Long Lesson

Some man's future lover, in ribboned pigtail curls, and out to walk her brother in the world of little girls, came down the walk and singing, not what the world was bringing, but carefree childish songs that did not say how long the lesson for today would take to have its say. A boy and girl together, to test the springtime weather in innocence and play, will come another day, and others without end, to try and understand whatever love demands. The little boy, whose heart will break before he calls himself a man, the girl, who trades her youth for love, her life in growing closer to that which birth denied her, the other one beside her.