Hill Girl by Charles Williams 1951(7)

“Oh, he’s been on a ring-tailed tear for the past week
and I get tired of keeping him out of trouble.”
Somebody behind us began blasting his horn
impatiently, so Butler stepped back and waved and we
drove on. I was worried as we went out North Elm and
didn’t feel any better when we pulled up in front of the
old house and found it dark. There was nobody home at
all and I wondered where Mary was.
There wasn’t any use in wasting any more time
tonight, I thought, so we drove on out to the farm.
There was no light in the house across the road when
we turned into the driveway, but I hadn’t expected any
because it was past Jake’s and Helen’s bedtime.


We stopped under the sweet-gum trees and I turned
to Angelina and said, “This is it. We’re home.” She had
been very quiet since we had left town. We went up on
the porch and when I had opened the door I picked her
up and carried her through.
“I’ve been hoping all the way that you’d do that,
Bob,” she said simply.
I walked down the hall, still carrying her, feeling my
way, and went into the back bedroom. It was hot inside
the closed house and absolutely still and the blackness
seemed to press in on us.
“Hold me, Bob,” she whispered. “Don’t put me down.
I’m scared.”
I could feel her trembling. “There’s nothing to be
afraid of,” I said.
“I know it. I’m just nervous, I guess. But something
scares me.”
I sat down on the bed and held onto her for a while
until the shaking subsided. Then I got up and opened
the back door and raised the windows and lit, one of
the lamps. She smiled at me, a little shamefaced.
“I don’t know what was the matter. I must be crazy. I
won’t be like that any more.”
We went around to all the rooms so she could see
them. She had seen the place before, of course, having
lived all her life across the Black Creek bottom, but
Hill Girl — 153
she’d never been inside it. She liked it and was pleased
with the furniture I had collected, but there was
something subdued in her manner.
When we came to the kitchen she examined
everything thoroughly, even looking at the cooking
utensils and into the cupboards where the food was
kept.
“Don’t worry about the kitchen now,” I said. “Helen
will be over in the morning and cook breakfast for us.”
I had already told her about our arrangement, of
course.
I thought she looked at me queerly, but she didn’t say
anything, and I forgot it. Mary and Lee were on my
mind anyway and I was too preoccupied to notice
much.
The next morning when I opened my eyes it was just
becoming light. It was too early to get up, at least for
this time of year when the crops were laid by and there
wasn’t much to do, so I started to go back to sleep
when I noticed she wasn’t there with me. Then I heard
stove lids clattering out in the kitchen.
I crossed the dining-room linoleum on my bare feet
and looked in. She was fully dressed and was building a
fire in the cookstove. There was such deadly
seriousness in her face and she was so oblivious to
everything else that I grinned. She hadn’t even heard
me get up.
“What’s all this activity?” I asked. “Come on to bed
and relax. Helen’ll be over pretty soon and cook
breakfast for all of us.”
She turned on me, bristling like an outraged
porcupine. “Over my dead body, she will!” she said,
banging one of the stove lids down on top of the wood
in the firebox.
“Keep your shirt on,” I said, without thinking.
“Helen’s a good cook and she won’t poison us.”
“Bob Crane, I don’t doubt but what she’s a good
cook. She’s probably the greatest cook in the world,
from the way you go on about her.” I couldn’t recall
having even mentioned Helen’s name more than twice
Hill Girl — 154
since we’d been married. “Maybe I’m not so good and
I’ll poison us, but no woman is going to come in my
kitchen and cook! I’ll burn the house down first.”
“But, Christ,” I said, beginning to get sore, “what do
you expect Jake and Helen to do? Go into town for their
meals? They haven’t even got a cookstove over there in
that house.”
“You’re just deliberately trying to misunderstand me.
I didn’t say they couldn’t eat here with us. I said she
couldn’t run my kitchen. Of course they can eat with
us. But if you think for a minute—”
“I don’t think for a minute. I guess I haven’t thought
for years,” I said, beginning to see that she was right,
as usual. And she looked so small and lovely and
belligerent drawn up there for battle I had to grin. I
walked in and grabbed her up until her feet were off
the floor and kissed her.
“All right, Lady of the Manor, I’ll go right over now
and murder Jake and Helen in their bed. What do we
have for breakfast?”
“Bacon and eggs. Do you love me, Bob? And hot
biscuits.” Her voice was muffled down against my neck.
“Of course I love you and hot biscuits. Now you take
one that’s cooked right on top of that hot head of yours
—”
“I’m sorry,” she broke in. “I’m ashamed of myself.
But the idea of anybody else coming in my house and
cooking for you makes my blood boil.”
I laughed. “I know, you little wildcat. Your blood has
the lowest boiling point of any fluid known to science.”
After I had shaved and dressed I went out on the
front porch and saw Helen and Jake come out of the
house and start across the road. They saw the Buick
parked under the sweet-gum trees and must have
noticed the smoke coming out of the kitchen stovepipe,
for they turned around after a brief conference and
went back inside. I was puzzled by this until they came
out again in a few minutes and came on up to the front
yard and I saw that Helen had changed into another
dress and had put on stockings.
Hill Girl — 155
They were glad to see me and we went on back to the
dining room, where Angelina had breakfast on the
table. She and Jake knew each other, of course, from
Jake’s foxhunting trips with Sam, but she and Helen
hadn’t met before.
Breakfast came off successfully. Jake and I did most
of the talking at first, but gradually Angelina and Helen
got over their polite sparring around and became a
little warmer. It would be hard for anyone to resist
Helen for long, with her simple and greathearted
friendliness, and after Angelina had established her
beachhead with several references to “my kitchen” and
what she was going to do with the house and had
decided that Helen was a very plain girl, pleasantlooking
but homely and therefore nice, everything went
along all right.
There, was some embarrassment about the cooking
arrangements, Jake and Helen insisting after breakfast
that they didn’t feel they should impose on us now that
I was married. I had to return Lee’s car, so I said I’d
pick up a stove for their house while I was in town.
I went in alone. Angelina said she wanted to unpack
the bags and clean up the house, and I didn’t much
want her to go anyway until I found out what was
happening or had happened. It was a little before nine
when I stopped under the big oaks in front of the
house.
My Ford was parked in the driveway, with one fender
knocked off. It hadn’t been there last night. I went up
on the porch and knocked, but no one came to the
door. I knocked again and then tried the door. It wasn’t
locked and I went in and walked down the dark hallway
to the living room, hearing my footsteps echo in the
silence.
There were cigarette butts and ashes on the rug in
the living room and one of the pillows on the sofa was
half burned up and feathers were all over everything.
There was a fruit jar sitting on the hearth in front of
the fireplace.
I knew then I wouldn’t find Mary there, so I went in
all the bedrooms looking for Lee. In their room the bed
Hill Girl — 156

looked as if somebody had been sleeping in it with his
shoes on, and there was a girl’s coat over a chair, a
coat I knew didn’t belong to Mary.
I found him in the kitchen. He was sitting in a chair,
asleep, with his head and shoulders slumped over the
table. Near his arms there was a half-eaten sardine
sandwich that a fly was buzzing around, and a cigarette
butt that had burned a long charred furrow in the top
of the table before it had gone out.
I sat down across the table from him and shook him
gently by the shoulder. “Wake up, Lee,” I said. “It’s
Bob.” It took several shakes to stir him, and when he
finally did come to he sat up shakily, pushing himself
slowly up with his arms, and stared at me without
saying anything. His eyes were shot with red and there
were dark circles under them.
“Hello,” I said.
He looked at me stupidly for a minute. “You
sonofabitch,” he said.
I got up and went back into the living room and got
the fruit jar. There was about an inch of whisky in the
bottom of it and I poured it into a water glass and gave
it to him. His hands were trembling badly but he got it
up to his mouth and swallowed it and then coughed
and retched. He shook his head, but when he looked up
at me again I could see the stuff working on him. His
eyes began to come alive a little.
“Well,” he said, “if it isn’t Handsome himself. So you
finally came back?”
“Yes. I’m back.” I sat down again, across the table,
and lit two cigarettes and handed one to him.
“Where’d you leave her?” he demanded. He leaned
across the table and took hold of my arm and I could
feel him shaking.
“Leave who?”
“You know who I mean. Where’d you leave her? Jesus
Christ, I’ve almost gone nuts the past ten days,
thinking about you off in a hotel room somewhere with
that.”
Hill Girl — 157
“Take it easy,” I said, but he began talking louder. He
looked like a madman.
“Hell, haven’t you been with her? What’ve you been
doing all this time? If you’ve been with her this long,
what’s holding you up? I don’t see how you’d be able to
walk.”
I picked up the half-eaten sandwich off the table and
shoved it into his mouth, all the way in, to the last
quarter inch of it, and held my hand over his face. He
choked and tried to pull back and hit at my arm, but I
grabbed him by the collar with the other hand and held
him still. The glass bounced off the table and broke on
the floor.
“Chew on that,” I said. “That’ll give you something to
do with your goddamned mouth. And keep it shut.”
My hands were shaking as badly as his had been now
and I could feel the fluttering in my stomach and the
dry stickiness in my mouth from my breath going
through it. Take it easy. Take it easy. He’s drunk and
doesn’t know what he’s doing. And how does he know
what’s happened since that morning you left? How
could he know?
His eyes were fixed on my face, and it must have
been tough to look at, for I could see the fear in them. I
let go and he spat out the bread and took a deep breath
and tried to push back from the table and get up, all at
the same time, and he fell over backward with the chair
under him. When he untangled himself he stood up and
stared at me with his mouth open.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked, still
trying to get his breath back. “You’re absolutely nuts.”
“Pick up your chair, Lee,” I said. “And sit down.” I
had hold of myself now. “Let’s just forget the whole
thing and start over. I came to town to tell you and
Mary that Angelina and I were back from our trip and
to ask you to come out and see us.”
“You mean you brought her back with you? She’s out
there? You must be nuts.”
“You still hungry? There’s some more of that
sandwich,” I said.
Hill Girl — 158
He sat down and stopped talking.
“Where’s Mary?” I asked.
“How the hell do I know where she is? At her
grandmother’s, I guess.”
“She’s left you?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“When?”
“About two days after you left. She found out about
that Angelina business somehow. I guess I spilled it
when I was drunk. She was suspicious anyway, because
she couldn’t quite swallow that story about you bein’
mixed up in it. I guess she always thought you were
some kind of a fair-haired boy or something. Anyway,
she found out the whole thing and said she was going
to leave me. I’d been drinking and was still half nutty
over this Angelina deal, so I told her I didn’t care, to go
ahead.”
“Didn’t you even go over there afterward and try to
smooth things over?”

His face was surly and he looked away. “It wouldn’t
have done any good. Not after what happened. The
second night her grandmother must have promoted her
into coming back over to have a talk about it, because
she did come back and she got here at the wrong time.
I had called up an old girl I used to run around with at
Rice, who was here visiting in town, and she was here
when Mary came in. This babe had on one of Mary’s
nightgowns and was drunker than a preacher’s bastard
son, and in our bed, and you think I ought to go over
and smooth things out, do you? Not that I give a damn.
We were washed up anyway.”
I got up to go. There wasn’t anything to be gained by
sticking around. “I’m sorry, Lee,” I said.
“Oh, to hell with it,” he said. “Did you bring my car
back?”
“Yes, it’s out there.” I dropped the keys on the table.
“Well, that’s nice of you. I’m always glad to have my
car when you’re not using it.”
Hill Girl — 159
I didn’t say anything. When I started out of the
kitchen, he said, “I almost decided to report it stolen,
so you’d be picked up.”
“You almost did?” I said, and went on out through the
living room. When I looked back he was still sitting
there at the table.
Hill Girl — 160
Twenty-one
The next week Lee was sentenced to sixty days in the
county jail for drunk driving. He was going through the
square at about forty late one night and crashed into a
parked car and almost demolished it. It cost him nearly
four hundred dollars to have the two cars repaired and
he couldn’t get off with merely a fine this time. He’d
been fined and warned too many times. He went to jail
for the full two months.
Mary had filed suit for divorce. I went to see her,
knowing it wasn’t any of my business and that it
wouldn’t do any good. She listened to me patiently and
never once told me not to butt in, but her mind was
made up. She didn’t seem to blame Lee and she wasn’t
bitter about it; it was just that she was through. I tried
to get her to go around to the jail with me to see him,
but she shook her head.
We were sitting in a booth in Gordon’s café. She
toyed with the two straws that came with the Cokes.
“I’m sorry, Bob,” she said. “But what’s the use? The
thing is over and done, so why prolong the agony? It
just makes me feel bad to see him because I always get
to thinking of how it could have been with us. It isn’t a
lot of fun to look at him and think what a man he could
have been if he’d ever grown up.”
Hill Girl — 161
“I guess so,” I said. “I always had hopes that with you
he’d settle down and quit raising so much hell, but I
guess that never really happens, does it?”
Her eyes were a little amused. “No, I don’t think
there’s any such thing as a woman making a man out of
anybody. You never heard of a man making a woman
out of anybody, did you? She can take a man and make
a civilized man—that is, a married one—out of him, but
she has to have a man to begin with.”
“Oh, I think he’s man enough to come out of it,” I
protested. “I know he’s crazy as hell and wilder than a
March hare, but I wouldn’t call him a weakling.”
She shook her head with what seemed like
exasperation. “There goes the professional male
speaking again. A man is something that has a lot of
hair on its chest, isn’t it, and a deep voice that rumbles
down in its belly, and goes around trampling on its
hairy brothers with cleats.“
“O.K.,” I said. “Maybe you’re right.”
When we got up to go she said something that
puzzled me, and it wasn’t until long afterward that I
figured it out.
“Bob, why don’t you go away from this country? I
don’t think Lee ever will.”
“You mean, on account of that business? I don’t think
it’s necessary. It was pretty rough at first sometimes,
but I’ve about got it out of my system now.”
She gathered up her purse and I picked up the check.
“Yes, I know you have. I suspect you of growing up.
You’ve got over it. But has Lee?”
She wouldn’t say any more and she was quiet as I
drove her back to her grandmother’s.
“Good-by, Bob,” she said. “I’ll be out to see you one
of these days.”
August was beautiful. I almost forgot Lee entirely in
my preoccupation with Angelina and the task I had
undertaken in attempting to teach her to like the
country the way I did. I went to see him once a week
and took him cigarettes and some books, but he was
Hill Girl — 162
surly most of the time and didn’t seem to care whether
I came or not.
One afternoon when Angelina and I were swimming
down at Black Creek, Sam came up on us, appearing
out of the heavy timber with his shotgun. He was
hunting squirrels and had two of them, big fox
squirrels.
We hadn’t seen him since our return. Twice we had
gone to visit Mrs. Harley and had taken some presents
Angelina had brought back from Galveston, but both
times he had been away from the house and I was
pretty sure she had known he would be.
He grinned and seemed embarrassed, as though he
had caught us undressed or something. “Howdy, Bob,”
he said, shifting his gun to the other hand. “Howdy,
Angelina.”
Angelina’s “Hello, Papa,” was as impersonal as death.
I asked him how the crops were and how the hunting
had been and if he’d been fishing for white perch
lately, but Angelina never said another word. I felt
sorry for him, the way he was standing there and not
wanting to look at her, half naked as she seemed to him
in her scanty bathing suit, and still wanting to look at
her because she was his oldest daughter and the
prettiest one and he loved her. He was talking to me
but it was easy to see he was hoping she would say
something to him, perhaps some word of our trip, or
when she expected to be over to visit them again, or
whether she was happy and liked her new home, or
some question about his health, or anything at all, but
no word came from her.
“We’ll be over to see you soon, Sam,” I said, as he
half turned to go.
“Yes, you-all do that. We’ll be lookin’ for you. Goodby.
Good-by, Angelina.”

Angelina looked up briefly and said, “Good-by, Papa.”
When he had gone, I asked, “I haven’t been mean to
you in a long time, have I?”
“Of course not. Why ask such a silly thing?”
Hill Girl — 163
“Don’t let me, ever. I never want to have to listen to
you say, ‘Good-by, Bob,’ the way you said that. The
poor devil.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help it, I guess.”
We went to all the dances, the ones in town and the
little country dances that were held now and then on
Saturday nights in the surrounding communities, and I
took her to the movies about twice a week. I had never
cared a lot for pictures, but she liked them and we
went. A lot of times all this going seemed a little silly
and it would have been much more fun to stay at home,
but always I guess there was a fear in the back of my
mind that she wouldn’t like living out here if there
were too much to remind her of her previous
unhappiness. I didn’t want her to continue associating
that unhappiness with country life when the truth was
that the mere fact that her father was a farmer had had
nothing to do with it I wanted her to learn that a girl
could live on a farm without being imprisoned and cut
off from other people her age and having to wear
clothes she hated.
One night after supper, when I suggested a ride into
town for a movie, Angelina surprised me by asking if
we couldn’t stay at home instead.
“There’s a full moon tonight,” she said. “Let’s stay
here on the back porch and just look at it.”
I agreed quickly. “Sounds like a lot more fun to me,”
I said. We sat down on the top step and she leaned her
head against my shoulder. The moon hadn’t come up
yet over the timbered ridge to the east across the
bottom, but already we could see the glow of it looking
like a far-off forest fire.
“Are you happy, Angelina?” I asked.
“You know I am. More than there’s any way to say.”
“You don’t feel that living on a farm is like being in
jail any more?”
“No. I never did, except over there.” She was looking
across the bottom toward the glow. “I’ve never felt like
that here with you.”
Hill Girl — 164
In a moment she laughed a little and said, “You’re
funny, Bob, aren’t you? You’ve courted me so hard ever
since we’ve been back here that sometimes I wondered
if you’d forgotten we’re already married. Goin’ to
movies and dances, and swimmin’. It’s sweet of you,
but you don’t have to work so hard at it.”
“Well, I didn’t want you ever to feel about this place
the way you did over there.”
“I won’t. Even if you’d made a jail out of it. There’s
such a thing as still liking the jailer.”
“Fine,” I said. “All this foolishness stops right now.
Tomorrow morning I take your shoes away from you
and you go out and hoe cotton.”
“You don’t hoe cotton after it’s laid by, silly. You can’t
fool a country girl.”
“You see what I mean, Angelina?” I said. “A few
months ago you’d have been as sore as a boil if
anybody’d called you a country girl. You’d have thought
it was an insult.”
“I’d have scratched their eyes out.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You don’t scratch. You double up
your little dukes and start throwing punches like a
good bantamweight.”
“I guess that’s the only reason you like me, because I
fight like a man instead of a girl.”
It wasn’t all play those two months, even though I
neglected a lot of things to be with her. Jake and I cut
corn tops and shocked them and sawed a lot of wood
for the coming winter. But in addition to the work there
were always the swimming down in the bottom and the
white perch fishing, and the watermelons to be eaten,
and the books to be read on the grass under the
towering white oaks, and always the ever increasing
fun of just being together. That summer was one I
would never forget.
Hill Girl — 165
Twenty-two
Early in September we started picking cotton in the
upper fields, with just a few pickers at first and
increasing as the days went by and the bolls began
opening faster under the hot sun. It was still dry and
little dust devils chased each other across the fields
like miniature cyclones and the drone of the dryweather
locusts went on throughout the dusty, sweaty
afternoons.
Lee was released from jail a week after we started
picking. We were becoming busier then and I didn’t
have time to go to town. Jake was running the wagon,
hauling the cotton to the gin, and I was doing the
weighing for the pickers in the field.
I heard that he was out, though, and that he had
gone back to the big house on North Elm and was
living there alone. I sent word to him to come out and
see us, not much expecting that he would since he had
been so sour and unfriendly the times I had gone to the
jail to visit him. So I was surprised to see the big
roadster drive up late one Saturday afternoon.
He came down the hall and I noticed first that he was
sober and that he was looking well. Apparently sixty
days in jail and being at least partially cut off from his
liquor supply had been good for him. He was dressed in
brown tweeds that fitted him the way all his clothes
Hill Girl — 166
did, and he was wearing that gravely smiling demeanor
that had disarmed so many people in his life.
He lounged in the doorway and looked at me and said
smilingly, “Hello, yokel. I hear I’m invited to supper.”
Angelina came in from the kitchen and stopped when
she saw him. It was the first time they had met since
we came back and I supposed all of us were trying not
to think of the last time they’d met. At least, I knew
Angelina and I were, but no one was ever sure what
Lee was thinking.

He stepped forward with that urbane gravity that
reminded me so much of the way he used to be when
he wanted to put on an act, and said, “Hello, Angelina,”
and they shook hands. He might have been a Supreme
Court justice greeting his favorite niece.
Angelina said, “Hello, Lee,” and I was proud of her. I
hadn’t known there could be so much simple dignity in
an eighteen-year-old.
He was quietly courteous to her throughout the meal,
never ostentatiously attentive but on the other hand
never asking me a question or saying anything to me
without turning to include her and to get her view. I
was proud of the way he was behaving and happy to
see him like this. They were the two people I loved
more than anybody else in the world and I wanted that
ugly thing that had been between us buried once and
for all, and when he casually mentioned tfiat he was
thinking of going back to work I was suddenly satisfied
with everything in life.
“You know much about hardwood, Bob?” he asked,
finishing his coffee. We had lit the kerosene lamp and
he looked handsome as the devil himself with his
smooth brown head and dark eyes.
“Not much. Why?” _
“Oh, I was just thinking. You know, just before he
finally decided to get rid of both his mills, the Major
had been looking into the hardwood business. He never
did do anything about it, but he had gathered a lot of
figures and had some of the best oak and walnut stands
spotted, and I’ve been giving it some serious thought
lately. I might try to get one of those mills back and
Hill Girl — 167
start cutting oak. There’s good money in it if you get
into a good stand and know how to run the business.”
“Well, you should know enough about it, all those
years with the Major,” I said.
“I may do it. I can’t go on doing nothing all my life.”
He stayed until about ten and we talked a lot and
played the phonograph, and the evening was almost
perfect. There was one moment when I wasn’t so sure,
but afterward I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t imagined
it, or at least exaggerated it. It was while I was lighting
a cigarette and Angelina had got up to go across the
room for something and for a second when he must
have thought he was unobserved I saw what was in his
eyes as they followed her figure across the room.
When he had gone I said, “Maybe he’ll come out of it
yet. Don’t you think so, Angelina?”
“Maybe so, Bob.” She was rather quiet.
“He’s all right when he’s behaving himself, isn’t he?
What did you think?”
“He was nice, all right. And he’s the best-looking man
I ever saw, even in the movies.”
“Well, I asked for it,” I said, a little sore.
She laughed. “Are you mad because you’re not as
pretty as he is, Bob?”
“No. But, Christ, no man wants to sit there and hear
his wife—” She kissed me and I shut up and was
satisfied.
For the next week or ten days he came to see us
often, nearly always coming around suppertime, and
often bringing us a steak or some ice cream or
something else from town. But I noticed that after each
visit Angelina was a little more preoccupied and
moody, and one day she asked me if we ought to have
him so often.
“Well, we don’t have to,” I said, surprised. “But, after
all, he’s my brother. And it seems to help keep him
from drinking.”
“Maybe” was all she would say.
Hill Girl — 168
Suddenly he didn’t come out any more for supper. A
whole week, the last week in September, went by with
no visit from him. We were finishing up the cotton in
the bottom now and Jake and Helen and I were down
there all day long. Angelina wanted to come down and
pick with us, but I refused. I wasn’t going to have my
wife work like a field hand. Then she wanted to do the
weighing or ride the wagon to the gin with Jake. She
said she wanted to get away from the house. I thought
it was because of the beautiful Indian-summer weather
and said I’d think about it.
That same day, late in the afternoon, Jake and I were
putting on a bale that was going to the gin the next
day. I was passing the cotton up to him in a big woven
basket from the pile on the ground near the weighing
station and he was dumping it and tramping it down in
the bed, going round and round the high cotton-frame
sideboards and putting all his weight on one foot and
pushing down.
He chuckled suddenly. “Bob, that brother of yourn
shore does goose a car, don’t he?”
“Yeah,” I said absently. “Anything under fifty is
parking to him.”
“I seen him come out of yore driveway this afternoon
an’ make that there sharp turn onto the road an’ I
swear they wasn’t only two of his wheels on the
ground.”
“That so? I thought he’d forgotten us, he hasn’t been
out in so long.”
“Oh, he comes out every day. I see him on the road
out there a lot. I was wonderin’ why you didn’t put him
to pickin’. Guess that’s the reason he stays up to the
house, though, so you won’t put him to work,” he said,
and laughed.
“Yeah,” I said. I was bent over the pile, pushing
cotton down into the basket, and I tried to keep it out
of my voice. He was above me and couldn’t see my face
and by the time I had the basket packed full I had hold
of myself and passed it up expressionlessly.
We finished loading the wagon and started up the
hillside road toward the house with Jake driving. We
Hill Girl — 169
stopped in the lot next to the barn and I helped
unhitch, working mechanically and only half listening
to Jake’s chatter. I could have left the unhitching to
him, but I didn’t want him to notice anything unusual.
When we had fed the mules I said, “I’ll see you in the
morning, Jake,” and started up to the house.
Angelina was in the dining room, putting the last of
supper on the table. I stopped in the door.
“Do you still want to come down in the bottom with
us tomorrow?” I asked.
“Sure. Can I, Bob?” she asked eagerly.
“Every day?” I asked.
“Yes. Until we’re through down there.”
“You don’t like to stay up here at the house, do you?”
“No. I hate it when the weather’s so nice.”
“Just on account of the weather?”
She must have noticed something strange about it
then, for she looked at me sharply with worry in her
eyes.
I came on into the dining room and walked over to
her and caught both her arms. “Now tell me. Why do
you want to get away from the house?”
“I’ve told you.”
My hands were cutting into her arms and I could
hear her indrawn breath as she tried to cover up the
pain.
“Tell me.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you, Bob.” I released her
arms and she rubbed them where my hands had been.
“But, please, you won’t do anything, will you? Promise
me you won’t do anything to him.”
“Why? Are you in love with him?” I should have
known better than to say that but I wasn’t thinking
very clearly.