The Bottsford family lived in a rented house facing a stone road near the town of Bellevue, and the fat boy was to go to that town—a distance of some eighteen miles from where the men were at work—afoot, and on the evening before he set out he and Tom went out of the barns intending to have a last walk and talk together on the roads. They went along in the dusk of the fall evening, each thinking his own thoughts, and coming to a bridge that led over the creek in the valley sat on the bridge rail. Tom had little to say but his companion wanted to talk about women and, when darkness came on, the embarrassment he felt regarding the subject went quite away and he talked boldly and freely. He said that in the town of Bellevue, where he was to live and attend school during the coming winter, he would be sure to get in with a woman. “I’m not going to be cheated out of that chance,” he declared. He explained that as his father would be away from home when he moved into town he would be free to pick his own place to board. The fat boy’s imagination became inflamed and he told Tom his plans. “I won’t try to get in with any young girl,” he declared shrewdly. “That only gets a fellow in a fix. He might have to marry her. I’ll go live in a house with a widow, that’s what I’ll do. And in the evening the two of us will be there alone. We’ll begin to talk and I’ll keep touching her with my hands. That will get her excited.” The fat boy jumped to his feet and walked back and forth on the bridge. He was nervous and a little ashamed and wanted to justify what he had said. The thing for which he hungered had he thought become a possibility—an act half achieved. Coming to stand before Tom he put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go into her room at night,” he declared. “I’ll not tell her I’m coming, but will creep in when she is asleep. Then I’ll get down on my knees by her bed and I’ll kiss her, hard, hard. I’ll hold her tight, so she can’t get away and I’ll kiss her mouth till she wants what I want. Then I’ll stay in her house all winter. No one will know. Even if she won’t have me I’ll only have to move, I’m sure to be safe. No one will believe what she says, if she tells on me. I’m not going to be like a boy any more, I’ll tell you what—I’m as big as a man and I’m going to do like men do, that’s what I am.”