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Harry was looking over in her direction and she could not think.

She and Harry had talked about so many things lately. Nearly every day they walked home from school together. They talked about God. Sometimes she would wake up in the night and shiver over what they had said. Harry was a Pantheist.

That was a religion, the same as Baptist or Catholic or Jew.

Harry believed that after you were dead and buried you changed to plants and fire and dirt and clouds and water. It took thousands of years and then finally you were a part of all the world. He said he thought that was better than being one single angel. Anyhow it was better than nothing.

Harry threw the newspaper into his hall and then came over.

‘It’s hot like summer,’ he said. ‘And only March.’

‘Yeah. I wish we could go swimming.’

‘We would if there was any place.’

There’s not any place. Except that country club pool.’

‘I sure would like to do something--to get out and go somewhere.’

‘Me too,’ she said, ‘Wait! I know one place. It’s out in the country about fifteen miles. It’s a deep, wide creek in the woods. The Girl Scouts have a camp there in the summertime. Mrs. Wells took me and George and Pete and Sucker swimming there one time last year.’

If you want to I can get bicycles and we can go tomorrow. I have a holiday one Sunday a month.’

‘Well ride out and take a picnic dinner,’ Mick said.

‘O.K. I’ll borrow the bikes.’

It was time for him to go to work. She watched him walk down the street. He swung his arms. Halfway down the block there was a bay tree with low branches. Harry took a running jump, caught a limb, and chinned himself. A happy feeling came in her because it was true they were real good friends.

Also he was handsome. Tomorrow she would borrow Hazel’s blue necklace and wear the silk dress. And for dinner they would take jelly sandwiches and Nehi. Maybe Harry would bring something queer, because they ate orthodox Jew. She watched him until he turned the corner. It was true that he had grown to be a very good-looking fellow.

Harry in the country was different from Harry sitting on the back steps reading the newspapers and thinking about Hitler.

They left early in the morning. The wheels he borrowed were the kind for boys--with a bar between the legs. They strapped the lunches and bathing-suits to the fenders and were gone before nine o’clock. The morning was hot and sunny. Within an hour they were far out of town on a red clay road. The fields were bright and green and the sharp smell of pine trees was in the air. Harry talked in a very excited way. The warm wind blew into their faces. Her mouth was very dry and she was hungry. ‘See that house up on the hill there? Less us stop and get some water.’

‘No, we better wait. Well water gives you typhoid.’

‘I already had typhoid. I had pneumonia and a broken leg and a infected foot.’

‘I remember.’

‘Yeah,’ Mick said. ‘Me and Bill stayed in the front room when we had typhoid fever and Pete Wells would run past on the sidewalk holding his nose and looking up at the window. Bill was very embarrassed. All my hair came out so I was bald-headed.’

‘I bet we’re at least ten miles from town. We’ve been riding an hour and a half--fast riding, too.’

‘I sure am thirsty,’ Mick said. ‘And hungry. What you got in that sack for lunch?’

‘Cold liver pudding and chicken salad sandwiches and pie.’

That’s a good picnic dinner. ‘She was ashamed of what she had brought.’ I got two hard-boiled eggs--already stuffed--with separate little packages of salt and pepper. And sandwiches--blackberry jelly with butter. Everything wrapped in oil paper.

And paper napkins.’

‘I didn’t intend for you to bring anything,’ Harry said. ‘My Mother fixed lunch for both of us. I asked you out here and all. We’ll come to a store soon and get cold drinks.’

They rode half an hour longer before they finally came to the filling-station store. Harry propped up the bicycles and she went in ahead of him. After the bright glare the store seemed dark. The shelves were stacked with slabs of white meat, cans of oil, and sacks