Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Villages -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
That night after supper, as they sat in the little park overhanging the
river, Julie confessed to Tim that she had told Mrs. Watkins she came
from Hart’s Run.
“I don’t know how I ever came to do such a thing,” she said in a
frightened voice; “I didn’t mean to speak of it; I tried not to. I
tried my best to lie. An’ first I said ‘Red River,’ but right away I
changed it to ‘Hart’s Run.’ I had to. It seemed like I’d almost slapped
my home an’ all the days that were gone right in the face when I said
‘Red River.’ I oughtn’t to have said ‘Hart’s Run’--I know I oughtn’t
to. Oh, do you reckon it’s done any harm? Do you think we ought to move
away some place else?”
“No--no. It’s all right. I don’t expect she even noticed,” he comforted
her. “It’s all right.”
She was leaning against him, and he felt a tremor of fear shiver
through her.
“My little honey, it’s all right,” he whispered, his arm tightening
round her. “It’s all right. I’m glad you said ‘Hart’s Run.’ I wouldn’t
have had you not to. Don’t get scared.”
They were all alone on the lower terrace of the park. At their back
rose a steep bank. In front was the sheer drop to the river, overhung
by the wide soft spaces of the misty air. Their hands met in a tight
clasp, and for a moment they were silent in the ecstasy of their
complete trust in each other. But after a moment she spoke diffidently.
“Tim, I got a notion about our--our happiness.” They never spoke of it
as love. “I want to tell you about it.” She had fallen into a little
trick of saying eagerly, “I want to tell you,” or “I want to tell you
all about it.” And always he answered, “Tell me, my little honey.”
Since her mother’s death there had never been any one who had really
wanted to hear what she had to say, and even her mother had not wanted
it, had not understood, in the complete way that he did. Now, because
of his understanding, her thoughts poured themselves out in a manner
that astonished her. His creative sympathy made ideals and fancies,
which heretofore had been too deep or too elusive to be expressed, come
forth fleshed in words.
“Tell me, my honey,” he said now.
“Well, our happiness, Tim--it’s so--so alive, that it seems like it was
a real thing running through us, like the way sap runs up the trees
in spring. Oh, honey, ’til you came I was as dead as a winter branch,
an’ now it seems like I couldn’t hold all the happiness, all the life
that’s mine. I got to pour it out for other folks.”
“What’s folks ever done for you, or for me, that you got to please ’em
now?” he said unexpectedly.
She was startled, frightened by his quotation of her own words. “Oh, I
don’t feel that way now,” she cried. “I don’t feel it now that we got
each other, do you? Do you, Tim?” she questioned anxiously, trying to
read his face in the dusk.
“No, I don’t now--now that we’re free,” he answered. “I know
something,” he announced suddenly.
“What? What do you know?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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