Eleanor had tenacity, and her brittle old bones hung on to life and refused to give up; and her mind refused to be dissolved into spirit and fastened like a many-tentacled bloodsucker onto reason. Her thinking remained clear, her memories intact. Shecontinued her visits to the school, even when all of the students who could remember her as a teacher were gone into high school and, bashing in through the front door with her canaries, they would look up and think, Here she is again, the old weird woman. And Della was saddened, and many evenings took Wilson with her over to Eleanor’s house to visit. But Eleanor didn’t care about that. She loved children.
One morning she arrived in her buggy while Della and her students were sitting in a corner of the schoolyard, picking along the ground as though searching for a lost ring. Eleanor tied her horse (named Perseus, and left her by her husband, who had bought him because he was afraid of him, and there was no faster or more high-strung horse in Sharon Township) and hurried over to take control, in case they were not aware of the proper way to hunt for lost things in the grass—everyone not to move, and to look carefully around him. Moving around causes the grass to be trampled and it is possible for the object to become pushed down into the dirt, where it will be impossible to find. What she found was that they were engaged in searching for four-leaf clovers, all of them down on their hands and knees, pushing their fingers through the green clover heads. They said hello to her, and Della began to get up, but Eleanor motioned for her not to bother—that she would simply watch for a while. It was a lovely day, and the warm, fall air felt good on her face, and she thought privately, Ah, only we old ones know what it is like to breathe this and feel fully alive. Then she was taken up with watching the hunt. One of the youngest girls had the classroom dictionary, and it was her job to press the lucky clovers in between the pages. The hunters fanned out and began covering more ground, finding very few, though searching with a solemn devotion. “We’ll never find enough for all of us,” moaned one child. “Here’s one!” screamed another. “Look! There’s a snake!” “A snake!” “Leave him alone and he won’t hurt you.” “He won’t hurt anyway. I catch ’em all the time. Where is he?” “He’s gone.” “Here’s one!” “Let’s see.” “That’s not a real one. It’s just busted.”“It is too.” “I can’t find any.” “Here’s one! Oh, never mind.” “Go look in your own place.” “Don’t step there.”
But as she watched, Eleanor became increasingly amazed at what was happening within the excited hunt, and could not move her eyes away. Della was carefully, quietly taking up four-and five-leaf clovers and passing them unnoticed over to be stuck in the dictionary. Everywhere she turned would be another, as though she did not have to look, but merely reach her hand down and one would crop up to be tugged out of the ground. Even in places where the children had already searched. But they were not noticing. Della was finding them and pushing down the clovers around them so that they stood out; then she would walk away, and later the children would find them and begin screaming, “I got one! I got one!”
Eleanor, inside her heavy dress beneath her old face, thought, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s uncommon. What can it mean? Does it mean anything? No one can be that lucky. She merely knows how to hunt for them and is practical—No! It’s uncommon.
Della was finally forced to take hold of one first-grade child (the only student left who had not found a clover himself and was on the verge of tears) and lead him over to a place where she had several located and waiting; and even then he stepped on one and only found the other by Della suggesting he not stoop over, but get down on all fours—helping him in such a way that both hands were on either side of a five-leafed one as big around as a golf ball. He picked it and took it over to the dictionary. “Here’s another one,” he said in an unconcerned way, but watched the older girl press it into place and gave a little jump when she slammed the book shut.
Della said it was time to go in, and then hollered that it was time, because sounds travel poorly through children. It was only then that she noticed Eleanor’s eyes bent upon her. She told the older ones to monitor a study time, and together she and Eleanor watched them clear the yard and disappear into thebuilding. Della turned to her, smiled and began to speak, but was interrupted.
“Magic,” said Eleanor. Then she paused, took off her hat, patted her hair and put it back on. Della looked away and wondered if she were going to finish, or begin, or if the word was at the tail end of a private thought and had escaped by mistake. Some old people she had known had been like that.
“Sometimes I’ve wondered if there’s anything reasonable about magic,” Eleanor continued. “I mean, if it’s real.” Then she bent her eyes down on Della again.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s real or not. . . . Maybe. . . . What do you mean by magic?”
“You know, magic. Not black magic or superstition. White magic. Is there such a thing as white magic?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyway, I’m sure there
