Page:So Big (1924).djvu/115

 went to town, and I got through too late. We're fixing to sow tomato seeds in the hotbeds to-morrow.”

Selina opened McBride’s Grammar. “Ahem!” a school-teacherly cough. “Now, then, we’ll parse this sentence: Blucher arrived on the field of Waterloo just as Wellington was receiving the last onslaught of Napoleon. ‘Just’ may be treated as a modifier of the dependent clause. That is: ‘Just’ means: at the time at which. Well. Just here modified at the time. And Wellington is the”

This for half an hour. Selina kept her eyes resolutely on the book. His voice went on with the dry business of parsing and its deep resonance struck a response from her as a harp responds when a hand is swept over its strings. Upstairs she could hear old Jakob clumping about in his preparations for bed. Then there was only stillness overhead. Selina kept her eyes resolutely on the book. Yet she saw, as though her eyes rested on them, his large, strong hands. On the backs of them was a fine golden down that deepened at his wrists. Heavier and darker at the wrists. She found herself praying a little for strength—for strength against this horror and wickedness. This sin, this abomination that held her. A terrible, stark, and pitiful prayer, couched in the idiom of the Bible.

“Oh, God, keep my eyes and my thoughts away from him. Away from his hands. Let me keep my eyes and my thoughts away from the golden hairs on his wrists. Let me not think of his wrists. “The owner of the southwest ¼ sells a strip 20