U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [101]
-257-After she caught sight of the brick buildings of the high-school and the crowd and the light dresses and the stands and the big flag with the stripes al wiggling against the sky she got so excited she never remembered anything that happened.
That night, wearing her first evening dress at the dance she came to in the feeling of tul e and powder and crowds, boys al stiff and scared in their dark coats, girls pack-ing into the dressing room to look at each other's dresses. She never said a word while she was dancing, just smiled and held her head a little to one side and hoped some-body would cut in. Half the time she didn't know who she was dancing with, just moved smiling in a cloud of pink tul e and colored lights; boys' faces bobbed in front of her, tried to say smarty ladykil erish things or else were shy and tonguetied, different colored faces on top of the same stiff bodies. Honestly she was surprised when Susan Gil espie came up to her when they were getting their wraps to go home and giggled, "My dear, you were the bel e of the bal ." When Bud and Buster said so next morning and old black Emma who'd'brought them al up after mother died came in from the kitchen and said,
"Lawsy, Miss Annie, folks is talkin' al over town about how you was the bel e of the bal last night," she felt her-self blushing happily al over. Emma said she'd heard-it from, that noaccount yal er man on the milk route whose aunt worked at Mrs. Washburn's, then she set down the popovers and went out with a grin as wide as a piano.
"Wel , Daughter," said Dad in his deep quiet voice, tap-ping the top of her hand, "I thought so myself but I thought maybe I was prejudiced."
During the summer Joe Washburn, who'd just gradu-ated from law school at Austin and who was going into Dad's office in the fal , came and spent two weeks with them on the ranch. Daughter was just horrid to him, made old Hildreth give him a mean little old oneeyed pony to
-258-ride, put homed toads in his cot, would hand him hot chile sauce instead of catsup at table or try to get him to put salt instead of sugar in his coffee. The boys got so off her they wouldn't speak to her and Dad said she was get-ting to be a regular tomboy, but she couldn't seem to stop acting like she did.
Then one day they al rode over to eat supper on Clear Creek and went swimming by moonlight in the deep
hole there was under the bluff. Daughter got a crazy streak in her after a while and ran up and said she was going to dive from the edge of the bluff. The water looked so good and the moon floated shivering on top. They al yel ed at her not to do it but she made a dandy dive right from the edge. But something was the matter. She'd hit her head, it hurt terribly. She was swal owing water, she was fighting a great weight that was pressing down on her, that was Joe. The moonlight flowed out in a swirl leaving it al black, only she had her arms around Joe's neck, her fingers were tightening around the ribbed muscles of his arms. She came to with his face looking into hers and the moon up in the sky again and warm stuff pouring over her forehead. She was trying to say, "Joe, I wanto, Joe, I wanto," but it al drained away into warm sticky black again, only she caught his voice deep, deep . . . "pretty near had me drowned too . . ." and Dad sharp and angry like in court, "I told her she oughtn't to dive off there." She came to herself again in bed with her head hurting horribly and Dr. Winslow there, and the first thing she thought was where was Joe and had she acted like a little sil y tel ing him she was crazy about him? But nobody said anything about it and they were al awful nice to her ex-cept that Dad came, stil talking with his angry courtroom voice, and lectured her for being foolhardy and a tomboy and having almost cost Joe his life by the stranglehold she had on him when they'd pul ed them both out of the
water. She had a fractured skul and had 'to be in bed al
-259-summer and Joe was awful nice though he looked at her kinder funny out of his sharp black eyes the first time he came in her room. As long as he stayed on the ranch he came to read to her after lunch. He read her al of Lorna Doone and half of Nicholas Nickleby and she lay there in bed, hot and cosy in her fever, feeling the rumble of his deep voice through the pain in her head and fighting al the time inside not to cry out like a little sil y that she was crazy about him and why didn't he like her just a little bit. When he'd gone it wasn't any fun being sick any more. Dad or Bud came and read to her sometimes but most of the time she liked better reading to herself. She read al of Dickens, Lorna Doone twice, and Poole The Harbor; that made her want to go to New York.