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Show 153 have them pour through the next weak place in the fence. I just hoped some of them would ask me to marry them some day so that I could give them a flat no. Some did, and I did. I was not old enough to marry, but Lasca and Annie were already married, to brothers, Jack and Bardell Anderson of Monroe. Emmy and Tone had moved away. Eldon was infatuated with a charmer from Richfield and romance was in the air, in our age. Boys began asking me to marry them, some in jest, some on the rebound. I never lacked dates, riding partners, picnic partners, chicken wake partners, and at the dances I danced every set. Little Wall Flower had turned into Cinderella at the ball. Ershel began asking me in real earnest. His eyes were on me all the time and he coaxed me constantly, wanted to know why I didn't say I would. He was handsome and magnetic, even more flamboyant, but I had decided he was not for me. I had a hard time putting the reasons into words he could understand. In fact, I couldn't. It was spring, he was ardent, and I became less and less sure of my stand. June came, and with the work of beet thinning and first crop hay. even with Uncle Will, Ershell and Eldon on deck, all hands were needed in the field, so Macel and I were pressed into service tromping hay, a job Eldon had graduated from. It took three to make a hay crew, a man on each side of the wagon to lift the piles of hay, a tromper to pack it into a balanced load. Two hay crews worked together as a chain: one |
