I began getting up a heavy sweat, bending on that hood. When I got to the doors, I needed a rest. Also, there was McKelvey to study. My shift was from four till midnight. So I planted myself in the back seat of the prof’s car, switched on the dome light—I might sell him a battery recharge, later—and opened the book.
Nuts for law. Maybe I ought to study medicine. Prof Rodman had the chair of biochemistry, or something of the sort. He was working on a crackpot theory of making synthetic blood, for use in transfusions. A great idea if it worked. He was kinked on blood. But he had two Packards. Maybe he wasn’t so kinked.
I was too worried to concentrate, so I dug into the briefcase the prof had left in the back seat. More blood. All about building up red corpuscles for pernicious anemia—about fortifying the professional blood donors so they could put out a quart a day and not miss it. He had something there, if it worked.
Finally I realized I'd better shine that car, so I could deliver it for the prof to drive to work in the morning. I turned on the steam, and made a job of it. The boss had gone home, so I said, Be damned to keeping open till midnight. I closed the station and headed on foot across the campus. Mr. Hill lived a couple miles beyond, in the wooded foothills.
I didn’t want to go home. I stopped at a narrow path that branches from the dirt road. It led past a thicket which surrounded a little cleared space; the angle of an old-fashioned snake fence. I’d often caught glimpses of it, and now I had an urge to plant myself on the top rail and play scarecrow. Meditation, you know; I had a lot to meditate about, with Judge Mottley going off his chump that way.
A big moon was rising. It made me say, I’ll go to China and fly a crate, now that Spain’s washed up. Not that I can fly, but a fellow can learn.
Chaparral slapped my ankles, and poison oak brushed my face. A lot of people can’t stand that last, but like some, I’m immune.
THE fence was too rickety. Then I saw the flat stone. It was long and narrow and smooth, and oddly enough, the grass didn’t grow up thickly about it. I parked myself and began reasoning thus: "I’ll take a tramp steamer to Suva or Samar or Cebu. I’ll be a planter. I’ll plant my frame under a coconut tree and nuts for school.”
I was plently surprised when a girl said, "Are you going to sit there all night and not even speak to me?”
Her English had a Spanish accent. So did her face and hair. I don’t know what surprised me the most, seeing how lovely she was, or just seeing her. Not being an expert on ladies’ wear, I didn’t make many details of her dress, except that it reached from her chin to her ankles. Just a bit like an old-fashioned shroud, but you never can tell what these co-eds’ll wear next.
“Uh—say—I didn’t hear you come in.”
"Hardly anyone hears me,” she said. "You were sitting on my front door as if you belonged there. But it’s nice, meeting you.”
She had the kind of eyes you read about. Her hair was stacked way up, and a lace scarf, all white, reached down and about her shoulders.
"That’s mutual,” I admitted. "But this front door. I don’t get it.”
She pointed toward the slab where I had been sitting. The stone was about two and a half feet wide and six feet long. A second look at it made me feel funny all over. I hadn’t noticed the words chiseled at one end.
"Aqui yace Doña Catalina . . . I’d been sitting on a grave that dated back to the Spanish Occupation. The inscription said, "Here lies Dona Catalina.”
"Wait a second,” I said, making a quick
