For Leticia’s tall blond young man, Timothy, a farm implement salesman, it had become a brightly glowing world today, even in the middle of what might have seemed a cold, dreary Illinois winter to others. He’d come here to ask his Leticia; he’d come to her school, to pick up his most-beautiful-of-all-world sweetheart, his almost fiancée, a truly pretty, young, first-grade teacher. She taught farm children in a brick building in the middle of a small northern Illinois town. 

Leticia had very orange hair, and a delicate skin color that so enchanted Timothy, speckled gold freckles all over her when they went swimming this past summer. He had been speechless at the beauty of her body, the water on her skin. It all matched her soft interior loveliness.

 Timothy came here at three, to help her end her school day this snowy afternoon.

But something had changed for him, for them. The way they felt around each other. It was such a bubbling up of exuberant hope; it scared him, but he loved it, this growing awareness between them, almost as though a third reassuring presence was drawing them together. 

The deep snow was hiding sidewalks and streets, falling since morning. Leticia’s first-graders, had worn loose, scuffling, all-the-same black rubber farm feedstore galoshes individualized with decals: FLEET FEET with a lightning bolt, or POWER to PUSHERS to establish ownership, all from Joliet Feed Store to crunch three blocks, or two blocks, or one block home through  deepening snow.

Even little kids wouldn’t be picked up; they’d go with older brothers or sisters, even through this knee-deep snow.

Chebanse, Illinois was a farm town, its children farm children.

But teacher Leticia, after every school day’s end, had lots of jobs: kids had to carry  back their black, also Joliet Feed Store, lunchpails for refilling, overfilling with tomorrow’s  fried pork chops, local orchard apples, cold hamburger and fried egg sandwiches, yucko-ducko,   cheese sandwiches, which the children hated; better were peanut butter sandwiches, Twinkies, potato chips, Doritos, Fritos, corn puffs which the children loved and were also negotiable trade food: “Who wants a salami sandwich? Trade ya. A bag a Doritos for a peanut butter and jelly?” 

Besides being in charge of the children taking back home their huge empty, POWIE-ZOWIE, decaled lunchpails, principal Mrs. Higgins told Leticia, “ Gotta put on coats, scarves around their necks and tuck’em in their coats, put on hats and pull on those gloves.”

 Gloves and mittens had been sewn first to heavy farm boot shoelaces; then the shoelaces to coatsleeves and were loose-proof even they left off and just dragged home through the snow. Kids were always in a hurry to play.

 But most important, were galoshes to protect new costly shoes—if a kid’s galoshes came off, weren’t on right, Leticia would get a note next day: “Please,” it would come, on a jagged piece of bank mortgage envelope, safety-pinned to the child’s coat, “be shure Joey (or Frank or Susan or Donna) has the bootes on going home from school, kan’t afford no new shoeses.”

And Leticia did, standing out in the hallway at the cloakroom door after school, “No, Murgatroyd, you’ve got to put them on.” And, “Nathaniel, fasten all the snaps on those galoshes.”

            And here Timothy was helping in the midst of today’s little kid stampede.  Slipping on coats, winding scarves; he needed alone time with his teacher sweetheart before evening paper grading, so he was speeding everything up in her cloakroom, a separate room at the back of the school room.

              Timmy, she called him Timmy, was worried that Chebanse’s only little restaurant, the only place he and Leticia could go, would close early if there were no customers. All his plans were possible, but only if they skedaddled out of here very quickly.

  Now, the cloakroom jammed full of noisy, pushing little bodies and shouts: “Frankie, gimme my hat,” or, “I’m tellin,” and, “Stop it! Stop it!” And, “Hi, Mr. Timothy, and “I’ll race you! Hey those are my boots, Reginald, put on your own boots. Nyaaah Nyaaaah, I’ll be already gone outside and you not even getting yer coat on, slowpoke,” and, “Miss tecia, Terry’s got my lunchpail.”

 Kids grabbing down heavy coats, dragging them out into the hall, not stopping to put them on to molre quickly escape school, but there she was, coat-galoshes-hat-scarf checking Leticia standing right at the door; her beautiful face shining  over the heads of the pushing kids. Oh, he loved her so much;  she was glowing, her orange hair, her beautiful skin and eyes, while putting her papers in her brown leather briefcase he had bought her for Christmas and checking coats.

“Oh Miss Leticia,” the frustrated kids protested at the delay, while their obedient fingers were then impatiently buckling, zipping, and then were shouting, plopping and jingling in galoshes down the hall.

Suddenly it was quiet, all gone.

 Except for one very small leaky boy, still in the dark cloakroom, with a red, dripping nose, sitting on a red little-kid chair and still trying to get it on, pulling it, his first galosh. It’s metal latches tinkled as he gasped and grunted, and lost his grip, shiny snots on his front lip.

   Poor little Reginald had suddenly risen up as an impediment, a ruining delay with his boot struggles. 

“Oh,” Reginald was saying, his little hands, red fingertips aching from pulling on the rubber, getting teary from frustration from trying to pull on tight boots.

 ”It’s all right,” Timothy said, in spite of his own urgency, “we’ll get’em on.” Leticia loved that in him, that generosity, a grandness of spirit.

Timothy first spread one of his broad blue handkerchiefs down to save his blue serge pants from the dusty floor. He must look right for Leticia tonight, even at the town’s only small farm restaurant, and  he knelt his one knee on the handkerchief.

He said gently to the struggling little boy, “What’s your name?”

“Reginald.”

“I’ll help you Reginald,” gently taking one of the little square Buster Brown shod feet  and fitting its toe into the galosh, “Nice new shoes, huh?” he said while pushing the toe further in; the shoe was even progressing a little way into the galosh but then stopped.

Brown eyed Timothy said, “Let’s push a little harder, Reginald?” smiling his gentle smile. Leticia loved his sexy smile, there was something so full of strength,  and a pleasant masculine firmness about it. His face had become so much more dear to her recently; the intensity of her own feelings frightened her. Some wonderful thing was changing between them.

“Hurts,” Reginald said, and shook his head. Little Reginald was snuffle-sucking nose snot down over his lip into his mouth.

“Don’t do that Reginald,” said laughing Timothy, smiling up at Leticia,” applying a clean handcherchief to Reginald’s nose, “Blow,” said Timothy.

“No,” said Reginald, “dirty,” shaking his head at Timothy’s moth-bally handkerchief.

 Letecia was smiling her tender amused smile, “Can I help?” 

Timothy laughed, “Try to keep your ankle stiffer Reginald then it won’t hurt.”

 Holding Reginald’s ankle with one hand and pushing the boot up and on at the same time.

“Well,” he finally said, “Leticia, this here’s a wonderful adventure. Reginald, let’s you and me and Miss Leticia all try it together.”

This made Leticia laugh. Timothy loved the sound of her laugh. He could listen to her laugh into eternity. He imagined how it would be to hear her laugh in the darkness.

 So now they both tried, he and his lovely Leticia, one in front and one behind Reginald, “Don’t worry Reginald,” said Timothy,  seeing his wooing time with Leticia slipping away.

He was going to ask a certain question tonight over supper. Timothy reached his arms very tenderly around Reginald seated in the chair, his own chest butting against the little chair’s back, wrinkling his red and blue tie and jamming the ring box he had in his inside pocket into his sternum.

Laughing as both he and Leticia tried, both their hands pulling and pushing on Reginald’s boot.

Leticia kept catching glimpses of Timothy’s cheerful eyes over the top of Reginald’s head: she couldn’t let herself look long or she’d get into that dreamy, huggy, kissy… .

But the boy’s leg still only buckled, even with Timothy holding it straighter at the knee, under their mutual pushing and pulling pressure; Leticia putting the heel of her hand on the heel of Reginald’s boot and gently shoving it, and Timothy pulling on boot with one hand while holding slowly it began to move.

Leticia kept laughing, shaking her head at the shiny, new smelling rubber galosh’s fierce resistance, and finally said, “Sometimes they buy the boots a little small so the next child can…” while looking again, she couldn’t help doing it, looking . deeply into Timothy’s eyes. What a good way to see if a man were the kind you would want to raise a family with.

The dimming gray winter light coming through the tall cloak room windows that caught her green eyes, just at their orbs’ tips, made little brilliant sparkles that dashed around inside.

Timothy wanted to kiss her, but couldn’t.

“Maybe if you sit down on the floor Reginald,” said Timothy, “definitely a three-person job.”

Now all three of them were working in a three-way boot-compressing hug, little Reginald being tickled by it all, because he was getting raised almost off the ground.

Finally the first boot slipped over his heel and rushed on pushing out a little draft of rubber booty air; and then, with even more red-faced effort, the other one.

“We did it. Good boy Reginald,” Timothy said, out of breath, quickly snapping up the metal latches, checking his watch; supper was still  possible. Everybody was laughing. The first time Leticia and Timothy had really laughed so hard together made them feel closer.

They both looked at each other for a quiet  moment; she could smell his sweet breath that she loved when he kissed her; and him, oh those so very soft womanly lips, he’d been thinking about it all day.

But here was little Reginald, still not doing nothing, not jumping up and grabbing his coat, but just staying still in the chair  because he really liked very much being between two people holding him; his parents didn’t do that much at home. First he held one leg up then another looking at his newly installed, very tight boots.

“What’s the matter Reginald?” asked Leticia.

Reginald shook his head, “Not my boots.”

Timothy’s heart sank.

“They’re not?” said Leticia, “Are you sure? Why didn’t you tell us before? Why did you let us put them on?”

Reginald did not answer just kept shaking his head.

“No wonder they don’t fit him,” said Leticia, taking her head in her hand in mock despair  and shaking it.

But Timothy didn’t show any sign of impatience, even though supper had got suddenly far away, “I’ll take them back off, sweetheart,” he said to Leticia, “if you’ll look around for his boots; maybe raise that shade. It’s so dark in here you can’t see much. Reginald just made a mistake. All the boots look the same”

Leticia looked up and down the dark cloak room in the shadowy late afternoon winter gray-day light. She heard Timothy unsnapping the recently snapped boot snaps, and saying, “Hold on Reginald, brace yourself, that’s good, real good. We’ll get them off. Where’re your boots Reginald?”

He now had one of the boots already off and was unsnapping the latches on the other, “Now hold still, that’s it, we’re getting it off.”

“Reginald,” said the patient as well as beautiful Leticia, “I don’t see any other boots in here.”

Reginald, shaking his head, was now sadly contemplating the now newly removed footwear, “they’re my brother’s boots but I gotta wear’em.”