After the shove or taunt from girls her own age, she imagined herself with the older man of her dreams.  He was the one who would cause envy in all those who sneered at her during the day.  Speaking gently, reading poetry and who did not like to dance, he calmed her anxieties of being alone in the world.  She remembered events that made her happy but never happened; those events got her through the day.

There were spans of time when she didn’t have to think of him at all, the man of her dreams.  Long summer days when she hid away in the shade; where stillness invited the whitetail and the fiery red fox to graze and play in the deep places of the woods.   During the twilight of the evening when she heard the greeting of her father as the hired hands drove off toward their supper she lingered in her quiet places reluctant to leave the peace of nature.  When the cool of autumn settled in she dreaded the call to be sociable even with her family who tolerated her aversion to company.

Summer nights she thought of the school room hell and the whispered jeers and snarling. Looks of disdain from her peers would not have been so painful if those same girls had not been so hypocritically kind to her father.  Their kindness lightened his face with hope when invitations arrived for her and his face would fall in sadness when she refused to go.

“Mrs. Harper will think you rude; you didn’t accept her last invitation.”  So she would go and in the prettiest dress but feel awkward and uncomfortable none the less.  She would sit as still as possible allowing her tea to cool or lemonade to grow warm so as not to risk a spill or a slop her shaking hands could not help.  Nor would she eat a thing for fear of looking more uncouth and gangling.  Despite her efforts, she knew father’s disappointment.  

The only calm was thoughts of the older man who came at night.  He would walk by Mrs. Harper’s window and she would think he was so handsome and some day she would be the envy of all the lovely girls when she walked by his side.  His ability to sooth her nerves and drop her self consciousness eased the beating of her heart.  In his presence a sip of tea, a bite of something delicious was shared and praised together.

Then school would resume, but not all was despair.  Even within the tall white walls and narrow windows such things as books, and bubbling brooks, tracks in the snow and blankets of fallen leaves comforted her and he would follow her there.  She saw him in the fields right after harvest, standing alone among the stubble stalks of corn.  He walked late at night while the new moon hid in the angles of the sky; he stood between the broad, tall barn and her lofty old farm house.  Gazing up at her window when she crept up to the glass to see if he was there, he would not flinch or change expression but continue to stare.

When William only tipped his hat at her not seeing her, she would think of him, tall, angular and looking off into the distance.  Then Tom’s smile turned into a laugh as she walked by she’d think of him, standing just below her window. James’ look of pity made her blush, she would think of him.

Then one day her father sent her away to Chicago.  The move was sudden and unexpected.  He fired all of his hired hands and sent her to Chicago to learn.  Her grief was an agony and only once did she try to plead.  In the city, there was no time to think of him who haunted her hidden places.  She had only time to learn how to set the table, order her meals in French and dance in shoes that pinched.

She had no time to remember.  She may have remained in that city of tall buildings and water if not for a night at home again.  Smiling at her father, speaking to him in excited tones of what goes on in Chicago, she suddenly remembered the figure under the new moon, the man who walked past her window.  The old sadness descended upon her.

“What’s wrong, daughter?  What thought has crossed your mind?”

“Nothing.  I thought of someone that is all.”

“They won’t come again.  Never again are they welcomed here.  Treacherous people and their treacherous ways.”

“No,” she whispered.  The shadow of him who would cause envy in all who knew her crossed the window pane.  No, she thought, they would never come near her again; nor would anyone when she thought of him.