"Thank you," she said.
"Then you'll come?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Don't you think it'd be fun?"
"Yes, I'm sure of that, but I'm going to be busy."
He started to ask doing what, but stopped.
"I take along sandwiches," he said. "Ham-and-pickle ones. And orange pop and just walk along, taking my time. I get down to the lake about noon and walk back and get home about three o'clock. It makes a real fine day, and I wish you'd come. Do you collect butterflies? I have a big collection. We could start one for you."
"Thanks, Bob, but no, perhaps some other time."
He looked at her and said, "I shouldn't have asked you, should I?"
"You have every right to ask anything you want to," she said.
A few days later she found an old copy of Great Expectations, which she no longer wanted, and gave it to Bob. He was very grateful and took it home and stayed up that night and read it through and talked about it next morning. Each day now he met her just beyond sight of her boarding house and many days she would start to say, "Bob—" and tell him not to come to meet her anymore, but she never finished saying it, and he talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe and others, coming and going to school. She found a butterfly on her desk on Friday morning. She almost waved it away before she found it was dead and had been placed there while she was out of the room. She glanced at Bob over the head of her other students, but he was looking at his book, not reading, just looking at it.
It was about this time that she found it impossible to call on Bob to recite in class. She would hover her pencil about his name and then call the next person up or down the list. Nor would she look at him while they were walking to or from school. But on several " late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for seconds at a time before she returned to her papers.
And then on Saturday morning he was standing in the middle of the creek with his overall rolled up to his knees, kneeling down to catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up and there on the edge of the running stream was Miss Ann Taylor.
"Well, here I am," she said, laughing.
"And do you know," he said, "I'm not surprised."
"Show me the crayfish and the butterflies," she said.
They walked down to the lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering her hair and the ruffle on her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.
"Gee, this is swell," he said. "This is the swellest time ever in my life."
"I didn't think I would ever come on a picnic like this," she said.
"With some kid," he said.
"I'm comfortable, however," she said.
"That's good news."
They said little else during the afternoon.
"This is all wrong," he said, later. "And I can't figure why it should be. Just walking along and catching old butterflies and crayfish and eating sandwiches. But Mom and Dad'd rib the heck out of me if they knew, and the kids would, too. And the other teachers, I suppose, would laugh at you, wouldn't they?"
"I'm afraid so."
"I guess we better not do any more butterfly catching, then."
"I don't exactly understand how I came here at all," she said.
And the day was over.
That was about all there was to the meeting of Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding, two or three monarch butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches, and two bottles of Orange Crush. The next Monday, quite unexpectedly, though he waited a long time, Bob did not see Miss Taylor come out to walk to school. But discovered later that she had left earlier and was already at school. Also, Monday night, she left early, with a headache, and another teacher finished her last class. He walked by her boarding house but did not see her anywhere, and he was afraid to ring the bell and inquire.
On Tuesday night after school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board contentedly, as if this time might go on forever, and she seated, working on her papers as if she, too, would be in this room and this particular peace and happiness forever, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck. It was a block away and its great bronze boom shuddered one's body and made the ash of time shake away off your bones and slide through your blood, making you seem older by the minute. Stunned by that clock, you could not but sense the crashing flow of time, and as the clock said five o'clock, Miss Taylor suddenly looked up at it for a long time, and then she put down her pen.
"Bob," she said.
He turned, startled. Neither of them had spoken in the peaceful and good hour before.
"Will you come here?" she asked.
He put down the sponge slowly.
"Yes," he said.
"Bob, I want you to sit down."
"Yes'm."
She looked at him intently for a moment until he looked away. "Bob, I wonder if you know what I'm going to talk to you about. Do you know?"
"Yes."
"Maybe it'd be a good idea if you told me, first."
"About us," he said, at last.
"How old are you, Bob?"
"Going on fourteen."
"You're thirteen years old."
He winced. "Yes'm."
"And do you know how old I am?"
"Yes'm. I heard. Twenty-four."
"Twenty-four."
"I'll be twenty-four in ten years, almost," he said.
"But unfortunately you're not twenty-four now."
"No, but sometimes I feel twenty-four."
"Yes, and sometimes you almost act it."
"Do I, really!"
"Now sit still there; don't bound around, we've a lot to discuss. It's very important that we understand what is happening, don't you agree?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"First, let's admit we are the greatest and best friends in the world. Let's admit I have never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I've ever known." He flushed at this. She went on. "And let me speak for you—you've found me to be the nicest teacher of all the teachers you've ever known."
"Oh, more than that," he said.
"Perhaps more than that, but there are facts to be faced and an entire way of life to be examined, and a town and its people, and you and me to be considered. I've thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don't think I've missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under some circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no ordinary boy. I know myself pretty well, I think, and I know I'm not sick, either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a true regard for your character and goodness, Bob; but those are not the things we consider in this world, Bob, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I don't know if I'm saying this right."
"It's all right," he said. "It's just if I was ten years older and about fifteen inches taller it'd make all the difference, and that's silly," he said, "to go by how tall a person is."
"The world hasn't found it so."
"I'm not the world," he protested.
"I know it seems foolish," she said. "When you feel very grown up and right and have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing at all to be ashamed of, Bob, remember that. You have been very honest and good, and I hope I have been, too."
"You have," he said.
"In an ideal climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the oldness of a person's mind so accurately that they can say, This is a man, though his body is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstance and fortune, this is a man, with a man's recognition of responsibility and position and duty; but until that day, Bob, I'm afraid we're going to have to go by ages and heights in the ordinary way in an ordinary world."
"I don't like that," he said.
"Perhaps I don't like it, either, but do you want to end up far unhappier than yo
u are now? Do you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we would certainly be. There really is no way to do anything about us—it is so strange even to try to talk about us."
"Yes'm."
"But at least we know all about us and the fact that we have been right and fair and good and there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intend that it should be, for we both understand how impossible it is, don't we?"
"Yes, I know. But I can't help it."
"Now we must decide what to do about it," she said. "Now only you and I know about this. Later, others might know. I can secure a transfer from this school to another one—"
"No!"
"Or I can have you transferred to another school."
"You don't have to do that," he said.
"Why?"
"We're moving. My folks and I, we're going to live in Madison. We're leaving next week."
"It has nothing to do with all this, has it?"
"No, no, everything's all right. It's just that my father has a new job there. It's only fifty miles away. I can see you, can't I, when I come to town?"
"Do you think that would be a good idea?"
"No, I guess not."
They sat awhile in the silent schoolroom.
"When did all of this happen?" he said, helplessly.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody ever knows. They haven't known for thousands of years, and I don't think they ever will. People like each other or don't, and sometimes two people like each other who shouldn't. I can't explain myself, and certainly you can't explain you."
"I guess I'd better get home." he said.
"You're not mad at me, are you?"
"Oh, gosh no, I could never be mad at you."
"There's one more thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always are, or we wouldn't go on living. You don't feel well, now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?"
"I'd like to."
"Well, it's true."
"If only," he said.
"What?"
"If only you'd wait for me," he blurted.
"Ten years?"
"I'd be twenty-four then."
"But I'd be thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don't think it can be done."
"Wouldn't you like it to be done?" he cried.
"Yes," she said quietly. "It's silly and it wouldn't work, but I would like it very much."
He sat there for a long time.
"I'll never forget you," he said.
"It's nice for you to say that, even though it can't be true, because life isn't that way. You'll forget."
"I'll never forget. I'll find a way of never forgetting you," he said.
She got up and went to erase the boards.
"I'll help you," he said.
"No, no," she said hastily. "You go on now, get home, and no more tending to the boards after school. I'll assign Helen Stevens to do it."
He left the school. Looking back, outside, he saw Miss Ann Taylor, for the last time, at the board, slowly washing out the chalked words, her hand moving up and down.
He moved away from the town the next week and was gone for sixteen years. Though he was only fifty miles away, he never got down to Green Town again until he was almost thirty and married, and then one spring they were driving through on their way to Chicago and stopped off for a day.
Bob left his wife at the hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor, but no one remembered at first, and then one of them remembered.
"Oh, yes, the pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not long after you left."
Had she ever married? No, come to think of it, she never had.
He walked out to the cemetery in the afternoon and found her stone, which said, "Ann Taylor, born 1910, died 1936." And he thought, Twenty-six years old. Why, I'm three years older than you are now, Miss Taylor.
Later in the day the people in the town saw Bob Spaulding's wife strolling to meet him under the elm trees and the oak trees, and they all turned to watch her pass, for her face shifted with bright shadows as she walked; she was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-summer morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was balanced like a maple leaf between winds that blow just right, one of those days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding's wife.
The Wish
A whisper of snow touched the cold window.
The vast house creaked in a wind from nowhere.
"What?" I said.
"I didn't say anything." Charlie Simmons, behind me at the fireplace, shook popcorn quietly in a vast metal sieve. "Not a word."
"Damn it, Charlie, I heard you. .. ."
Stunned, I watched the snow fall on far streets and empty fields. It was a proper night for ghosts of whiteness to visit windows and wander off.
"You're imagining things," said Charlie.
Am I? I thought. Does the weather have voices? Is there a language of night and time and snow? What goes on between that dark out there and my soul in here?
For there in the shadows, a whole civilization of doves seemed to be landing unseen, without benefit of moon or lamp.
And was it the snow softly whispering out there, or was it the past, accumulations of old time and need, despairs mounding themselves to panics and at last finding tongue?
"God, Charles. Just now, I could have sworn I heard you say—"
"Say what?"
"You said:'Make a wish’"
"I did?"
His laughter behind me did not make me turn; I kept on watching the snow fall and I told him what I must tell—
"You said. 'It's a special, fine, strange night. So make the finest, dearest, strangest wish ever in your life, deep from your heart. It will be yours.' That's what I heard you say."
"No." I saw his image in the glass shake its head. "But, Tom, you've stood there hypnotized by the snowfall for half an hour. The fire on the hearth talked. Wishes don't come true, Tom. But—" and here he stopped and added with some surprise, "by God, you did hear something, didn't you? Well, here. Drink."
The popcorn was done popping. He poured wine which I did not touch. The snow was falling steadily along the dark window in pale breaths.
"Why?" I asked. "Why would this wish jump into my head? If you didn't say it, what did?"
What indeed, I thought; what's out there, and who are we? Two writers late, alone, my friend invited for the night, two old companions used to much talk and gossip about ghosts, who've tried their hands at all the usual psychic stuffs, Ouija boards, tarot cards, telepathies, the junk of amiable friendship over years, but always full of taunts and jokes and idle fooleries.
But this out there tonight, I though, ends the jokes, erases smiles. The snow—why, look! It's burying our laughter....
"Why?" said Charlie at my elbow, drinking wine, gazing at the red-green-blue Yule-tree lights and now at the back of my neck. "Why a wish on a night like this? Well, it is the night before Christmas, right? Five minutes from now, Christ is born. Christ and the winter solstice all in one week. This week, this night, proves that Earth won't die. The winter has touched bottom and now starts upward toward the light. That’s special. That's incredible."
"Yes," I murmured, and thought of the old days when cavemen died in their hearts when autumn came and the sun went away and the ape-men cried until the world shifted in its white sleep and the sun rose earlier one fine morning and the universe was saved once more, for a little while. "Yes."
"So—" Charlie read my thoughts and sipped his wine. "Christ always was the promise of spring, wasn't he? In the midst of the longest night of the year, Time shook, Earth shuddered and calved a myth. And what did the myth yell? Happy New Year! God, yes, January first isn't New Year's Day. Christ's birthday is. His breath, sweet as clover, touches our nostrils, promises spring, this very moment before midnight. Take a deep br
eath, Thomas."
"Shut up!"
"Why? Do you hear voices again?"
Yes! I turned to the window. In sixty seconds, it would be the morn of His birth. What purer, rarer hour was there, I thought wildly, for wishes.
"Tom—" Charlie seized my elbow. But I was gone deep and very wild indeed. Is this a special time? I thought. Do holy ghosts wander on nights of falling snow to do us favors in this strange-held hour? If I make a wish in secret, will that perambulating night, strange sleeps, old blizzards give back my wish tenfold?
I shut my eyes. My throat convulsed.
"Don't," said Charlie.
But it trembled on my lips. I could not wait Now, now, I thought, a strange star burns at Bethlehem.
"Tom," gasped Charlie, "for Christ's sake!"
Christ, yes, I thought, and said:
"My wish is, for one hour tonight—"
"No!" Charlie struck me, once, to shut my mouth.
"—please, make my father alive again."
The mantel clock struck twelve times to midnight.
"Oh, Thomas . . ." Charlie grieved. His hand fell away from my arm. "Oh, Tom."
A gust of snow rattled the window, clung like a shroud, unraveled away.
The front door exploded wide.
Snow sprang over us in a shower.
"What a sad wish. And ... it has just come true."
"True?" I whirled to stare at that open door which beckoned like a tomb.
"Don't go, Tom," said Charlie.
The door slammed. Outside, I ran; oh, God, how I ran.
"Tom, come back!" The voice faded far behind me in the whirling fall of white. "Oh, God, don't!"
But in this minute after midnight I ran and ran, mindless, gibbering, yelling my heart on to beat, blood to move, legs to run and keep running, and I thought: Him! Him! I know where he is! If the gift is mine! If the wish comes true! I know his place! And all about in the night-snowing town the bells of Christmas began to clang and chant and clamor. They circled and paced and drew me on as-I shouted and mouthed snow and knew maniac desire.
Fool! I thought. He's dead! Go back!
But what if he is alive, one hour tonight, and I didn't go to find him?
I was outside town, with no hat or coat, but so warm from running, a salty mask froze my face and flaked away with the jolt of each stride down the middle of an empty road, with the sound of joyous bells blown away and gone.
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