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Farmer in the Dell
by
He knew at once this was the new schoolteacher. He had heard of her coming, though at the time the conversation had interested him not at all. Bella knew who he was, too. She had learned the name and history of every eligible young man in the district two days after her arrival. That was due partly to her own bold curiosity and partly to the fact that she was boarding with the Widow Becker, the most notorious gossip in the county. In Bella’s mental list of the neighborhood swains Ben Westerveld already occupied a position at the top of the column.
He felt his face redden as they approached each other. To hide his embarrassment he swung his little hickory switch gaily and called to his dog Dunder, who was nosing about by the roadside. Dunder bounded forward, spied the newcomer, and leaped toward her playfully and with natural canine curiosity.
Bella screamed. She screamed and ran to Ben and clung to him, clasping her hands about his arm. Ben lifted the hickory switch in his free hand and struck Dunder a sharp cut with it. It was the first time in his life that he had done such a thing. If he had had a sane moment from that time until the day he married Bella Huckins, he never would have forgotten the dumb hurt in Dunder’s stricken eyes and shrinking, quivering body.
Bella screamed again, still clinging to him. Ben was saying: “He won’t hurt you. He won’t hurt you,” meanwhile patting her shoulder reassuringly. He looked down at her pale face. She was so slight, so childlike, so apparently different from the sturdy country girls. From–well, from the girls he knew. Her helplessness, her utter femininity, appealed to all that was masculine in him. Bella, the experienced, clinging to him, felt herself swept from head to foot by a queer electric tingling that was very pleasant but that still had in it something of the sensation of a wholesale bumping of one’s crazy bone. If she had been anything but a stupid little flirt, she would have realized that here was a specimen of the virile male with which she could not trifle. She glanced up at him now, smiling faintly. “My, I was scared!” She stepped away from him a little–very little.
“Aw, he wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
But Bella looked over her shoulder fearfully to where Dunder stood by the roadside, regarding Ben with a look of uncertainty. He still thought that perhaps this was a new game. Not a game that he cared for, but still one to be played if his master fancied it. Ben stooped, picked up a stone, and threw it at Dunder, striking him in the flank.
“Go on home!” he commanded sternly. “Go home!” He started toward the dog with a well-feigned gesture of menace. Dunder, with a low howl, put his tail betwee
n his legs and loped off home, a disillusioned dog.
Bella stood looking up at Ben. Ben looked down at her. “You’re the new teacher, ain’t you?”
“Yes. I guess you must think I’m a fool, going on like a baby about that dog.”
“Most girls would be scared of him if they didn’t know he wouldn’t hurt nobody. He’s pretty big.”
He paused a moment, awkwardly. “My name’s Ben Westerveld.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Bella. “Which way was you going? There’s a dog down at Tietjens’ that’s enough to scare anybody. He looks like a pony, he’s so big.”
“I forgot something at the school this afternoon, and I was walking over to get it.” Which was a lie. “I hope it won’t get dark before I get there. You were going the other way, weren’t you?”
“Oh, I wasn’t going no place in particular. I’ll be pleased to keep you company down to the school and back.” He was surprised at his own sudden masterfulness.
They set off together, chatting as freely as if they had known one another for years. Ben had been on his way to the Byers farm, as usual. The Byers farm and Emma Byers passed out of his mind as completely as if they had been whisked away on a magic rug.