Chapter 16

Polly sat on the side porch of the Williams' home sipping a sugared iced tea that had been decorated with a sprig of mint. Seth was nursing his second julep, and Sammy was smoking a Camel and ignoring his drink, legs stuck out in front of him, ankles crossed, wondering what was going on and why he had brought this girl to visit. They all were watching Jenny McPherson and her two boys gamboling in the swings and knotted ropes dangling from an old oak. "Monkeys that got out of the barrel," their grandfather called the boys.

The young girl was wearing a very stylish linen shirtwaist dress with pleats down the sides of her long tan skirt and a plunging neckline framed with narrow lapels of a darker brown. Her black maid had ironed out all the wrinkles and warned her to smooth out her skirt before she sat, and she had stood in the hallway, waiting for the bell to ring, rocking to and fro on her toes.

She had appeared quickly at her apartment door carrying what Sammy thought was a cowboy hat of the William S. Hart variety; an outsized, high crowned, tan felt thing that she had to hold on her head during most of the trip out from the city. When he asked, she told him it was very much in style and that half the girls at school had one, some even bigger than hers.

Sammy could not tell whether or not she was wearing make-up, but she certainly did smell good, and she had obviously plucked her eyebrows down to a thin line. Neither of them said anything about the previous evening. Sammy told her about his family; especially about those she was going to meet as they jolted northward on the well-worn road. She listened and nodded, smiling at him and leaning back on the tufted seat, looking up at the cloud-strewn sky, her pale face shaded by her wide-brimmed sombrero. Sammy glanced at her now and then, admiring her pug nose and her tiny dimples. She was, he decided after some consideration even prettier than Nancy Ferguson had been when she was in school and Nancy was easily the best looking girl he had ever sat beside on a streetcar.

Her manners were impeccable, and she was soon regaling Seth with animated tales of Wisconsin dairy farmers, bumper corn crops, wild dust devils and fierce snowstorms. "Wisconsin ice cream is, I am sure, the very best in the whole world. I haven't had any in Washington that is half as good." She did not gush, and she did listen and ask appropriate questions now and then. She seemed at ease.

"I do love good ice cream," said Sammy's father, "but it's a lot of work. I think peach is my favorite."

"Oh, I love that too, and cherry. Sometimes we put maple syrup on ours. Do you do that?" Polly looked at Sammy over the rim of her glass and batted her dark eyelashes.

He smiled at her and said no, but they used Karo sometimes or chocolate if his mother would melt it for them. Aplomb was the word that came to his mind when he looked at her and watched her perform. Maybe confident would be better, he thought, very sure of herself. He was positive that he could not have done as well when he was her age.

"That's good too, chocolate," Polly said, and then she jumped up, cried, "Oh my" and ran out into the yard where one of the boys was howling and his younger brother seemed tangled in the ropes with one foot stretched up in the air.

"Girl's got good legs" Seth said after watching her gallop across the lawn. The boys were extricated, their tears dried and they trooped off toward the kitchen with their harried mother. Polly sat on the swing and called for Sammy to come give her a push.

He tossed away his cigarette, drank off half his mint julep, ignored his father's amused look and walked out toward the girl who was sitting with her legs extended, waiting for him, her limp linen skirt nearly to her knees and a wide smile on her fair face.

"Why don't you pump your legs?" he asked as he put his hands on her slim shoulders. "You know how to swing."

"Hardly ladylike," she said, clamping her billowing skirt between her knees and arching her neck to look back at him. "How does your sister manage with that wild pair?"

"Ma helps," he said as he gave her another push, "and they're learning. Pa calls them Hans and Fritz, like the funny papers."

"I wouldn't want to be their mother, especially with no man around."

"They're getting better, calming down. I don't think they were even housebroke when they got here." He gave her a good shove in the back, feeling how firm she was, admiring her legs and shoulders, her wildly blowing hair.

"Whee," she cried and he let her go back and forth a few times, dress billowing. She dragged her feet, stopped and stood, shaking down her skirt and taking Sammy's arm. "Sometimes I hate growing up."

"No hurry," he said, smiling at her obvious pleasure. "Take your time." She seemed to fit right in, he thought, like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle. It was very odd.

"Let's go for a walk. You can show me your horse. I had a horse back in Madison, and we have a few at school, nice old jades."

"Supper'll be ready shortly," Sammy said as she hooked her hand into his elbow and leaned her face to his shoulder.

She matched him stride for stride, taking exaggerated steps, admired old Maude and stroked her nose, looked into the smokehouse, and then Caroline Williams called from the back door, and they went in to eat.

After supper, during which the boys were warned about putting their elbows on the table only twice, but earning a grandfatherly stare both times, Sammy and Polly walked over to the store. He showed her his bright red Texaco gas pump and said he was thinking about getting a second brand. Inside, she walked along the shelves slowly, touching things and then stood in the middle of the floor, hands behind her and said, officiously, "Dry cereal, corn flakes, you know, Kellogg's and like that. It's what we have except in the winter."