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carrying over the sounds of the lonesome countryside: “What does the robin do then, poor thing . . .” Like specters he saw them hurrying in the moonshine along the road’s weedy edge. Two girls. One walked with easy grace, but the other moved as jerky and quick as a boy, and it was she that Joel recognized.
    “Hello, there,” he said boldly when the wagon overtook them.
    Both girls had watched the wagon’s approach, and slowed their step perceptibly; but the one who was unfamiliar, as if startled, cried, “Gee Jemima!” She had long, long hair that fell past her hips, and her face, the little he could see of it, smudged as it was in shadow, seemed very friendly, very pretty. “Why, isn’t it just grand of you to come along this way and want to give us a ride?”
    “Help yourself,” he said, and slid over to make a seat.
    “I’m Miss Florabel Thompkins,” she announced, after she’d hopped agilely up beside him, and pulled her dresshem below her knees. “This is the Skullys’ wagon? Sure, that’s Jesus Fever . . . is he asleep? Well, don’t that beat everything.” She talked rapidly in a flighty, too birdlike manner, as if mimicking a certain type of old lady. “Come on, sister, there’s oodles of room.”
    The sister trudged on behind the wagon. “I’ve got two feet and I reckon I’m not such a flirt I can’t find the willpower to put one in front of the other, thanks all the same,” she said, and gave her shorts an emphatic hitch.
    “You’re welcome to ride,” said Joel weakly, not knowing what else to do; for she was a funny kid, no doubt about it.
    “Oh, folderol,” said Florabel Thompkins, “don’t you pay her no mind. That’s just what Mama calls Idabel Foolishness. Let her walk herself knock-kneed for what it means to the great wide world. No use trying to reason with her: she’s got willful ways, Idabel has. Ask anybody.”
    “Huh,” was all Idabel said in her defense.
    Joel looked from one to the other, and concluded he liked Florabel the best; she was so pretty, at least he imagined her to be, though he could not see her face well enough to judge fairly. Anyway, her sister was a tomboy, and he’d had a special hatred of tomboys ever since the days of Eileen Otis. This Eileen Otis was a beefy little roughneck who had lived on the same block in New Orleans, and she used to have a habit of waylaying him, stripping off his pants, and tossing them high into a tree. That was years gone by, but the memory of her could infuriate him still. He pictured Florabel’s redheaded sister as a regular Eileen Otis.
    “We’ve got us a lovely car, you know,” said Florabel. “It’s a green Chevrolet that six persons can ride in without anybody sitting on anybody’s lap, and there are real window-shades you can pull up or down with darling toy babies. Papa won this lovely Chevrolet from a man at a cock-fight, which I think was real smart of him, only Mama says different. Mama’s as honest as the day is long, and she don’t hold with the cock-fights. But what I’m trying to say is: we don’t usually have to hitch rides, and with strangers, too . . . course we do know Jesus Fever . . . kinda. But what’s your name? Joel? Joel what? Knox . . . well, Joel Knox, what I’m trying to say is my Papa usually drives us to town in our lovely car. . . .” She jabbered on and on, and he was content to listen till, turning his head, he saw her sister, and thought she was looking at him peculiarly. As this exchange of stares continued, a smileless but amused look that passed between them was lighted by the moon; it was as if each were saying:
I don’t think so much of you, either.
“. . . but one time I just happened to slam the door on Idabel’s hand,” Florabel was still talking of the car, “and now her thumbnail won’t grow the least bit: it’s all lumpy and black. But she didn’t cry or take on, which was very brave on her part; now me, I couldn’t stand to have such a nasty old . . .