O magic ear of youth!  I wonder how it would sound to me now—­the rollicking lilt of Barney Leave the Girls Alone—­even if a sweet maid flung its banter at me with flashing fingers and well-fashioned lips.

I behaved myself with great care at the table—­I remember that—­and, after dinner, we played in the dooryard and the stable, I with a great fear of tearing my new clothes.  I stopped and cautioned her more than once:  “Be careful!  For gracious sake! be careful o’ my new suit!”

As we were leaving late in the afternoon she said: 

“I wish you would come here to school.”

“I suppose he will sometime,” said Uncle Peabody.

A new hope entered my breast, that moment, and began to grow there.

“Aren’t you going to kiss her?” said Mr. Dunkelberg with a smile.

I saw the color in her cheeks deepen as she turned with a smile and walked away two or three steps while the grown people laughed, and stood with her back turned looking in at the window.

“You’re looking the wrong way for the scenery,” said Mr. Dunkelberg.

She turned and walked toward me with a look Of resolution in her pretty face and said: 

“I’m not afraid of him.”

We kissed each other and, again, that well-remembered touch of her hair upon my face!  But the feel of her warm lips upon my own—­that was so different and so sweet to remember in the lonely days that followed!  Fast flows the river to the sea when youth is sailing on it.  They had shoved me out of the quiet cove into the swift current—­those dear, kindly, thoughtless people!  Sally ran away into the house as their laughter continued and my uncle and I walked down the street.  How happy I was!

We went to the Methodist Church where Mr. Wright was speaking but we couldn’t get in.  There were many standing at the door who had come too late.  We could hear his voice and I remember that he seemed to be talking to the people just as I had heard him talk to my aunt and uncle, sitting by our fireside, only louder.  We were tired and went down to the tavern and waited for him on its great porch.  We passed a number of boys playing three-old-cat in the school yard.  How I longed to be among them!

I observed with satisfaction that the village boys did not make fun of me when I passed them as they did when I wore the petticoat trousers.  Mr. and Mrs. Wright came along with the crowd, by and by, and Colonel Medad Moody.  We had supper with them at the tavern and started away in the dark with the Senator on the seat with us.  He and my uncle began to talk about the tightness of money and the banking laws and I remember a remark of my uncle, for there was that in his tone which I could never forget: 

“We poor people are trusting you to look out for us—­we poor people are trusting you to see that we get treated fair.  We’re havin’ a hard time.”

This touched me a little and I was keen to hear the Senator’s answer.  I remember so well the sacred spirit of democracy in his words.  Long afterward I asked him to refresh my memory of them and so I am able to quote him as he would wish.