“Please, have a seat,” Anna said.
“Thank
you,” the young man replied. He settled into the straight-backed chair, a creak
erupting from its wooden frame. Anna took another chair two paces away, angling
the spinning wheel so that it punctured the distance between them.
John
glanced about the room. “Is your father home?” he asked.
“No,
he isn’t. He said he’d be back in awhile.” Anna resisted the urge to adjust the
white cap covering her hair.
John
fidgeted with the wide-brimmed hat in his hands. “Did he forget that I was
coming?”
“No,
he remembered,” Anna felt her face grow warm. “He’s just strangely
new-fashioned about these things.”
“Oh.”
John seemed to absorb most of the characteristics of the chair he was sitting
in. Perhaps he was aware of this; he placed his arm on the table and let his
hand hang off of it with forced nonchalance. His body didn’t seem to belong to
his hand.
With
clammy hands, Anna fingered her skirt. Her eyes darted from the floor to the
ceiling, uncertain where they should rest. She crossed and uncrossed her feet.
Picking up a Bible, Anna rifled through the pages as if she were looking for a
particular passage, yet her eyes strayed over the young man across from her as
if she were observing a cougar. John’s placid face didn’t seem to register any
of this. His clear eyes stared at a fixed point; he seemed to be waiting.
How
is a courting person supposed to act? Anna wondered. She tried to remember
what her father had told her that afternoon.
“Anna,
darlin’, the day has come,” her father had said after taking a big gulp of
their fresh spring water. Their family’s spring was the envy of the colony.
“Yessirree, the day has come,” her father’s serious eyes quickly disappeared
into the crinkles of a smile.
“What
day, Papa?”
“The
day when you get yer first suitor.”
“What?”
Anna’s pulse pounded in her ears. She wasn’t ready for this.
“Yep,”
the older man replied. “Young John Platt came to me while I was workin’ outside
on the farm, and he said, ‘Mr. Bradford, would you do me the pleasure of
allowing me to court your daughter?’ I stopped what I was doin’ and sized him
up careful like. Then I says, ‘John Platt, I like you, and since you asked me
so nice I will give you that pleasure. How about you come by at six tonight?’
And he said he would.”
“Oh
no! Papa, what will I do? What will I say?”
“Now,
now, settle down, girl. I expect that he will guide the conversation. Just be
patient and let the man have his say, and once he’s done so then you’ll be able
to think of something to say. Now I’m going to step down to the town for a
spell when he comes by. The doctor promised that he’d clean out me ears and
sell me one of those newfangled ear trumpets. You know my hearing ain’t what it
used to be.”
“Yes
Papa.” And so here Anna sat, wondering if every young man was this silent on
his first courtship visit. She’d always thought that John Platt had the
disposition of a dumb ox; this visit only confirmed her suspicions.
The
clock struck quarter past six.
At
the sound, John unfroze. He coughed. “Well, seeing as your father isn’t here,”
he said, “could you give me a quart
of water?”
Anna
blinked. “What did you say?”
“Could
I have a quart of water? Your father promised me some this afternoon if I came
at six.”
“He
did?”
“Yes,
I asked him if he’d give me the pleasure of allowing me a quart of water, and
he said he would if I came at six.”
“Really?”
Anna said. Sunlight blasted through the windows, making the whole room lighter.
“Mr. Platt, it would be my greatest pleasure
to give you a quart of water.”
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