John May did not
understand. He thought she had sought him out once and would return. "She's
a little green. I was too fast. I scared her. Next time I'll go a little
easy," he thought.
Clara ran through the barn and then walked slowly to the house and went
upstairs to her own room. A farm dog followed her up the stairs and stood
at her door wagging his tail. She shut the door in his face. For the moment
everything that lived and breathed seemed to her gross and ugly. Her cheeks
were pale and she pulled shut the blinds to the window and sat down on the
bed, overcome with the strange new fear of life. She did not want even the
sunlight to come into her presence. John May had followed her through the
barn and now stood in the barnyard staring at the house. She could see him
through the cracks of the blinds and wished it were possible to kill him
with a gesture of her hand.
The farm hand, full of male confidence, waited for her to come to the
window and look down at him. He wondered if there were any one else in the
house. Perhaps she would beckon to him. Something of the kind had happened
between him and the doctor's wife and it had turned out that way. When
after five or ten minutes he did not see her, he went back to the work of
oiling the wagon wheels. "It's going to be a slower thing. She's shy, a
green girl," he told himself.
One evening a week later Clara sat on the side porch of the house with her
father when John May came into the barnyard.
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