she would chide him, call him to her, arrange the lapels and his necktie, and smooth out his tousled hair, saying:
“You’re a good-looking boy. I bet all the girls are wild about you.”
He would blush in a maidenly way and she, bitten with curiosity, would press him:
“Come on, now. Who’s your girl?”
“I haven’t got one, honest, Miss Edith.”
“You don’t want one of these silly little girls, Eugene,” she would say, coaxingly. “You’re too good for them—you’re a great deal older than your years. You need the understanding a mature woman can give you.”
And they would walk away in the setting sun, skirting the pine— fresh woods, passing along the path red with maple leaves, past great ripening pumpkins in the fields, and under the golden autumnal odor of persimmons.
