Page 20, Paragraphs 6 - 8; Page 21, Paragraph 1; Note

In which we first hear Hob referred to by that name.

***

Page 20, Paragraph 6:

Now I look beside her, across the reeds where the hut stands on the dirt rise, with the river aways off, behind the hut. In the river there are shapes moving (which I think are beavers) all around the river-huts they've made for themselves. "How is it that you smell like flowers?", I say.

Paragraph 7:

"There's a way to do it," she says, "to take the flowers' smell and make perfume out of it that you can put on your skin and hair." Now she looks away from me, toward the river. Her speech becomes quieter.

Paragraph 8:

"Hob* wants me to smell like flowers," she says, "so he can know where I've gone when he can't see me." She doesn't say anything more, and looks aways off. Now she tears up a little grass and puts it in her mouth. "I don't know of Hob," I say, and pull at the jerky with my teeth. She doesn't look at me yet, but lifts her hand and points with her finger at the hut. "That hut is Hob's," she says.

Page 21, Paragraph 1:

"I've seen Hob," I say. "He's a black-faced man with antlers on his head."


*According to my dictionary, hob is derived from the Middle English word Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. It means either (1) a hobgoblin or elf or (2) mischief or trouble. Hmmm...

Page 20, Paragraphs 3 - 5

Page 20, Paragraph 3:

She says all this, and now she has more for me to eat. From out of her clothes she takes a stick of jerky, which she now puts in my hand. I put the jerky in my mouth - it's hard to chew, but it tastes good. "Tell me more about coming here," she says.

Paragraph 4:

I have jerky in my mouth, so she makes me repeat myself a lot so she can understand what I'm saying. I talk about walking and the pigs becoming logs and the shagfoal. She shakes her head forewards and back to show that she's heard of them. [i.e., the shagfoal] I tell her how I came upon the valley and saw the big hill-building which I went around the other side of and then came here by that route.

Paragraph 5:

She says, "Did the men in the building see you?" I say, "No," and she says, "That's good." "How is it good?", I say. "Oh," she says now, "they're rough men who've come from the river-village. If they saw you, it's likely that they'd throw a stone at you." I look at my leg and figure she's right.

Page 19, Paragraph 8; Page 20, Paragraphs 1 and 2; Note

Page 19, Paragraph 8:

"Eat this," she says, and I say nothing - I just look. Now she puts the bowl to my mouth, so that liquid from it flows warmly onto my chin, onto my tongue, and it's milk, and it's good. I drink, and at the same time look at her above the bowl's edge. "How," she says, "did you come here?" Her speech is strange, with words in a different order, but I can understand what she says.* My mouth's full of milk, so I can't talk to her, but I swallow the milk and it's gone, and she takes the bowl from my mouth. "How did you come here?", she says again.

Page 20, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

I talk a lot now, and it all runs together. I talk about my mother's foot and my people going away. I talk about the bird with the maggots and the settlers who threw the stone at me and tore my leg. At this, the girl smiles and says that she got the infection out of my leg, and now I feel that my leg doesn't hurt, and I look down at it.

Paragraph 2:

There's no scab. Below my knee the shit and dirt is all washed away, and where my leg's torn there's a leaf, all soft and warm. I look from my leg to her and say, "Why, how is this now?" and so forth. She says she found me here at daybreak and saw that my leg was hurt. She pulled me back into the thicket of trees to hide me, and she fixed my leg while I was unconscious.


*Gee, I've never run into that kind of a situation before.