The silence between them didn't last long—not tense, but light and thoughtful, like fog over an autumn meadow. Mary was the first to break it.
"Why did you only come to school today?" she asked, not looking at him, examining the wreath of wildflowers she was twisting in her fingers. "We've been in class since Monday."
Archie scuffed the loose road dust with the toe of his shoe, considering his answer.
"I was sick," he said. "Couldn't come sooner."
They walked along the well-trodden country road that skirted a wide cornfield. The recent harvest had left behind only dry, bristling stalks and a silence broken by the occasional cries of passing jackdaws. The air was heavy with the damp smell of plowed earth, the smoke of distant fires, and the sweetish rot of fallen corncobs. Their quiet, cautious conversation was lost in this spacious silence, like two tiny streams just beginning to carve their beds.
"What did you have?" Mary asked after a pause. "Not scarlet fever?"
Her voice held that seriousness with which children speak of real, adult dangers.
"No, not that," Archie hastened to reassure her. "The doctor said it was just a bad cold and inflammation. Ma was scared at first, thought for sure… but it was nothing."
"Good," Mary exhaled with relief. "Scarlet fever… that's the end. They say people don't recover from it."
"Some do," Archie objected, remembering one of the workers on their farm, a frail, perpetually coughing man. "One fellow at our place had it. But he's alright. Walks, works. Just got thin as a shadow."
"And you weren't afraid to live near him?" Mary's eyes widened with curiosity and a touch of horror.
Archie shrugged.
"Ma says if it's meant to be and sickness sticks to you, there's no running from it. And fear just draws sickness to you, like it can smell the scent of fright and finds its way."
"My mother usually smudges the house with juniper," Mary announced with importance. "She says it's the surest way. Plug all the cracks, fill the place with smoke—and not a single germ will cling."
"We do that too," Archie nodded.
The conversation stalled again mid-sentence. That strange pause had arrived when you want to say much, but every word seems too significant, too binding. Archie was afraid to blurt out something foolish, to slip into idle chatter and spoil this delicate, new thread between them. But neither could he stay silent forever.
"So, how is it for you at school?" he finally asked, choosing what seemed to him the safest topic.
Mary pursed her lips.
"Oh, fine… It's just this English grammar—pure punishment. All those tenses, exceptions… Makes my head spin."
"I don't think it's that hard," Archie blurted out without thinking, and immediately bit his tongue mentally. He should have supported her, complained in return, not boasted.
Mary raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"Really? I find it much harder than spinning yarn on the old mill wheel. There, at least it's clear: you turn the spindle—you get thread. But this…"
Her frankness was disarming. Archie would never have been the first to admit something was difficult for him—especially to a girl. But since she had begun with the truth, lying in response seemed like a lowly thing to do. He dug around inside himself, choosing something to complain about without much damage to his boyish pride.
"Well, I'm not good at arithmetic," he finally squeezed out, looking off toward the field.
Mary just snorted at that.
"Oh, come on! You were cracking problems like nuts in class today. Everyone saw."
"Well… just got lucky today," Archie muttered, embarrassed, feeling a treacherous heat spread up his neck. He'd stepped in it now. Should have picked something believable.
Mary narrowed her eyes, and that slightly accusatory glint appeared in her gaze, the one all boys knew so well when trying to lie to a sister or mother.
"You know everything well, Archie. Everyone says so."
"'Everyone'?" he asked warily, as if he'd heard a reproach in the words.
"Yes, everyone," she shrugged. "And you know it yourself."
Archie fell silent, unable to find a reply. Dust rose softly beneath their feet.
"Is it true your father wants to send you to the big city? To study at the Academy?" Mary asked, changing the subject with unexpected directness.
Archie tightened up inside. Of course he'd heard such talk at home—his father, over his evening pipe, sometimes mused aloud about the benefits of education. But to air such family thoughts for public discussion, especially in their parts where strong arms and a clear head were valued, not lofty dreaming, seemed to him the height of foolishness. He could be seen as a show-off.
But Mary had shared her difficulty with him. Lying back would have been dishonest.
"I don't know," he said cautiously. "Maybe, if I study well… then maybe they'll send me."
"They'll send you," Mary nodded confidently and firmly, as if deciding the matter herself. "They will, for sure."
She turned to him, and a lively, genuine interest sparked in her eyes.
"And what will you become then?"
The question caught Archie off guard. He truly hadn't thought much about it. The big city, studying at the Academy—these were vague, almost fairy-tale notions, a goal in and of itself.
"I don't know," he mumbled again.
"How can that be?" Mary pressed. "You're planning for the Academy, but don't know what for? That's not how it works."
Archie was silent, feeling his ears slowly but inexorably filling with heat.
"You're lying!" Mary declared without malice, as if delivering a verdict. "You just don't want to say. Come on, tell me! Then I'll tell you what I want to be."
The trick was transparent and obvious, but Archie took the bait anyway. The prospect of learning her secret proved stronger than his embarrassment.
"And if I tell you… you'll really tell me then?" he asked again, trying to sound skeptical.
"Cross my heart," Mary promised solemnly, placing her hand on her chest where her heart should be.
Archie took a deep breath, as if about to dive into cold water.
"Then… a teacher. I want to be a teacher."
He said it—and immediately felt a deep blush flood his cheeks. He dared to look at her, expecting mockery or surprise.
But Mary didn't laugh. She simply smiled—softly, kindly—and fine little wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes, and pretty dimples appeared at the edges of her mouth.
"There now," Archie exhaled with relief, feeling a stone lift from his heart. "Your turn. Tell me."
Mary thought for a second, gazing at the Mississippi, a long blue ribbon disappearing over the horizon.
"And I…" she began slowly, "…I'll just stay right here. A simple farm girl. I'm not going anywhere."
"Oh, come on!" Archie didn't believe her. "You're lying! You'll go too, I know it!"
"Honestly, no. And I don't want to."
"You're lying!" he insisted, but without his former conviction.
"And why would I lie?" Mary shrugged, and such sincere lightness sounded in her voice that Archie gave in.
He realized he wouldn't pry the truth out of her. Girls, as he was beginning to vaguely guess, possessed a special art: to draw all a boy's secrets out of him, while carefully hiding their own, like the most precious beads.
And yet, despite this small failure, Archie felt something had changed between them. The conversation, awkward as it was, had brought them closer. There was something important in it that wasn't in ordinary chatter.
Just before their paths were to part at the old oak growing at the fork in the roads, Mary herself suggested:
"Let's do this. Tomorrow morning, whoever gets to the main road first will wait for the other. And we'll walk together."
Archie nodded, not trusting his voice. This simple agreement felt as strong as a handshake sealing a contract. He walked the rest of the way home feeling an unusual lightness in his chest. It was as if he carried something very valuable in his pocket—not gold, but an invisible, yet real map on which this road and this morning were marked.
And that evening, settling onto his mattress stuffed with fragrant hay and listening to the familiar, lulling creak of the barn door in the wind, he thought of only one thing: how tomorrow, at first light, he would leap from bed and be the first to reach the fork, to wait for Mary.
And from that single thought, a calm, confident warmth spread throughout his body, a warmth that not even the heat of the best-stoked stove could match.