288
PARTISAN REVIEW
It
was very strange: only a week before the words "Tonka
Kewoo" had pictured to them an Indian rider silhouetted against
sunset on some hill. Now they only made them think of Mr. Gins–
berg's gut.
The next evening the two of them were stretched out in the
grass behind the Wolf's house, and looking down the yards for
a
long distance, they could see that all the houses were the same.
But
the grass smelled sweetly and the night was warm. They whistled,
dug their fingers in the soft earth, pointed out to each other the
North Star and the Large and Small Dippers. But they could not
keep still. Sometimes they would put their heads down on their
folded arms before them and sometimes they turned over and lay
on their backs: their legs felt long and restless: their arms were
not satisfied in any position: their fingers folded and unfolded
themselves.
They heard the back door of the house next to them open and
close: a girl stood on the porch for a few seconds and then stepped
down into the yard.
"She goes to high school," said the Wolf.
The girl was dressed whitely for summer in a short sleeveless
dress; they could see her through the pickets of the fence as she
turned round in the yard uncertainly and as she. sat down on a
bench near the driveway under a small tree. The light was dim but
they could see her clearly among the shadows: they could see the
bare legs and knees and the shape of her arms and shoulders, and
even heard, when the traffic sounds diminished, the quick intake
of her breath. They lay quite still. She rose after a while to come
over to the fence and lean on it looking up, but while she did not
see them, they saw the muscles of her legs and the whiteness of
her ankles in the grass. Then she turned abruptly and went back
into the house again.
"Her name is Josephine," said the Wolf. "She goes to a lot
of dances."
"I gotta learn to dance," murmured the Crow.
"Yeh."
"I can go on Wednesday nights to a class a friend of my
sister's has," went on the Crow.
"That's when the Tribe meets," answered the Wolf slowly.
