Place Called Estherville Read Free Page B

it was a strange car that soon passed out of sight without stopping. He turned from the window and came back to the center of the room.
    “Miss Stella and Mr. Charley might be coming home early any minute now, Miss Stephena.” He gazed longingly over his shoulder at the bright sunshine out of doors. “Something terrible’s liable to happen, Miss Stephena,” he began again. He was looking down at the floor when he found himself staring at the yellow silk pajamas. Snatching them up, he went cautiously toward the bed, shyly holding the garment at arm’s length. “Please put these things on, Miss Stephena, please. Put them on quick! Something awful’s going to happen. I just know it is. Please put them on like they belong and don’t stay out of them any longer.” Stephena threw the pajamas aside. Tears came to his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me, Miss Stephena. It’s awful to be teased like you’re doing. I don’t have a bit of business being in here when you’re sprang out of all your clothes like that. It’s the worst thing a colored boy could be caught at. They’d murder me alive for sure, just like Mr. Charley said they would if he ever caught me doing something a colored boy oughtn’t. Won’t you please put those clothes on right away, Miss Stephena, like you ought to? I don’t want them to kill me. I want to stay alive. I don’t want to die.”
    “If you don’t do what I want you to, I’ll scream,” she warned him, unmoved. Ganus stared at her, his mouth falling open. He was thoroughly frightened. He could feel his knees coming together with a jar that shook his whole body. “And if I scream, somebody’ll hear me, and they’ll come in the house. When they found you in here, you know what’d happen, don’t you, Ganus?”
    “I sure do, Miss Stephena!” he cried out in an agonized voice. “Please don’t do that! Have mercy on me, Miss Stephena! Please don’t stay out of your clothes! I don’t want to die!”
    She sprang to the floor and ran to him. Ganus closed his eyes, but in another moment he could smell the familiar aroma of her body.
    “Nobody’ll ever know, Ganus,” he heard her pleading in a voice that sounded far away. “I promise never to tell a soul as long as I live. That’s the honest truth. Cross my heart!” He opened his eyes at last. “Don’t you believe me, Ganus?”
    “I believe you, Miss Stephena, if you tell me to,” he said through trembling lips. “I mean, I want to believe you, Miss Stephena. But I can’t!”
    When he realized what he had said, he shut his eyes tightly, fearing that at any moment he would feel the stinging blow of her hand on his face. While he stood there with his eyes closed, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be somewhere far away in the country running from the Singfield house as fast as he could. When he finally opened his eyes, Stephena was still standing in front of him. She was smiling up at him with wild-eyed excitement.
    “Ganus—” she said slowly.
    “No, ma’m, Miss Stephena—” he told her, shaking his head.
    “Just this once, Ganus.”
    He tried to say something, but his mouth was so dry that he was unable to make the sound of words. He could only stare at her while he wet his parched lips.
    “Only this once, Ganus.”
    “Miss Stephena—”
    “Please, Ganus.”
    “What do you want me to do?” he asked weakly.
    She was standing so close to him that her body was almost touching his. He waited, unable to move. He could feel numbness creeping through the muscles of his legs. His arms dangled limply at his sides.
    They stood there moment after moment facing each other. Then suddenly she grasped his arm and clamped her teeth into his wrist. When she first bit him, he felt no pain whatsoever, but gradually he became conscious of a tingling sensation running up and down his arm, and then all at once the savage bite of her teeth in his flesh made him cry out in agony. He begged and pleaded for her to stop