After a while someone rang the bell, and everyone went inside again. I heard them moving along the halls outside the door in the sort of steady file of thump-thump that the classes always made. When it all got quiet, the teachers' voices began again, Mrs. Watkins' through the nose, Miss Moore's, whose class had returned, sort of sweet, and Mr. Farney's high and trailing. The sun was getting lower. I wondered if the people from the state were coming. They probably were at the capital, and it would naturally take a while to get to town.

It seemed like a day later when I heard school letting out. When the boy who cleaned Mrs. Watkins' erasers finally left, I heard her coming down the hall. I wondered if she had the state people with her, but there was only one set of footsteps. She walked so slow toward the room that I prayed she'd hurry up and get it over with. All of a sudden she was rattling the doorknob, and then I remembered I forgot to take the lock off.

"Unlock this door."

I jumped up and ran and pulled at the lock, but she was leaning against the door, and I couldn't move it.

"I'll give you one second to get this lock off. One second!"

I was so scared I couldn't speak to tell her to stop pushing on the door.

"You don't think I can knock this door down to get in, do you, you little devil? Well, I hear you in there fooling with the door. I'll come in there and get you if it's the last thing I do today!"

She must have moved back from the door to throw herself against it, because the lock slipped and I pulled the door open. Mrs. Watkins came flying into the room. She must have expected to fall against the closed door, and she came in so fast with such a strange look on her face and her arms folded. She couldn't protect herself with her arms and fell over a chair onto the floor.

Before I could run away, she was up and had me by the collar. My heart was in my throat when I saw the horrible look on her face. Her cheek was red where she fell on it, and I could just see her little slit eyes full of tears through all the hair over her face. For a minute she just held me and breathed hot over me in quick, heavy breaths.

I could see the pain in her eyes. At least, that's all I could make her expression out to be. When she opened her lips they were still half closed and almost stuck to each other they were so dry. At first she had been pulling at my collar, but now she was leaning on my shoulders with all her weight. Her big bony body was almost bent in half. "Get the doctor, go get him right away. Damn you, hurry!" I ran out of the room and heard Mrs. Watkins fall on the floor moaning. Never before in my life did I run as fast. The doctor was over on Main Street three blocks away. I ran through people's backyards and got caught in clotheslines and frightened little children who were playing in the mud. When I told the doctor, he kited over to the school. I was hot and tired and walked back slowly. Some kids in the neighborhood saw the doctor running over to the school and followed him. When I got back there, they had almost more people around than in the whole town. The ones in my class were laughing and making jokes about Mrs. Watkins, but I didn't feel like making jokes. I felt sick. Some asked me if I had done it, and I just didn't say anything.

When I got to the empty room, they were just putting Mrs. Watkins on a stretcher. She moaned all the while and really screamed when they gave the final lift. I stood there and looked at her and felt sorry to see anyone who was so powerful suddenly be so weak and afraid. She saw me and motioned for me to come near the stretcher. When I got near, I saw the scared look in her face wasn't all from pain. She grabbed ahold of my head and whispered in my ear.

"Don't ever dare to tell anyone a word about this. You can get into plenty trouble if you do. Understand?" Her fingernails were digging into the flesh at the back of my neck. Her breath was hot and had the same bad smell. "Never a word to anyone."

I nodded, half out of relief, and wondered why Mrs. Watkins had told me to be quiet. I thought I'd have to beg her to have mercy on me. I was a lot older when I learned what the State Board of Education would have done to her if I ever opened my mouth. When I think of how grateful I was then, it makes me laugh.

After they took Mrs. Watkins out, I got my copybook and Aunt Mae's flower and left. A few people were still hanging around the school talking about the accident, which was now made out to be that Mrs. Watkins just tripped over a chair. The town people would have believed anything Mrs. Watkins said -- that is, almost everyone except the newspaper editor, who was a pretty smart man from some college up east. When he wrote about the accident in a sort of suspicious way, there was talk that Mr. Watkins was going to get up a petition against him. It never came around, though, because I guess Mr. Watkins realized the newspaper was the only way he could put himself before the town people.

Some old ladies stopped me and told me what a fine lad I was to run for the doctor and show such concern for Mrs. Watkins' welfare. The news about me was all over town by the time I got to Main Street. People who recognized me stopped and patted me on the head and kept me so long that it was dark by the time I got to the foot of the hill.

Then I remembered about Poppa and got to thinking about him and if he came home. The early stars were out. The moon was near the top of the hill as I looked up, and it was full and bright. It made the path and the leaves look silver, something like the early snow. Some night birds were already singing way up in the pines. One went che-woot, che-woot, che-woot in a long-drawn-out way that sounded like a dying person. I could hear that song ring out all over the hills as the other birds picked it up. Two or three flew across the moon going to meet some others in the tall pines on the north side of the valley. I wished I could fly and follow those birds and be two hundred feet above the hills and see into the next valley where I'd never been. Then I'd look back on the town from on top of the Renning smokestack. I'd look over the new town, too, and see all the new buildings I'd never seen and the streets I'd never walked on.

Nighttime was the time for all the little animals that lived in the hills to come out. They ran across the path every now and then, and sometimes I'd almost trip over one of them. It was strange that they were so scared of people when their real enemies were others of their own kind. I wasn't mad at them, because I knew what it was like to be scared to your bones by someone, only I felt a little sorry for them because I didn't have to worry about my enemy anymore.

When I got to the house it was all lighted up and Aunt Mae was sitting on the porch. I kissed her and gave her the flower, and she looked at it like it was her baby. The first thing I asked her was if Poppa was home.

She looked up from the flower and said, "Yes, he came home. He's still out in the dark behind the house trying to plow the land. Mother's got some food in the kitchen."

Aunt Mae followed me into the house and asked why I was so late. I didn't tell her the truth, but I told her that I got the doctor for Mrs. Watkins when she tripped over a chair and how people stopped to congratulate me. Aunt Mae beamed all over and said she was proud of me, even though Mrs. Watkins had hurt her many times.

Mother looked a little weak, but she was glad to see me. I didn't think there would be anything in the house to eat after what I heard her say to Poppa. She said he sold some of his seeds and the rake, and that bought a little food. She was silent after a while. When Aunt Mae told her about me at school, she said, "That's nice," and got quiet again.

All the time I ate she just stared at the wall and ran her finger along the oilcloth. Aunt Mae seemed to understand that she didn't want to speak, so I didn't say anything either. It was one of the quietest meals I ever ate, but it didn't make me sad. I was thinking that Mrs. Watkins had told me about the state authorities just to scare me and was planning to come into the empty room to really take care of me herself. I wondered what she would have done to me if she didn't hurt herself. I wondered what she was doing right then in the hospital. Well, anyway, I wasn't going to visit her to find out.