I could almost see the leap of her heart under the close-fitting blue as she turned to look. The Francher kid was lounging against the door, his face closed and impassive. I noted with a flame of anger at Mrs. McVey that he was dressed in his Levi's, faded almost white from many washings, and a flannel shirt, the plaid of which Was nearly indistinguishable except along the seams. It wasn't fair to keep him from being like the other kids even in this minor way-or maybe especially in this way, because clothes can't be hidden the way a mind or soul can. I tried to catch his eye and beckon him in, but he looked only at the bandstand where the band members were preparing to resume playing. It was tragic that the Francher kid had only this handful of inexpertly played instruments to feed his hunger on. He winced back into the darkness at their first blare, and I felt Twyla's tenseness as she turned to me. 'He won't come in,' she half shouted against the take-a-melody-tear-it-to-pieces-stick-it-back-together- bleeding type of music that was going on. I shook my head regretfully. 'I guess not,' I mouthed and then was drawn into a half-audible, completely incomprehensible conversation with Mrs. Frisney. It wasn't until the next dance started and she was towed away by Grampa Griggs that I could turn back to Twyla. She was gone. I glanced around the room. Nowhere the swirl of blue echoing the heavy brown-gold swing of her ponytail. There was no reason for me to feel apprehensive. There were any number of places she might have gone and quite legitimately, but I suddenly felt an overwhelming need for fresh air and swung myself past the romping dancers and out into the gasping chill of the night. I huddled closer inside my jacket, wishing it were on right instead of merely flung around my shoulders. But the air tasted clean and fresh. I don't know what we'd been breathing in the dance hall, but it wasn't air. By the time I'd got the whatever-it-was out of my lungs and filled them with the freshness of the night I found myself halfway down the path over the edge of the railroad cut. There hadn't been a train over the single track since nineteen-aught-something, and just beyond it was a thicket of willows and cottonwoods and a few scraggly piсon trees. As I moved into the shadow of the trees I glanced up at the sky ablaze with a skrillion stars that dissolved into light near the lopsided moon and perforated the darker horizon with brilliance. I was startled out of my absorption by the sound of movement and music. I took an uncertain step into the dark. A few yards away I saw the flick of skirts and started to call out to Twyla. But instead I rounded the brush in front of me and saw what she was intent upon. The Francher kid was dancing-dancing all alone in the quiet night. No, not alone, because a column of yellow leaves had swirled up from the ground around him and danced with him to a melody so exactly like their movement that I couldn't be sure there was music. Fascinated, I watched the drift and sway, the swirl and turn, the treetop- high rise and the hesitant drifting fall of the Francher kid and the autumn leaves. But somehow I couldn't see the kid as a separate Levied flannel-shirted entity. He and the leaves so blended together that the sudden sharp definition of a hand or a turning head was startling. The kid was just a larger leaf borne along with the smaller in the chilly winds of fall. On a final minor glissade of the music the Francher kid slid to the ground. He stood for a moment, head bent, crumbling a crisp leaf in his fingers; then he turned swiftly defensive to the rustle of movement. Twyla stepped out into the clearing. For a moment they stood looking at each other without a word. Then Twyla's voice came So softly I could barely hear it. 'I would have danced with you.' 'With me like this?' He gestured at his clothes. 'Sure. It doesn't matter.' 'In front of everyone?' 'If you wanted to. I wouldn't mind.' 'Not there,' he said. 'It's too tight and hard.' 'Then here,' she said, holding out her hands. 'The music-' But his hands were reaching for hers, 'Your music,' she said. 'My mother's music,' he corrected. And the music began, a haunting lilting waltz-time melody. As lightly as the leaves that stirred at their feet the two circled the clearing. I have the picture yet, but when I return to it my heart is emptied of adjectives because there are none for such enchantment. The music quickened and swelled, softly, richly full-the lost music that a mother bequeathed to her child. Twyla was so completely engrossed in the magic of the moment that I'm sure she didn't even know when their feet no longer rustled in the fallen leaves. She couldn't have known when the treetops brushed their shoes- when the long turning of the tune brought them back, spiraling down into the clearing. Her scarlet petticoat caught on a branch as they passed, and left a bright shred to trail the wind, but even that did not distract her. Before my heart completely broke with wonder the music faded softly away and left the two standing on the ragged grass. After a breathless pause Twyla's hand went softly, wonderingly, to Francher's cheek. The kid turned his face slowly and pressed his mouth to her palm. Then they turned and left each other, without a word. Twyla passed so close to me that her skirts brushed mine. I let her cross the tracks back to the dance before I followed. I got there just in time to catch the whisper on apparently the second round, '… alone out there with the Francher kid!' and the gleefully malicious shock of '. . . and her petticoat is torn…' It was like pigsty muck clotting an Easter dress. Anna said, 'Hi!' and flung herself into my one armchair. As the front leg collapsed she caught herself with the dexterity of long practice, tilted the chair, reinserted the leg and then eased herself back into its dusty depths. 'From the vagaries of the small town good Lord deliver me!' she moaned. 'What now?' I asked, shifting gears on my crochet hook as I finished another row of my rug. 'You mean you haven't heard the latest scandal?' Her eyes widened in mock horror and her voice sank conspiratorially. 'They were out there in the dark-alone-doing nobody knows what. Imagine!' Her voice shook with avid outrage. 'With the Francher kid! 'Honestly!' Her voice returned to normal. 'You'd think the Francher kid was leprosy or something. What a to-do about a little nocturnal smooching. I'd give you odds that most of the other kids are being shocked to ease their own consciences of the same kind of carryings-on. But just because it's the Francher kid-' 'They weren't alone,' I said casually, holding a tight rein on my indignation. 'I was there.' 'You were?' Anna's eyebrows bumped her crisp bangs. 'Well, well. This complexions things different. What did happen? Not,' she hastened 'that I credit these wild tales about, my golly, Twyla, but what did happen?' 'They danced,' I said. 'The Francher kid was ashamed of his clothes and wouldn't come in the hall. So they danced down in the clearing.' 'Without music ?' 'The Francher kid-hummed,' I said, my eyes intent on my work. There was a brief silence. 'Well,' Anna said, 'that's interesting, especially that vacant spot I feel in there. But you were there?' 'Yes.' 'And they just danced?' 'Yes.' I apologized mentally for making so pedestrian the magic I had seen. 'And Twyla caught her petticoat on a branch and it tore before she knew it.' 'Hmmm.' Anna was suddenly sober. 'You ought to take your rug up to the Sew-Sew Club.' 'But I-' I was bewildered. 'They're serving nice heaping portions of Twyla's reputation for refreshments, and Mrs. McVey is contributing the dessert-the unplumbed depravity of foster children.' I stuffed my rug back into its bag. ''Is my face on?' I asked. Well, I got back to the Somansons' that evening considerably wider of eye than I had left it. Anna took my things from me at the door. 'How did it go?' 'My gorsh!' I said, easing myself into a chair. 'If they ever got started on me what would I have left?'' 'Bare bones,' Anna said promptly. 'With plenty of tooth marks on them. Well, did you get them told?'
