The farm hands joined by her father laughed heartily. Her aunt
shook her finger at Jim Priest, the hero of the occasion. "Why don't you
let her alone?" she asked.
"She'll never get married if she stays here where you make fun of every
young man who pays her any attention." At the door Clara stopped and,
turning, put out her tongue at Jim Priest. Another roar of laughter arose.
Chairs were scraped along the floor and the men filed out of the house to
go back to the work in the barns and about the farm.
In the summer when the change came over her Clara sat at the table and did
not hear the tales told by Jim Priest. She thought the farm hands who ate
so greedily were vulgar, a notion she had never had before, and wished she
did not have to eat with them. One afternoon as she lay in the hammock in
the orchard, she heard several of the men in a nearby barn discussing the
change that had come over her. Jim Priest was explaining what had happened.
"Our fun's over with Clara," he said. "Now we'll have to treat her in a new
way. She's no longer a kid. We'll have to let her alone or pretty soon she
won't speak to any of us. It's a thing that happens when a girl begins to
think about being a woman. The sap has begun to run up the tree."
The puzzled girl lay in the hammock and looked up at the sky. She thought
about Jim Priest's words and tried to understand what he meant.
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