"This sun is actually getting too hot. Let's go inside," she said. I helped carry the things in. She rinsed the dishes. Having seen her the previous evening I would not have thought she had the sort of figure to wear slacks successfully. They were beautifully tailored and she looked well in them. We went into the living-room. It was slightly overfurnished. The lamps were in bad taste. But it was clean and comfortable. She sat on the couch and pulled one leg up and locked her hands around her knee. "Want to hear about Timmy and me? The sad story? Not sad, I guess." "If you want to tell it." "I've never told anybody. Maybe it's time. I turned fifteen before I got out of the eighth grade. I was older than the other kids. Timmy was fourteen. He was the biggest boy in class. We never had anything to do with each other until that skit. We practiced a couple of times. We got to be friends. It wasn't a girl-friend-boy-friend thing. More like a couple of boys. I wasn't the most feminine creature in the world, believe me. I could run like the wind and I could fight with my fists. "I didn't want Timmy to come out to the house. I was ashamed of where I lived. I never wanted any of the kids to see how and where I lived. My God, we lived like animals. It wasn't so bad until my mother died but from then on it was pretty bad. You saw the place?" "I saw it." "The old man kept pretty well soaked in his _vino_. My brother was completely no good. My sister slept with anybody who took the trouble to ask her. We lived in filth. We were on the county relief rolls. The do-gooders brought us food and clothing at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was proud as hell inside. I couldn't see any way out. The best I could do was try to keep myself clean as a button and not let any of the kids come out there." She came over and took one of my cigarettes, bent over for me to light it. "Timmy came out there. It nearly killed me. Then I saw that it was all right. He didn't pay any attention to the way things were. I mean it didn't seem to mean much to him. That's the way they were, so that's the way they were. He was my friend. After that I was able to talk to him. He understood. He had his dreams, too. We talked over our dreams. "When school was out that summer he came out a lot. He used to cut lawns and make money and we'd go to the movies. We used to swim in the river. He'd come out on his bike. He got hold of a broken-down boy's bike for me. He fixed it up and I painted it. Then we could get around better. The relief people gave the old man a hard ride for buying me a bike. I had to explain how I got it and prove I didn't steal it. I can still remember the sneaky eyes on that cop. "When it happened to us it was sudden. It was in late August. I'd gotten a job in the dime store by lying about my age and filling out the forms wrong. I was squirreling the money away. I spent Sundays with Timmy. His brother and his father didn't like him to see me, but he managed it.