Chani sat on the old cedar stump and waited for her dad to come home. Chani was five and thus far an only child, her father was a teacher; the stump had been a tree that was now, and had been for some time, the walls of their small house. The stump rested strategically at the entrance of the country road that turned off from the two-laned Rural Route 7 (which went to Memphis). The small road that led to Chani Martin's house wound its own curious way back through the woods to the wood frame home that nestled cozily amongst a grove of dogwood trees. The road led to the very front of the home; the clothesline, pig sty, and vegetable garden were all down behind the house in the "holler" towards the "crick." Chani loved it all; well, maybe not the snakes, particu- larly the water moccasins, but definitely the white blooming dogwoods; her pet pig, Sarge; the cool well water drunk from a ladle; her comic books; her all too seldom trips to her dad's school when there were movies. Perhaps best of all was having her dad come home each week day during the school year. Chani would arrive early at her waiting station, the stump, in time to wave to at least two caboosemen on the trains that would pass along the tracks on the rise at the other side of Rural Route 7. And after that she'd listen next for the 1949 Black Mercury and her dad. It was in and of itself an innocent time; Chani could wait there on her stump next to the highway, by herself, despite her lack of years. And finally, Dad would pull up next to her, like he nearly hadn't seen her, and then he'd get out. She'd hug her dad and they'd get in the car and drive together to the end of the road and the hot meal (that might very well be pork chops, green peas, mashed potatoes, cold milk, and perhaps butterscotch pudding for dessert) that awaited them. Life was precious.

Absolutely the only late afternoon that Chani ever saw the advent of dusk from the stump was the evening that it was her mother who finally met her, having walked up the road from home to join her. And on this evening, her mother, despite her surface calm, was clearly agitated. They walked uneasily back down that road together. It was not like Dad to be late, especially without calling at least someone on their party line to tell of his late arrival and for Chani to wait at home.

That night the family table certainly hadn't been cleared, but Chani and her mother's dishes had been washed, dried and put up long before Dad finally arrived. Although they both heard the car coming down the road, neither Chani nor her mother rushed to the front door. Dad opened the door, placed his hat on the entry hat rack, gave his daughter a warm hug against his woolen, school-smelling, pant leg and said only to Mom: "It was the Purvis kid again."

Mom turned her eyes away, evidently with some worry, and as Dad sat down at the yellow formica kitchen table, Mom pulled the remaining, now over-done, pork chop from the oven, and placed it on Dad's plate. Except for the sober tone of the remainder of the evening, no one ever acknowledged that anything uncommon had happened that day. But Chani found this most odd since anything out of the ordinary ordinarily elicited exuberant discussion amongst the three of them.

The next night was the high school square dance and, as had been the case since she turned four, Chani got to go. She invariably felt like Cinderella being invited to the ball. Since her dad was a teacher, she got to go be with all the high school kids at the dance. To her the high school kids seemed so old that they seemed like adults. Being around them at a dance made her feel grown up, too. The high school girls especially made a big fuss about Chani (and said that they hoped their daughters would have such pretty eyes and hair). She always felt extra special around the high school kids. Even though she didn't particularly know how to square dance, she knew that once during the dance, towards the end, the band would play "Pop Goes the Weasel." Chani loved to circle "round and round the Mulberry bush" until "pop (went) the weasel." That song, that dance, that moment had become a ceremony, a ritual, a rite that Chani looked forward to in the same kind of way she waited for her dad; the tooth fairy; Christmas; her birthday--and her other predictable, special times.

That night in the school combination auditorium/gym the band suddenly stopped playing. Chani was puzzled. She wasn't sleepy yet when they quit as she usually was at the end of a school dance. She hadn't even thought of sleeping on the stage amongst the girls' coats that were piled under the raised basketball basket at the end of the building. And she certainly hadn't danced to "Pop Goes the Weasel." Could they have forgotten?

A high school boy in a letterman's jacket, with the school colors, the blue wool with gold leather sleeves, said, "It's Purvis. He's got a knife." And one of the high school cheerleaders, but one Chani scarcely knew, said, "Shh. Mr. Martin's daughter," and pointed indiscreetly discreetly from the side of her heavily petticoated dress in the general direction of Chani.

Chani acutely wanted nothing more than to hear the band play "Pop Goes the Weasel." As the high school students started whispering and gathering near the stage at the front, Chani, noting that neither her father nor mother were in sight, went to the side of the gym and, where the bleacher seats had been pushed back, started dancing and singing quietly, but not too quietly, to herself, but out loud, "Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel . . ." It wasn't nearly as fun by herself, but if she just kept dancing and singing she knew her father would be all right.

After what seemed a very long time, her father and mother came back into the gym, got Chani, and drove home. Nothing about the incident was ever mentioned.

Several months later Chani came down with a very acute, simultaneous case of both the chicken pox and measles. She was bedridden for days. Mrs. Purvis, the Purvis boy's mother, who had never before visited the Martin's house in the woods, dropped by. Bedridden Chani didn't actually see her, only heard her voice from the living room. She heard Mrs. Purvis inquire about Chani's improvement and that she thought "Chani might like these." And while Chani hoped for comic books, or a box of toys, or some children's records, some minutes later after a pleasant, if formal farewell to Mrs. Purvis, her mother brought in an enormous set of View Master cards. And even though they were about history, nature, rocks, and towns, instead of stories, movies, comics, and heroes like Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and Bozo the Clown, Chani looked at every one.