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red, white,
    and blue was woven in and out of the wheel spokes. The cart was to be
    pulled by Elmer, the pet burro Uncle Asa brought home from California,
    but Elmer had chosen this moment to refuse to be driven. He was head
    down in the grass border of the minister’s vegetable garden, and Otis, red
    in the face from hauling on the reins to no effect, was fighting tears. As
    Claris tugged on the burro’s bridle and Colonel Dodge was calling to the
    marchers to Form Up, Please, Claris noticed the young man sitting by
    himself in shirtsleeves on the stone step of the meeting house, watching
    her. She didn’t know who he was but thought with irritation that he
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    might have offered them some help instead of sitting there idle; he could
    see that she needed it.
    Later she saw him again, marching with the boys from the islands;
    he had his jacket on and stepped out proudly, shoulders back and eyes
    straight ahead, bearing the colors. He had a slight limp that suddenly
    touched her heart. Next came the marching band, in which her sisters
    Alice and Mabel played cymbals and drums, and then came Otis, earnestly
    flogging Elmer, while the little girls in the cart waved small flags at their
    parents and cousins and neighbors along the parade route.
    The parade ended at the playground above the shipyard, across from
    the schoolhouse. There were tables set up on the grass, loaded with cold
    chicken and lemonade and all kinds of cakes and doughnuts. Elmer was
    taken out of the cart shafts and allowed to graze, to his delight. Otis and
    the little girls had run across to the school yard, where their school chums
    were playing under the elm trees, and the grown-ups had settled down
    on blankets to listen to speeches. Claris was standing alone when she
    found that the boy with the limp who hadn’t helped her before the parade
    was now standing at her elbow holding two dishes of peach ice cream.
    She looked at the dishes, and she looked at him. He had large dark
    eyes and a very high forehead. His hands were huge.
    “I brought you this,” he said and held one of the dishes out to her.
    She was so surprised, she took it.
    “I’m Danial Haskell,” he said, and took a bite of ice cream.
    “I’m Claris Osgood,” she said.
    “I know who you are,” said Danial. And then, to her bafflement,
    he walked away and sat down by himself on a rock overlooking the bay,
    and ate his ice cream.
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    SometimesIwassureIheardbedroomdoorsopenandclose,
    or someone moving around the upstairs when we were all together
    below. Stephen believed me, but he never seemed to be near when it
    happened. I told Edith about it, but she thought I was just complaining.
    Then one night when I was washing up after dinner I distinctly
    heard someone crying somewhere in the room behind me. My heart
    moved in sympathy, and I turned around, but there was no one there.
    It was not a child’s weeping; at first I thought it was Edith herself in
    some kind of trouble and I wondered if I could help her. I left the
    kitchen but found that Stephen was upstairs and Edith was sitting in
    the living room reading The Saturday Evening Post. I went back into
    the kitchen, and in a minute the weeping started again. This time it
    slightly irritated me, as weeping that can be turned on and off tends
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    to. I took a deep breath, turned around, and said as bravely as I could
    to the dark corners of the room, “Now listen. There’s no need for this.
    And it won’t do any good, so cheer up and get ahold of yourself.”
    The weeping stopped.
    I stood, hardly daring to breath. It was silent; I was silent. I
    thought, Well, that was easy, and turned back to the dishes. Suddenly
    I felt, or smelled, something cold and nasty right behind me, and then
    a glass I had washed and set carefully on the drainboard was swept
    violently back into the deep metal sink as if someone had hit it. I felt
    as if I’d been slapped,