Peter instantly noticed the change in Melissa's wardrobe, and interrupting the conversation that he had been having with Selby about the workers' corn crop, he said to Melissa, "Hey. It really looks good seeing you like that again, Meliy."

217.

Picking up the skirt of her dress between her fingertips, Melissa twirled in front of the table.

"And a bright mood to go with it," Selby said, adding a spoonful of honey to his coffee. "That's what I like to see."

"Your father and I were just talking about growing more corn for Niggertown," Peter said.

Melissa made a face, wrinkling her small nose.

"What's the matter?" Selby asked.

Shaking her head, Melissa answered, "Do we really have to go on calling it that?"

Selby looked up from his cup. "Calling what what?"

"That name," she said. "Niggertown."

Selby answered matter-of-factly, "That's what it is, ain't it?"

"But, Papa! 'Niggertown' sounds so ... terrible!"

"How about 'Negroville,' then? Does that suit your taste any better?"

She frowned at him. "Really, Papa!"

Leaning forward, Peter said, "I think I know what Melly means. By calling it 'Niggertown,' well, it just..."

Selby was waiting. "Yes?"

Peter blurted, "Disrespectful to those people there."

"Exactly!" Melissa chimed.

"So what do you two want me to do? Take down a barrel of flour, sprinkle it over their heads, and-snap! -things are all white!"

"Papa, you're sidestepping the question."

"I'm not sidestepping anything," Selby drawled, stirring the sweetness into his coffee more thoroughly. "I'm just waiting for you two to give me a good explanation. Maybe if you could tell me why 'Niggertown' is not good enough for Niggertown, maybe we can do something about it. Come on. Come on. Give me some reasons!"

Melissa looked at Peter. "Can you tell him?"

Peter shook his head. "I'm having a hard enough time talking about planting a few more rows of corn, letting them have more time to hoe their own gardens."

Raising his eyebrows, Selby asked, ."Who's going to do our work, then?"

218.

Melissa pleaded, "But their work is our work, too, Papa! We're all here together!"

Selby sat back on his chair, saying with a twinkle in his eyes, "What do I have now, two abolitionists?"

"Oh, Papa, you're jumping the gun again," Melissa said.

"You two do seem to be siding against me this morning. First, saying Niggertown is not good enough. And then that they should have more time to work for themselves."

Peter and Melissa looked at each another again, shaking their heads in amusement. They knew that Selby was not angry. They realized his ideas were planted deep in this earth, conditioned by the old times when he had first come here.

After gulping down his coffee, Selby lifted his straw hat from the table and rose to his feet. Walking slowly from the table, Selby centered his hat on his head and said, "The simplest thing to do, I suppose-you two not approving of how I run things here-is for you to get hitched and then you can do what you want together. The place would be all yours, then." Selby nodded his head as if the idea had only come to him now-had not been his secret plan these last weeks, even months- and said, "Yes. Maybe you two should get hitched. Marry up with each other."

"Papa!" Melissa called.

Standing in the archway between the dining room and the entry hall, Selby asked, "What's so wrong with that? Making a respectful man out of me? People are starting to talk about me, you know!"

Then, shaking his head again, Selby shuffled across the hall toward the double doors and called, "Don't worry if I'm not home early. I've got to ride over to see Judge Antrobus."

He left them.

The silence that Selby had left in the dining room was an embarrassment to both Melissa and Peter.

Melissa wanted to run and hide.

Peter felt stupid and childlike, as if he were only a boy.

219.

But he was a grown man. And reminding himself of that fact, and remembering a few thoughts that he himself had been thinking lately, he began by saying to Melissa, "I didn't know your father thought like that."

Fumbling with her white-darnask napkin, Melissa kept her eyes to her lap. "Oh! He's such a dear, isn't he? But he does set himself up for these disappoint-ments!"

Peter made himself say, "Do you think you'd ever be disappointed with me, Melly?"

The question shocked her, and raising her head with a jolt, she stared at Peter. " 'Disappointed'?"

"As a ..." He shrugged. "Being your husband." He did not care if she laughed at him. He had been mocked before.

Melissa suddenly blurted, "I'm five years older than youl Peter could not hold back his smile. "All you have to say is that you're five years older than me?"

Realizing her blunder, she lowered her head again, hiding a deep blush.

In a serious voice now, Peter said, "You won't have to ... I mean, I wouldn't make demands on you, Melly. You could live here, you can be like you always have." He was proud of himself for finally having the courage to talk to her this way. "See, us maybe being ... like that, I could stay here, too!"

She quickly exclaimed, "Oh, Peter, I want you always to stay here!"

Their eyes met a second time, and no embarrassment exchanged between them at this moment, no feeling of awkwardness. Like butterflies suddenly sprung from their larvae, Melissa and Peter had their own kind of wings. They were no longer make-believe sister and brother. They were a woman and a man.

Peter asked, "Would you maybe like to think about it," he added for propriety, "Melissa?"

She nodded in short jerks. "Yes, Peter."

"Then, after you've had a few days to think about it... take a few weeks, even months-"

But she interrupted him. It was her turn to be bold. "No, Peter, you've misunderstood me. 'I didn't mean to 220.

'think' about it. I said yes because I already think it's a ..." Her voice softened. "I think it's a good idea. For both of us. Yes, Peter, I will marry you."

Their eyes stayed fixed on each other for a moment, a new understanding between them, until Melissa slowly rose from her chair. Smiling faintly, she said, "Let me gather these dishes. Storky is out looking for Biddy again. Really! Since Posy's come into Biddy's life, she's not done a lick of work here!"

"I've got to go up to the ridge, anyway. We're limbing some trees today." Peter rose from his chair as Melissa was moving toward the kitchen door. But, pausing in front of the door, she turned and called, "Peter?"

"Yes?" He waited.

"I hope I don't disappoint you, either, Peter," Then Melissa disappeared into the kitchen.

Melissa shared everything with Storky, but she did not have a chance to tell her the news until later. When she had gone into the kitchen, Storky still had not returned to the house with the stray Biddy. And Melissa was glad for that fact, too, because this was the first time she had to herself, to sit by the worktable and ponder the possibility of being married to Peter Abdee, the boy whom she had grown up calling her brother, Peter Selby.

Selby had told Melissa about Peter's discovery of his true identity. He had gone directly to Melissa from the study after Peter had left in such an angry mood. Selby had asked Melissa if Peter had ever said anything to her.

But Melissa knew nothing, nor had she suspected anything about Peter's past. She thought of him only as a permanent fixture at the Star, remembering how glad she had been as a little girl to have a companion for playing. Brother Roland had never been close to her, and because the houses in the South were so far apart, it was difficult to find playmates.

There was also a difficulty in Louisiana for girls to find husbands. The most likely possibility was for a young lady to marry a neighbor or a second or third cousin. In Melissa's case, such an arrangement was either impossible or repulsive. The Witcherleys were the 221.

closest neighbors; the Breslins and the Nortons had no sons who were anywhere near Melissa's age; and her cousins were all freckled-faced, mealymouthed, money-hungry Rolands. Melissa would rather die an old maid than to be married to Hiram Roland, Joe Billy Roland, Louis Peregrine Roland, or any Roland at all.

But Peter. Peter Abdee. Melissa sat by the kitchen worktable in a trance now, wondering why she had so hastily agreed to be his wife. Was she really that anxious to get married? Did the future of spinsterhood frighten her so much that she would risk shocking the entire neighborhood by marrying the boy who had been raised as her brother? (And Melissa was keenly aware that some people-especially the Rolands-would be scandalized by the match.) Or, Melissa wondered, was she really doing this to please her father? She knew her father well enough to suspect that he would like nothing better than to see her marry Peter. Like herself, he had grown very fond of him. Melissa laughed now as she thought of how Selby had even baited the trap for them this morning.

Melissa suddenly felt a cold shiver run through her body when she thought about what her mother's reaction would have been to this decision. Her mother would have tried to do everything in her power to stop it.

But what man would Mama want me to marry? Melissa asked herself. Mama hated all her relatives. She thought the neighbors were nothing but white trash. And she would rather die than let me go to New Orleans looking for a husband!

Nobody. Melissa realized that her mother would want her to marry nobody. To live the virginal life of a lonely old spinster.

Virginity. Melissa's heart quickened when she thought of certain marital obligations. To marry Peter would mean not only that they would not be able to continue living together as brother and sister. Peter would have the privileges of a husband. Every last privilege.

Melissa remembered an exchange that she had had years ago with her mother, an experience that still stuck in Melissa's mind, that horrible time^ when Rachel had gone berserk, screaming about raping and black men.

222.

On that same morning, Rachel had asked her daughter if Peter had "touched" her yet. Melissa remembered the question clearly. And, throwing her chin into the air now, she said, as if the question were being asked only this moment, "No, Mama! Peter has not touched me. He is waiting till we're married. And then it is his right, Mama. That is the husband's right."

Hearing Storky coming up the back steps then, and also hearing Biddy's screams, Melissa jumped up from the chair, thinking that she had been daydreaming long enough.

But it was no daydream. She was really going to marry Peter. She was going to be Mrs. Abdee-Mrs. Peter Abdee.

It was on the night of that same day that Monk arranged a meeting with Lilly. They had been meeting secretly now for three weeks.

Lilly worked in the building called the barn. She was one of the six girls who carded the wool sheared from the sheep on the Star. The raw wool was stored in wooden barrels until it was needed.

As it was spring, though, Lilly had little work to do carding. She spent most of these days sewing light clothes for the summer.

This evening, work finished in the bam at seven o'clock. But not going back to Niggertown to eat supper in the shack that she shared with nine other black people, she went to meet Monk.

Monk was waiting for her at their usual spot-the place by the stream where he had seen her lying with Peter.

When Lilly arrived, Monk was sitting soberly on the ground, pulling clumps of moss from the earth.

Falling down on the coolness beside him, Lilly put her hand through his arm. She did not speak.

The evening breeze creaked the tops of the pine trees around them, and they sat together listening to its restful sound and the light trickle of the stream.

Finally Monk spoke. Without raising his eyes from the ground, he asked, "Girl, you wants to run away from the Star with me?"

223.

Lilly's finger stopped tracing his arm.

He asked, "You ain't heard about niggers who run?"

Lilly was surprised. "We ain't runners." She thought, and then added, "Are we runners, Monk? You and me?"

"We can be if we get money!"

Pulling her hand from Monk's arm, Lilly lay back on the ground and laughed.

"What's so funny?" Monk asked.

Controlling herself, Lilly lay on the ground and raised one long arm above her head. She said, "Where ruggers like us getting money?"

Monk mumbled, "I know where there's lots of money. A whole sack of money."

She sat up. "Where?"

"In the ground."

She narrowed her eyes. "In the ground?"

Monk nodded. "Buried in the ground. Somebody buried a sackful of money in the ground, and I know where."

Grabbing his arm again, she asked eagerly, "Where? Who buried it? How much money is there?"

Ignoring her questions, Monk pulled another chunk of moss from the earth. He asked again, "Girl, you willing to run with me?"

Kneeling beside him now, Lilly said, "You tell me about that money first."

Monk crumbled the moss into his hands. Studying the mixture of dirt and green mixed in his palm, he did not answer.

Reaching forward now, Lilly ran her long finger down the back of Monk's neck and whispered into Ms ear, "The money? Where is the money?"