The Osage Orange Tree Read Online Free

she passed in front of Jane Wright, a girl who sat on the front row, I heard Jane say to the girl beside her, “Why look at Evangeline. . . . That old dress of hers has a new belt!”
    â€œStop a minute, Evangeline,” Jane said, “let me see your new dress.”
    Evangeline stopped and looked uncertainly at Jane and blushed.
    â€œIt’s just made over,” she said, “It’s just. . . .”
    â€œIt’s cute, Dear,” Jane said; and as Evangeline went on Jane nudged her friend in the ribs and the friend smothered a giggle.

    Well, that was a good year. Commencement time came, and—along with the newspaper job—I had the task of preparing for finals and all. One thing, I wasn’t a student who took part in the class play or anything like that. I was just one of the boys—twenty-fourth in line to get my diploma.
    And graduation was bringing an end to my paper carrying. My father covered a big territory in our part of the state, selling farm equipment; and we were going to move at once to a town seventy miles south. Only because of my finishing the school year had we stayed till graduation.
    I had taught another boy my route, always leaving him at the end and walking on out, by myself, to the tree. I didn’t really have to go around with him that last day, the day of graduation, but I was going anyway.
    At the graduation exercises that May afternoon, I wore my brown Sunday suit. My mother was in the audience. It was a heavy day. The girls had on new dresses. But I didn’t see her .

    I suppose that I did deserve old man Sutton’s “Shhh!” as we lined up to march across the stage, but I for the first time in the year forgot my caution, and asked Jane where Evangeline was. She shrugged, and I could see for myself that she was not there.
    We marched across the stage; our diplomas were ours; our parents filed out; to the strains of a march on the school organ we trailed to the hall. I unbuttoned my brown suit coat, stuffed the diploma in my pocket, and sidled out of the group and upstairs.

    Evangeline’s brother was emptying wastebaskets at the far end of the hall. I sauntered toward him and stopped. I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Unexpectedly, he solved my problem. Stopping in his work, holding a partly empty wastebasket over the canvas sack he wore over his shoulder, he stared at me, as if almost to say something.
    â€œI noticed that . . . your sister wasn’t here,” I said. The noise below was dwindling. The hall was quiet, an echoey place; my voice sounded terribly loud. He emptied the rest of the wastebasket and shifted easily. He was a man, in big overalls. He stared at me.
    â€œEvangeline couldn’t come,” he said. He stopped, looked at me again, and said, “She stole.”
    â€œStole?” I said. “Stole what?” He shrugged and went toward the next wastebasket, but I followed him.
    â€œShe stole the money from her bank . . . the money she was to use for her graduation dress,” he said. He walked stolidly on, and I stopped.
    He deliberately turned away as he picked up the next wastebasket. But he said something else, half to himself. “You knew her. You talked to her . . . I know.” He walked away.

    I hurried downstairs and outside. The new carrier would have the papers almost delivered by now; so I ran up the street toward the north. I took a paper from him at the end of the street and told him to go back. I didn’t pay any more attention to him.
    No one was at the tree, and I turned, for the first time, up the road to the house. I walked over the bridge and on up the narrow, rutty tracks. The house was gray and lopsided. The ground of the yard was packed; nothing grew there. By the back door, the door to which the road led, there was a grayish-white place on the ground where the dishwater had been thrown. A gaunt shepherd dog trotted out growling.

    And the door opened suddenly,