She got blushing and a little flustered then, in no small part because she felt exactly the same about him, and she couldn’t account for it. She knew why she felt all kinds of other things about him, most of them exciting and fluttery, and not the way she’d ever felt about any boy before. That was just simple to reckon the reasons for. He was the first boy who’d ever paid her a lick of attention, and he was good-looking on top of that, and she knew very well she was spoony about him. She’d been on the outside of that, at those Christmas parties and July Fourth picnics, and Halloween gathers; she’d seen plenty of girls get giggly and goo-goo-eyed over boys, and she recognized some of that in what she was feeling. But there was something deeper there, a sense of connection that wasn’t fluttery and giggly at all. On the contrary, it felt like a deep, slow river, moving at its own pace, but powerful, and something that would endure regardless. “I guess I kinder feel like thet too,” she confessed. “Mebbe it’s on account’a the magic?”

“Thet don’t seem right.” He shook his head, and took a couple more hammer taps. “Wall, y’all got more sense than m’sis Sue. An’ y’all ain’t as flibberty-gibbet as the gals down in Ducktown. An’ thas a fact. But they’s a lot more to it than that. It ain’t fair t’compare ’em to y’all, cause y’all’s special, and it ain’t jest the magic. I cain’t put it inter words, but it’s like something I know, like I know what m’own hand’ll do when I want it ter do somethin’.” He nodded, as if that settled it. “I know we ain’t knowed each other fer long, Anna May, but I’d admire iffen y’all wouldn’ mind iffen I arst Miz Jinny t’let me court y’all.”

She felt as if she’d been struck by lightning, and sat there for a moment, gasping like a landed fish.

In fact, she sat there so silent for so long that he put down his hammer and chisel and turned around to face her, expression one of dismay and concern.

“Iffen y’all don’ like thet, we c’n jest be friends—” he stammered, for once, obviously, just as flustered as she was.

“No!” she managed. “I mean, yes! I mean, I mean, I’d really truly like it iffen y’all’d talk to Aunt Jinny!” She became suddenly aware that she had clasped both her hands tightly under her chin as if in prayer, as he grinned again, reached out, took her hands, pried them open, and leaned forward to kiss her chastely on the cheek.

“Y’all had me plumb skeert there, a minnut,” he said, and picked his hammer and chisel back up again, turning back to his work.

It was a good thing that he did, because she was utterly speechless for quite some time, her right hand held to her cheek where he had kissed her, almost unable to breathe.