THE SWING By The the warm car summer moved down sun the beat road, down as passing wheatfields, and cornfields, and pastures dotted with grazing cattle. Occasionally it passed an old farmhouse or a clump of new houses. Wendy watched all these things fly past from the open window of the front seat. The wind blew her goldenbrown pigtails back from her face. She clenched her hands anxiously in her lap, wrinkled her clean, pink shorts and matching top. She looked down the long road ahead of them, then at her aunt who was driving. ‘‘How much farther is it?’’ she asked. ‘It's not too much farther. We'll be there in a few minutes,’ her aunt an- swered, then asked, ‘‘Are you tired?" ‘‘No,"" Wendy answered. She looked down at her aunt's little daughter Janet, who was curled up on the seat between them, fast asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Then she turned around and glanced at the small blue suitcase on the back seat, with her new baby doll sitting on it. After seeing that they were all right, she turned back around and watched the road ahead. Finally she spotted the little white frame house that belonged to her aunt and uncle. She sat up in the seat as her aunt drove the rest of the way. As they turned in the driveway, Wendy noticed a boy standing at the mailboxes beside it. He looked like he was about her age, with short brown hair and freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheek. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and faded levis with patches on the knees. Wendy's aunt stopped the car and they got out. ‘Hello, Keith,’ she called to the boy. ‘This is my niece, Wendy, She's going to stay with us for a while.” Then she turned to Wendy and _ said, ‘Keith lives across the street." car and stood beside her aunt. ‘‘Wendy, don't you go get acquainted,"’ she gested. Wendy walked around the why sug- Wendy Karen walked Eggleston slowly toward the mail- boxes, while Keith casually took some letters out of one of them. When she got there she hesitated a minute, then said shyly, He ‘‘Hi."’ looked oT” After her another ‘Do you live nodding in the ute she here?” ‘I'm think?” ‘How stead of she how gettin’ answered, of old silence are he you?” in the city?” he asked, direction of the nearby answered, asked, then minute said, ‘I'm seven, “in Sa city. “Ya'', over, then after a min- ‘How come you're over : the mail, what do you come your mail is over here at your house?”’ she asked. ‘Because,’ he explained, ‘‘the in- mail- man only stops on this side of the street."’ “Well that's dumb," she said, ‘‘Our mailman takes our mail to our house not across the street."’ ‘That's just because you city people are too lazy to walk across the street." She couldn't think of anything to say so they just stood there for a minute staring at each other. Then he asked, ‘'Do you have a swing?’ ‘Ya,’ she answered. ‘Bet ya it's not as neat as mine.” ‘| bet it’s neater." “Wanna see mine?’ he asked, ‘'l bet you'll think it's neater than yours after you see it.”’ She turned and looked questioningly at her aunt, who had been listening to them while she took Wendy's things out of the car. ‘‘You can go over and see it,”’ she called, ‘‘but don’t stay too long.” ‘“OK,"’ Wendy said, then they walked across the street to his house. ‘I've gotta take the mail in,"’ he said, “I'll be back in a minute.'’ He ran up the steps and into the house. She stood in front of the house and looked at it. It was