A Story of Love
Ray Bradbury
That was the week Ann
Taylor came to teach summer school at Green Town Central. It was the summer of
her twenty-fourth birthday, and it was the summer when Bob Spaulding was just
fourteen.
Everyone remembered Ann
Taylor, for she was that teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring huge
oranges or pink flowers, and for whom they rolled up the rustling green and
yellow maps of the world without being asked. She was that woman who always
seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under the tunnels of
oaks and elms in the old town, her face shifting with the bright shadows as she
walked, until it was all things to all people. She was the fine peaches of
summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot
early-June morning. Whenever you needed an opposite, Ann Taylor was there. And
those rare few days in the world when the climate was balanced as fine as a
maple leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann
Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.
As for Bob Spaulding, he
was the cousin who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack
of leaves after him like a horde of Hallowe'en mice, or you would see him, like
a slow white fish in spring in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking
brown with the shine of a chestnut to his face by autumn. Or you might hear his
voice in those treetops where the wind entertained; dropping down hand by hand,
there would come Bob Spaulding to sit alone and look at the world, and later
you might see him on the lawn with the ants crawling over his books as he read
through the long afternoons alone, or played himself a game of chess on
Grandmother's porch, or picked out a solitary tune upon the black piano in the
bay window. You never saw him with any other child.
That first morning, Miss
Ann Taylor entered through the side door of the schoolroom and all of the
children sat still in their seats as they saw her write her name on the board
in a nice round lettering.
"My name is Ann
Taylor," she said, quietly. "And I'm your new teacher."
The room seemed suddenly
flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back; and the trees were
full of singing birds. Bob Spaulding sat with a spitball he had just made, hidden
in his hand. After a half hour of listening to Miss Taylor, he quietly let the
spitball drop to the floor.
That day, after class,
he brought in a bucket of water and a rag and began to wash the boards.
"What's this?"
She turned to him from her desk, where she had been correcting spelling papers.
"The boards are
kind of dirty," said Bob, at work.
"Yes. I know. Are
you sure you want to clean them?"
"I suppose I should
have asked permission," he said, halting uneasily.
"I think we can
pretend you did," she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the
boards in an amazing burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that
the air was full of snow, it seemed, outside the open window.
"Let's see,"
said Miss Taylor. "You're Bob Spaulding, aren't you?"
"Yes'm."
"Well, thank you,
Bob."
"Could I do them
every day?" he asked.
"Don't you think
you should let the others try?"
"I'd like to do
them," he said. "Every day."
"We'll try it for a
while and see," she said.
He lingered.
"I think you'd
better run on home," she said, finally.
"Good night."
He walked slowly and was gone.
The next morning he
happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out
to walk to school.
"Well, here I
am," he said.
"And do you
know," she said, "I'm not surprised."
They walked together.
"May I carry your
books?" he asked.
"Why, thank you,
Bob."
"It's
nothing," he said, taking them.
They walked for a few
minutes and he did not say a word. She glanced over and slightly down at him
and saw how at ease he was and how happy he seemed, and she decided to let him
break the silence, but he never did. When they reached the edge of the school
ground he gave the books back to her. "I guess I better leave you
here," he said. "The other kids wouldn't understand."
"I'm not sure I do,
either, Bob," said Miss Taylor.
"Why we're
friends," said Bob earnestly and with a great natural honesty.
"Bob --" she
started to say.
"Yes'm?"
"Never mind."
She walked away.
"I'll be in
class," he said.
And he was in class, and
he was there after school every night for the next two weeks, never saying a
word, quietly washing the boards and cleaning the erasers and rolling up the
maps while she worked at her papers, and there was that clock silence of four
o'clock, the silence of the sun going down in the slow sky, the silence with
the catlike sound of erasers patted together, and the drip of water from a
moving sponge, and the rustle and turn of papers and the scratch of a pen, and
perhaps the buzz of a fly banging with a tiny high anger against the tallest
clear pane of window in the room. Sometimes the silence would go on this way
until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob Spaulding in the last seat
of the room, sitting and looking at her silently, waiting for further orders.
"Well, it's time to
go home," Miss Taylor would say, getting up.
"Yes'm."
And he would run to
fetch her hat and coat. He would also lock the school-room door for her unless
the janitor was coming in later. Then they would walk out of school and across
the yard, which was empty, the janitor taking down the chain swings slowly on
his stepladder, the sun behind the umbrella trees. They talked of all sorts of
things.
"And what are you
going to be, Bob, when you grow up?"
"A writer," he
said.
"Oh, that's a big
ambition: it takes a lot of work."
"I know, but I'm
going to try," he said. "I've read a lot."
"Bob, haven't you
anything to do after school?"
"How do you
mean?"
"I mean, I hate to
see you kept in so much, washing the boards."
"I like it,"
he said. "I never do what I don't like."
"But
nevertheless."
"No, I've got to to
that," he said. He thought for a while and said, "Do me a favour,
Miss Taylor?"
"It all
depends."
"I walk every
Saturday from out around Buetrick Street along the creek to Lake Michigan.
There's a lot of butterflies and crayfish and birds. Maybe you'd like to walk,
too."
"Thank you,"
he said.
"Then you'll
come?"
"I'm afraid
not."
"Don't you think
it'd be fun?"
"Yes, I'm sure of
that, but I'm going to be busy."
He started to ask what,
but stopped.
"I take along
sandwiches," he said. "Ham-and-pickle ones. And orange pop and just
walk along, taking my time. I get down to the lake about noon and walk back and
get home about three o'clock. It makes a real fine day, and I wish you'd come.
Do you collect butterflies? I have a big collection. We could start one for
you."
"Thanks, Bob, but
no, perhaps some other time."
He looked at her and
said, "I shouldn't have asked you, should I?"
"You have every
right to ask anything you want to," she said.
A few days later she
found an old copy of `Great Expectations', which she no longer wanted, and gave
it to Bob. He was very grateful and took it home and stayed up that night and
read it through and talked about it the next morning. Each day now he met her
just beyond sight of her boarding house and many days she would start to say,
"Bob --" and tell him not to come to meet her any more, but she never
finished saying it, and he talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe
and others, coming and going to school. She found a butterfly on her desk on
Friday morning. She almost waved it away before she found it was dead and had
been placed there while she was out of the room. She glanced at Bob over the
heads of her other students, but he was looking at his book; not reading, just
looking at it.
It was about this time
that she found it impossible to call on Bob to recite in class. She would hover
her pencil about his name and then call the next person up or down the list.
Nor would she look at him while they were walking to or from school. But on
several late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging
away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for a few
seconds at a time before she returned to her papers.
And then on Saturday
morning he was standing in the middle of the creek with his overalls rolled up
to his knees, kneeling down to catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up
and there on the edge of the running stream was Miss Ann Taylor.
"Well, here I
am," she said, laughing.
"And do you
know," he said, "I'm not surprised."
"Show me the
crayfish and the butterflies," she said.
They walked down to the
lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering
her hair and the ruffle of her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and
they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.
"Gee, this is
swell," he said. "This is the swellest time ever in my life."
"I didn't think I
would ever come on a picnic like this," she said.
"With some
kid," he said.
"I'm comfortable,
however," she said.
"That's good
news."
They said little else
during the afternoon.
"This is all
wrong," he said, later. "And I can't figure out why it should be.
Just walking along and catching old butterflies and crayfish and eating
sandwiches. But Mom and Dad'd rib the heck out of me if they knew, and the kids
would, too. And the other teachers, I suppose, would laugh at you, wouldn't
they?"
"I'm afraid
so."
"I guess we better
not do any more butterfly catching, then."
"I don't exactly
understand how I came here at all," she said.
And the day was over.
That was about all there
was to the meeting of Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding, two or three monarch
butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches and two
bottles of Orange Crush. The next Monday, quite unexpectedly, though he waited
a long time, Bob did not see Miss Taylor come out to walk to school, but
discovered later that she had left earlier and was already at school. Also,
Monday night, she left early, with a headache, and another teacher finished her
last class. He walked by her boarding house but did not see her anywhere, and
he was afraid to ring the bell and inquire.
On Tuesday night after
school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board
contentedly, as if this time might go on forever, and she seated, working on
her papers as if she, too, would be in this room and this particular peace and
happiness forever, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck. It was a block
away and its great bronze boom shuddered one's body and made the ash of time
shake away off your bones and slide through your blood, making you seem older
by the minute. Stunned by that clock, you could not but sense the crashing flow
of time, and as the clock said five o'clock, Miss Taylor suddenly looked up at
it for a long time, and then she put down her pen.
"Bob," she
said.
He turned, startled.
Neither of them had spoken in the peaceful and good hour before.
"Will you come
here?" she asked.
He put down the sponge
slowly.
"Yes," he
said.
"Bob, I want you to
sit down."
"Yes'm."
She looked at him
intently for a moment until he looked away. "Bob, I wonder if you know
what I'm going to talk to you about. Do you know?"
"Yes."
"Maybe it'd be a
good idea if you told me, first."
"About us," he
said, at last.
"How old are you,
Bob?"
"Going on
fourteen."
"You're thirteen
years old."
He winced.
"Yes'm."
"And do you know
how old I am?"
"Yes'm. I heard.
Twenty-four."
"Twenty-four."
"I'll be
twenty-four in ten years, almost," he said.
"But unfortunately
you're not twenty-four now."
"No, but sometimes
I feel twenty-four."
"Yes, and sometimes
you almost act it."
"Do I,
really!"
"Now sit still
there, don't bound around, we've a lot to discuss. It's very important that we
understand exactly what is happening, don't you agree?"
"Yes, I guess
so."
"First, let's admit
that we are the greatest and best friends in the world. Let's admit I have
never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I've
ever known." He flushed at this. She went on. "And let me speak for
you -- you've found me to be the nicest teacher of all teachers you've ever
known."
"Oh, more than
that," he said.
"Perhaps more than
that, but there are facts to be faced and an entire way of life to be
considered. I've thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don't think I've
missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under any
normal circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no
ordinary boy. I know myself pretty well, I think, and I know I'm not sick,
either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a
true regard for your character and goodness, Bob; but those are not the things
we consider in this world, Bob, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I
don't know if I'm saying this right."
"It's all
right," he said. "It's just if I was ten years older and about
fifteen inches taller it'd make all the difference, and that's silly," he
said, "to go by how tall a person is."
"The world hasn't
found it so."
"I'm not all the
world," he protested.
"I know it seems
foolish," she said. "When you feel very grown up and right and have
nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing at all to be ashamed of, Bob,
remember that. You have been very honest and good, and I hope I have been,
too."
"You have," he
said.
"In an ideal
climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the oldness of a
person's mind so accurately that they can say, `This is a man, though his body
is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstances and fortune, this is a man,
with a man's recognition of responsibility and position and duty'; but until
that day, Bob, I'm afraid we're going to have to go by ages and heights and the
ordinary way in an ordinary world."
"I don't like
that," he said.
"Perhaps I don't
like it, either, but do you want to end up far unhappier than you are now? Do
you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we certainly would be. There really is
no way to do anything about us -- it is so strange even to try to talk about
us."
"Yes'm."
"But at least we
know all about us and the fact that we have been right and fair and good and
there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intend that
it should be, for we both understand how impossible it is, don't we?"
"Yes, I know. But I
can't help it."
"Now we must decide
what to do about it," she said. "Now only you and I know about this.
Later, others might know. I can secure a transfer from this school to another
one --"
"No!"
"Or I can have you
transferred to another school."
"You don't have to
do that," he said.
"Why?"
"We're moving. My
folks and I, we're going to live in Madison. We're leaving next week."
"It has nothing to
do with all this, has it?"
"No, no,
everything's all right. It's just that my father has a new job there. It's only
fifty miles away. I can see you, can't I, when I come to town?"
"Do you think that
would be a good idea?"
"No, I guess
not."
They sat awhile in the
silent schoolroom.
"When did all of
this happen?" he said, helplessly.
"I don't
know," she said. "Nobody ever knows. They haven't known for thousands
of years, and I don't think they ever will. People either like each other or
don't, and sometimes two people like each other who shouldn't. I can't explain
myself, and certainly you can't explain you."
"I guess I'd better
get home," he said.
"You're not mad at
me, are you?"
"Oh, gosh no, I
could never be mad at you."
"There's one more
thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always
are, or we wouldn't go on living. You don't feel well, now; neither do I. But
something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?"
"I'd like to."
"Well, it's
true."
"If only," he
said.
"What?"
"If only you'd wait
for me," he blurted.
"Ten years?"
"I'd be twenty-four
then."
"But I'd be
thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don't think it can be
done."
"Wouldn't you like
it to be done?" he cried.
"Yes," she
said quietly. "It's silly and it wouldn't work, but I would like it very
much."
He sat there a long
time.
"I'll never forget
you," he said.
"It's nice for you
to say that, even though it can't be true, because life isn't that way. You'll
forget."
"I'll never forget.
I'll find a way of never forgetting you," he said.
She got up and went to
erase the boards.
"I'll help
you," he said.
"No, no," she
said, hastily. "You go on now, get home, and no more tending to the boards
after school. I'll assign Helen Stevens to do it."
He left the school.
Looking back, outside, he saw Miss Ann Taylor, for the last time, at the board,
slowly washing out the chalked words, her hand moving up and down.
He moved away from the
town the next week and was gone for sixteen years. Though he was only fifty
miles away, he never got down to Green Town again until he was almost thirty
and married, and then one spring they were driving through on their way to
Chicago and stopped off for a day.
Bob left his wife at the
hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor, but
no-one remembered at first, and then one of them remembered.
"Oh, yes, the
pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not long after you left."
Had she ever married?
No, come to think of it, she never had.
He walked out to the
cemetery in the afternoon and found her stone, which said "Ann Taylor,
born 1910, died 1936." And he thought, Twenty-six years old. Why I'm three
years older than you are now, Miss Taylor.
Later in the day the
people in the town saw Bob Spaulding's wife strolling to meet him under the elm
trees and the oak trees, and they all turned to watch her pass, for her face
shifted with bright shadows as she walked; she was the fine peaches of summer
in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-summer
morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was
balanced like a maple leaf between winds that blow just right, one of those
days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding's
wife.
