Hazel

I

HAZEL, was awakened by the sharp going down of the window. ‘My goodness,’ her mother said loudly and cheerfully, ‘you girls’d lie here and let the place get soaked, would n’t your?’

‘It’s raining?’ Hazel asked sleepily, and raised herself on her elbow to see the sight. ‘Kitty, wake up! It’s raining!’

‘Mm,’ Kitty said in sleepy happiness, and put an arm about Hazel and nestled deeper into the bed. ‘Rain.’

‘Mama, put it up again,’ Hazel said. ‘It’s from the other way; it won’t rain in. I want to smell it.’

Mrs. Hubbard put the window up again and propped it with the old piece of broomstick that served the purpose. She came and sat on the bed beside Hazel and gave her arm a pat. ‘Well, what for a time did you have? How’s Aunt Marge?’

Hazel raised her arms, well suntanned from the elbows down and very white above, and stretched them, her fingers spread, and then clasped her hands behind her head. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I ironed and helped her make two school dresses for Alice and Beulah.’

‘What kind?’

‘A blue percale, and a pink gingham, something like Kitty’s.’ Here Kitty opened a sleepy eye.

‘What’d Marge say?’

‘About my sewing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, she said it was all right.’

Kitty laughed. ‘Go on, what’d she say?’

Hazel dropped her head to the side and smoothed her cheek against her mother’s knee, and smiled. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘She said I could sew better than you can, Mama.’

Mrs. Hubbard laughed outright and tossed her head in pleasure. She gave Hazel a spank and then leaned over to reach Kitty’s round hips. ‘There, Kitty! When do you think your aunty’ll be saying that about you?’

‘Not very soon, I guess,’Kitty mouthed through a yawn. ‘Not unless I get to go visit her, anyway. Me stay home and do all the work, while Hazel goes gallivanting! ’

‘Mama, do the boys know it’s raining like this?’ Hazel asked. ‘Did you wake them?’

‘No, but I will,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘Your dad’s up and out in it, I guess. My, I bet he’ll swell like a navy bean! You girls get up now.’

As soon as her mother had closed the door Kitty tucked the cotton blanket more securely about her and said to Hazel, ‘Now, out with it. What happened?’

Hazel looked at her through long brown lashes, her lips tight together.

‘Where?’ she said. ‘Over to Aunt Marge’s ? ’

‘You been anywhere else?’

‘No.’

‘Well?’

‘Nothing. I just helped her sew up those two dresses, and we made ice cream both nights, and I read that book we gave Aunt Marge for Christmas.’

‘That’s all?’

‘What did you expect?’

Kitty raised herself on her elbows and slid close to Hazel. ‘ Hazel Hubhard,’ she said, ‘something happened, and you know it! I knew it when you came in last night, and Mama said not to talk and wake me, but to get right to sleep. I saw you over there by the window.’

‘ Well, what was I doing over by the window? ’

‘You know. Standing there, braiding your hair and lookin’ out, and going like this.’ Here Kitty made a great sigh.

‘I never,’ Hazel said, and the color flooded her face.

‘Hazie, tell me!’ Kitty said, and slid a coaxing toe along Hazel’s shin. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Hazel said, ‘only—’

Just then the door flew open and the big boys stormed in. They were still tousled and unwashed. ‘You get Kitty and I ’ll get Hazel! ’ the bigger one said. ‘Come on, out you come!‘

Kitty dived under the blanket and rolled herself up in a ball, but Hazel sat up and was ready to scrap.

‘ Mama! ’ Kitty screamed from under the blanket.

Bob advanced, his arms held out from his sides, walking gorilla fashion and making gorilla noises and faces.

‘Yellin’ for Mama won’t do you no good,’ Cleve said. ‘She said we could get you up.’ Kitty rolled quickly behind the bed and under it, leaving Hazel stranded in her nightie near the top of the bed. Hazel put up her hands and grasped the bedpost, ready to hang on as long as she could.

Bob stopped grimacing and pointed. ‘Look!’ he said to his brother. ‘ Don’t she look like the Rock of Ages?’ Kitty came up from under the bed, trailing the blanket.

‘Why, she does!’ she cried. ‘Hazel, you do — just like.’

‘I do not,’ said Hazel, and let go the post and wound her arms about her knees.

‘Boys!’ their father called from below stairs. ‘Get down here!’ The boys went, Cleve turning in the door to say, ‘ Bawl-babies! ’

Kitty spread the blanket over them again. ‘What do you think of that?’ she said, awed. ‘They did n’t pull us out. Hazel, they think we’ve got too big! Anyway, they think you are too big. Are n’t you glad? We’re too big to be pulled out of bed!’ Kitty got up and went to the dresser, tipped the glass so that she could see her whole figure, and drew her gown close about her slim body. ‘Well, I hardly hoped to see the day!‘ she said. ‘First we wake up and it’s raining, and then we’re too big to be pulled out of bed! ’

‘Girls! Hazel!’ their father called. ‘Get down here and help your mother!’

There was the sound of racing feet along the hall and the door banged open and in rushed the little boys, helter-skelter, and dived on to the bed and piled over Hazel. ‘When’d you get home, Hazie?’ Lewie shouted. ‘I did n’t know you were home!’

Hazel hugged them both. ‘Tell a story!‘ Baby was yelling.

Hazel got up from between them and tucked the blanket around them. ‘Look at it rain!’ she said. ‘You lie still, Baby, till Hazel gets dressed; then she’ll help you dress. No, Kitty, you dress them, and I’ll go down and help Mama.’

‘I want Hazel to dress me!’ Baby yelled.

In one of her blue percales, barelegged, Hazel ran downstairs. Her father was standing by the kitchen range, testing the warmth of some calf gruel with a brown forefinger.

‘Well, hello, Sister,’ he said, and put an arm about her. ‘Have a good time? Mama, this girl’s getting to be quite an armful. You don’t suppose she’s going to take after your folks and get fat, do you?’

‘ She’s not a bit fat! ’ her mother said. ‘Hazel, set the table, will you?’

‘Not fat?’ Cleve said. ‘Why, she’s goin’ to be bigger‘n Aunt Marge. She eats more’n Bob and I do now.’

‘My goodness,’ Mrs. Hubbard was saying, ‘looks like Kitty could learn to dress Baby without such a jamboree! He don’t do like that for you, Hazel. Papa, tell them to quiet down. The plaster’s just hangin’ by the paper in the front room now!’

II

At breakfast, during the blessing, Hazel felt Kitty’s bare foot pressing her ankle and knew she was being reminded that she had a secret to tell, that something had ‘ happened’ over at Aunt Marge’s. Hazel did n’t want to tell. Not that Kitty would n’t keep a secret, once she had promised not to tell, but a secret shone on Kitty, like silver-leaf in the rain. Anyway, there was so little to tell. To put it into words at all would be to give it a reality it did n’t yet have, a reality it would probably never deserve. Yet —

‘Hazel,’ Bob said loudly, ‘how many times I got to ask you for the syrup! You asleep yet?’

‘She’s too proud to pass you the syrup,’ Kitty said. ‘She’s stuck up because Aunt Marge said she could sew better’n Mama.’ Kitty smiled across when she said this, and Hazel knew well she was just saying that so the boys would n’t know that Hazel did have something to think about, that something had happened over at Aunt Marge’s.

The littlest Hubbard leaned against Hazel and said, ‘I thought you were n’t coming back, Hazie. Bob said you were going to stay over to Aunt Marge’s.’

‘Bob, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ his mother said. ‘ I don’t care if you tease them some, — that’s good for them, — but you must n’t tell them anything that’s not so.’

‘And let’s quit calling John Baby,’ their father said. ‘He’s nearly four.’

‘Spoiled as the dickens, too,’ Bob said, frowning fiercely at Baby.

‘I ain’t,’ Baby protested, half sliding from his chair to kick, under the table, at Bob. ‘Am I, Hazel?’

‘Course not,’ Hazel said, pulling him back and taking his bib end out of his plate.

‘Trouble is,’ Mr. Hubbard said, ‘we should n’t have had that gap, Mama. If you’re goin’ to have a big family you ought to keep right on, till you have it, not leave any eight-nine year gaps in between, like between Kitty and Lewie. The little ones are bound to be spoiled — different, anyway. You kinda git outa practice lookin’ after little ones.’

‘Ya,’ six-year-old Lewie said. ‘Why did n’t you have me right after Kitty — no, why did n’t you have me between Bob and Cleve so’s I could take Cleve down?’

‘Cause there was n’t room between Bob and Cleve for you or anybody else,’ his mother said. ‘My goodness, seems to me they were learnin’ to walk at the same time. Hazel, you are woolgatherin’ this morning. What do you think your papa’s holding his cup out for? Bring the coffee.’

‘Well, what are you grinnin’ about?’ Bob asked Kitty.

‘I don’t grin,’ Kitty said with dignity, and looked at Hazel over the edge of her milk mug.

‘I’ll not tell her,’ Hazel said to herself. ‘It’s mean, but I can’t — I won’t.’

Mr. Hubbard got up and went to the window, toothpick in mouth. ‘Well, it’s clearing,’ he said, ‘ but it was good while it lasted. You are n’t goin’ to wash, are you, Mama ? ’

‘No,’ Mrs. Hubbard said, ‘not starting this late. Anyway, I want Bob to fix the engine. I don’t want it going dead on me, middle of the wash, like it did last time.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Mr. Hubbard said. ‘Hey, Son!’ to Lewie, who had climbed up on the flower box beside him and was leaning against his shoulder. ‘Mama, I think I’ll go to town. All right if I take the youngsters?’

‘Me too!’ Baby yelled.

‘Yes,’ Bob said, ‘and when you get there take Baby to the barber shop and get his hair cut. Two girls around here’s enough.’

‘Oh!’ Mama protested, and put her hands to her cheeks and shook her head.

‘Can I?’ Baby yelled. ‘Can I, Mama? Can I, Papa?’

‘ Oh, if Papa wants it, I guess,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘I said, when he had Cleve’s cut, next time to tell me — that I could stand it, if I knew, but I just did n’t want him bringing him home and walkin’ in the door like a peeled onion.’

‘What’d you say when he had mine cut?’ Lewie asked, jealously. His father laughed and tousled his head. ‘Boy, you never had yours cut; ’r rather, it never grew. You were always straight as a boar’s. You oughta be proud. That’s the Hubbard in you. Get those curls from Mama’s side the house. Would n’t you rather be straight-haired and six foot than curly and tubby like your Uncle Dave? Hazel, get these boys in their clean overalls, will you, and we’ll take ’em to town. Bob, you fix the engine for your mother.’

While Hazel was washing the little boys and her mother was upstairs hunting old overalls to patch the knee of Lewie’s clean pair, Kitty came out of the dining room with a stack of dirty plates, set them down on the kitchen table, turned to Hazel, and said, ‘Well? Can you tell me now?’

‘Tell what?’ Lewie shouted from under the wash cloth. ‘Is it a surprise?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Hazel said. ‘Stand still, or you’ll get soap in your eyes!’

‘Is it over at Aunt Marge’s?’ Lewie insisted. ‘Has their old Fanny’s colt come?’

‘No,’ Hazel said, ‘but they have kittens. Three gray and one white.’

‘All over?’

‘All but for a little gray spot under her chin.’

Mrs. Hubbard came in with the patched overalls. ‘Sewed it up on the machine,’ she said. ‘Tell Papa to get them new. Lewie’ll need two pair for when school begins. Kitty, have you got the eggs crated for Papa?’

III

When their father and the little boys had driven away and the big boys were busy at the engine, Mrs. Hubbard went upstairs to make the beds and left the girls in the kitchen to do the dishes and ‘not fool.’

‘I’ll wash,’ Kitty said generously, to give Hazel the freer part of the work, since she had something to tell. She poured water from the reservoir into the big gray dishpan, filled the pan with coffee cups and milk mugs, washed three mugs, then turned to her sister and said, ‘ Well, tell!‘

Hazel stood where the bright sun shone on her amber hair and her smooth round throat. ‘Oh, Kitty,’ she said, ‘ it — it is n’t anything. I — just had a good time, that’s all.’

‘ What happened ? ’

Hazel put the milk mugs up in the cupboard and came back and picked up a coffee cup.

‘I’ve not washed that yet,’ Kitty said, and took it from her. ‘Hazel, what is it? Don’t you want to tell me?’

‘No,’ Hazel said. ‘I would, Kitty, if there was anything to tell — anything real. It’s one of those things.’

‘Oh,’ Kitty said, wanting to be understanding, but not at all sure what one of those things might be — a thing that Hazel could not, would not tell her. ‘Is it something Mama knows?’ she asked.

‘Oh no,’ Hazel said. “It’s — it’s just — somebody was there’

It was out! Now she would have to go on and tell Kitty; there would be no holding back now. She bit her lip and looked away toward the pastures.

‘My!’ Kitty whispered, and took her hands from the dish water and wiped them on Hazel’s dish towel. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘ I knew it. It was a man.’

‘Well, no,’ Hazel said fearfully. ‘It was n’t a bit like that, Kitty — not like meeting a man.‘

‘Come on,’ Kitty said, ‘we can’t talk in here. Let’s go out.’

‘No, let’s finish the dishes,’ Hazel said. ‘Mama’ll be down.’

‘Are you going to tell Mama?’

‘No, not unless—Kitty, you see, you think something real happened, and it did n’t. You ’ll be disappointed.

I told you nothing happened — There’s Mama.’

Mrs. Hubbard came into the kitchen with a pile of soiled blue shirts over her arm. She stopped still and looked at the girls. ‘What are you two up to?’ she asked. ‘ Kitty, why did n’t you have Hazel wash? You’ll never be done! I wish you’d hurry. I wanted you girls to pick the rest of the raspberries this morning. They’re dryin’ up on the bushes.’

‘All right,’ Kitty said. ‘We will, won’t we, Hazel?’ Kitty’s voice shone with the excitement of the secret between her and Hazel. Mrs. Hubbard looked sharply at her older daughter. ‘Hazel, have you been crying?’ she asked. ‘ What’s the matter? Don’t you feel good?’

‘I feel fine,’ Hazel said.

‘I bet Marge worked you too hard. Ask one of you girls over there, and then make you do an ironing big as a horse! I’ll tell Marge — I will.’

‘No,’ said Hazel, ‘it was n’t such a big ironing this time, Mama.’

‘Well, she’s no business. I’ll send Kitty the next time.’ Mrs. Hubbard laughed when she said, ‘I’ll send Kitty.’ Everyone joked Kitty about being lazy. And Kitty did n’t mind. ‘Well, I’m just nice-lazy,’ she would say. ‘I won’t kill myself for Aunt Marge or anybody.’

Mrs. Hubbard sat down by the kitchen window to sew on loosened buttons before she put the dirty shirts in the hamper. ‘Well, if you’re not sick, what ails you? And you, Kitty? What are you girls up to?’

‘We’re just talking,’ Kitty said soothingly, ‘ like young ladies will.’

‘Shucks,’ her mother said. ‘You’d better not put on airs like that with your father around, Kitty.’

IV

When Kitty had hung up the dishpan and shrugged her shoulders over her mother’s ‘Kitty, there’s the griddle; if you ever washed every blessed piece I’d know you were n’t going to live long!’ the girls took their sun hats and Kitty took the lower part and Hazel the upper part of the oatmeal boiler to pick in, and they went out to the berry patch. Hazel led the way, putting back the runners and going along the rows to where they had picked last, and then dropped down on the ground, fanning herself with her hat. Now she felt she could tell, that she must tell, that if she did n’t tell someone, Kitty most of all, she’d simply stop breathing. Kitty dropped down in front of her, hugged her knees, and waited. A bee zigzagged between them. Hazel put out a hand and carefully chose and picked a big berry, picked two big berries, and gave one to Kitty and then said hurriedly: ‘The Wesleys bought Uncle Seibert’s Jersey cow and calf and they sent Clayborn over to get them.’ She chewed on the berry, looking at her sister.

‘ And he’s him?‘

‘Yes.’

Kitty sighed, and waited.

‘His name is Clayborn Wesley.’

Kitty said it slowly after her. ‘It’s a little like Cleveland, is n’t it? Is n’t that funny for his name to be something like our brother’s?’

‘Did you think of that, too?’

‘ Well — tell me.’

‘He came up to the house with Uncle Seibert, and the little girls were on his shoulders — Beulah on one and Alice on the other. He’s big. They know him real well. They know all the Wesleys.’

Here, at the thought of her mother’s sister’s family knowing all the Wesleys, knowing them well, Hazel had to stop and have another berry.

‘Go on,’ Kitty prompted.

‘Well, he came in and let the little girls down, and I was working butter, and there I stood and I thought Aunt Marge never would remember to introduce us, and Uncle Seibert reminded her and she did, and — he said, “How do you do?” and I — Kitty, I’d give anything if I did n’t get red like I do!’

‘I don’t think it hurts anything,’ Kitty said.

‘Well, it was all right, because the bread was just done, and I opened the oven door and took the pan out and spread a towel and turned the bread out on the table, and pulled the loaves apart. That might look like it would make you red, don’t you think?’

‘ I think so,’ Kitty agreed.

‘And he said it looked good, smelled good, too, and Aunt Marge asked him if he would n’t like a piece; and so I cut and spread him a heel with the new butter right out of the bowl, and Aunt Marge asked him if he wanted some jelly and he said no, it was just right like that.’

‘What’d he look like?’ Kitty asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Dark?’

‘ Pretty dark — about as dark as Bob. He’s got a cut on his chin. Left side. It looks like a barb-wire cut. But it does n’t hurt his looks any.’

‘Is he nice-looking?’

‘Yes.’ Hazel stripped a half-dozen berries into her palm and held them out to Kitty. ‘ He’s better-looking than the Quentin boys — or anybody I ever saw, Kitty.’

‘Well.’

‘He just — ate that piece, and then I spread him another and pieces for Alice and Beulah, and then he said he ’d have to go take that stock home. He’d come in a truck.’

‘Did n’t he say anything to you?’

‘Yes, he said again it was good and thanked me when I gave him the piece.’

‘But —’

‘Well, I told you, Kitty, it was n’t anything — not anything.’

‘Well, but—’

‘ It was just the way he was, the way he looked, and — everything.‘

‘Did n’t he say anything else?’

‘ He asked me how long I was going to stay, and I told him Uncle Seibert was taking me home that night.’

‘ Wha’d he say to that?’

‘He did n’t say anything.’

‘Well—’ Kitty said, ‘’spose we’d better get to picking.’

Hazel got up and began picking rapidly.

‘He said good-bye, did n’t he?’

‘Yes, to everybody.’

‘Not to you special?’

‘ I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No, I was moulding out the butter.‘

‘O’ course he can ask Uncle Seibert where you live and all about us and everything.‘

‘Yes, but I don’t think he would. You could n’t ask Uncle Seibert something like that, could you?‘

‘I don’t know. Maybe a man could. Hazel, don’t you hate it?’

‘What?’

‘The way it is! Here — look at it, how it is. You met him over there, and you felt — you felt you knew he liked you a lot, but you can’t know anything. You have to wait.‘

‘ Oh, that !‘ Hazel said. ‘ I thought of that a long time ago. There’s nothing we can do about that.’

‘I know it,’ Kitty said. ‘Even in England. Even in Pride and Prejudice. They had to wait, too, and not know a thing.’

‘But you do see — you see how it was, Kitty? You see how it’s not very real when you tell it?’

‘It’s real to me,’ Kitty said. She stopped picking, spread out her brown slender arms, and opened her dark eyes wide. ‘Think, Hazie, you’re sixteen, and big enough for someone to want to go with you. I’ll soon be—’ she narrowed her eyes and looked away across the fields. ‘Goodness, I can hardly think of it.‘

For a while they picked in silence. Faintly the intermittent sounds of the engine and their brothers’ voices came to them. The wind tinkled the cottonwood leaves. A few hens foraged in the raspberry patch.

‘Listen!’ Hazel said at last. ‘That’s Mama calling.’

‘Calling me,’Hazel said. She emptied all the berries from her pan into Kitty’s and started from the patch. She turned and came back to say, ‘Kitty, don’t look like you knew anything, will you?’

‘Course not,’ Kitty said. ‘Sure would n’t want them to know!’ By them she meant their older brothers.

Hazel’s mother held the door open for her, shooing flies with her free hand. ‘You’re wanted on the phone, Hazel,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d never make you hear.’

‘Me?‘ Hazel asked.

‘Yes, and I don’t know who it is. Somebody on the Garys’ line — Mrs. Gary tryin’ to get the phone, anyway.‘

‘Oh my,’Hazel said, put her hair behind her ears, and went to the phone in the dining room. Her mother followed and stood in the door between the dining room and the kitchen. The phone had been put in at Papa’s direction and it had always been much too high for Mrs. Hubbard and the girls. Hazel stood on tiptoe to reach it at all. ‘Hello,’ she said. Her mother came close and stood at her elbow.

The receiver was slippery in Hazel’s sweaty hand. She heard the back screen door open and close softly and knew that Kitty had come in.

‘Yes,’she said. ‘Yes, that would be nice. . . . Thank you. . . . Goodbye.‘

Kitty was on her other side now, her hands clasped against her throat, her eyes wide, her lips parted. Hazel hung up the receiver and turned to face her mother. ‘Well?’ Mrs. Hubbard asked.

Hazel felt she simply could n’t talk — not just yet. She went into the kitchen, dipped a dipperful of water and drank, gasping happily between drinks while her mother and sister waited.

‘It was Clayborn Wesley,’ she said at last. ‘ He said he wanted to come over and take me to town to-night, and I said all right.’

‘Who’s Clayborn Wesley?’ Mrs. Hubbard asked. ‘I don’t know any Wesleys. Where’d you get to know him ? ’

Hazel shook her head. She did n’t feel like talking. She looked at Kitty and Kitty was ready, eager, to help. ‘He’s one of the Wesley boys,’ she said importantly, soothingly. ‘ He wants to go with Hazel. She met him over at Aunt Marge’s.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Hubbard, ‘I don’t know about this. Marge can’t do a thing like this behind my back. I’ll talk to her! ’ She started into the dining room toward the phone, but Kitty flung her arms about her and stopped her. ‘Mama Hubbard!’ she cried. ‘Don’t you do any such a thing! He’s all right! You don’t want everybody laughing at Hazel and you talking a thing like that on the phone.’ Mrs. Hubbard turned about, got potatoes from the sack in the pantry, and began to peel them, taking much thicker peelings than she usually did. ‘They’re neighbors of Aunt Marge’s — awfully nice folks,’ Kitty went on. ‘They bought Uncle Seibert’s Jersey and her calf. Aunty Marge does n’t know a thing about it! Hazel did n’t know a thing about it until right now.’

‘Then, missy, how do you happen to know so much about it? What about it, Hazel?’

Hazel sat on the corner of the kitchen table, took a knife, and began to help her mother peel potatoes. ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ she said calmly. ‘Uncle Seibert brought him into the kitchen when he came for the stock, and we all talked a little. I thought maybe he’d call me up, and he did.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so! Kitty, is that all the berries you girls got picked?’ She splashed a potato into the kettle and looked up fondly at her elder daughter. ‘My goodness, child, what’ll you wear?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Hazel said, but she did know. She had just decided. She would wear the new blue dimity that was still all-of-a-piece and folded away in her dresser waiting for the afternoon her mother should decide they had time to make it. Hazel had an idea her mother intended to save it, now they’d put off making it so long, until the next spring.

While she set the table Hazel planned the dress. She’d make it of a very simple pattern, with real full puffed sleeves. She’d bind it around the neck with the blue silk binding tape left over from Kitty’s white dress, and she’d cut it out right after dinner and have it done and wear it that night.

V

When the boys came in for dinner, Mrs. Hubbard told them. ‘Well, your father phoned he’s stayin’ in to town for dinner. Won’t Baby get a kick outa eating at a café, though? I guess he never has.’

Bob rubbed a stubbly cheek against Hazel’s and said, ‘What’re you daydreaming about, Sis ? And Kitty, what’s the matter with you? Got something up your sleeve, have n’t you?’

Mrs. Hubbard got them all at the table, complaining that it certainly was queer to eat without the little boys. The meal was scarcely under way before she ventured, ‘Bob, do you know any Wesleys?’

‘ Wesleys?’

‘Yes; live over beyond Aunt Marge’s a ways.’

‘Sure,’ Bob said. ‘Know one. Goes with the Eastridge girl.’

Kitty gasped.

‘Guess that’s not the same one,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘This one wants to go with Hazel.’

‘What! Who said so?’

‘He did. Why? What’s the matter with ’im? Is n’t he all right?’

‘Ya, I guess so. If he’s the same one. I don’t know but the one. But you goin’ to let Hazel start that?‘

‘Why not?’ Kitty bridled. ‘She’s sixteen. You were going over to see Rose before you were that old.‘

‘That’s different.’

‘Well, we’ll see what her father says,’ Mrs. Hubbard told them. ‘I did n’t have a thing to do with it. Your Aunt Marge started this.’

‘Oh no,’ Hazel said.

‘What’s gonna happen next?’ Cleve asked. ‘I suppose Kitty’ll be draggin’ one in about next week.’

Kitty laughed, picked up the glass of jelly, and squinted at the light through it. ‘Well,’ she tossed, ‘don’t you want us girls to have any fun? You boys go all the time!’

‘Hear that, Mama?’ Bob said. ‘See what Hazel’s started. You get all those notions outa your head, Kitty.’

Hazel got up from her chair and went to the stair door. Kitty rose to follow her, but her mother put out a hand and laid it on her arm. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Hazel wants to get her things ready, press her dress. You can wash the dishes.’

Upstairs, Hazel spread the goods, the five yards of dimity, on the faded rose rug, folded it, laid her pattern on it, and cut the dress out. She was basting the waist when Kitty came up.

‘ Hazel! ’ Kitty cried. ‘ Are you going to wear that?’

‘ Sh-h,’ Hazel said. ‘ If I get it basted up, Mama’ll help me finish it.’

Kitty knew that this was so. Asked if she’d make a dress in a hurry, Mrs. Hubbard always protested that there was n’t time, that to make it up so fast would surely spoil it; but, the dress once basted, she would not fail to take a hand, to do most of the work, sewing like ‘a house afire.’

‘The boys are just like her,’ Kitty said. ‘If the table’s set, they think supper’s nearly ready, and they’ll set down and read an hour and never say a word. If the table is n’t set, they row around and think they’re starved.’

Kitty waited patiently for Hazel to get ready to tell her all about the telephone call. Hazel told her, stitching away carefully as she talked. ‘There’s just one thing,’ Hazel said, ‘that worries me a little. I think I said everything just all right but for one thing.’

‘What was that?’

‘Well, when he asked if he could come over and take me some place tonight, to a show or some place, I said, “Thank you,” and I don’t think that was right. I think it’s the boy that’s to say “Thank you,” and not the girl.’

‘Did he say “Thank you?”’ Kitty asked.

‘No — no, he did n’t.’

‘Well, then, I guess he’s wrong, not you.’

’I don’t much care,’ Hazel said. ‘I think if a boy likes you, and you know he does, it does n’t matter so much what you say, if you say it nice.’ She rested her needle a little to look at Kitty and see if her sister agreed with her. ‘ I guess so,’ Kitty said. ‘My, just think, Hazel! By the time I’m big enough they want to go with me, you ’ll know everything! You ’ll’ve been going with Clay two whole years, maybe. I bet anything Papa won’t let me go with anybody until I’m over sixteen. He’ll say, “Hazel didn’t, so you can’t.” Are those the sleeves?’

When Hazel had everything basted that could be basted, she folded the dress over her arm and went downstairs to her mother.

Her father had come in and was standing in the kitchen eating a piece of pie. The little boys were telling in concert about their dinner at the café. Baby, forgetful of his shorn pate, was waving his arms and shouting. ‘Papa got a plate full of beefsteak for him and one for me and Lewie did n’t have anything but a bare plate, and Papa cut my piece in two and gave Lewie half and half my potatoes.’

‘Look at him, Hazel,’ Mrs. Hubbard was mourning. ‘He looks the ’picture of Cleve the day Papa brought him home with his hair cut.’

Kitty followed at Hazel’s heels. ‘My,’ she said, ‘this has been a day and a half! First it rains, and then Baby gets his hair cut, and then Hazel starts going with the boys.‘

‘What’s this?’ Mr. Hubbard asked. ‘What’s this, Hazel?’

Mrs. Hubbard explained, with Kitty’s help. Hazel, thinking it best not to wait for her father’s response, held the dress up to her and said, ‘Look, Mama.’

‘Well, for goodness’ sake, Hazel,’ her mother cried, ‘did you do that all since dinner? Are you going to wear that to-night? Well, get the machine threaded. We’ll sure have to sew.’

Mr. Hubbard put the little that was left of the piece of pie back on the plate and said, ‘Here! Don’t get in such a rush here. Mama, do you know this boy?’

‘No,’ Mrs. Hubbard said, the waist in her hands. ‘No, Papa, but Uncle Seibert does. They’re neighbors. He’s all right. The boys know him.’

‘Not him,’ Kitty amended, ‘but his brother — the one that goes with the Eastridge girl.’

‘That don’t settle anything,’ Mr. Hubbard said. ‘Hazel’s too young.‘

‘Well, she said she’d go,’his wife told him.

‘Well, if she said he could come he can come, I guess; but Hazel’s not going outa this house with somebody we don’t any of us know. Mama, what you thinkin’ of!’

‘Now, Papa,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘You don’t want the girls to sit around here and never have any pleasures, do you?’

‘I said my say, and I mean it, Mr. Hubbard said, making for the living room and the paper.

‘Is Hazie goin’ away again?’ Baby asked. ‘Is Kitty goin’ too?’

‘No,’ Mrs. Hubbard said decisively. ‘They are n’t going away.’ And to Hazel: ‘It’s all right, honey. Never you mind.’

VI

At supper the boys started in to tease Hazel about her date, and their father said, ‘That’s enough of that. A man can’t go outa the house!’

Kitty said, ‘Papa, don’t you want us to have any pleasures?’

Her father laid down his knife. ‘Mama,’ he said, ‘is that girl going too?’

‘I should say not,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘Now, why put me in the wrong in this, Papa? Hazel’s old enough to look after herself. It’s not nice of you to act like this. Why, she’s as old as I was when I started goin’ with George.’

‘Ya, and your folks had no business to let you.‘

‘That’s all right. How old were you when you came along and talked me outa it?’ Mama said. ‘What do you want to do, spoil the girl’s evening?’

Mr. Hubbard looked over at his daughter. Hazel smiled back at him, not too much of a smile. ‘That’s all right, Mama,’ he said; ‘but you don’t know how young people are now’days — you don’t know a thing about it.’

‘I’ve got four in my house,’Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘They act pretty normal, seems to me.’

Supper over, Hazel helped Kitty carry out the dishes. ‘Pretty nice of me,’Kitty said, ‘to wash dishes all day to help you out. What I ’m thinking is, who’ll there be to wash them for me when — ’

‘You’re thinkin’ a lot too much about “when,” Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘I’ll wipe the dishes, Hazel. You run on up and dress. You call me when you’re ready for the dress. I’ll get the snaps on and press it for you.’

Upstairs in the hot little room, Hazel had what the Hubbards called a bird bath, then put on her clean underclothes and combed her hair. She combed it back and coiled it at her neck. Her mother and Kitty came in with the dress, still warm from the iron, and got her into it. ‘Oh, Hazie, you look lovely,’ Kitty said. ‘You look twenty, anyway.’

’I wish you ’d leave your hair down,’ her mother said.

‘Did you have it up or down when you were over at Aunt Marge’s?’ Kitty asked.

‘Down,’ Hazel said.

‘Then why don’t you leave it down?’ her mother urged. ‘Here, want me to fix it?’

‘No, I’ll fix it,’ Hazel said, and, with Kitty holding the hand mirror to the back, she let her hair down and fastened it with pins.

‘My, I hope your hair don’t darken, Hazel, like mine did,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘When I was your age my hair was just the color of amber hairpins — just exactly.’

‘Hazel’s is now,’ Kitty said.

When Hazel was all ready her mother said, ‘Now I’m going down and change my dress and put on a clean apron. You’d better come down and sit on the porch, dear, where it’s cool. And Kitty, you come down and see everything’s all right in the front room. Papa’s in there, scattering the paper, and the little boys.’

Kitty lingered until after her mother had gone down. ‘Oh, Hazel,’ she said, ‘you look — just — just right. But are n’t you kinda scared?’

‘A little,’ Hazel said, ‘but not awfully.’

‘I would be,’ Kitty said. ‘Hazel, I think I’d die. What you going to talk about?’

Hazel shook her head.

‘Well, guess I’d better get down there and fix that room,’ Kitty said, and backed to the door. ‘You’ll tell me everything — won’t you, Hazie?’

VII

It was hot in the little room. Hazel did n’t want to go down and sit on the porch. She did n’t want to have her brothers kidding her and her father looking on her with his concerned look. The little window was open. She threw a quilt out on to the kitchen roof and, being very careful of the blue dimity, climbed out.

She spread the quilt and sat down, smoothing her skirts under her. She folded her hands in her lap, and there, hidden from the barn where the boys were milking by the branches of the apple tree, she rested. It was almost cool. The sky had turned from deep blue to pale green. A white star came out, and another and another. One of the cats, a white one, climbed up the apple tree, looked at her curiously from the crotch of the tree, and, when she called to him, came on silent feet across the shingles and sat down beside her and licked his haunches.

Hazel was scared, with a kind of happy scaredness that she felt was to be done away with and made right. Her dress was all that she had wanted it to be, and the night calm and swelling with locust song.

She sat there a long time, and when at last the stair door opened and her father called her name, she knew by his voice that the boy had come and her father was not against him.

‘I’m coming,’ she called back clearly, and got up and folded the quilt.