that he should like to turn and walk with this girl through the lighted
Main Street. Had she not chosen him from among all the boys of the town;
had she not, with a flutter of her little, white hand, called to him with
a call that he wondered the men upon the cracker barrels had not heard?
Her boldness and his own took his breath away. He could not talk. His
tongue seemed paralysed.

Down the street went the boy and girl, loitering in the shadows, hurrying
past the dim oil lamps at street crossings, getting from each other wave
after wave of exquisite little thrills. Neither spoke. They were beyond
words. Had they not together done this daring thing?

In the shadow of a tree they stopped and stood facing each other; the girl
looked at the ground and stood facing the boy. Putting out his hand he
laid it upon her shoulder. In the darkness on the other side of the street
a man stumbled homeward along a board sidewalk. The lights of Main Street
glowed in the distance. Sam drew the girl toward him. She raised her head.
Their lips met, and then, throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him
again and again eagerly.

* * * * *

Sam's return to Wildman's was marked by extreme caution. Although he had
been absent but fifteen minutes it seemed to him that hours must have
passed and he would not have been surprised to see the stores locked and
darkness settled down on Main Street. It was inconceivable that the grocer
could still be wrapping packages for banker Walker. Worlds had been
remade. Manhood had come to him. Why! the man should have wrapped the
entire store, package after package, and sent it to the ends of the earth.
He lingered in the shadows at the first of the store lights where ages