So Big by Edna Ferber

reason for throwing away ten dollars,” Selina said, severely.
    He seemed not to hear her; bit ruminantly into one of the cup cakes. Suddenly: “I can’t hardly write at all, only to sign my name and like that.”
    â€œRead?”
    â€œOnly to spell out the words. Anyways I don’t get time for reading. But figuring I wish I knew. ‘Rithmetic. I can figger some, but those fellows in Haymarket they are too sharp for me. They do numbers in their head—like that, so quick.”
    Selina leaned toward him. “I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you.”
    â€œHow do you mean, teach me?”
    â€œEvenings.”
    He looked down at his great calloused palms, then up at her. “What would you take for pay?”
    â€œPay! I don’t want any pay.” She was genuinely shocked.
    His face lighted up with a sudden thought. “Tell you what. My place is just this side the school, next to Bouts’s place. I could start for you the fire, mornings, in the school. And thaw the pump and bring in a pail of water. This month, and January and February and part of March, even, now I don’t go to market on account it’s winter, I could start you the fire. Till spring. And I could come maybe three times a week, evenings, to Pool’s place, for lessons.” He looked so helpless, so humble, so huge; and the more pathetic for his hugeness.
    She felt a little rush of warmth toward him that was at once impersonal and maternal. She thought again, “Why, the dear thing! The great helpless big thing! How serious he is! And funny.” He was indeed both serious and funny, with the ridiculous cup cake in his great hand, his eyes wide and ruminant, his face ruddier than ever, his forehead knotted with earnestness. She laughed, suddenly, a gay little laugh and he, after a puzzled pause, joined her companionably.
    â€œThree evenings a week,” repeated Selina, then, from the depths of her ignorance. “Why, I’d love to. I’d—love to.”

6
    The evenings turned out to be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Supper was over by six-thirty in the Pool household. Pervus was there by seven, very clean as to shirt, his hair brushed till it shone; shy, and given to dropping his hat and bumping against chairs, and looking solemn. Selina was torn between pity and mirth. If only he had blustered. A blustering big man puts the world on the defensive. A gentle giant disarms it.
    Selina got out her McBride’s Grammar and Duffy’s Arithmetic, and together they started to parse verbs, paper walls, dig cisterns, and extract square roots. They found study impossible at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table, with the Pool household eddying about it. Jakob built a fire in the parlour stove and there they sat, teacher and pupil, their feet resting cosily on the gleaming nickel railing that encircled the wood burner.
    On the evening of the first lesson Roelf had glowered throughout supper and had disappeared into the work-shed, whence issued a great sound of hammering, sawing, and general clatter. He and Selina had got into the way of spending much time together, in or out of doors. They skated on Vander Sijde’s pond; together with the shrieking pigtails they coasted on the little slope that led down from Kuyper’s woods to the main road, using sleds that had been put together by Roelf. On bad days they read or studied. Not Sundays merely, but many weekday evenings were spent thus. Selina was determined that Roelf should break away from the uncouth speech of the countryside; that he should at least share with her the somewhat sketchy knowledge gained at Miss Fister’s select school. She, the woman of almost twenty, never talked down to this boy of twelve. The boy worshipped her inarticulately. She had early discovered that he had a feeling for beauty—beauty of line, texture, colour, and grouping—that was rare in one of his years. The feel of a satin ribbon