Was

"We got it," said Jonathan. "We found the farm!" He was as awkward as a newborn colt. "We know the school she went to, so we can find the farm from that. Zeandale Township, Sector Twenty-six."

"Hold it. Hold it," said the young man.

Jonathan wavered in place, unable to understand why the librarian didn't show more enthusiasm.

"What would you like to look at?"

"Hello," said Bill. "We need to find a particular schoolhouse and farm in Zeandale. Basically, I think if we had a plat book for the 1870s, 1880s, that would help."

The young man breathed out. "Do you mind telling me what this is for? Is it a research project? Is it co

"It's only a personal interest," said Bill. "We'd be happy to talk to somebody if that would help."

The young man sighed. "Our director is Kathy James. She'll be in about ten today. If you wouldn't mind talking to her."

"Thank you, I'd be happy to."

Back in the big, book-lined room. Hole punches and paper cutters, index printouts, stacks of wooden drawers out of their chests, cardboard tubes with maps inside, globes of the world.

"We've got a very good plat book for 1881," said the young man. "It has engravings of local farms, shows the railways, has a list of businesses."

"Perfect. Thank you," said Bill.

"Your friend owes us ten sixty for photocopies," said the young man. "He left without paying."

"I'm sorry," said Bill. "He's very ill."

The pale young man walked around to the front of the filing cabinets. They faced the wall. Bill sat down at the table, opposite Jonathan.

Jonathan's knees bounced up and down, and the rims of his eyes looked almost brown. He had thrown up his breakfast soup.

"How ya doing, buddy?" Bill whispered.

"I'm going to ring the church bell," answered Jonathan.

"Which church bell?" Bill asked quietly.

"The one in the little tower. In the school."

Then Jonathan looked up in the direction of the doorway and beamed and greeted someone. "Hello," he said.

Bill turned around in his chair. There was no one.

"Who's been visiting?" Bill asked.

"Ira was standing beside the Coke machine," said Jonathan.

"Was he?" said Bill.

"He hadn't graduated yet."

There was the sound of a filing cabinet rumbling shut.

"This do you?" asked the librarian.

He passed Bill a Xerox. It showed a sweep of river in flowing curves and centipede lines of railways. Manhattan the town was blanked out by corduroy lines. At the bottom of the page there was a very fine, tiny engraving of a man on horseback looking at a distant train.

Jonathan stood up and rested his chin on Bill's shoulder, as if it were a pillow.

There was a little square marked "No. 43." It was on the corner of the main road and a lane that ran south toward hills. There were the sectors and quarters with names.

"It says Gulch," said Bill. "Is that a name or a geographical feature?"

"I don't know," said the young man. "I also had this."

He tossed down onto the table a Xerox of a photograph.

It showed a white, one-room wooden building with two windows on either side of a narrow roofed porch. The building also had a small bell tower.

Lined up outside it were about ten children in gingham checks or knickerbockers and a woman. She stood very stiffly, hands behind her back, smiling and young in a long, dark skirt and white blouse with mutton sleeves. In crabbed handwriting were the words "Sunflower School."

"That will make it ten seventy for copies," said the young man.

"Oh golly. Oh golly," said Jonathan. "What if it's her? What if it's her in the photograph? Huh? Huh?"

The pale young man looked at him. "Whatever it is you're looking for," he said, "you're not going to find it in an old photograph. It's only history, you know."

They drove. Bill had great difficulty finding Highway 18 out of town-the on-ramp rose out of the old streets that had not been razed for the shopping mall. Then very quickly they were passing over the levee, a great hump of green grass, then trees, and then they were driving over the Kansas River on a narrow bridge with narrow railed walkways. There were sandbanks in the river and the concrete supports of another modern bridge, crossing diagonally under them. It had been washed away.

Then the river was gone in a flurry of leaves. The highway divided. ZEANDALE, said a sign to the left. The road eased itself up a slope and down again. On one side there was flat, open farmland, on the other steep shaded woodland.

"Look at it!" said Jonathan. To the left were wide fields of almost orange sorghum, the heads in thick clumps. There were windmills far away and old farmhouses surrounded by beech and walnut that had been planted a hundred years before. Trees in a long line marked where the river flowed. Ru

"Clop clop clop," said Jonathan, very faintly, transfixed.

Bill balanced maps and photocopies on his lap, glancing down. "The river curves in again close to the road just before we get to the school."

"Fwoooo whooosh," said Jonathan. "The river moves. It rolls over in its sleep."

The papers fluttered.

The woodland left them, moving south. There were fields on either side now, flat, rich, and the road was straight for miles. Zeandale village was a blur ahead of them, blue with distance, wavering with rising heat. There were lanes to the right. Bill slowed. PLEASANT VALLEY CEMETARY, said a sign pointing right. They passed another lane, with a clump of trees.

"It's supposed to be on the right," said Bill. They both grew more anxious, leaning forward, peering.

"That's it," said Bill suddenly, flicking on the turn signal and pulling over to the right, the sound of dust under tires.

On the wrong side of the road was the schoolhouse. It had been painted gunmetal blue.

"That's not it," said Jonathan, very quickly, very firmly.

"I think it is," said Bill, and got out. Dust from the soft shoulder still drifted across the road. The silence was very sudden, very complete. Their footsteps sounded very clearly as they crossed the road.