The Winds of Autumn (12 page)

I blushed, hating myself for doing so.

This was Wednesday and I had to get right home to do the chores. I was glad for an excuse to get away quickly.

I gathered my books and nodded at Mr. Foggelson.

“I’ll plan on tomorrow then. Right after school.”

“Fine,” he said and reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was the first time he had touched me, the first I had seen him touch any of the students. Not even Camellia, though I was sure that in the privacy of their own home there must be father-daughter contact. I felt a bit embarrassed, though I did not know why. I was used to a great deal of touching. Why, in my family we were always hugging and slapping one another on the back and patting on the head and squeezing the hand and all sorts of nice family things.

Still, it wasn’t like your teacher laying his hand on your shoulder, like you were someone special to him—and you weren’t just sure what the “special” was. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just cleared my throat and looked down at my books again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said awkwardly and headed for the door.

I both dreaded and anticipated the day for the first tutoring and, boy, can that ever mix you up inside!

I did have the sense to set aside my geometry book after class the next day. I fumbled around at my desk, pushing books around, sorting and resorting until I was sure the fellas had left the room.

I finally dared to look up, half expecting Mr. Foggelson to be standing at my desk with instructions on how I was to teach his daughter. But it was Camellia’s deep blue eyes that met mine. She gave me a wonderful smile, and I nearly dropped the geometry book I held in my hand. I looked down again, fumbled some more with my book and nearly choked mid-swallow.

“Are you ready?” she asked nicely and I nodded, then let my eyes wander to the boards that Mr. Foggelson was meticulously cleaning.

“Papa will be home later,” she said in answer to my unasked question. “He always stays to clean the chalkboards and put some lessons on for the next day.”

I nodded again, but I felt like I was rooted to my spot.

“Let’s go then,” she offered. “Papa said you have lots of chores after school so I mustn’t waste your time.”

I forced my wooden legs to move and followed her out of the schoolroom. We were halfway across the yard before I realized she was carrying a load of books. I mumbled some kind of apology and reached to take them from her.

“Thank you, Joshua,” she said with just a hint of appealing shyness, dropping her long, dark eyelashes. It rather threw me. I had never had a girl flirt with me before. At least not one like Camellia.

When we got to her house her mother greeted us warmly and waved us toward the tea and fancy pastries placed on the table. I was not a tea drinker. I didn’t care much for the stuff and I had always been encouraged to drink milk, a growing boy needing lots of it to make his teeth and bones strong and all, but I would have died before I would have admitted that to Camellia or her ma.

“Do you care for cream or sugar?” asked Camellia courteously, about to pour.

I tried to remember what Aunt Lou or Grandpa took in their teas but my mind went blank. “No, thank you,” I finally mumbled. “Just bare.”

Camellia’s eyelashes fluttered softly as she glanced at me, and I knew I had said something dumb. What was it that one said about tea anyway? I knew Gramps always had his coffee “black,” but tea wasn’t black. What was it, anyway?

“I like a little cream in mine,” Camellia was saying. “Papa’s always teasing me, saying it will make me fat someday, but I use it anyway.” She laughed merrily.

I couldn’t imagine her fat but didn’t know if I should say so.

She passed me a pastry then. It looked about the size of one mouthful, but I knew better than to take two. Besides, I wasn’t sure just what the thing was and how one went about eating it. I laid mine down on the small flowery plate that sat on the white tablecloth and waited for Camellia to lead the way.

She picked hers up nimbly in her fingers and took a dainty nibble. I followed suit. Only for some reason mine didn’t work quite like hers had. I don’t know if I had gotten a faulty one or what, but just as I went to take a teeny bite from the side like Camellia had done, the fool thing crumbled in my fingers and fell all over the tablecloth, leaving me with empty air and a red face.

I felt like a dolt, that’s how I felt, but Camellia pretended not to mind.

“I’ve always told Mama that those dainty little pastries were not made to be held in the strong hands of a man,” she said.

“Their fingers are just too used to a firm grip on things.” And so saying she leaned right over toward me, swept the crumbs into her own plate and took them away from the table. When she returned she brought with her a small fork with a short handle, and she passed me another pastry.

“They are difficult to eat with a fork, too,” she whispered confidentially, “but it might be a little easier.”

I somehow managed to get most of that pastry to my lips. By the time I was finished I was glad the thing hadn’t been any bigger. I was almost sweating with the effort—and I still had that cup of tea ahead of me.

The teacup with its little handle was not much easier to manage than the pastry had been. It must have been designed for a creature with only one finger and a thumb. I didn’t know what to do with the other three—no matter how I held the cup they all got in the way.

Camellia tried to put me at ease and I appreciated her effort.
Not only pretty, she is sensitive and caring, too,
I thought, and that made me like her even more.

“We will study in the sitting room,” she informed me when we had finally freed ourselves of the tea and dainties, and with great relief I followed her away from that table with its linen cloth and china cups.

The sitting room was comfortably furnished, and we chose a settee by the large window and spread our books out on the small table before it. Somehow I had the feeling that the table had been placed there purposely for our use.

“What part you wishin’ to study?” I began, opening my text.

“None of it,” she responded. I’m sure I couldn’t have looked as astounded as I felt, but she giggled, softly and bubbly, like our little crik when it splashes over pebbles on a sandbar.

Now, I had never cared much for girls giggling, but Camellia’s was different. It made me feel like giggling, too, and I had to check myself before some dumb sound came out of my mouth. Instead, I just smiled, a blush making my cheeks hot. I knew there was a secret joke here, but I wasn’t sure just what it was.

“One is supposed to be honest, isn’t one?” Camellia was saying pertly, her blue eyes twinkling with merriment.

I nodded. Certainly one was to be honest.

“Well, I’m honest. I wish we didn’t need to study.”

“I’m sorry,” I began. “I didn’t know that your pa was
makin
’ you—”

But I got no further.

“Oh, Joshua,” she stopped me, reaching out one soft hand to lay gently on mine. “This wasn’t Papa’s idea.”

I was totally lost. If it wasn’t her pa’s idea that we study and she didn’t wish to study, then what was I doing in her house?

“I coaxed Papa to ask you,” she said frankly in response to my perplexed look.

“You did?” I stammered.

“Yes,” she said with a flip of her coppery curls. “I did.”

“But why?”

“Why?” She seemed a little annoyed at my question.

“Why—if you don’t want to study—?”

She looked at me like I was a child. But then she tossed her hair again and fluttered those long eyelashes.

“I just wanted to get to know you better—to talk.”

I was dumbfounded. I stared at her, my mouth open and my heart pounding wildly. I wanted to ask “why?” again but I didn’t dare. Camellia would expect me to know the answer, and I didn’t—not yet at least. It might take a good deal of sorting out.

I swallowed hard and turned back to the book, thumbing through the pages.

“Well—well—“ I began, “guess we can talk and study, too.”

She rewarded me with a flashing smile and slid over so we could both share my geometry text. Hers lay on the table, unopened.

We started through the text page by page, and I found there was little if any help needed by Camellia. She understood the concepts most as good as I did.

It was nearly time for me to be hurrying off home when she looked up from the text. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Joshua?” she surprised me by asking.

I shook my head.

“Me neither.” There was silence for a minute. I guess we were both thinking some on that.

“Does it make you angry?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Angry?” Though I missed having a brother or a sister, I had never thought of being angry about it.

“Yes. Angry.”

“Guess not. Why?”

Her brow furrowed in deep thought or consternation, I wasn’t sure which. “Sometimes it makes me angry,” she confided. “It used to make me terribly angry. I didn’t think it was fair at all. Everyone should have more family than just a mother and a father. Don’t you think?”

I shrugged my shoulders carelessly. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell Camellia the fact that I didn’t even have that much family.

“But I don’t get as angry anymore,” went on Camellia. “In fact, I guess there are some good things about being an only child.”

“Like?” I asked.

“Well—“ she said slowly. “Like you.”

“Me?”

“Sure. If I was not an only child, then I probably wouldn’t get my own way all the time, and Mama and Papa might not have agreed to let you tutor me.”

I felt my mouth drop open again.

“It wasn’t hard to convince Papa. He gives me anything I want,” said Camellia, “but Mama can be awfully stubborn sometimes.”

I had never heard a person talk like that about their own parents before, and I must confess I was a bit shocked. But Camellia said it so innocently, so frankly, that I found myself excusing her.

“Do you always get your own way, Joshua?” she asked me.

“I—I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I’ve never thought on it before. I guess I’d never thought to even try.”

“You haven’t?” The idea seemed preposterous to her.

“Well—ah—well, they let me have my dog, Pixie, an’—”

“You have a dog?”

I nodded.

“Oh, you’re so lucky. I’ve always wanted a dog, but Mama says, ‘Positively not.’ She has allergies. And she is so—so—”

“Stubborn,” I whispered, and we both burst into laughter.

The laughing must have jerked me back to reality, for my eyes traveled to the clock on the mantel.

“I’ve got to get,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I’ll never get my chores done if I don’t hurry.”

She looked like she wanted to ask me to stay longer, but she bit her lip and didn’t say anything.

“Thank you, Joshua, for your help,” she said instead. “I’ll see you next Thursday.”

Her comment brought me up short. I hardly knew what to say or how to say it.

“Camellia,” I began, “you know the geometry as good as I do. I really didn’t help you none.”

“But you did!” she insisted. “Please, Joshua. You promised. Please say you’ll come again.”

That part was right, I had promised. The whole thing didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come. And maybe—maybe I had helped her some.

I smiled.

“Sure,” I agreed. “I promised. I’ll see you next Thursday.”

“Joshua,” she said with a big smile, “could you show me your little dog sometime?”

“I’d love to. She can do all kinds of tricks and everything.”

“But you can’t bring her here,” she frowned, “on account of Mama’s allergies.”

“Then you can come home with me and see her. Ask your folks. Aunt Lou would love to meet you.”

She smiled again—and I took that smile all the way home with me.

C
HAPTER
13
Good Old-Fashioned School Days?

W
HEN I GOT TO SCHOOL
the next morning, the word had already gotten around that I had been seen carrying Camellia’s books home. I never did find out who saw me and passed the news along, but it seemed to have done a bit of growing with its travels.

Avery met me by the path that leads up to the school, just below the bare, gnarled branches of the old maple tree the town fathers had planted there so many years before our time.

His first words were, “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” I responded innocently.

“ ’Bout you and Camellia?”

My face started to redden. I had no idea what Avery had heard, but I had me a sinking feeling that some of it might be based on facts.

“I dunno,” I said slowly, moving past Avery to continue up the path. “What’ve ya heard?”

“That you went home with Camellia.”

I nodded, agreeing that I had. “Her pa asked me to help her some with her geometry.” That sounded reasonable enough to me, but it didn’t to Avery.

“Camellia?” he snorted. “Camellia? Camellia don’t need help with nothin’.”

Just then Willie and Jack sauntered up.

“Hey, listen to this, fellas,” Avery called out before they even joined us. “Josh here went home with Camellia to help
her
with her
geometry
.” He emphasized the words “help” and “geometry,” and just as he had expected, the other two fellas stopped short and howled.

“Camellia?”

“Help with geometry?”

“Very funny, Josh!”

“Honest!” I argued as I was slapped on the back and punched on the arm, my face getting redder by the minute. “Her pa asked me to.”

“Oh, come on, Josh,” said Jack scornfully. “We’re not dumb enough to believe that story.”

“What really happened?” demanded Avery.

But before I could even answer, Jack was continuing. “I s’pose that’s why you carried her books and held her hand, too.”

“I did not,” I denied hotly.

“An’ I s’pose that’s why you stayed at her house till almost dark,” went on Tom Foster, who had just joined the inquisition.

“An’ here you were pretendin’ to not even be interested in her,” went on Jack. “Whenever we’d talk about her or somethin’, you’d hush us up, or move away from us, or change the subject or somethin’. ‘We shouldn’t talk about people behind their back,’ you said. All you really wanted was to have her all to yourself.” Jack’s tone was so sarcastic, all I could do was stare at him.