“I was squatting over yonder, there, just there near Circa’s quince.—Hush, darling, please do hush, now, girl—and, you know me, as usual, sweating like a pig. And when I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and looked toward the Sound—and when I took my hand down?—I saw two little girls. They were charming, one black, one white. About 8 to 10 years old. They were holding on to one another, standing there and just facing me, looking me over. They had an expression that seemed to hint as how I was the one out of place, and they—of all the people on the farm—were at least glad to be the first to notice me. I said something like ‘Hi,’ something witty like ‘Hi,’ right? At first they only stared at me, each keeping very very still. But extremely there, you know, and conscious and seeming amused that I was such a mess and down on my knees. They both seemed to be wondering what was I doing on their farm. I could see plainly enough that the white girl had light-brown hair chopped off just at the shoulders and was in a sort of gingham dress, checked, brown and red, floor-length, ground-length out here, but it could’ve been some ’60s hippie-child’s ‘granny dress.’ And the black girl—blue-black African black—wore a homespun almost burlappy thing, very simple, with long sleeves and a boatneck, and she had pierced ears with small star-shaped pewter bits—pewter, I was sure of it—pewter stars in her ears. For some reason, that seemed a tip-off, like, you know, ‘pewter,’ tin mixed with lead, antique, get it? But, no, I was just as dumb as before. They were standing there, arm in arm and not quite smiling but very pleased-looking, very much together, as if about to laugh but scared to hurt my feelings. Behaving as if—how to explain this?—as if there were many other people all over the plantation, working the place, and like they had strolled off into one quiet corner—a favorite place, I felt—for a nice moment alone together and instead had found me. (I sensed how crowded the farm really was, busy and productive but sort of hostile to children; something in their sense of secrecy, the bond between them, suggested that.) And it was only then I noticed they were pointing down, they both were. Toward the same spot. I just hadn’t seen that, not at first. Or maybe when they guessed they could trust me they indicated the one spot. I was here by myself, Circa excepted. I mean, the volunteers had left about 4:30, and I was just doing a few last clean-up chores. Needed a quick nap on the cot in the foyer. Then, and only then—and by the way, all this is just taking maybe just, oh, 8 to 12 seconds, this whole loaded glance—very quick, very matter-of-fact—it was only then I noticed the texture of the bricks behind them, and only then, like a dolt, does it occur to me that I can see the goddamn bricks, like THROUGH them, right? Well, here’s the really dopey part, I smile at them, as if they live here, as if I’m the slave gardener and I know so, and yet to prove I also have a reason for being here too, right? I go back to the vine I’ve been yanking on, and I actually lift my gigantic vat of RoundUp I’ve been spraying at the honeysuckle, like I’m bored, like I’m just going on with my work, and only then, having turned my entire back on them, do I do this incredible Three Stooges eye-popping double take. ‘Boing,’ hair up—eyes out to here—and of course they’re gone.