LOVE IS A MANY-MANY SPLENDORED THING

Harriet gazed at the beautiful slumbering boy beside her. So handsome, except of course for the disgusting milky white eyeballs. Often though, even when he was awake, Reckie didn't open his eyes. There really was no need to.

This was happening much too fast. Harriet was having a dismal time as " Miss Dalrymple" having to deal with the whiny little monsters, eyeless but still as badly behaved as any of the youthful trash in Walnut Grove. Just this morning little Thomasine was sniveling at her desk because her nystagmus was getting worse…

Harriet had been reprimanded by Adam Kendall for what she'd said to Tommie, but reality was something these crippled cretins needed to accept.

But I thought the deception was going to at least work in my being able to approach Reckness about perhaps marrying my Nellie. He was surprised certainly when he discovered that I wasn't an old maid schoolteacher. Still a vibrant woman of only forty—never mind.

I still feel as if I am in my twenties!

In the middle of asking Reckness his intentions…and trying to explain what a glorious force the combined Olleson-Cardew union could bring…

Perhaps Nels could even get a loan from Reckness's famous Uncle Adney to expand the mercantile!

But Harriet, having gotten Reckness alone in her classroom (he'd shut the door, mysteriously) had discovered that Reckie's adorable detachable paper collar—so British! Had come loose, and she reached over to straighten it.

When Mr. Kendall had opened the door to "look" in the classroom, a few minutes later, they'd been buck naked on the teacher' s desk, but Reckie had whispered something and coached Harriet quickly on how to answer that she was just grading papers…alone. He was so cunning.

Seven weeks later, and they hadn't been able to break this madness off. Meeting in the attic, in the cellar, once in the outhouse!

Once, when Harriet told Reckness that they should try to focus on something not obscene, Reckness suggested they play whist, and now he'd won much of the dismal pittance she received from the school, as well as the antique pin that Nels's mother had given her on the day of the wedding.

But Reckie was so willing to play the little games that Nels refused to play—harmless little games…what had Hiram Baker called them "The Bad Girl and the Buggy Whip." Reckie had had to stuff Harriet's mouth with a cleaning rag…and what unerring aim he had for one with his affliction.

Except of course when he missed her rump, stumbled and gave the "Little Girl" a bleeding ear!

And Reckness would not stop sneaking into Harriet's room at night. And to be fair, Harriet had gone to Reckie's room a few times also. Reckie had cleverly suggested Harriet snore really loudly so her roommate, Miss Spungeon, a cooking instructor, had to find other quarters and Harriet had the room to herself now.

And what of her original intent, to make Nellie respectable after they'd had to get Hiram to give her an "appendectomy"…and now Harriet might need an "appendectomy" herself. Curious. She thought she was a little old to be feeling ill in the mornings for such a reason.

I must stop watching the flaxen hair, and the slowly slumbering porcelain skin. It's time to go home.

LITTLE PRUITT—LOVE HURTS!

"No, sweetie don't, no I feel your fingers gripping like a stick. Do you feel the knob end, Pruitt? Put that end of the stylus—no, not in your mouth—that's right hold it near your palm. Curl your fingertips around the knob—"

"Excuse me, am I interrupting?"

Pruitt bit his lip. Him is here. Was it him who switched roast beef with cardboard at the Children's Table last night? Pruitt thought so.

"Oh, hello, Reckness. I'm just trying to help Pruitt learn how to hold the stylus—you know—the Braille pen."

A laugh. "I've not really learned that one either. Perhaps you should teach me."

"Didn't you tell Adam that you'd rather have a seeing person take dictation?"

Two laughs.

You should go away, Pruitt thought resentfully. Miss Dalrymple got gone and now Miss Ingalls is teacher. We don't call her Mary no more.

" Class is over, Mary. Come walking with me."

"Adam says Pruitt needs extra tutoring and I agree. Miss Dalrymple was beating little Pruitt's knuckles, really you should feel them, they're terribly swollen, though she's been gone for ten days."

"Oh, a little discipline's good for the boy." A laugh. "Actually, being thrashed five or six times a day would do this one good. Much good."

"Reckness, you're horrible. Pruitt's hand was so bent from the ruler that he couldn't hold the stylus properly."

"Ye gods!"

"Is I better now?"

"ARE-are you better now, Pruitt. Yes. You are doing so well. But you should practice. You don't have to make letters, you could just draw on the slate."

"Yes, run away and draw. I have a ruler in my pocket, son."

"RECKNESS!"

"He knows I'm jesting with him. Mary, do come walking with me. Pruitt, I'll give you a penny to take off."

"No fanks."

"No THANKS. Reckness, really you're—"

"I was not aware you were so over-indulged with pocket money that you could refuse my largesse, Pruitt. What about a dime? That's guaranteed to make you sick at the candy store."

"No Th-thanks."

"I'll buy you an air rifle. What fun a blind boy could have with one here at the school."

"Reckness, you are making me laugh. Leave Pruitt be."

Pruitt bit his lip.

"Reckness, I have just been promoted to teacher. At least until the school finds someone more capable, I really want to help Pruitt and then I have other things—completed lessons to review."

I hate him, Pruitt thought bitterly. Silas Pembroke was running in the hall and got tripped, an' busted his nose, an' he heard HIM laughing.

"Just a short walk, Mary. Little Peanut can—"

"His name is Pruitt, Reckness. You know his name."

But she laughed. Miss Ingalls was laughing. Pruitt felt warm around his eye socket. Since the Poison ivy killed his eyeballs, Pruitt didn't make tears—showed he was tough—but he felt that old warm thing around his eyes.

"I know, but his little head feels like a peanut, or a walnut. I've knuckled it a few times, only in fun."

"Reckness, Pruitt lost his parents, and sometimes has nightmares, and I'm trying to—"

"Please don't make me ill, Miss Ingalls. The food here is bad enough without me having to upchuck it on the porch steps, you know."

"Reckness, you're terrible. I shouldn't giggle. Pruitt, where are you going? Reckness, I think he just got up and left."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Mary. Let him cry for Mama someplace else. What about that stroll?"