It was about this time that she found 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 on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for a few second 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 overalls rolled up to his knees, kneeling down the catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up and there on the edge of the return 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 of 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 out 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 bell and inquire.
On Tuesday night after school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board contently, as if this 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 this 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 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 exactly what is happening, don't you agree?»
«Yes, I guess so.»
«First, let's admit that we are the greatest and the best friends of the world. Let's admit I have never had a student like you, nor I had as much affection for any boy I've ever know.» He flushed at this. She went on. «And let me speak for you — you've found me to be the nicest teacher of all teachers you've ever know.»
«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 considered. I've thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don't think I missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under any normal circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no ordinary boy. I know my self pretty well, I think, and I know I'm not sick, either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been 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 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 tall a person is.»
«The world hasn't found it so.»
«I'm not all the world.» He protested.
«I know it seem 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 off, 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 you can say 'This is a man, though is body is only thirteen; by miracle of circumstances 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 are going to have to go by ages and heights and 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 you are now? Do you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we certainly would 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 of that we have been right and fair and good and there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intended that it should be, for 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, other 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 either 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.»