After this they continued to meet, not at first by arrangement, but rather by hint and sigh. The weather remained fine through November, as it often did. (One year, when they were boys, Leon and Floyd had swum in the creek on Thanksgiving Day.) Without asking or offering secrecy, neither spoke of their meetings to another living soul.

18

Sarah and Roman kept their school again, sometimes out of doors, indoors when it rained or “turned off cool.”

Roman held up a large card for the youngest, who had just started to attend. “A,” he said.

“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a,” they sang together.

“B.”

“B-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!” they echoed with increasing confidence.

“What’s this?” He held up another card.

“C-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!”

“No!” Roman said sternly. “It’s a G!”

“You trick us!” a young one accused, experiencing his first betrayal in the process of formal education.

Roman held up both cards. “This is a C. This is G. Now tell me what’s the difference?”

One child chortled boldly, not having yet learned fear, “That right! What difference do it make!”

Listening with one part of her mind, Sarah smiled as she read simple poems to a circle of seven older boys and girls. The rhyme and rhythm made it easy for them to follow and understand and sometimes even to remember after one hearing. Sarah was careful never to go on for too long a time, because then the sound inevitably became lullling and could make the children sleepy.

Another day she watched Roman take a class through a spelling lesson. She was always pleased to see that he did not ever scorn or make fun of them when they got a word wrong. Especially when two words sounded alike but were spelled differently and had different meanings, he was slow and patient, able to go over the same ground again and again without seeming bored.

Geography was often a part of spelling lessons, as every subject blended into or sparked off every other. All, even the youngest, knew how to spell their names and “Beulah Land” and “Highboro” and “Georgia”—although “Georgia” was not as easy to learn to spell as “Mary-land” and “Ala-bama.” Some of the states were all but impossible for them to learn to spell or learn anything else about. Distant though it was, “Vermont” was all right. It was spelled just the way it sounded, and there was a certain connection between “mont” and “marble.” But “Rhode Island” made no sense. There was obviously no reason for an “h” in “Rhode,” and how could there be an “s” in “Island”? And why was it called an island when it clearly from the map was not?