The next thing we did was drive to Miss Macy’s to make sure that the hermit and Miss Macy had gotten there all right and hadn’t been apprehended by soldiers or surrendered to hypothermia. Old Tom left the truck in the driveway out of view of the house in case there were soldiers there. Then we crept onto Miss Macy’s porch and peeked in the window. There we saw the hermit and Miss Macy sitting at her kitchen table drinking cocoa and talking and laughing.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Old Tom. “Will wonders never cease. And I thought him so shy.”

“Maybe something about the accident caused him to lose his shyness,” I said.

Old Tom knocked on the door. Miss Macy, still laughing, got up to answer it. “Well, hail hail, the gang’s all here,” she said jovially.

“Hiya,” said Old Tom as we stepped in. “I see all is well.”

“All’s well that ends well,” said Miss Macy. “Care for some cocoa?”

“No, thanks, we’d better get back. Listen,” he said, turning to the hermit, “you’d better stay here until this dies down. Is that okay with you, Miss Macy?”

“Sure, sure, the more the merrier,” said Miss Macy, and she was laughing in a happy, sparkly way I’d never heard before.

“It may be for days,” said Old Tom.

“Okay,” said Miss Macy.

“Okay,” said the hermit.

“It may be for weeks,” said Old Tom worriedly.

“Okay,” said Miss Macy.

“Okily dokily kay,” said the hermit, and that sent them into peals of laughter again. They certainly seemed to have hit it off.

They were still laughing uncontrollably when Old Tom and I went down the steps. We could still hear them when we got to the truck. We could still hear them as we drove away.

“A match made in heaven, that,” said Old Tom, which got me thinking in ways I hadn’t before.

“Do you think so?” I asked excitedly, because what is more thrilling than a romance? I saw myself in a lovely pink lacy dress strewing rose petals down one of the garden paths because, of course, they’d get married on our farm. “Do you think they’ll marry and live together forever? Because she is lonely and I think she’d love to have someone to take care of. And he needs someone to take care of him. I mean, he can’t keep living like that alone in the woods forever.”

“Why not?” asked Old Tom.