In the Woods When First We Met

33. Question

This chapter was like really, really awkward to me, but I was trying to think of what a boy growing up on a farm over a century ago would know about 'the birds and the bees' as they say...)

Gilbert continued on his way.

He would not tell Anne what he had lied about to Billy.

But he felt pretty sure that Billy would leave her alone.

After all, now Billy had to worry that she could, at any time, out him, and there'd be no way to deny what had happened to her.

Gilbert smiled. Anne had leverage now.

It was leverage built on fake information he'd made up in his head, but leverage nonetheless.

Gilbert had to admit to himself that he didn't know anything about girls, really, and hadn't even wondered about them. He supposed he would be more interested in girls by this point, but he wasn't because...well, the girls at school were just so...silly. He hated the way most of the girls swooned over him. That Ruby Gillis was the worst. But Gilbert had resolved to be kind to her anyway- what was the point in making her feel bad?- but to not give her too much attention so as not to lead her on.

Besides, school was for...school. He sometimes felt annoyed with the other boys for laughing behind the teacher's back, throwing spitballs at the girls, and just barely scraping by on their grades. Didn't they want to make something of themselves? There was nothing wrong with deciding to be a farmer because it was what you wanted, he thought, but there was something wrong with ending up simply doing whatever was convenient because you hadn't cared enough to plan ahead.

But even though he didn't know about girls, he had a basic, though vague, understanding of how reproduction happened. You couldn't grow up on a farm without, at some point, witnessing animals mating with each other. He didn't know if it worked exactly the same way when it came to humans, but he figured it couldn't be too far off.

He worried now, though, that it might be too much like the animals do. After all, mutual want did not seem to be part of the animals' mating routine. The male animals dominated the females, sometimes even fighting each other over who got the female animal, with the stronger male winning the battle.

And he'd heard some pretty terrible noises. He couldn't forget seeing a barn tomcat biting a female cat in heat on the back of her neck. He was only five or six years old and had no idea what they were doing. When the female began making hair-raising screaming noises, he ran to his father, telling him to come help him because the cats were fighting terribly. His father laughed and explained to him that, yes, it hurt, but they weren't fighting- that was how they made kittens. Gilbert, initially somewhat scarred by it, had quickly learned it was just the cat's mating ritual, another strange wonder of the animal kingdom.

But when people did this...? Was it like the animals? What Anne had explained about Mr. Hammond- and what she had heard from Mrs. Hammond- well, it did seem a lot like the animals he'd witnessed. ...Did it have to be that way?? Was that just how it was? He couldn't imagine taking part in it himself, someday, if that was the case. No, he resolved. When I get married, whenever that is, whoever it is, it won't be like that at all...I won't let it be like that.