Place Called Estherville Read Free Page A

bed, he started toward the door.
    “Why are you running away like that, Ganus?” she called to him in a drawling voice. “You’re shaking all over, too. What’s the matter, Ganus?”
    He stopped, clearly remembering his firm determination to leave the room right away, but nevertheless, turning slowly around with helpless disregard, he looked at her for the first time since she had left the kitchen. She had combed her hair and was sitting upright in bed laughingly hugging a pillow in her arms.
    “Nothing much’s the matter, Miss Stephena,” he answered her weakly, trying his best to make his voice sound calm. He backed slowly toward the door. “It’s just that I’ve got to hurry back downstairs and finish up my work in the kitchen before Miss Stella and Mr. Charley come home from church. I wouldn’t want your mama to find the kitchen untidy. No, ma’am! That’s one thing Miss Stella always raises a big rumpus about. She won’t put up with an untidy kitchen. No ma’m!”
    “Come back here, Ganus,” she ordered him in a commanding manner.
    Reluctantly, he moved several steps in her direction. She was hugging the pillow excitedly.
    “What—what—do you want, Miss Stephena?”
    “I want to ask you something.”
    “Yes, ma’m, Miss Stephena,” he murmured, his whole being fearful of what she might say.
    Stephena leaned forward and the pillow sagged carelessly in her arms. “Ganus, tell me the honest truth. What would you do now if you could do anything you wanted to and be sure nobody ever knew about it?”
    “I’d—I’d go right straight back down to the kitchen, Miss Stephena,” he told her, shoving his hands behind his back and gripping them damply together.
    “No, you wouldn’t, Ganus,” she said tensely. “Go on and tell me the honest truth. I want to know.”
    “Know what?” he asked evasively, glancing behind him at the door.
    “If you could do anything you wanted to.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in desperation. “I wish you’d eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”
    “Ganus,” she spoke as though patiently prompting him.
    He shook his head determinedly. “That’s something I don’t want to know, neither.”
    “Yes, you do, too. You know just as well as I do.”
    “Please don’t make me say what you said you wanted me to say, Miss Stephena. I’ll do anything in the world you want me to as long as I live—if you’ll only let me go now like I ought to. That’s all the favor I’d ever ask, Miss Stephena.” She moved across the bed and the pillow fell to the floor. He could think of nothing else but the time she walked into the kitchen hugging a pillow in her arms, and he prayed fervently for somebody to come this time, too. The realization that somebody might come and find him there almost made his heart stand still. “Miss Stephena, they’d murder me alive if they found me here now,” he pleaded with desperate urgency. “Nothing would stop it. You know that. They’d kill me sure if they saw me now. I know what I’m talking about. That’s the Good Man’s own truth, Miss Stephena.”
    “You promised me a little while ago that you were going to do everything I told you. Didn’t you, Ganus?”
    “Yes, ma’m, and I’ll promise it again, if you’ll only let me go now.”
    “Aren’t you going to keep your promise, Ganus?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t know you meant anything at all like this, though, Miss Stephena. I thought you only meant like standing on my head and skinning-the-cat and things like that. I’d sure be tickled to stand on my head for you right now and stay on it as long as you say, if you’ll only let me go like I ought to. Could I please stand on my head right away, Miss Stephena? Please, ma’m, let me stand on my head.”
    “Don’t be silly, Ganus,” she said.
    There was the sound of an automobile in the street below. Ganus ran to the window and looked out. He was momentarily relieved when he saw that