The Lesson

Are You All Right?

Someone was there and speaking to her.

— Are you all right?

— Oh, she said. Oh, I’m okay. I just…

Three young men stood there.

— You don’t look all right, said one.

— She looks like she just collapsed on that wall.

— Not just, said the third. I expect she’s been there for a while.

And she had, she had been there for about an hour, trying to recover.

— I’m all right, said Loring weakly.

— Well, said the first one, it won’t do unless we help her out. Where do you need to go? he asked her.

— I am all right, she said. You don’t have to help me.

— He’s going to help you, said the third. I am also. So’s he.

Loring saw this was going nowhere. She might as well accept their help. Of course, it was quite clear that she needed it anyway.

— Over that way, she said, vaguely waving her arm.

— You really shouldn’t go out so far alone, said the youngest one.

He must have been about twenty. They were all three wearing the same sort of work suit and appeared quite recently to have been mending something.

— Here, let me help you.

The three hoisted her up and so along they went, with them practically carrying her. Of course, being carried a long distance is not always the most comfortable experience, so the three cheerfully gave her an opportunity to rest here and there, peppering her all the while with gentle questions to distract her from the task at hand, and reassuring her with pleasant sounds and the occasional hearty song.

In such a style, they arrived back at Loring’s house, where the young men saw her over her doorstep and went away, promising to return for a supper of some sort which Loring assured them she would make out of gratitude. Although, they did say, they often skipped supper to go to the dance hall in the next town.

There is just enough time, one explained, to get there and back if we leave the minute work stops.