Soon two potato knives would be working.
"Come and sit by me in the hammock."
I liked that invitation ... she was plump to heaviness and sitting in
the hammock crushed us pleasantly together.
This almost daily propinquity goaded my adolescent hunger into an
infatuation for her,--I thought I was in love with her,--though I never
quite reconciled myself to the cowlikeness with which she chewed gum.
She was as free and frank of herself as I was curious and timid.
"Johnnie, what small feet and little hands you have ... you're a
regular aristocrat."
* * * * *
A pause.
I give her a poem written to her. She reads it, letting her knife stick
in a half-peeled potato. She looks up at me out of heavy-lidded eyes.
* * * * *
"I believe you're falling in love with me."
I trembled, answered nothing, was silent.
"Kiss me!"
Seeing me so a-tremble, she obeyed her own injunction. With slow
deliberation she crushed her lips, full and voluptuous, into mine. The
warmth of them seemed to catch hold of something deep down in me, and,
with exquisite painfulness, draw it out. Blinded with emotion, I
clutched close to her. She laughed. I put one hand over her full breast
as infants do. She pushed me back.
"There, that's enough for one day--a promise of sweets to come!" and she
laughed again, with a hearty purr like a cat that has a mouse at its
mercy.
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