My life went on at the same kindly, merry pace in the home of the schoolmaster.  The bandages over his eyes had in no way clouded his spirit.

“Ah, now, I wish that I could see you,” he said one evening when we were all laughing at some remark of his.  “I love the look of a merry face.”

I continued to wear the mysterious clothes of Michael Henry, save at chore time, when I put on the spotted suit of homespun.  I observed that it made a great difference with my social standing.  I was treated with a greater deference at the school, and Elizabeth Allen invited me to her party, to which, however, I had not the courage to go, having no idea what happened to one at a village party.

I asked a boy in my Latin class to tell me.

“Oh, ye just fly around an’ kiss and git kissed till ye feel like a fool.”

That settled it for me.  Not that I would have failed to enjoy kissing Sally, but we were out, as they used to say, and it would have embarrassed both of us to meet at a party.

Saturday came and, when the chores were done, I went alone to the grain barn in the back lot of the Senator’s farm with flail and measure and broom and fork and shovel and sacks and my luncheon, in a push cart, with all of which Mrs. Wright had provided me.

It was a lonely place with woods on three sides of the field and a road on the other.  I kept laying down beds of wheat on the barn-floor and beating them out with the flail until the sun was well over the roof when I sat down to eat my luncheon.  Then I swept up the grain and winnowed out the chaff and filled one of my sacks.  That done, I covered the floor again and the thump of the flail eased my loneliness until in the middle of the afternoon two of my schoolmates came and asked me to go swimming, with them.  The river was not forty rods away and a good trail led to the swimming hole.  It was a warm bright day and I was hot and thirsty.  The thought of cool waters and friendly companionship was too much for me.  I went with them.

More ancient than the human form is that joy of the young in the feel of air and water on the naked skin, in the frog-like leap and splash and the monkey-chatter of the swimming hole.  There were a number of the “swamp boys” in the water.  They lived in cabins on the edges of the near swamp.  I stayed with them longer than I intended.  I remember saying as I dressed that I should have to work late and go without my supper in order to finish my stent.

It was almost dark when I was putting the last sack of wheat into my cart, in the gloomy barn, and getting ready to go.

A rustling in the straw near where I stood stopped me suddenly.  My skin prickled and began to stir on my head and my feet and hands felt numb with a new fear.  I heard stealthy footsteps in the darkness.  I stood my ground and demanded: 

“Who’s there?”

I saw a form approaching in the gloom with feet as noiseless as a cat’s.  I took a step backward and, seeing that it was a woman, stopped.