U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [108]
"I'm just waiting for Dad and the boys to go to the exer-cises. O Joe, we're late and I'm so excited. . . . I feel like a sight."
"Wel , have a good time." He walked on unhurriedly putting his hat back on his head as he went. Something hotter than the June sunshine had come out of Joe's very dark eyes and run in a blush over her face and down the back of her neck under her thin dress and down the middle of her bosom, where the little breasts that she tried never to think of were just beginning to be noticeable. At last Dad and the boys came out al looking blonde and dressed up and sunburned. Dad made her sit in the back seat with Bud who sat up stiff as a poker.
The big wind that had come up drove grit in their faces.
-257-After she caught sight of the brick buildings of the high-school and the crowd and the light dresses and the stands and the big flag with the stripes al wiggling against the sky she got so excited she never remembered anything that happened.
That night, wearing her first evening dress at the dance she came to in the feeling of tul e and powder and crowds, boys al stiff and scared in their dark coats, girls pack-ing into the dressing room to look at each other's dresses. She never said a word while she was dancing, just smiled and held her head a little to one side and hoped some-body would cut in. Half the time she didn't know who she was dancing with, just moved smiling in a cloud of pink tul e and colored lights; boys' faces bobbed in front of her, tried to say smarty ladykil erish things or else were shy and tonguetied, different colored faces on top of the same stiff bodies. Honestly she was surprised when Susan Gil espie came up to her when they were getting their wraps to go home and giggled, "My dear, you were the bel e of the bal ." When Bud and Buster said so next morning and old black Emma who'd'brought them al up after mother died came in from the kitchen and said,
"Lawsy, Miss Annie, folks is talkin' al over town about how you was the bel e of the bal last night," she felt her-self blushing happily al over. Emma said she'd heard-it from, that noaccount yal er man on the milk route whose aunt worked at Mrs. Washburn's, then she set down the popovers and went out with a grin as wide as a piano.
"Wel , Daughter," said Dad in his deep quiet voice, tap-ping the top of her hand, "I thought so myself but I thought maybe I was prejudiced."
During the summer Joe Washburn, who'd just gradu-ated from law school at Austin and who was going into Dad's office in the fal , came and spent two weeks with them on the ranch. Daughter was just horrid to him, made old Hildreth give him a mean little old oneeyed pony to
-258-ride, put homed toads in his cot, would hand him hot chile sauce instead of catsup at table or try to get him to put salt instead of sugar in his coffee. The boys got so off her they wouldn't speak to her and Dad said she was get-ting to be a regular tomboy, but she couldn't seem to stop acting like she did.
Then one day they al rode over to eat supper on Clear Creek and went swimming by moonlight in the deep
hole there was under the bluff. Daughter got a crazy streak in her after a while and ran up and said she was going to dive from the edge of the bluff. The water looked so good and the moon floated shivering on top. They al yel ed at her not to do it but she made a dandy dive right from the edge. But something was the matter. She'd hit her head, it hurt terribly. She was swal owing water, she was fighting a great weight that was pressing down on her, that was Joe. The moonlight flowed out in a swirl leaving it al black, only she had her arms