ink I can't do anything, the
way you talk."

"Oh, don't I! I guess you know what I think."

"Well, it isn't the cake I mean. It's something else."

"Fried chicken!"

"Oh, now you've gone and guessed it." She pouted prettily.

"You asked me to, didn't you?"

Then they laughed together, as at something exquisitely witty.

Down the river, drifting, rowing. Tessie pointed to a house half hidden
among the trees on the farther shore: "There's Hatton's camp. They say
they have grand times there with their swell crowd some Saturdays and
Sundays. If I had a house like that, I'd live in it all the time, not
just a couple of days out of the whole year." She hesitated a moment. "I
suppose it looks like a shanty to you now."

Chuck surveyed it, patronizingly. "No, it's a nice little place."

They beached their boat, and built a little fire, and had supper on the
river bank, and Tessie picked out the choice bits for him--the breast of
the chicken, beautifully golden brown; the ripest tomato; the firmest,
juiciest pickle; the corner of the little cake which would give him a
double share of icing. She may not have been versed in French, Tessie,
but she was wise in feminine wiles.

From Chuck, between mouthfuls: "I guess you don't know how good this
tastes. Camp grub's all right, but after you've had a few months of it
you get so you don't believe there is such a thing as fried chicken and
chocolate cake."

"I'm glad you like it, Chuck. Here, take this drumstick. You ain't
eating a thing!" His fourth piece of chicken.

Down the river as far as the danger line just above the dam, with Tessie
pretending fear just for the joy of having Chuck reassure her. Then back
again in the dusk, Chuck bending to the task now against the current.
And so up the hill homeward bound. They walked very slowly, Chuck's hand
on her arm. They were dumb with the tragic, eloquent dumbness of their
kind. If she could have spoken the words that were churning in her mind,
they would have been something like this:

"Oh, Chuck, I wish I was married to you. I wouldn't care if only I had
you. I wouldn't mind babies or anything. I'd be glad. I want our house,
with a dining-room set, and a brass bed, and a mahogany table in the
parlour, and all the housework to do. I'm scared. I'm scared I won't get
it. What'll I do if I don't?"

And he, wordlessly: "Will you wait for me, Tessie, and keep on loving me
and thinking of me? And will you keep yourself clean