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MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE
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more passionate believer in democracy than a child.
Across the street Delia was sitting on the gatepost, ostentatiously eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know—this was why they laughed so. . . . But I remember how, most of all, I hoped that Mary Elizabeth did not know—yet.
From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about it.
