been doing!" his sister chirped helpfully.
"Well—what?" he replied blankly.
"You ought to guess. Can't you be nice and guess?"
"One guess, anyhow," put in Stella.
"Toasting pop-corn," he ventured with a half smile.
"You're warm." It was Myrtle speaking.
Stella looked at him with round blue eyes. "One more guess," she suggested.
"Chestnuts!" he guessed.
She nodded her head gaily. "What hair!" he thought. Then—"Where are they?"
"Here's one," laughed his new acquaintance, holding out a tiny hand.
Under her laughing encouragement he was finding his voice. "Stingy!" he said.
"Now isn't that mean," she exclaimed. "I gave him the only one I had. Don't you give him any of yours, Myrtle."
"I take it back," he pleaded. "I didn't know."
"I won't!" exclaimed Myrtle. "Here, Stella," and she held out the few nuts she had left, "take these, and don't you give him any!" She put them in Stella's eager hands.
He saw her meaning. It was an invitation to a contest. She wanted him to try to make her give him some. He fell in with her plan.
"Here!" He stretched out his palm. "That's not right!"
She shook her head.
"One, anyhow," he insisted.
Her head moved negatively from side to side slowly.
"One," he pleaded, drawing near.
Again the golden negative. But her hand was at the side nearest him, where he could seize it. She started to pass its contents behind her to the other hand but he jumped and caught it.
"Myrtle! Quick!" she called.
Myrtle came. It was a three-handed struggle. In the midst of the contest Stella twisted and rose to her feet. Her hair brushed his face. He held her tiny hand firmly. For a moment he looked into her eyes. What was it? He could not say. Only he half let go and gave her the victory.
"There," she smiled. "Now I'll give you one."
He took it, laughing. What he wanted was to take her in his arms.
A little while before supper his father came in and sat down, but presently took a Chicago paper and went into the dining room to read. Then his mother called them to the table, and he sat by Stella. He was intensely interested in what she did and said. If her lips moved he noted just how. When her teeth showed he thought they were lovely. A little ringlet on her forehead beckoned him like a golden finger. He felt the wonder of the poetic phrase, "the shining strands of her hair."
After dinner he and Myrtle and Stella went back to the sitting room. His father stayed behind to read, his mother to wash dishes. Myrtle left the room after a bit to help her mother, and then these two were left alone. He hadn't much to say, now that they were together—he couldn't talk. Something about her beauty kept him silent.
"Do you like school?" she asked after a time. She felt as if they must talk.
"Only fairly well," he replied. "I'm not much interested. I think I'll quit one of these days and go to work."
"What do you expect to do?"
"I don't know yet—I'd like to be an artist." He confessed his ambition for the first time in his life—why, he could not have said.
Stella took no note of it.
"I was afraid they wouldn't let me enter second year high school, but they did," she remarked. "The superintendent at Moline had to write the superintendent here."
"They're mean about those things," he cogitated.
She got up and went to the bookcase to look at the books. He followed after a little.
"Do you like Dickens?" she asked.
He nodded his head solemnly in approval. "Pretty much," he said.
"I can't like him. He's too long drawn out. I like Scott better."
"I like Scott," he said.
"I'll tell you a lovely book that I like." She paused, her lips parted trying to remember the name. She lifted her hand as though to pick the title out of the air. "The Fair God," she exclaimed at last.
"Yes—it's fine," he approved. "I thought the scene in the old Aztec temple where they were going to sacrifice Ahwahee was so wonderful!"
"Oh, yes, I liked that," she added. She pulled out "Ben Hur" and turned its leaves idly. "And this was so good."
"Wonderful!"
They paused and she went to the window, standing under the cheap lace curtains. It was a moonlight night. The rows of trees that lined the street on either side were leafless; the grass brown and dead. Through the thin, interlaced twigs that were like silver filigree they could see the lamps of other houses shining through half-drawn blinds. A man went by, a black shadow in the half-light.
"Isn't it lovely?" she said.
Eugene came near. "It's fine," he answered.
"I wish it were cold enough to skate. Do you skate?" She turned to him.
"Yes, indeed," he replied.
"My, it's so nice on a moonlit night. I used to skate a lot at Moline."
"We skate a lot here. There're two lakes, you know."
He thought of the clear crystal nights when the ice of Green Lake had split every so often with a great resounding rumble. He thought of the crowds of boys and girls shouting, the distant shadows, the stars. Up to now he had never found any girl to skate with successfully. He had never felt just easy with anyone. He had tried it, but once he had fallen with a girl, and it had almost cured him of skating forever. He felt as though he could skate with Stella. He felt that she might like to skate with him.
"When it gets colder we might go," he ventured. "Myrtle skates."
"Oh, that'll be fine!" she applauded.
Still she looked out into the street.
After a bit she came back to the fire and stood before him, pensively looking down.
"Do you think your father will stay here?" he asked.
"He says so. He likes it very much."
"Do you?"
"Yes—now."
"Why now?"
"Oh, I didn't like it at first."
"Why?"
"Oh, I guess it was because I didn't know anybody. I like it though, now." She lifted her eyes.
He drew a little nearer.
"It's a nice place," he said, "but there isn't much for me here. I think I'll leave next year."
"Where do you think you'll go?"
"To Chicago. I don't want to stay here."
She turned her body toward the fire and he moved to a chair behind her, leaning on its back. She felt him there rather close, but did not move. He was surprising himself.
"Aren't you ever coming back?" she asked.
"Maybe. It all depends. I suppose so."
"I shouldn't think you'd want to leave yet."
"Why?"
"You say it's so nice."
He made no answer and she looked over her shoulder. He was leaning very much toward her.
"Will you skate with me this winter?" he asked meaningly.