U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [289]
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 around Joe's neck, her fingers were tightening around the ribbed muscles of his arms. She came to with his face looking into hers and the moon up in the sky again and warm stuff pouring over her forehead. She was trying to say, "Joe, I wanto, Joe, I wanto," but it al drained away into warm sticky black again, only she caught his voice deep, deep . . . "pretty near had me drowned too . . ." and Dad sharp and angry like in court, "I told her she oughtn't to dive off there." She came to herself again in bed with her head hurting horribly and Dr. Winslow there, and the first thing she thought was where was Joe and had she acted like a little sil y tel ing him she was crazy about him? But nobody said anything about it and they were al awful nice to her ex-cept that Dad came, stil talking with his angry courtroom voice, and lectured her for being foolhardy and a tomboy and having almost cost Joe his life by the stranglehold she had on him when they'd pul ed them both out of the
water. She had a fractured skul and had 'to be in bed al
-259-summer and Joe was awful nice though he looked at her kinder funny out of his sharp black eyes the first time he came in her room. As long as he stayed on the ranch he came to read to her after lunch. He read her al of Lorna Doone and half of Nicholas Nickleby and she lay there in bed, hot and cosy in her fever, feeling the rumble of his deep voice through the pain in her head and fighting al the time inside not to cry out like a little sil y that she was crazy about him and why didn't he like her just a little bit. When he'd gone it wasn't any fun being sick any more. Dad or Bud came and read to her sometimes but most of the time she liked better reading to herself. She read al of Dickens, Lorna Doone twice, and Poole The Harbor; that made her want to go to New York.
Next fal Dad took her north for a year in a finishing school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was excited on the trip up on the train and loved every minute of it, but Miss Tynge's was horrid and the girls were al northern girls and so mean and made fun of her clothes and talked about nothing but Newport, and Southampton, and matinée idols she'd never seen; she hated it. She cried every night,after she'd gone to bed thinking how she hated the school and how Joe Washburn would never like her now. When
Christmas vacation came and she had to stay on with the two Miss Tynges and some of the teachers who lived too far away to go home either, she just decided she wouldn't stand it any longer and one morning before anybody was up she got out of the house, walked down to the station, bought herself a ticket to Washington, and got on the first westbound train with nothing but a toothbrush and a night-gown in her handbag. She was scared al alone on the train at first but such a nice young Virginian who was a West Point Cadet got on at Havre de Grace where she had to change; they had the time of their lives together laughing and talking. In Washington he asked permission to be her escort in the nicest way and took her al around, to see the
-260-Capitol and the White House and the Smithsonian Insti-tute and set her up to lunch at the New Wil ard and put her on the train for St. Louis that night. His name was