374
PARTISAN REVIEW
(Hartford was never to know). He gazed at her unblinkingly,
thought of Rebecca lying in a trundle bed in her cold little attic,
and said nothing. Perhaps if he had known Miss Taylor was be–
ginning to die, he might have decided to make her last two years
easier by giving her the answer, but perhaps not. After all, he
knew as well as the rest of the class that Miss Taylor herself knew
the answer and was only hoping to trip him up, so as to make
herself look better. At least, that was what Hartford thought all
teachers were up to. So he said nothing.
"Hartford!" Miss Taylor's voice became
basso
extra-pro–
funda.
"I am surprised at you!" She sighed. Until this moment
Hartford had been the smartest pupil in her class-for the five
weeks he had been there, that is. Miss Taylor appreciated his
smartness and felt sorry for his wooden loneliness-it was hard
on a child to have to go from town to town and school to school.
And that mother of his, when she first had showed up with him!
Dressed in a peek-a-boo shirtwaist that showed her bare arms
through the eyelet embroidery . And rouge! Miss Taylor thought
of the dim red stains she had found on her underthings between
periods and decided she must be starting to go through the
changes. Early, as her mother had. She gazed into Hartford's
peaked, closed-up face and decided not to make him wear the
dunce cap and stand in the corner.
It
was simply too much trou–
ble, and she didn't feel well that day.
For his part, Hartford decided then and there that he would
never answer again. Not in class, anyhow. It had something to
do with the way Miss Taylor had sighed and let her eyes slide
away from him, as if she didn't want to see him sitting there si–
lently, knowing the ans\vers as well as she did but refusing to say
them back to her, his own man even if she were twice as big as
he. But it had even more to do with the fact that she hadn't put
the dunce cap on him and sent him into the corner, as she did the
other children when they wouldn't recite.
It
was just as if she
were siding with the children, then, in setting him off as special:
"Your name's a town, not a person!"
"Fartford, Fartford ... yah, yah, yah!"
"My rna says she bets your rna shows her underwear on the
stage." So he would
be
special. He wouldn't talk. He gave him–
self up to his fantasies.
Off and on his folks did skits from
Rebecca of Sunny brook
