«I don't like that.» He said.
«Perhaps I don't like it, either, but do you want to end up far unhappier than you are now? Do you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we certainly would be. There really is no way to do anything about us — it is so strange even to try to talk about us.»
«Yes'm.»
«But at least we know all about us and the fact of that we have been right and fair and good and there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intended that it should be, for both understand how impossible it is, don't we?»
«Yes, I know. But I can't help it.»
«Now we must decide what to do about it.» She said. «Now only you and I know about this. Later, other might know. I can secure a transfer from this school to another one — ?»
«No!»
«Or I can have you transferred to another school.»
«You don't have to do that.» He said.
«Why?»
«We're moving. My folks and I, we're going to live in Madison. We're leaving next week.»
«It has nothing to do with all this, has it?»
«No, no, everything's all right. It's just that my father has a new job there. It's only fifty miles away. I can see you, can't I, when I come to town?»
«Do you think that would be a good idea?»
«No, I guess not.»
They sat awhile in the silent schoolroom.
«When did all of this happen?» he said, helplessly.
«I don't know.» She said. «Nobody ever knows. They haven't known for thousands of years. And I don't think they ever will. People either like each other or don't, and sometimes two people like each other who shouldn't. I can't explain myself, and certainly you can't explain you.»
«I guess I'd better get home.» He said.
«You're not mad at me, are you?»
«Oh, gosh no, I could never be mad at you.»
«There's one more thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always are, or we wouldn't go on living. You don't feel well, now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?»
«I'd like to.»
«Well, it's true.»
«If only.» He said.
«What?»
«If only you'd wait for me.» He blurted.
«Ten years?»
«I'd be twenty-four then.»
«But I'd be thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don't think it can be done.»
«Wouldn't you like it to be done?» He cried.
«Yes.» She said quietly. «It's silly and it wouldn't work, but I would like it very much.»
He sat there a long time.
«I'll never forget you.» He said.
«It's nice for you to say that, even though it can be true, because life isn't that way. You'll forget.»
«I'll never forget. I'll find a way of never forgetting you.» He said.
She got up and went to erase the boards.
«I'll help you.» He said.
«No, no.» She said. «You go on now, get home, and no more tending to the boards after school. I'll assign Helen Stevens to do it.»
He left school. Looking back, outside, he saw Miss Ann Taylor, for the last time, at the board, slowly washing out chalked words, her hand moving up and down.
He moved away from the town the next week and gone for sixteen years. Though he was only fifty miles away, he never got down to Green Town again until he was almost thirty and married, and then one spring they were driving through on their way to Chicago and stopped off for a day.
Bob left his wife at the hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor, but no-one remembered at first, and then one of them remembered.
«Oh, yes, the pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not longer after you left.»
Had she ever married? No, come to think of it, she never had.
He walked out to the cemetery in the afternoon and found her stone, which said «Ann Taylor, born 1910, died 1936.» And he thought, twenty-six years old. Why I'm three years older than you are now, Miss Taylor.
Later in the day the people in the town saw Bob Spaulding's wife strolling to meet him under the elm trees and the oak trees, and they all turned to watch her pass, for her face shifted with bright shadows as she walked; she was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereals on a hot early- summer morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was balanced like a maple leaf between wind that blow just right, one of those days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding's wife.
