this route, but she saw that there was the problem of the three dips, which had, as it were, poured her northward into town—if she were to turn around, they would present a barrier not unlike that of three walls rather than three dips, and then, of course, there would be the longer and less steep, but somehow even more disheartening, climb up the hill to Gentry Farm. But how tedious to go home the long way, and (she looked about) mostly into a westerly wind. She could certainly leave the bicycle at the newspaper office and walk home across the fields—there was no snow as yet, and if her grandfather had turned the sows out into his upper pasture and woodlot, she could use her hat to wave them off.
He spoke abruptly: “Do you have other leisure occupations?”
His ponderous and yet resonant voice scattered her thoughts and made it impossible for her to answer the question, or, in some way, even to consider it. Leisure occupations? What did that mean? They walked on. He tried again, “Perhaps our mothers know one another. My mother is Mrs. Jared Early.”
She recalled thinking that his father was Patrick. Perhaps that was one of the brothers. She said, “Certainly, they do. My grandfather is John Gentry.”
“You live at Gentry Farm.”
“I do.”
“When I was a boy, we had a pair of mules from Gentry Farm. Napoleon and Wellington.”
“Did my grandfather name them?”
“No doubt he did, as our other mule was called Dick. But those two mules were old even then. They would have come to us before the war.”
“I am sure that before the war Papa made use of a whole different set of generals. Since then, it’s either Northerners or Southerners, but all West Pointers.”
Mr. Early cleared his throat again. Margaret came to understand later that this represented a laugh.
She couldn’t keep herself from saying, “Lee and Grant are the oldest, twenty-seven and twenty-five. My sister and I sometimes ride Zollicoff. The most stubborn one is Halleck, though I have to say he’s very handsome for a mule.”
Mr. Early cleared his throat again, which made her think he was going to say something. He didn’t. After a few moments, she said, “What I like about the bicycle is that it has no mind of its own.”
“Mules are very intelligent,” Mr. Early declared, putting an end to that conversation. They walked along. As the aftereffects of her effort dissipated, she was coming to feel chilled. It was now past noon. The breeze had stiffened, and the air was colder than it looked in the sunshine. The steel of the handlebars communicated the chill into her hands, and her feet were growing numb. She could feel the ground right through her thin boots. He said, “Are you visiting anyone in town?”
“Mrs. Larimer, up here a ways. Though she doesn’t realize it yet.”
“Have you ever seen a telephone?”
“I don’t think so.” She wasn’t sure whether she knew what a telephone was.
“The patents have been bitterly contested, or else they might already have telephones here. But they don’t.” He snorted disapprovingly. “With a telephone, you could let Mrs. Larimer know you were coming.”
“From here, I could also shout.”
He cleared his throat. This time, he also smiled a bit. He had even, healthy teeth. There was no evident reason why he would choose not to laugh or smile, but his smile quickly vanished, as if loaned rather than bestowed.
She shivered inside her jacket, and stopped to wrap her flannels more firmly about her waist, this time for warmth. The bicycle stuttered on the road, and Mr. Early glanced at her once, but mostly he gazed around in a discerning way, as if he were measuring the speed of the wind or gauging the likelihood of rain. She pressed on, feeling her cheeks beginning to freeze. Fingers, too. Discomfort was overwhelming that earlier sense of pleasure. She stopped suddenly, leaned the bicycle against her skirt, and cupped her cheeks in her hands, just to warm them. He said, “Are you in pain, Miss Mayfield?”
“I’m freezing.”
“Indeed! I hadn’t noticed a chill.” He waited for her, but she saw through her fingers that he looked at her curiously, as if her behavior were simply a phenomenon and had nothing to do with him. And, indeed, it did have nothing to do with him. But she had the suspicion that, were she to fall over in a solid frozen block of ice and expire right there, he would be unmoved except by