The farm girl wanted to approach the young man, to speak to him, to
ask him questions concerning many strange things in life she did not
understand. She knew that under no circumstances would she be able to do
such a thing, that it was but a meaningless dream that had come into
her head, but the dream was sweet. She did not, however, want to talk to
John May. At the moment she was in a girlish period of being disgusted
at what she thought of as the vulgarity of the men who worked on the
place. At the table they ate noisily and greedily like hungry animals.
She wanted youth that was like her own youth, crude and uncertain
perhaps, but reaching eagerly out into the unknown. She wanted to draw
very near to something young, strong, gentle, insistent, beautiful. When
the farm hand looked up and saw her standing and looking intently at
him, she was embarrassed. For a moment the two young animals, so
unlike each other, stood staring at each other and then, to relieve her
embarrassment, Clara began to play a game. Among the men employed on the
farm she had always passed for something of a tomboy. In the hayfields
and in the barns she had wrestled and fought playfully with both the old
and the young men. To them she had always been a privileged person. They
liked her and she was the boss's daughter. One did not get rough with
her or say or do rough things. A basket of corn stood just within the
door of the shed, and running to it Clara took an ear of the yellow corn
and threw it at the farm hand. It struck a post of the barn just above
his head. Laughing shrilly Clara ran into the shed among the wagons, and
the farm hand pursued her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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