The well and the mine by Gin Phillips

Author:Gin Phillips [Gin Phillips]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Histoire
ISBN: 9781594484490
Published: 2009-04-21T21:21:07+00:00

Virgie HENRY HARKEN MET ME AFTER CHURCH TWICE MORE. I had less and less to say, and he tried harder and harder to buy me candy.

The last time he walked me home, he wanted to stop by and say hello to Dr. Marshall, whose office was across from the bank. Everybody knew he’d had to replace the bank’s stained-glass windows three times because he kept backing into it while he was trying to park. We used Dr. Grissom, so all I knew about Dr. Marshall was his driving problems.

“His car’s here, so he must be inside,” said Henry.

“Y’all use him?” I asked.

“My papa’s friends with him, so, yeah, we always do.”

“I hear he’s a real bad driver.”

Henry laughed. “He keeps sayin’ ‘whoa’ instead of stompin’ the brakes.”

That was the first time Henry ever made me laugh. And he was interesting for that second. But I still didn’t like him too much, and I didn’t see any reason to work on changing my mind. There was another boy at church who’d started sitting next to me—Tess and I sometimes sat in the pew in front of Mama and Papa—but a lot of times he was late and there wasn’t space for him. Those times he’d wait in the back and walk me to the car. But the car was as far as it ever got.

Papa didn’t even comment on that boy, and I figured it was the short distance. It stood to reason that the farther a boy walked me, the more serious he was. A nice short trip to the car suited Papa fine. Every now and then a boy might walk me home from school, but Tess would walk with us, and Papa didn’t even know about that usually. I’d tell Mama and leave it up to her whether or not she thought it was worth mentioning. She usually didn’t, and I was glad. Because as much as Henry had spooked me that first time he showed up at church, soon enough I didn’t fret about walking with a boy at all. I relaxed when I realized it didn’t mean a boy loved you or wanted to marry you—it meant he thought spending five minutes with you might be a nice way to pass the time. Or maybe he liked looking at you and wanted to look a little longer. Walks were easy, natural things where nothing much was expected of me. Boys loved to talk, and there wasn’t much to listening. I could nod and say, “Hmm, I didn’t know that,” and boys were perfectly happy. Or if I wanted to say something—anything—they were pleased as punch with that, too. It was hard to go wrong once I realized they only wanted to interest me.

So all that walking served its purpose, and in a few weeks I got to where it seemed normal for this boy or that to show up by my side. For some reason Henry asking me (or maybe asking Papa) that first time had

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