with a trout in my  hand: it looked new enough. I
wrote her as though  I were still that  boy, told her of the gun I'd got for
Christmas, how  the dog had had  pups  and what we'd named them, described a
tent-show that  had  come to town.  To  be  growing  up  again  and  have  a
sweetheart in Alaska-well, it was fun for an old man sitting alone listening
to  the noise  of a  clock. Later on she  wrote she'd fallen in  love with a
fellow she knew, and  I felt a real  pang of  jealousy, the way  a youngster
would; but we have remained  friends: two  years  ago, when I told her I was
getting  ready  for law school, she sent me a  gold nugget-it would bring me
luck, she said." He took it from his pocket and held  it  out for us to see:
it made her come so close. Heather Palls, as though the gently  bright  gift
balanced in his palm was part of her heart.
     "And that's  what they think is shameful?" said Dolly, more piqued than
indignant. "Because  you've helped  keep  company a  lonely little child  in
Alaska? It snows there so much."
     Judge Cool closed his hand over the nugget. "Not that they've mentioned
it  to me.  But  I've heard them talking  at night, my sons and their wives:
wanting to know what to do about me. Of course they'd spied out the letters.
I don't  believe in locking drawers-seems  strange a man can't live  without
keys in  what  was  at least once his  own house. They think it  all  a sign
of..." He tapped his head.
     "I had a  letter once. Collin, sugar, pour me a taste," said Catherine,
indicating  the wine.  "Sure  enough, I  had  a  letter once,  still  got it
somewhere, kept it twenty  years  wondering who  was  wrote  it  Said  Hello
Catherine, come on to Miami and marry with me, love Bill."
     "Catherine. A man asked you to marry him-and you never told one word of
it to me?"
     Catherine  lifted a  shoulder. "Well,  Dollyheart, what  was (he  Judge
saying? You don't tell  anybody  everything. Besides,  I've known a  peck of
Bills-wouldn't study marrying any of  them. What worries  my mind is,  which
one of the Bills was  it wrote that letter? I'd like to know, seeing as it's
the only letter I ever  got. It could be the  Bill  that put the  roof on my
house; course, by the time the roof was up-my goodness, I have got old, been
a long day since  I've  given it  two thoughts. There was Bill  that came to
plow the garden, spring of 1913 it was; that man sure could plow  a straight
row. And Bill that built the chicken-coop: went away on a Pullman job; might
have been him wrote me that letter. Or Bill-uh uh, his name was Fred-Collin,
sugar, this wine  is  mighty good."  ^ "I may have a drop more myself," said
Dolly. "I mean, Catherine has given me such a..."
     "Hmn," said Catherine.
     "If  you  spoke  more  slowly,  or  chewed  less..." The  Judge thought
Catherine's cotton was tobacco.
     Riley  had  withdrawn a little from  us; slumped over, he stared stilly
into the inhabited dark: I, I, I, a bird cried, "I- you're wrong. Judge," he
said.
     "How so, son?"
     The caught-up uneasiness that I associated with Riley swamped his face.
'I'm not in  trouble: I'm nothing-or would you call  that my trouble?  I lie
awake thinking what do I know how to do? hunt, drive a car, fool around; and
I get  scared  when I think  maybe that's all  it will ever come to. Another
thing,  I've got no feelings-except for my sisters, which is different. Take
for instance, I've been going with this girl from  Rock City nearly a  year,
the longest time I've  stayed with one girl. I guess  it was a week  ago she
flared up  and  said  where's your heart? said if I didn't love her she'd as
soon die.
     So I stopped the car on the railroad track; well, I said, lets just sit
here, the Crescent's due in  about twenty  minutes. We didn't take our  eyes
off each  other, and I thought isn't it  mean (hat I'm looking at you and  I
don't feel anything except..."
     "Except vanity?" said the Judge.
     Riley did not deny it. "And if my sisters were old enough  to take care
of themselves,  I'd have been willing to wait for (he  Crescent to come down
on us,"
     It made my  stomach hurt to hear  him talk like that; I longed  to tell
him he was all I wanted to be.
     "You said  before about  the  one  person  in the world. Why couldn't I
think of her like that? Ifs what I want, I'm  no good by myself. Maybe, if I
could care for somebody that way,  I'd make plans and  carry  them out:  buy
that stretch of land past Parson's Place  and build houses on it-I  could do
it if I got quiet."
     Wind surprised, pealed  the  leaves,  parted night  clouds;  showers of
starlight  were  let  loose:  our  candle,  as  though  intimidated  by  the
incandescence of the opening,  star-stabbed sky, toppled,  and we could see,
unwrapped  above  us, a  late wayaway wintery moon: it  was  like a slice of
snow,  near and far  creatures  called  to it,  hunched  moon-eyed frogs,  a
claw-voiced  wildcat.  Catherine  hauled out the  rose scrapquilt, insisting
Dolly  wrap  it  around herself;  then  she tucked  her arms around  me  and
scratched my head until I let it relax on  her bosom-You cold? she said, and
I wiggled closer: she was good and warm as the old kitchen.
     "Son, I'd say  you were  going at it the  wrong  end first,"  said  the
Judge, turning up his coat-collar.  "How could you care about one girl? Have
you ever cared about one leaf?"
     Riley,  listening to the wildcat with an itchy hunter's look,  snatched
at the  leaves blowing about us like midnight butterflies; alive, fluttering
as  though to escape  and fly, one stayed  trapped between  his fingers. The
Judge, too: he  caught a  leaf; and it  was  worth more  in his hand than in
Riley's.  Pressing  ft mildly against his cheek, he  distantly said, "We are
speaking of love. A leaf, a handful of seed-begin with these, learn a little
what it is to  love. First, a leaf, a fall  of rain, then someone to receive
what  a leaf  has  taught  you, what a fall of  rain  has  ripened. No  easy
process, understand; it could  take a lifetime, it has mine, and still  I've
never mastered it-I only know how  true it is: that love is a chain of love,
as nature is a chain of life."
     "Then," said  Dolly with an intake of breath, "I've been in love afl my
life." She sank down into the  quilt. "Well, no," and her voice fell off, "I
guess  not.  I've  never  loved  a,"  while she searched  for  the word wind
frolicked  her veil,  "gentleman. You  might  say  that  I've  never had the
opportunity. Except  Papa," she  paused, as though  she'd  said too  much. A
gauze of starlight wrapped her closely as the quilt; something, the reciting
frogs,  the string  of voices  stretching  from the field  of grass,  lured,
impelled her: "But I have loved everything else. Like the color pink; when I
was a  child I  had one colored crayon, and it was pink;  I drew  pink cats,
pink trees-for thirty-four years I lived in a pink room. And the box I kept,
it's somewhere in the attic now, I must ask Verena please to give  it to me,
it  would  be  nice to see  my first loves again:  what  is  there? a  dried
honeycomb, an empty hornet's  nest, other  things,  or an  orange stuck with
cloves and  a jaybird's egg-when  I loved those love  collected inside me so
that it went flying  about like a bird  in a  sunflower field. But it's best
not to show such things, it burdens people and makes them, I don't know why,
unhappy. Verena scolds at me  for  what she calls hiding in comers,  but I'm
afraid of scaring people if I show that I care for them.  Like Paul Jimson's
wife; after he got sick and couldn't  deliver the papers  any more, remember
she took over his roulte? poor  thin little thing just dragging herself with
that sack of papers. It was one cold afternoon, she came up on the porch her
nose running and  tears of cold hanging in her eyes-she  put down the paper,
and I  said  wait, hold  on, and took my handkerchief to  wipe  her  eyes: I
wanted to say,  if I could,  that  I was sorry and that I  loved her-my hand
grazed her  face, she turned with the smallest shout and ran down the steps.
Then on, she always tossed the papers from the  street, and whenever I heard
them hit the porch it sounded in my bones."
     "Paul  Jimson's  wife: worrying yourself over  trash  like  that!" said
Catherine, rinsing her mouth with the last of  the wine. "I've got a bowl of
goldfish,  just 'cause I like them don't  make me love the world. Love a lot
of mess,  my foot. You can talk what you want, not going to do anything  but
harm, bringing up what's  best forgot. People ought to  keep  more things to
themselves. The deepdown ownself  part of you, that's the good part:  what's
left of a  human being that goes around speaking his privates? The Judge, he
say  we all  up here  'cause of  trouble some kind.  Shoot! We here for very
plain reasons. One is,  this our tree-house, and two, That One and the Jew's
trying to  steal what  belongs to us. Three:  you  here,  every one of  you,
'cause you want  to be: the deepdown part  of  you  tells you  so. This last
don't apply  to me. I like a roof  over my  own head.  Dollyheart, give  the
Judge a  portion of that  quilt: man's shivering like was Halloween."  Shyly
Dolly lifted a wing of  the quilt and nodded  to him; the Judge,  not at all
shy,  slipped under it. The  branches  of the China tree swayed like immense
oars  dipping  into  a sea rolling and  chilled  by the  far far stars. Left
alone, Riley sat hunched up in himself like  a pitiful  orphan. "Snuggle up,
hard  head: you  cold like anybody else," said  Catherine, offering him  the
position on her  right that I occupied on her left.  He didn't seem  to want
to; maybe he noticed that she smelled like  bitter-weed, or maybe he thought
it was  sissy; but I said come on, Riley, Catherine's  good and warm, better
than a quilt. After a while Riley moved over to us. It was quiet for so long
I  thought everyone  had gone to sleep. Then I felt Catherine stiffen. "It's
just come  to  me  who it was sent my letter:  Bill Nobody. That One, that's
who. Sure as  my name's Catherine Creek she got some nigger in Miami to mail
me  a  letter, thinking I'd scoot off  there never to be heard  from again."
Dolly sleepily said hush now hush, shut your eyes: "Nothing to be afraid of;
we've men here to  watch out for us." A branch swung back, moonlight ignited
the tree: I saw the Judge take Dolly's hand. It was the last thing I saw.

        Four

     Riley was the first to wake, and  he wakened  me. On the skyline  three
morning stars  swooned in the  flush of  an  arriving sun;  dew tinseled the
leaves,  a  jet chain  of blackbirds swung out  to meet the  mounting light.
Riley beckoned for me to come with  him;  we slid silently  down through the
tree. Catherine, snoring with abandon, did not hear us go; nor did Dolly and
the Judge who, like  two children lost in a witch-ruled  forest, were asleep
with their cheeks together.
     We headed  toward the river, Riley leading  the  way. The legs  of  his
canvas trousers whispered against each  other.  Every little bit  he stopped
and stretched himself, as  though he'd been riding on a  train. Somewhere we
came to a hill  of already about and busy red ants. Riley unbuttoned his fly
and began to flood them; I  don't know that  it was funny, but I  laughed to
keep him company. Naturally I  was insulted when he switched around and peed
on my shoe. I thought it meant he had no respect for  me. I said to him  why
would he want to  do a thing like  that? Don't you know a joke? he said, and
threw a hugging arm around my shoulder.
     If  such  events  can be dated, this  I  would say was the moment Riley
Henderson and I became  friends,  the  moment, at least, when there began in
him an affectionate feeling  for  me that supported my  own for him. Through
brown briars  under  brown trees we walked deep  in the  woods  down  to the
river.
     Leaves like scarlet hands floated on the green slow water. A poking end
of a drowned log seemed the peering head of some river-beast. We moved on to
the old houseboat, where the water was clearer. The  houseboat  was slightly
tipped over; drifts of waterbay sheddings were like a rich rust on its  roof
and  declining  deck.  The inside  cabin  had  a mystifying tended-to  look.
Scattered around were issues of an adventure magazine, there was  a kerosene
lamp  and  a line  of beer  empties  ranged on a table;  the bunk  sported a
blanket,  a  pillow,  and  the  pillow was  colored  with pink  markings  of
lipstick. In  a rush I realized the houseboat  was someone's hide-out; then,
from the grin taking over Riley's homely face, I knew  whose it was. "What's
more," he said, "you can get in a little fishing on the side. Don't you tell
anybody." I crossed an admiring heart.
     While we were undressing I had a kind of dream. I dreamed the houseboat
had been  launched  on  the river  with the  five of  us aboard: our laundry
flapped  like sails, in the  pantry a coconut  cake  was cooking, a geranium
bloomed on  the windowsill -together  we  floated over  changing rivers past
varying views.
     The last of summer  warmed the  climbing sun, but the water,  at  first
plunge,  sent me  chattering and  chicken-skinned back to  the deck where  I
stood watching  Riley unconcernedly propel  himself  to and  fro between the
banks. An island of bamboo reeds, standing like the legs of cranes, shivered
in a  shallow patch, and Riley waded out among  them with  lowered,  hunting
eyes. He signaled to me. Though it  hurt, I eased down  into the cold  river
and swam to join him. The water  bending  the  bamboo was clear and  divided
into knee-deep basins-Riley hovered above one: in the thin pool a coal-black
catfish lay doz-ingly  trapped. We closed in  upon it with fingers tense  as
fork-prongs: thrashing backwards, it  flung itself  straight  into my hands.
The flailing razory whiskers  made a gash across  my palm,  still I  had the
sense to hold on-thank goodness, for it's the only fish  I ever caught. Most
people  don't believe it when I tell about catching a  catfish barehanded; I
say well ask Riley Henderson. We drove a spike of  bamboo through its  gills
and swam  back to the  houseboat holding it  aloft. Riley said it was one of
the fattest catfish  he'd ever seen: we would take  it back to the tree and,
since he'd bragged what  a great hand he was  at frying a catfish,  let  the
Judge fix it for breakfast As it turned out, that fish never got eaten.
     All this time  at the tree-house there was a terrible situation. During
our absence Sheriff Candle had returned backed  by deputies and a warrant of
arrest.  Meanwhile, unaware of what was  in store,  Riley and  I lazed along
kicking over toadstools, sometimes stopping to skip rocks on the water.
     We still were  some distance away when rioting  voices reached us; they
rang in the trees like axe-blows. I heard Catherine scream: roar, rather. It
made such soup of my legs I couldn't keep up with Riley, who grabbed a stick
and  began to run. I zigged one  way, zagged  another,  then,  having made a
wrong turn, came out on the grass-field's rim. And there waa Catherine.
     Her dress was ripped down the front: she was good as naked. Ray Oliver,
Jack Mill, and Big Eddie  Stover, three  grown men, cronies of the  Sheriff,
were dragging and slapping her through the grass. I wanted to kill them; and
Catherine was trying to: but  she didn't  stand a chance-though  she  butted
them  with her head,  bounced  them  with her elbows.  Big Eddie Stover  was
legally born  a bastard; the  other two made the  grade on their own. It was
Big  Eddie that went  for me,  and  I slammed my catfish  flat in  his face.
Catherine said,  "You leave my baby be, he's an orphan";  and,  when she saw
that  he had ms  around  the  waist: "In  the booboos, Collin, kick  his old
boo-boos." So I did.  Big Eddie's face curdled like clabber. Jack Mill (he's
the one who a  year later  got locked in the ice-plant and froze  to  death:
served him right) snatched at me, but I bolted across the field and crouched
down in the tallest grass. I don't think they bothered to look for me,  they
had their hands so full with Catherine; she fought them the whole way, and I
watched her, sick with knowing there was no help  to give, until they passed
out of sight over the ridge into the cemetery.
     Overhead  two  squawking crows crossed, recrossed, as though making  an
evil sign.  I crept  toward the  woods-near me,  then, I heard boots cutting
through the grass.  It  was the Sheriff; with  him was  a  man  called  Will
Harris.  Tall  as a door, buffalo-shouldered,  Will Harris had  once had his
throat  eaten out by a mad  dog; the scars were bad  enough, but his damaged
voice was worse: it sounded giddy and babyfied, like a midget's. They passed
so close I could have untied Will's shoes. His  tiny voice, shrilling at the
Sheriff, jumped with  Morris Ritz's name and  Verena's:  I couldn't make out
exactly, except something had happened about Morris Ritz and Verena had sent
Will to $ bring back the Sheriff.  The  Sheriff said: "What in hell does the
woman want,  an  army?"  When  they were gone I sprang up and  ran into  the
woods.
     In sight of the China tree I hid behind a fan of fern: I thought one of
the  Sheriff's  men  might  still be hanging around. But there was  nothing,
simply a lonely singing bird. And no one in the tree-house: smoky as ghosts,
streamers of  sunlight illuminated its emptiness.  Numbly  I moved into view
and  leaned my  head against the tree's  trunk;  at this, the vision of  the
houseboat returned: our laundry flapped, the geranium bloomed, the  carrying
river carried us out to sea into the world.
     "Collin." My name fell out  of the sky. "Is  that you I  hear?  are you
crying?"
     It was Dolly, calling from  somewhere I could not see-  until, climbing
to the tree's heart, I saw in  the above distance Dolly's  dangling childish
shoe. "Careful  boy," said  the Judge, who was beside  her, "you'll shake us
out of here." Indeed, like gulls resting on a ship's mast, they were sitting
in  the absolute tower of the tree; afterwards. Dolly was to remark that the
view afforded was so  enthralling  she  regretted not  having  visited there
before.  The Judge, it developed, had seen the approach of  the Sheriff  and
his  men in  time for  them to  take refuge in  those heights.  "Wait, we're
coming," she said; and, with one arm steadied  by the  Judge,  she descended
like a fine lady sweeping down a flight of stairs.
     We kissed  each other; she continued  to hold me. "She went to look for
you-Catherine; we didn't know where you were, and I was so afraid, I..." Her
fear tingled my hands: 'she felt like  a shaking small animal, a rabbit just
taken from the trap. The  Judge looked on with humbled eyes, fumbling hands;
he seemed to feel in the way, perhaps because he thought  he'd failed  us in
not  preventing what had happened to Catherine. But then, what could he have
done?  Had he gone to her  aid he would only  have got  himself caught: they
weren't fooling, the Sheriff, Big Eddie Stover and the others. I was the one
to feel guilty. If Catherine hadn't gone to look for  me they probably never
would have caught her. I told of what had taken place in the field of grass.
     But Dolly really wanted not to hear. As thought scattering a dream  she
brushed back her veil. "I want to believe Catherine is gone; and I can't. If
I could I would run to find her. I want to believe Verena has done this: and
I can't. Collin,  what do you think; is it that after all the world is a bad
place? Last night I saw it so differently."
     The Judge focused his eyes on mine: he was  trying, I think, to tell me
how to answer. But I knew myself. No matter  what passions compose them, all
private worlds are good, they are never vulgar  places: Dolly had been  made
too civilized by her  own, the one she shared with Catherine and me, to feel
the winds of wickedness that  circulate  elsewhere:  No, Dolly, the world is
not a bad place. She passed a hand across her forehead: "If  you are  right,
then in  a moment Catherine will  be walking under the  tree- she won't have
found you or Riley, but she will have come back."
     "By the way," said the Judge, "where is Riley?"
     He'd  run ahead of me, that  was the  last I'd  seen  of him;  with  an
anxiety that struck  us simultaneously, the Judge and I stood up and started
yelling his name. Our voices, curving slowly around the woods,  again, again
swung  back on silence. I knew what  had happened: he'd  fallen  into an old
Indian well.-many's the case  I could tell you  of. I was  about  to suggest
this when abruptly the Judge put a finger to his Ups. The man must  have had
ears like  a  dog:  I  couldn't  hear a  sound. But he was right,  there was
someone on  the path. It  turned out to be  Maude  Riordan and Riley's older
sister, the smart one, Elizabeth. They were very dear friends and wore white
matching sweaters, Elizabeth was carrying a violin case.
     "Look here, Elizabeth," said the Judge, startling the girls, for as yet
they had not discovered us. "Look here, child, have you seen your brother?"
     Maude recovered first, and it was she who answered. "We sure have," she
said emphatically. "I  was walking Elizabeth home from her lesson when Riley
came along doing ninety miles an hour; nearly  ran us over. You should speak
to him, Elizabeth. Anyway, he asked us to come down here and tell you not to
worry, said he'd explain everything later. Whatever that means."
     Both Maude and Elizabeth had been in my class at school; they'd  jumped
a grade  and  graduated the  previous  June.  I knew Maude  especially  well
because  for a summer I'd taken piano lessons  from  her mother; her  father
taught violin, and Elizabeth Henderson was one of  his pupils. Maude herself
played the violin beautifully; just a week before I'd read in the town paper
where  she'd been  invited to play  on a  radio program in Birmingham: I was
glad to hear it. The Riordans were nice people, considerate and cheerful. It
was  not because I wanted to  leam  piano that  I  took  lessons  with  Mrs.
Riordan-H lather, I  liked her blond  largeness,  the sympathetic,  educated
talk that went on while we sat before the  splendid  upright that smelled of
polish  and attention; and  what I particularly liked  was  afterwards, when
Maude would ask  me to  have a lemonade  on  the cool back  porch.  She  was
snub-nosed and  elfin-eared, a skinny excitable girl who from her father had
inherited  Irish  black  eyes  and  from her  mother platinum  hair  pale as
morning-not the  least  like  her  best  friend,  the  soulful  and  shadowy
Elizabeth. I don't know what those two  talked about, books and music maybe.
But  with  me Maude's subjects were boys, dates, drugstore slander: didn't I
think it  was terrible, the  awful girls Riley Henderson chased around with?
she felt  so sorry for Elizabeth, and thought it wonderful how, despite all,
Elizabeth held up her head.  It  didn't take a genius to see that  Maude was
heartset on Riley; nevertheless,  I imagined for a while that I was in  love
with her. At  home I  kept mentioning  her until  finally Catherine said  Oh
Maude Riordan, she's too scrawny-nothing on her to pinch,  a man's crazy  to
give her the time of  day. Once  I showed Maude a  big evening, made for her
with my own hands a sweet-pea corsage, then took her to Phil's Cafe where we
had Kansas  City steaks; afterwards,  there  was a dance  at the Lola Hotel.
Still she behaved as though she hadn't expected to be kissed  good night. "I
don't think that's  necessary, Collin-though it was cute  of you to  take me
out." I was let down, you can see why; but as I didn't allow myself to brood
over it our  friendship  went on  little  changed. One day, at the end of  a
lesson, Mrs. Riordan omitted the usual new piece for home practice; instead,
she kindly informed  me that she preferred not  to continue with my lessons:
"We're very fond of you, Collin, I don't have to  say that you're welcome in
this  house  at any time. But dear,  (he  truth is  you have no ability  for
music; it happens  that way occasionally, and I  don't  think it's  fair  on
either of us to pretend otherwise." She was right, all the same my pride was
hurt, I  couldn't help feeling pushed-out, it made me miserable to think  of
the  Riordans,  and  gradually,  in about the time it took to forget  my few
hard-learned tunes, I drew a curtain on them. At first Maude used to stop me
after school  and ask me over to her  house; one way or another I always got
out of it; furthermore,  it  was  winter then  and  I liked to stay  in  the
kitchen  with Dolly  and Catherine. Catherine  wanted to  know: How come you
don't talk any more about Maude Riordan? I said because I don't, that's all.
But  while  I  didn't talk, I must have been thinking;  at least, seeing her
there  under the tree, old feelings squeezed  my chest For the  first time I
considered the circumstances self-consciously: did we. Dolly, the Judge  and
I,  strike Maude and  Elizabeth as a ludicrous sight?  I could be  judged by
them, they were my own age. But from their manner we might  just have met on
the street or at the drugstore.
     The Judge said,  "Maude, how's your daddy? Heard he hasn't been feeling
too good."
     "He can't  complain.  You  know  how  men are, always  looking  for  an
ailment. And yourself, sir?"
     "That's a  pity,"  said the  Judge, his mind wandering. "You  give your
daddy my regards, and tell him I hope he feels better."
     Maude  submitted  agreeably:  "I will,  sir, thank  you.  I  know  hell
appreciate  your  concern." Draping her skirt, she  dropped on the  moss and
settled  beside  her  an  unwilling Elizabeth.  For  Elizabeth no one used a
nickname; you might begin by calling her  Betty,  but in  a week it would be
Elizabeth  again: that  was  her effect  Languid, banana-boned, she had dour
black  hair and an  apathetic, at  moments saintly  face-in an enamel locket
worn around her  lily-stalk neck she preserved a miniature of her missionary
father. "Look, Elizabeth,  isn't  that a  becoming hat  Miss  Dolly has  on?
Velvet, with a veil."
     Dolly roused  herself;  she patted  her head. "I  don't  generally wear
hats-we intended to travel."
     "We  heard you'd left home," said Maude; and, proceeding more  frankly;
"In  fact  that's all anyone  talks about,  isnt  it, Elizabeth?"  Elizabeth
nodded without  enthusiasm. "Gracious, there are some peculiar stories going
around. I  mean, on  the way here  we met  Gus Ham and he  said that colored
woman Catherine Crook (is that her name?) had been arrested for hitting Mrs.
Buster with a mason jar."
     In sloping tones. Dolly said, "Catherine-had nothing to do with it."
     "I  guess  someone did,"  said Maude. "We saw Mrs.  Buster in  the post
office  this morning; she was showing everybody  a  bump  on her head, quite
large. It looked genuine  to us, didn't it Elizabeth?" Elizabeth yawned. "To
be sure, I don't care who hit her, I think they ought to get a medal"
     "No,"  sighed  Dolly, "it isn't  proper, it shouldn't have happened. We
all will have a lot to be sorry for."
     At  last  Maude took account  of me. "I've  been  wanting to  see  you,
Collin," she said  hurrying as though to hide  an embarrassment:  mine,  not
hers. "Elizabeth and I are planning a Halloween party, a real scary one, and
we thought it would be grand  to dress you in a skeleton suit and sit you in
a dark room to tell people's fortunes: because you're so good at..."
     "Fibbing," said Elizabeth disinterestedly.
     "Which is what fortune-telling is," Maude elaborated.
     I don't know what gave  them the idea I was  such a storyteller, unless
it  was at school I'd shown a superior talent  for alibis. I said it sounded
fine, the  party. "But you better not count  on me.  We might be in  jail by
then."
     "Oh well, in  that case," said Maude, as if accepting one of my old and
usual excuses for not coming to her house.
     "Say, Maude," said the Judge, helping us out of  the  silence that  had
fallen, "you're getting to be  a celebrity: I saw in the  paper where you're
going to play on the radio."
     As though dreaming aloud, she explained the broadcast was the finals of
a state competition; if she won,  the prize was a musical scholarship at the
University: even second prize meant a half-scholarship. "I'm going to play a
piece  of daddy's, a serenade: he wrote it for me the  day  I was  born. But
it's a surprise, I don't want him to know."
     "Make her play it for you," said Elizabeth, unclasping her violin case.
     Maude  was generous,  she did not  have to be begged.  The wine-colored
violin, coddled under her chin, trilled as she tuned it; a brazen butterfly,
lighting on the bow, was spiraled away as the  bow swept across  the strings
singing a music that seemed a blizzard of  butterflies flying,  a sky-rocket
of spring sweet to hear  in the gnarled fall woods. It slowed, saddened, her
silver hair  drooped  across  the  violin. We applauded; after we'd  stopped
there went on sounding a mysterious extra pair of hands.  Riley stepped from
behind a  bank of fem, and  when she saw  him Maude's cheeks pinked. I don't
think she would have played so well if she'd known he was listening.
     Riley sent the girls home; they seemed  reluctant  to go, but Elizabeth
was not used to  disobeying her brother. "Lock the doors," he told her, "and
Maude, I'd  appreciate it if you'd spend the  night  at  our place:  anybody
comes by asking for me, say you don't know where I am."
     I had  to  help him into the tree,  for he'd brought back his gun and a
knapsack  heavy with  provisions-a bottle of rose and raisin  wine, oranges,
sardines,  wieners,  rolls  from the  Katydid Bakery, a jumbo  box of animal
crackers: each item appearing stepped up our spirits, and Dolly, overcome by
the animal crackers, said Riley ought to have a kiss.
     But it was with grave face that we listened to his report.
     When we'd separated in  the woods it was toward  the sound of Catherine
that he'd run. This  had brought him to the grass: he'd been watching when I
had my encounter with  Big Eddie Stover. I said well why didn't you help me?
"You were doing all right; I  don't figure Big Eddie's liable to forget  you
too soon: poor fellow limped along  doubled over." Besides,  it occurred  to
him  that no one knew he was one of us, that he'd Joined us in the  tree: he
was  right to  have  stayed hidden, it made  it possible for  him  to follow
Catherine  and   the  deputies  into  town.  They'd  stuffed  her  into  the
rumble-seat of Big  Eddie's  old  coupe  and  driven straight to jail: Riley
trailed them in his car. "By the time we reached the jail she seemed to have
got quieted  down; there  was a little crowd  hanging around, lads, some old
farmers-you  would  have  been proud of Catherine, she  walked through  them
holding her dress together and her head like  this." He tilted his head at a
royal angle. How  often I'd seen Catherine do that,  especially  when anyone
criticized  her  (for  hiding puzzle  pieces, spreading misinformation,  not
having  her teeth fixed);  and Dolly, recognizing  it too,  had to  blow her
nose. "But," said Riley, "as soon as she  was inside the  jail she kicked up
another fuss." In the jail there  are only four cells,  two  for colored and
two for  white.  Catherine had objected to being  put  in a colored people's
cell.
     The Judge stroked his chin, waved his head. "You didn't get a chance to
speak to  her? She ought to have  had the comfort of knowing  one of us  was
there."
     'I stood around hoping  she'd  come to the window. But then I heard the
other news."
     Thinking back, I don't see how  Riley could  have waited so bug to tell
us. Because, my God: our friend from  Chicago, that hateful Dr. Morris Ritz,
had skipped town  after rifling Verena's safe of twelve thousand  dollars in
negotiable  bonds and more than seven hundred dollars  in cash: that, as  we
later learned, was not half his loot. But wouldn't you know? I realized this
was  what  baby-voiced Will Harris  had  been recounting to the Sheriff:  no
wonder Verena had  sent a hurry call: her troubles with us must have  become
quite a  side issue. Riley had a few  details:  he  knew  that  Verena, upon
discovering the safe door swung open  (this happened in the  office she kept
above her drygoods  store) had whirled  around the  comer to the Lola Hotel,
there  to find that  Morris Ritz  had checked out  the previous evening: she
fainted: when they-revived her she fainted all over again.
     Dolly's soft face  hollowed; an urge to go to Verena was rising, at the
same  moment  some sense of self, a deeper  will, held  her. Regretfully she
gazed at  me. "It's  better you know  it now,  Collin; you shouldn't have to
wait until you're as old as I am: the world is a bad place."
     A change, like a shift of  wind, overcame  the Judge: he looked at once
his  age, autumnal, bare,  as though  he  believed  that Dolly, by accepting
wickedness,  had forsaken  him. But I  knew  she  had not: he'd called her a
spirit, she  was  really  a woman. Uncorking the rose and raisin wine, Riley
spilled its topaz color into four glasses; after a moment he filled a fifth,
Catherine's. The Judge, raising the wine to his lips, proposed  a toast: "To
Catherine,  give her trust."  We  lifted our glasses, and "Oh Collin,"  said
Dolly,  a sudden stark thought widening her eyes, "you and I, we're the only
ones that can understand a word she says!"

        Five

     The following day, which was the first of October,  a Wednesday, is one
day I won't forget.
     First off, Riley  woke me by  stepping on my  fingers.  Dolly,  already
awake, insisted I  apologize for cursing  him.  Courtesy,  she said, is more
important  in the morning than  at any other time:  particularly when one is
living in such close quarters.  The  Judge's  watch, still bending  the twig
like a heavy gold apple, gave the time as six after  six. I don't know whose
idea  it was, but  we breakfasted on oranges  and animal crackers  and  cold
hotdogs. The  Judge grouched that a body didn't feel  human till  he'd had a
pot of  hot coffee. We agreed that coffee was what we all most missed. Riley
volunteered to drive into town and get some; also, he would have a chance to
scout  around, find out  what was going  on. He  suggested I come with  him:
"Nobody's going to  see him, not if he stays down in the seat." Although the
Judge objected, saying he thought it foolhardy. Dolly could tell I wanted to
go: I'd yearned so much  for a ride in Riley's car that  now the opportunity
presented itself nothing, even  the prospect that no one might see me, could
have thinned my excitement. Dolly said, "I can't  see there's  any harm. But
you ought to have a clean shirt: I could plant turnips in the collar of that
one."
     The  field  of grass was  without  voice,  no pheasant  rustle, furtive
flurry; the  pointed leaves were sharp and blood-red as the aftermath arrows
of  a massacre; their brittieness  broke beneath our feet as we waded up the
hill  into the cemetery. The view  from  there is very  fine: the  limitless
trembling  surface  of  River  Woods,  fifty  unfolding miles  of  ploughed,
wind-milled farmland, far-off the spired courthouse tower, smoking  chimneys
of town. I stopped by  the graves of my mother  and father. I had not  often
visited  them,  it  depressed me,  the  tomb-cold  stone-so  unlike  what  I
remembered of them, their  aliveness, how she'd  cried when he went  away to
sell his frigid-aires,  how he'd run naked into the street. I wanted flowers
for  the terracotta jars sitting empty on the streaked  and muddied  marble.
Riley helped me; he tore beginning buds off a japonica tree, and watching me
arrange them, said: "I'm glad your ma  was nice.  Bitches, by and large."  I
wondered if he meant his  own mother, poor Rose  Henderson, who used to make
him hop around (he yard reciting the  multiplication  table. It did  seem to
me, though, that he'd  made up for those hard days. After all, he  had a car
that was supposed  to  have  cost  three thousand dollars. Second-hand, mind
you. It  was a foreign  car,  an Alfa-Romeo roadster (Romeo's Alfa, the joke
was)  he'd  bought   in  New   Orleans  from  a  politician  bound  for  the
penitentiary.
     As  we  purred along the unpaved road toward town I kept hoping  for  a
witness: there were certain persons it would have done my heart good to have
seen me sailing by in Riley  Hen-derson's  car.  But  it  was  too early for
anyone much to be  about; breakfast was still on the stove, and smoke soared
out the chimneys of passing houses. We turned the comer by the church, drove
around  the  square and parked  in the dirt lane  that runs between Cooper's
Livery and the Katydid Bakery. There Riley left me  with orders to stay put:
he wouldn't be more than an hour. So, stretching out on the seat, I listened
to the chicanery  of  thieving  sparrows in the livery  stable's  haystacks,
breathed the fresh bread, tart  as currant odors escaping  from the  bakery.
The couple who owned this bakery, County was their name,  Mr. and Mrs. C. C.
County, had  to begin  their  day at  three in the morning to  be  ready  by
opening time, eight o'clock. It  was a clean prosperous place.  Mrs.  County
could afford the most expensive clothes at Verena's drygoods store. While  I
lay  there smelling  the good things, the back door of the bakery opened and
Mr. County,  broom in  hand, swept flour dust into the lane. I guess he  was
surprised to see Riley's car, and surprised to find me in it.
     "What you up to. Coffin?"
     "Up to nothing, Mr. County," I said,  and asked myself if he knew about
our trouble.
     "Sure  am  happy October's here,"  he  said, rubbing the  air with  his
fingers as though the  chill woven into it was a material he could feel. "We
have a terrible time in the summer: ovens and  all make it  too hot to live.
See  here, son, there's a gingerbread man waiting for you-come on in and run
him down."
     Now he was not the  kind of man  to  get  me in there and then call the
Sheriff.
     His wife welcomed  me into the spiced  heat of the  oven room as though
she could think of nothing pleasanter than my being there. Most anyone would
have  liked  Mrs.  County.  A chunky woman with no fuss about her,  she  had
elephant  ankles,  developed arms, a muscular face permanently fire-flushed;
her eyes were  like  blue cake-icing, her hair looked as if she'd mopped  it
around in a  flour barrel, and she wore an apron that trailed to the tips of
her toes. Her husband also wore one; sometimes, with the fulsome apron still
tied around him,  I'd seen him crossing  the street to have a  time-off beer
with the men that lean around the comer at Phil's  Cafe: he seemed a painted
clown, flopping, powdered, elegantly angular.
     Clearing a place on her work table, Mrs. County set me down to a cup of
coffee  and  a warm  tray of  cinnamon  rolls, the kind Dolly relished.  Mr.
County suggested I might prefer  something else: "I promised him, what did I
promise? a gingerbread man." His wife socked a lump of dough: "Those are for
kids. He's a grown man; or nearly. Collin, just how old are you?"
     "Sixteen."
     "Same as Samuel," she said, meaning  her son, whom  we all called Mule:
inasmuch as he was not much brighter than one. I asked what was  their  news
of him? because  the  previous autumn,  after having  been left back in  the
eighth grade three years running. Mule had  gone to Pensacola and joined the
Navy. "He's in Panama, last we heard," she said, flattening the dough into a
piecrust.  "We don't hear often.  I wrote him once,  I  said  Samuel  you do
better about writing home or  I'm going to write the President  exactly  how
old  you are.  Because you  know he joined  up under false  pretenses. I was
darned  mad  at the time-blamed Mr. Hand up at  the schoolhouse: that's  why
Samuel  did  it, he just couldn't  tolerate always being left behind in  the
eighth grade, him getting so tall and  the other children so little. But now
I can see Mr. Hand was right: it wouldn't be fair to the rest of you boys if
they promoted Samuel when he didn't do his  work proper. So  maybe it turned
out for the best. C. C., show Collin the picture."
     Photographed against a background of palms and  real sea, four smirking
sailors  stood with  their arms linked together; underneath was written. God
Bless Mom and Pop, Samuel. It rankled me. Mule, off seeing the world,  while
I, well, maybe  I deserved a gingerbread man. As I returned the pic