The young newspaper reporter had received a letter from Louise Trunnion.  It had come that morning to the office of the Winesburg Eagle.  The letter was brief.  “I’m yours if you want me,” it said.  He thought it annoying that in the darkness by the fence she had pretended there was nothing between them.  “She has a nerve!  Well, gracious sakes, she has a nerve,” he muttered as he went along the street and passed a row of vacant lots where corn grew.  The corn was shoulder high and had been planted right down to the sidewalk.

When Louise Trunnion came out of the front door of her house she still wore the gingham dress in which she had been washing dishes.  There was no hat on her head.  The boy could see her standing with the doorknob in her hand talking to someone within, no doubt to old Jake Trunnion, her father.  Old Jake was half deaf and she shouted.  The door closed and everything was dark and silent in the little side street.  George Willard trembled more violently than ever.

In the shadows by Williams’ barn George and Louise stood, not daring to talk.  She was not particularly comely and there was a black smudge on the side of her nose.  George thought she must have rubbed her nose with her finger after she had been handling some of the kitchen pots.

The young man began to laugh nervously.  “It’s warm,” he said.  He wanted to touch her with his hand.  “I’m not very bold,” he thought.  Just to touch the folds of the soiled gingham dress would, he decided, be an exquisite pleasure.  She began to quibble.  “You think you’re better than I am.  Don’t tell me, I guess I know,” she said drawing closer to him.

A flood of words burst from George Willard.  He remembered the look that had lurked in the girl’s eyes when they had met on the streets and thought of the note she had written.  Doubt left him.  The whispered tales concerning her that had gone about town gave him confidence.  He became wholly the male, bold and aggressive.  In his heart there was no sympathy for her.  “Ah, come on, it’ll be all right.  There won’t be anyone know anything.  How can they know?” he urged.

They began to walk along a narrow brick sidewalk between the cracks of which tall weeds grew.  Some of the bricks were missing and the sidewalk was rough and irregular.  He took hold of her hand that was also rough and thought it delightfully small.  “I can’t go far,” she said and her voice was quiet, unperturbed.

They crossed a bridge that ran over a tiny stream and passed another vacant lot in which corn grew.  The street ended.  In the path at the side of the road they were compelled to walk one behind the other.  Will Overton’s berry field lay beside the road and there was a pile of boards.  “Will is going to build a shed to store berry crates here,” said George and they sat down upon the boards.

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