That evening, lying in bed, Archie couldn't shake the thought of the hoop. It pursued him even in his dreams, appearing now as a sinister ring rolling across the floor, now swelling to the size of monstrous gates you couldn't pass without paying in shame. He woke before the first rooster crowed, a tight knot of anxiety clenched somewhere under his ribs. Thoughts of Larry, of his own stupid lie, and of Mary's embarrassed face twisted together into one tight, unpleasant tangle.
Reasoning as best he could, Archie devised a simple plan: while the Botters were still at liberty (and Tommy had said their ruin was only a matter of time), he needed to maintain a fragile peace with Larry. And that meant the hoop had to be found. The sooner, the better.
So, at dawn, when the low, gray sky was just beginning to blush pink, he stepped out into the yard, barefoot. The wet, cold earth tickled his bare soles. The air was fresh and thick, smelling of rotting grass and smoke from distant chimneys. He picked his way between empty pickling barrels and piles of old crates, his eyes searching the half-light for familiar shapes. He remembered an old, worn-out keg tossed behind the barn. That was where he'd seen what he now needed.
Even stepping on a sharp shard of glass, he didn't flinch—all his attention was consumed by the search. A few minutes later, he held his prize: a crooked, sun-dried wooden hoop, blackened with age and damp, but whole.
Shoving the find under his shirt and pulling on his jacket, Archie set off for school much earlier than usual. At the fork in the road, he caught a glimpse of Mary coming out of the Hart farm gate, but pretended not to see her. Better she think he'd overslept than learn of this foolish, forced offering of his.
The schoolyard was still empty and quiet this early. He stood by the porch, pressing the hoop hidden beneath his jacket to his chest, listening to his own heart thumping loudly. He was waiting for the appearance of the American Bison.
Larry arrived as usual—in his eternal overcoat, flapping like a highwayman's cloak, its pockets bulging with what felt like half the waste from some craft workshop: feathers, nails, and odd-shaped stones he called "Indian arrowheads."
Seeing Archie, Larry perked up immediately. But his excitement gave way to an expression of the most genuine contempt when Archie, with solemn caution, produced his trophy from under his jacket.
"What's this junk you're palming off on me?" Larry snorted, poking a finger at the hoop. "It's just an old barrel stave! I've got five of those lying behind my barn!"
"I… I thought that's the kind you needed," Archie mumbled, feeling heat flood his face.
"Get outta here!" Larry waved him off. "I thought you had a special hoop, a metal one. The kind Indians use for bows. What, haven't you read 'In the Clutches of Chief Predatory Feather'?"
Archie shook his head.
"Well, it says right there!" Larry's eyes lit up with the fanatical gleam of an expert. "Metal isn't iron. It's a special kind of black wood! Harder than Damascus steel, a knife won't even scratch it. The Indians temper it in a fire, and it makes a bow so strong the arrow flies clean over the horizon! I read it myself!"
Archie was at a loss. He had no idea what "metal" meant in Larry's interpretation. But having dug himself into this hole, he had to find a way out.
"Well… we do have a log like that at home," he babbled, clutching at straws. "Grandma says it's just a stone, but now I'm thinking… maybe that's the very… metal."
Larry's face transformed. He grabbed Archie eagerly by the lapel of his jacket, pulling him close as if Archie himself were the coveted "metal."
"You kidding? Really? Bring it to me tomorrow—you'll get a reward!"
He reached inside his coat and pulled out a tattered slip of paper. A crooked engraving, cut from some cheap booklet, was pasted on it: an Indian in war paint swinging a tomahawk at a white man in a torn shirt. Archie wouldn't have taken such trash for free, but now he nodded with the air of a man who'd been given the key to a royal treasury.
"Alright," he said, trying to sound businesslike. "I'll bring it. But only if you give me your word… about Mary."
Larry twisted his lips into a smirk, deliberately ominous, the kind the heroes of his books probably wore before some treacherous act.
"If you don't bring it—forget about her, like last year's snow. But if you do… well, maybe I'll consider it."
"No, tell me exactly!" Archie insisted.
"Then…" Larry straightened up, affecting a majestic disdain, "then you can take your little farm girl and clear off, you pale-faced pup! I don't need the likes of her!"
The bell rang, and children began streaming into school for morning prayers. Mary, walking past, threw Archie a brief, questioning look: Why didn't you wait for me? But he didn't see her anymore. His entire world had narrowed to a single concept: "metal."
The catechism lesson was led by Mr. Whitaker himself. He paced the aisles, asking questions in an even, resonant voice that made the laziest students' stomachs turn cold. Archie tried to follow the lesson, but his head was spinning with one word: metal-metal-metal. It drowned out everything else.
"Archie MacCallum," the principal's voice sounded right above his ear. "Enlighten us. Who was the longest-living patriarch before the Flood, and how many years, by the Lord's grace, did he live?"
Archie, yanked from his thoughts, jumped to his feet. His tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. The single word spinning in his head escaped his lips on its own, loud and clear:
"Metal."
A silence full of bewilderment fell over the classroom.
"Wha-at?" Mr. Whitaker drawled, slowly turning his whole body toward him.
Archie, blushing to the roots of his hair, stammered:
"I mean… Me… Me…thus… I mean…"
"'Metal'?" the principal repeated, his voice growing quiet and dangerous. "What are you mumbling about, boy, like a lost sheep in a barnyard? What you've got in your head isn't knowledge, it's Lenten gruel! Just like that lummox friend of yours, Larry Botter! I ought to tie the pair of you ne'er-do-wells to a raft and send you down the Mississippi—maybe the current would wash a drop of sense into you!"
The words struck Archie not like a slap, but like the lash of a whip on a bare back. Especially since the reprimand was public. Especially in front of Mary, who sat two rows ahead and, he could feel it, had shrunk with shame for him. His pride, already fragile, crumbled to dust.
He spent the rest of the day not looking up, not hearing the lessons. He was paralyzed by his humiliation. After the final bell, he remained in the empty classroom, unable to join the noisy crowd spilling out to freedom.
But then quiet footsteps behind him made him flinch. He turned. Mary stood in the doorway.
"What are you doing here? Aren't you going home?" she asked softly.
Archie, finding no words, silently got up, took his canvas book bag, and followed her.
In the schoolyard, their attention was caught by a lively scene. Larry Botter, surrounded by several younger boys, was trying to foist that very barrel stave on Will Frey. He was lowering the price, throwing in "gems"—shiny pieces of glass—but Will, ever tearful and distrustful, just shook his head.
Mary and Archie walked past, unnoticed by the participants of this grand transaction. When the school was behind them, Mary asked:
"What was that you blurted out in catechism? You scared everybody."
"Oh, nothing… Just spoke without thinking," Archie muttered.
"And what's 'metal'? What's that, anyway?"
"It's just Larry talking… says there's some kind of wood the Indians have, hard and black. I don't know."
"Oh, that Larry…" Mary shook her head. "A real scarecrow from the cover of a cheap novel. All he knows is how to make up stories about his Indians and pirates."
"Yeah… he's a first-class storyteller," Archie agreed.
And then he felt the moment had come to set things right, to rebuild trust. He took a deep breath.
"He, by the way… makes up stories about you too. Says he wants to marry you."
Mary stopped dead in her tracks. First, pure bewilderment flashed across her face, then it flushed a bright crimson of indignation.
"Wha-at?! May his nasty tongue wither up and drop off! I'll go right back and tell Mr. Whitaker everything! Let's see how he sings then!"
"Don't!" Archie cut in, alarmed. He was afraid her complaint would drag his hoop story into the light. "It's not worth it. We'll sort him out ourselves. Tommy will help us."
"Tommy?" Mary raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That wild pirate and redskin all rolled into one? Ten Tommys couldn't handle him!"
"We'll manage," Archie said stubbornly, though he wasn't sure himself. "Just don't get involved. Otherwise he'll go whining, and we'll be worse off."
"And what will you say if he does?"
Archie shrugged.
"Don't know. But he'll always wriggle out. He's like a cork—you can't drown him."
They walked on, and the silence between them grew less tense. Finally, Archie asked, looking at his feet:
"Were you… bored walking alone today?"
"I was," Mary simply admitted.
"Did you think that I… that I wouldn't walk with you anymore?"
"I thought… maybe you wouldn't."
"So, do you want me to wait for you tomorrow?"
"Of course, I do."
Archie mustered his courage for the final, main question.
"And… what if it were Larry waiting for you? Would you walk to school with him?"
Mary snorted with such sincere contempt that Archie immediately felt light and joyful.
"With him? I wouldn't make it past the gate with that painted-up storyteller. My legs wouldn't carry me."
That was more than enough. A warm, generous joy filled Archie from head to toe. He barely stopped himself from shouting and jumping for joy.
In his happiness, Archie walked her all the way to the gates of the Riverside farm. As he was turning to leave, Mrs. Hart's voice came from the porch. She was fixing something by the well and, looking in his direction, said loudly enough, as if thinking aloud but clearly for him to hear:
"That Archie from Fox Creek is a good, fine boy. Walked our girl home, just like a real gentleman should. A deed worthy of respect."
Archie didn't turn around, but his cheeks burned once more—this time with a flustered, sweet pride. The stone had finally fallen from his heart. Even if tomorrow held a new argument with Larry about "metal"—right now, in this moment, the world was ordered as it should be.