“She’s not screaming any more.”
“Don’t talk about her!”
“She’s singing now,” I cried.
“You’re not telling the truth!”
“Dad,” I said. “She’s out there and she’ll be dead soon if you don’t listen to me. She’s out there, singing, and this is what she’s singing.” I hummed the tune. I sang a few of the words. “I loved you fair, I loved you well...”
Dad’s face grew pale. He came and took my arm.
“What did you say?” he said.
I sang it again, “I loved you fair, I loved you well.”
“Where did you
“Out in the empty lot, just now.”
“But that’s
“Sure,” I said.
“Oh, my God!” cried Father and ran out the door to get a shovel. The last I saw of him he was in the empty lot, digging, and lots of other people with him, digging.
I felt so happy I wanted to cry.
I dialed a number on the phone and when Dippy answered I said, “Hi, Dippy. Everything’s fine. Everything’s worked out keen. The Screaming Woman isn’t screaming any more.”
“Swell,” said Dippy.
“I’ll meet you in the empty lot with a shovel in two minutes,” I said.
“Last one there’s a monkey! So long!” cried Dippy.
“So long, Dippy!” I said, and ran.
THESE THINGS HAPPEN
IN THE SPRING of the year 1934, Miss Ann Taylor came to teach at the Central School. That was the year she was twenty-four years old and Bob Markham was fourteen. Everyone remembered Ann Taylor. She was the teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring fruit or flowers, and for whom they rolled up the pink and green maps of the world without being asked. She was the woman who always seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under the oaks and elms, her face shifting with the bright shadows as she walked until it was all things to all people. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot, early summer morning. And those rare few days in the world when the climate was balanced as fine as a maple leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.
As for Bob Markham, he was the boy who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack of leaves after him like a horde of Halloween mice. In spring he moved like a slow white fish in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking brown with the shine of a chestnut by autumn. Or you might see him on the lawn with the ants crawling over his books as he read through the long afternoons alone, or playing himself a game of chess on his grandmother’s porch. You never saw him with any other child.
That spring when Bob was in the ninth grade, Miss Ann Taylor came in through the door of the schoolroom and all the children sat still in their seats while she wrote her name on the board in a nice round lettering.
“My name is Ann Taylor,” she said quietly to them, “and I’m your new teacher.”
The room seemed suddenly flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back. Bob Markham sat with a spit ball hidden in his hand. After a half hour of listening to Miss Taylor, he quietly let the spit ball drop to the floor.
That afternoon after class, he brought in a bucket of water and a rag and began to wash the boards.
“What’s this?” She turned from her desk where she had been correcting spelling papers.
“The boards are kind of dirty,” said Bob.
“Yes, I know. Are you sure you want to clean them?”
“I suppose I should have asked permission,” he said, halting uneasily.
“I think we can pretend you did,” she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the boards in an amazing burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that the air was full of snow, it seemed, outside the open window.
“Let’s see,” said Miss Taylor. “You’re Bob Markham, aren’t you?”
“Yes’m.”
“Well, thank you, Bob.”
“Could I do them every afternoon?” he asked.
“Don’t you think you should let the others try?”
“I’d like to do them,” he said. “Every afternoon.”
“We’ll try it for a while and see,” she said.
He lingered.
“I think you’d better run on home,” she said finally.
“Good night.” He walked slowly and was gone.
The next morning he happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out to walk to school.
“Well, here I am,” he said.
“And do you know,” she said, “I’m not surprised.”
They walked together.
“May I carry your books?” he asked.
“Why, thank you, Bob.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, taking them.
They walked for a few minutes and he did not say a word. She glanced over and slightly down at him and saw how at ease he was and happy he seemed, and she decided to let him break the silence, but he never did. When they reached the edge of the school grounds, he gave the books back to her. “I guess I better leave you here,” he said. “The other kids wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I do either, Bob.”
“Why, we’re friends,” he said earnestly.
“Bob—” she began.
“Yes’m?”
“Never mind.” She walked away.
“I’ll be in class,” he said.
And he was in class, and he was there after school every afternoon for the next two weeks, never saying a word, quietly washing the boards and cleaning the erasers and rolling up the maps while she worked at her papers. Between them there was that clock silence of four o’clock, the silence of the sun going down, the silence with the catlike sound of erasers patted together, the rustle and turn of papers and the scratch of a pen, and perhaps the buzz of a fly banging with a tiny high anger against the tallest window in the room. Sometimes the silence would go on this way until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob Markham in the last seat of the room, sitting and looking at her silently.
“Well, it’s time to go home,” Miss Taylor would say, getting up.
“Yes’m.”
And he would run to fetch her hat and coat. He would also lock the schoolroom door for her unless the janitor was coming in later. Then they would walk out of the school and across the empty yard. They talked of all sorts of things.
“And what are you going to be, Bob, when you grow up?”
