The Man Child

in the village nearby, the church bells tolled reassuringly, but over their home loomed a foreboding cloud of disaster

The City is Like An Experienced Whore, night comes and goes in her, she is indifferent to his approach and is left unchanged at his departure--but for the countryside, it is a different matter. There night watches his opportunity, bides his time, is patient with the silly, upbraiding sun. He knows that she must go, even though her farewells at the western threshold are interminable. The countryside seems to shudder as the door at last closes behind the sun, leaving her alone with that lover who will never be denied. At this moment the countryside seems like a girl who cannot bear the idea of possession, who cannot live without being possessed. Night has been visiting the countryside these many ages, but she has never ceased to thrill at his approach. Only the city has found a way of dealing with the night, and this way is indifference; which is, perhaps, why night is so cruel in the city and so voluptuous in the fields. Yes, the sun goes down. One watches her, slow-moving, changing, superbly preparing for her mighty exit, at the very edge of the world. Having scolded, tortured and nourished the fields all day, she now gives her parting warning--which the fields, already anticipating night's long touch, seem not to heed. Then, abruptly, in the middle, as it were, of a sentence, the sun is gone. Gone--dropped in an instant below the farthest hill, the last field, the most distant tree. Gone; and where she was is a long, long silence. Then, night, coming on, lets fall his warrior's mantle, gray and blue and black, and hangs up on the walls of the world his overwhelming trophies; and falls on the countryside, his lover forever, in love and lust and endless whispering.

Night is like that in the country and in the small villages set here and there like hives, where lights go out in his honor, where windows are barred and all but the most mysteriously driven footfall stilled. Night is like that for the people who live there, who drive their cows home, put their children to bed. for the sandman is coming! and turn, turn, turn, together or alone throughout the tumultuous darkness, whose power it has not occurred to them to challenge.

All children feel this power, and are frightened by it; they have, but only yesterday, come shrieking out of darkness. Old men feel this power and, with what rage or terror or gladness no one knows, prepare themselves to keep the appointment made so long ago by the absolutely faithful true lover of all the world. For children, who. alone among the living, do not know that the night has made an appointment with them, too, the night is simply the kingdom of evil, of crimes unnamed, unnamable, of spirits roaming the earth for vengeance, taking the shapes of trees, of rocks, taking the sounds of birds, of crickets, sometimes taking the shapes and sounds of men.

As the sun began preparing for her exit, and he sensed the waiting night, Eric, blond and eight years old and dirty and tired, started homeward across the fields. Eric lived with his father, who was a farmer and the son of a farmer, and his mother, who had been captured by his father on some far-off, unblessed, unbelievable night, who had never since burst her chains. She did not know that she was chained any more than she knew that she lived in terror of the night. One child was in the churchyard, it would have been Eric's little sister and her name would have been Sophie: for a long time, then, his mother had been very sick and pale. It was said that she would never, really, be better, that she would never again be as she had been. Then, not long ago, there had begun to be a pounding in his mother's belly. Eric had sometimes been able to hear it when he lay against her breast. His father had been pleased. I did that, said his father, big. laughing, dreadful and red, and Eric knew how it was done, he had seen the horses and the blind and dreadful bulls. But then, again, his mother had been sick, she had had to be sent away, and when she came back the pounding was not there anymore, nothing was there anymore. His father laughed less. something in his mother's face seemed to have gone to sleep forever.

• • •

Eric hurried, for the sun was almost gone and he was afraid the night would catch him in the fields. And his mother would be angry. She did not really like him to go wandering off by himself. She would have forbidden it completely and kept Eric under her eye all day, but in this she was overruled: Eric's father liked to think of Eric as being curious about the world and as being daring enough to explore it, with his own eyes, by himself.

His father would not be at home. He would be gone with his friend, Jamie, who was also a farmer and the son of a farmer, down to the tavern. This tavern was called The Rafters. They went each night, as his father said, imitating an Englishman he had known during a war, to destruct The Rafters, sir. They had been destructing The Rafters long before Eric had kicked in his mother's belly, for Eric's father and Jamie had grown up together, gone to war together, and survived together--never. apparently, while life ran. were they to be divided. They worked in the fields all day together, the fields which belonged to Eric's father. Jamie had been forced to sell his farm, and it was Eric's father who had bought it.

Jamie had a brown-and-yellow dog. This dog was almost always with him; whenever Eric thought of Jamie, he thought also of the dog. They had always been there, they had always been together: in exactly the same way, for Eric, that his mother and father had always been together, in exactly the same way that the earth and the trees and the sky were together. Jamie and his dog walked the country roads together, Jamie walking slowly in the way of country people, seeming to see nothing, head slightly bent, feet striking surely and heavily the earth, never stumbling. He walked as though he were going to walk to the other end of the world and knew it was a long way but knew that he would be there by the morning. Sometimes he talked to his dog, head bent a little more than usual and turned to one side, a slight smile playing about the edges of his granite lips; and the dog's head snapped up. perhaps he leaped upon his master, who cuffed him down lightly, with one hand. More often he was silent. His head was carried in a cloud of blue smoke from his pipe. Through this cloud. like a ship on a foggy day, loomed his dry and steady face. Set far back, at an unapproachable angle, were those eyes of his, smoky and thoughtful, eyes which seemed always to be considering the horizon. He had the kind of eyes which no one had ever looked into--except Eric, only once. Jamie had been walking these roads and across these fields, whistling for his dog in the evenings as he turned away from Eric's house, for years, in silence. He had been married once, but his wife had run away. Now he lived alone in a wooden house and Eric's mother kept his clothes clean and Jamie always ate at Eric's house.

Eric had looked into Jamie's eyes on Jamie's birthday. They had had a party for him. Eric's mother had baked a cake and filled the house with flowers. The doors and windows of the great kitchen all stood open on the yard and the kitchen table was placed outside. The ground was not muddy as it was in winter. but hard, dry and light brown. The flowers his mother so loved and so labored for flamed in their narrow borders against the stone wall of the farmhouse: and green vines covered the gray stone wall at the far end of the yard. Beyond this wall were the fields and barns and Eric could see, quite far away. the cows nearly motionless in the bright-green pasture. It was a bright, hot, silent day, the sun did not seem to be moving at all.

This was before his mother had had to be sent away. Her belly had been beginning to grow big. she had been dressed in blue and had seemed--that day. to Eric--younger than she was ever to seem again.

Though it was still early when they were called to table, Eric's father and Jamie were already tipsy and came across the fields, shoulders touching, laughing and telling each other stories. To express disapproval and also, perhaps, because she had heard their stories before and was bored, Eric's mother was quite abrupt with them, barely saying. "Happy birthday, Jamie" before she made them sit down. In the nearby village, church bells rang as they began to eat.

It was perhaps because it was Jamie's birthday that Eric was held by something in Jamie's face. Jamie, of course, was very old. He was 34 today, even older than Eric's father, who was only 32. Eric wondered how it felt to have so many years and was suddenly, secretly glad that he was only eight. For today, Jamie looked old. It was perhaps the one additional year that had done it. this day, before their very eyes--a metamorphosis that made Eric rather shrink at the prospect of becoming nine. The skin of Jamie's face. which had never before seemed so. seemed wet today, and that rocky mouth of his was loose: loose was the word for everything about him. the way his arms and shoulders hung, the way he sprawled at the table, rocking slightly back and forth. It was not that he was drunk. Eric had seen him much drunker. Drunk, he became rigid, as though he imagined himself in the Army again. No. He was old. It had come upon him all at once, today. on his birthday. (continued on page 211) Man child (continued from page 102) He sat there, his hair in his eyes, eating, drinking, laughing now and again, and in a very strange way, and teasing the dog at his feet so that it sleepily growled and snapped all through the birthday dinner.

"Stop that," said Eric's father.

"Stop what?" asked Jamie.

"Let that stinking, useless dog alone. Let him be quiet."

"Leave the beast alone," said Eric's mother--very wearily, sounding as she often sounded when talking to Eric.

"Well, now," said Jamie, grinning, and looking first at Eric's father and then at Eric's mother, "it is my beast. And a man's got a right to do as he likes with whatever's his."

"That dog's got a right to bite you, too," said Eric's mother, shortly.

"This dog's not going to bite me," said Jamie, "he knows I'll shoot him if he does."

"That dog knows you're not going to shoot him." said Eric's father. "Then you would be all alone."

"All alone," said Jamie, and looked around the table. "All alone." He lowered his eyes to his plate.

Eric's father watched him. He said, "It's pretty serious to be all alone at your age." He smiled. "If I was you, I'd start thinking about it."

"I'm thinking about it," said Jamie. He began to grow red.

"No, you're not," said Eric's father, "you're dreaming about it."

"Well, goddamnit," said Jamie, even redder now, "it isn't as though I haven't tried!"

"Ah," said Eric's father, "that was a real dream, that was. I used to pick that up on the streets of town every Saturday night."

"Yes," said Jamie, "I bet you did."

"I didn't think she was as bad as all that," said Eric's mother, quietly. "I liked her. I was surprised when--she ran away."

"Jamie didn't know how to keep her," said Eric's father. He looked at Eric and chanted: "Jamie, Jamie, pumpkin-eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her!" At this, Jamie at last looked up, into the eyes of Eric's father. Eric laughed out of fear. Jamie said:

"Ah, yes, you can talk, you can."

"It's not my fault," said Eric's father, "if you're getting old--and haven't got anybody to bring you your slippers when night comes--and no pitter-patter of little feet---"

"Oh, leave Jamie alone," said Eric's mother, "he's not old, leave him alone."

Jamie laughed a peculiar, high, clicking laugh which Eric had never heard before, which he did not like, which made him want to look away and, at the same time, want to stare. "Hell, no," said Jamie, "I'm not old. I can still do all the things we used to do." He put his elbows on the table, grinning. "I haven't ever told you, have I, about the things we used to do?"

"No, you haven't," said Eric's mother, "and I certainly don't want to hear about them now."

"He wouldn't tell you anyway," said Eric's father, "he knows what I'd do to him if he did."

"Oh, sure," said Jamie, and laughed again. He picked up a bone from his plate. "Here," he said to Eric, "why don't you feed my poor mistreated dog?"

Eric took the bone and stood up, whistling for the dog, who moved away from his master and took the bone between his teeth. Jamie watched with a smile and opened the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink. Eric sat on the ground beside the dog, beginning to be sleepy in the bright, bright sun.

"Little Eric's getting big," he heard his father say.

"Yes," said Jamie, "they grow up fast. It won't be long now."

"Won't be long what?" he heard his father ask.

"Why, before he starts skirt-chasing like his daddy used to do," said Jamie. There was mild laughter at the table in which his mother did not join; he heard, instead, or thought he heard, the familiar, slight, exasperated intakes of her breath. No one seemed to care whether he came back to the table or not. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky, wondering--wondering what he would feel like when he was old--and fell asleep.

When he awoke, his head was in his mother's lap, for she was sitting on the ground. Jamie and his father were still sitting at the table; he knew this from their voices, for he did not open his eyes. He did not want to move or speak. He wanted to remain where he was, protected by his mother, while the bright day rolled on. Then he wondered about the uncut birthday cake. But he was sure, from the sound of Jamie's voice, which was thicker now, that they had not cut it yet; or if they had, they had certainly saved a piece for him.

"--ate himself just as full as he could and then fell asleep in the sun like a little animal," Jamie was saying, and the two men laughed. His father--though he scarcely ever got as drunk as Jamie did, and had often carried Jamie home from The Rafters--was a little drunk, too.

Eric felt his mother's hand on his hair. By opening his eyes very slightly, he could see, over the curve of his mother's thigh, as through a veil, a green slope far away, and beyond it the everlasting, motionless sky.

"--she was a no-good bitch," said Jamie.

"She was beautiful," said his mother, just above him.

Again, they were talking about Jamie's wife.

"Beauty!" said Jamie, furious. "Beauty doesn't keep a house clean. Beauty doesn't keep a bed warm, either."

Eric's father laughed. "You were so--poetical--in those days, Jamie," he said. "Nobody thought you cared much about things like that. I guess she thought you didn't care, neither."

"I cared," said Jamie, briefly.

"In fact," Eric's father continued, "I know she thought you didn't care."

"How do you know?" asked Jamie.

"She told me," Eric's father said.

"What do you mean," asked Jamie, "what do you mean she told you?"

"I mean just that. She told me."

Jamie was silent.

"In those days," Eric's father continued after a moment, "all you did was walk around the woods by yourself in the daytime and sit around The Rafters in the evenings with me."

"You two were always together then," said Eric's mother.

"Well," said Jamie, harshly, "at least that hasn't changed."

"Now, you know," said Eric's father, gently, "it's not the same. Now I got a wife and kid--and another one coming."

Eric's mother stroked his hair more gently, yet with something in her touch more urgent, too, and he knew she was thinking of the child who lay in the churchyard, who would have been his sister.

"Yes," said Jamie, "you really got it all fixed up, you did. You got it all--the wife, the kid, the house, and all the land."

"I didn't steal your farm from you. It wasn't my fault you lost it. I gave you a better price for it than anybody else would have done."

"I'm not blaming you. I know all the things I have to thank you for."

There was a short pause, broken, hesitantly, by Eric's mother. "What I don't understand," she said, "is why, when you went away to the city, you didn't stay away. You didn't really have anything to keep you here."

There was the sound of a drink being poured. Then, "No. I didn't have nothing--really--to keep me here. Just all the things I ever knew--all the things--all the things--I ever cared about."

"A man's not supposed to sit around and mope," said Eric's father, wrathfully, "for things that are over and dead and finished, things that can't ever begin again, that can't ever be the same again. That's what I mean when I say you're a dreamer--and if you hadn't kept on dreaming so long, you might not be alone now."

"Ah, well," said Jamie, mildly, and with a curious rush of affection in his voice, "I know you're the giant killer, the hunter, the lover--the real old Adam, that's you. I know you're going to cover the earth. I know the world depends on men like you."

"And you're damn right," said Eric's father, after an uneasy moment.

Around Eric's head there was a buzzing, a bee, perhaps, a bluefly, or a wasp. He hoped that his mother would see it and brush it away, but she did not move her hand. And he looked out again, through the veil of his eyelashes, at the slope and the sky, and then he saw that the sun had moved and that it would not be long now before it would be going.

"--just like you already," Jamie said.

"You think my little one's like me?" Eric knew that his father was smiling--he could almost feel his father's hands.

"Looks like you, walks like you, talks like you," said Jamie.

"And stubborn like you," said Eric's mother.

"Ah, yes," said Jamie, and sighed. "You married the stubbornest, most determined--most selfish--man I know."

"I didn't know you felt that way," said Eric's father. He was still smiling.

"I'd have warned you about him," Jamie added, laughing, "if there'd been time."

"Everyone who knows you feels that way," said Eric's mother, and Eric felt a sudden brief tightening of the muscle in her thigh.

"Oh, you," said Eric's father, "I know you feel that way, women like to feel that way, it makes them feel important. But," and he changed to the teasing tone he took so persistently with Jamie today. "I didn't know my fine friend, Jamie, here---"

It was odd how unwilling he was to open his eyes. Yet he felt the sun on him and knew that he wanted to rise from where he was before the sun went down. He did not understand what they were talking about this afternoon, these grownups he had known all his life; by keeping his eyes closed he kept their conversation far from him. And his mother's hand lay on his head like a blessing, like protection. And the buzzing had ceased, the bee, the bluefly or the wasp seemed to have flown away.

"--if it's a boy this time," his father said, "we'll name it after you."

"That's touching," said Jamie, "but that really won't do me--or the kid--a hell of a lot of good."

"Jamie can get married and have kids of his own any time he decides to," said Eric's mother.

"No," said his father, after a long pause, "Jamie's thought about it too long."

And, suddenly, he laughed and Eric sat up as his father slapped Jamie on the knee. At the touch, Jamie leaped up, shouting, spilling his drink and overturning his chair, and the dog beside Eric awoke and began to bark. For a moment, before Eric's unbelieving eyes, there was nothing in the yard but noise and flame.

His father rose slowly and stared at Jamie. "What's the matter with you?"

"What's the matter with me!" mimicked Jamie, "what's the matter with me? What the hell do you care what's the matter with me! What the hell have you been riding me for all day like this? What do you want? What do you want?"

"I want you to learn to hold your liquor, for one thing," said his father, coldly. The two men stared at each other. Jamie's face was red and ugly and tears stood in his eyes. The dog, at his legs, kept up a furious prancing and barking. Jamie bent down and, with one hand, with all his might, slapped his dog, which rolled over, howling, and ran away to hide itself under the shadows of the far gray wall.

Then Jamie stared again at Eric's father, trembling, and pushed his hair back from his eyes.

"You better pull yourself together," Eric's father said. And, to Eric's mother: "Get him some coffee. He'll be all right."

Jamie set his glass on the table and picked up the overturned chair. Eric's mother rose and went into the kitchen. Eric remained sitting on the ground, staring at the two men, his father and his father's best friend, who had become so unfamiliar. His father, with something in his face that Eric had never before seen there, a tenderness, a sorrow--or perhaps it was, after all, the look he sometimes wore when approaching a calf he was about to slaughter--looked down at Jamie where he sat, head bent, at the table. "You take things too hard," he said. "You always have. I was only teasing you for your own good."

Jamie did not answer. His father looked over to Eric, and smiled.

"Come on," he said. "You and me are going for a walk."

Eric, passing on the side of the table farthest from Jamie, went to his father and took his hand.

"Pull yourself together," his father said to Jamie. "We're going to cut your birthday cake as soon as me and the little one come back."

Eric and his father passed beyond the gray wall where the dog still whimpered, out into the fields. Eric's father was walking too fast and Eric stumbled on the uneven ground. When they had gone a little distance his father abruptly checked his pace and looked down at Eric, grinning.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I said we were going for a walk, not running to put out a fire."

"What's the matter with Jamie?" Eric asked.

"Oh," said his father, looking westward where the sun was moving, pale orange now, making the sky ring with brass and copper and gold--which, like a magician, she was presenting only to demonstrate how variously they could be transformed--"Oh," he repeated, "there's nothing wrong with Jamie. He's been drinking a lot," and he grinned down at Eric, "and he's been sitting in the sun--you know, his hair's not as thick as yours," and he ruffled Eric's hair, "and I guess birthdays make him nervous. Hell," he said, "they make me nervous, too."

"Jamie's very old," said Eric, "isn't he?"

His father laughed. "Well, Butch, he's not exactly ready to fall into the grave yet--he's going to be around awhile, is Jamie. Hey," he said, and looked down at Eric again, "you must think I'm an old man, too."

"Oh," said Eric, quickly, "I know you're not as old as Jamie."

His father laughed again. "Well, thank you, son. That shows real confidence. I'll try to live up to it."

They walked in silence for a while and then his father said, not looking at Eric, speaking to himself, it seemed, or to the air: "No, Jamie's not so old. He's not as old as he should be."

"How old should he be?" asked Eric.

"Why," said his father, "he ought to be his age," and, looking down at Eric's face, he burst into laughter again.

"Ah," he said, finally, and put his hand on Eric's head again, very gently, very sadly, "don't you worry now about what you don't understand. The time is coming when you'll have to worry--but that time hasn't come yet."

Then they walked till they came to the steep slope that led to the railroad tracks, down, down, far below them, where a small train seemed to be passing forever through the countryside, smoke, like the very definition of idleness, blowing out of the chimney stack of the toy locomotive. Eric thought, resentfully, that he scarcely ever saw a train pass when he came here alone. Beyond the railroad tracks was the river where they sometimes went swimming in the summer. The river was hidden from them now by the high bank where there were houses and where tall trees grew.

"And this," said his father, "is where your land ends."

"What?" said Eric.

His father squatted on the ground and put one hand on Eric's shoulder. "You know all the way we walked, from the house?" Eric nodded. "Well," said his father, "that's your land."

Eric looked back at the long way they had come, feeling his father watching him.

His father, with a pressure on his shoulder, made him turn; he pointed: "And over there. It belongs to you." He turned him again. "And that," he said. "that's yours, too."

Eric stared at his father. "Where does it end?" he asked.

His father rose. "I'll show you that another day," he said. "But it's farther than you can walk."

They started walking slowly, in the direction of the sun.

"When did it get to be mine?" asked Eric.

"The day you were born," his father said, and looked down at him and smiled.

"My father," he said, after a moment, "had some of this land--and when he died, it was mine. He held onto it for me. And I did my best with the land I had, and I got some more. I'm holding onto it for you."

He looked down to see if Eric was listening. Eric was listening, staring at his father and looking around him at the great countryside.

"When I get to be a real old man," said his father, "even older than old Jamie there--you're going to have to take care of all this. When I die it's going to be yours." He paused and stopped; Eric looked up at him. "When you get to be a big man, like your poppa, you're going to get married and have children. And all this is going to be theirs."

"And when they get married?" Eric prompted.

"All this will belong to their children," his father said.

"Forever?" cried Eric.

"Forever," said his father.

They turned and started walking toward the house.

"Jamie," Eric asked at last, "how much land has he got?"

"Jamie doesn't have any land," his father said.

"Why not?" asked Eric.

"He didn't take care of it," his father said, "and he lost it."

"Jamie doesn't have a wife anymore, either, does he?" Eric asked.

"No," said his father. "He didn't take care of her, either."

"And he doesn't have any little boy," said Eric--very sadly.

"No," said his father. Then he grinned. "But I have."

"Why doesn't Jamie have a little boy?" asked Eric.

His father shrugged. "Some people do, Eric, some people don't."

"Will I?" asked Eric.

"Will you what?" asked his father.

"Will I get married and have a little boy?"

His father seemed for a moment both amused and checked. He looked down at Eric with a strange, slow smile. "Of course you will," he said at last. "Of course you will," And he held out his arms, "Come," he said, "climb up. I'll ride you on my shoulders home."

So Eric rode on his father's shoulders through the wide green fields that belonged to him, into the yard which held the house that would hear the first cries of his children. His mother and Jamie sat at the table talking quietly in the silver sun. Jamie had washed his face and combed his hair, he seemed calmer, he was smiling.

"Ah." cried Jamie, "the lord, the master of this house arrives! And bears on his shoulders the prince, the son and heir!" He described a flourish, bowing low in the yard. "My lords! Behold your humble, most properly chastised servant, desirous of your--compassion, your love and your forgiveness!"

"Frankly," said Eric's father, putting Eric on the ground. "I'm not sure that this is an improvement." He looked at Jamie and frowned and grinned. "Let's cut the cake."

Eric stood with his mother in the kitchen while she lit the candles--35, one, as they said, to grow on, though Jamie, surely, was far past the growing age--and followed her as she took the cake outside. Jamie took the great, gleaming knife and held it with a smile.

"Happy birthday!" they cried--only Eric said nothing--and then Eric's mother said. "You have to blow out the candles, Jamie, before you cut the cake."

"It looks so pretty the way it is," Jamie said.

"Go ahead," said Eric's father, and clapped him on the back, "be a man."

Then the dog. once more beside his master, awoke, growling, and this made everybody laugh. Jamie laughed loudest. Then he blew out the candles, all of them at once, and Eric watched him as he cut the cake. Jamie raised his eyes and looked at Eric and it was at this moment, as the suddenly blood-red sun was striking the topmost, tips of trees, that Eric had looked into Jamie's eyes. Jamie smiled that strange smile of an old man and Eric moved closer to his mother.

"The first piece for Eric," said Jamie then, and extended it to him on the silver blade.

• • •

That had been near the end of summer, nearly two months ago. Very shortly after the birthday party, his mother had fallen ill and had had to be taken away. Then his father spent more time than ever at The Rafters; he and Jamie came home in the evenings stumbling drunk. Sometimes, during the time that Eric's mother was away, Jamie did not go home at all, but spent the night at the farmhouse; and once or twice Eric had awakened in the middle of the night, or near dawn, and heard Jamie's footsteps walking up and down, walking up and down, in the big room downstairs. It had been a strange and dreadful time, a time of waiting, stillness and silence. His father rarely went into the fields, scarcely raised himself to give orders to his farm hands--it was unnatural, it was frightening, to find him around the house all day, and Jamie was there always, Jamie and his dog. Then one day Eric's father told him that his mother was coming-home but that she would not be bringing him a baby brother or sister, not this time, nor in any time to come. He started to say something more, then looked at Jamie, who was standing by, and walked out of the house. Jamie followed him slowly, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. From the time of the birthday party, as though he were repenting of that outburst, or as though it had frightened him, Jamie had become more silent than ever.

When his mother came back she seemed to have grown older-old; she seemed to have shrunk within herself, away from them all, even, in a kind of storm of love and helplessness, away from Eric; but, oddly, and most particularly, away from Jamie. It was in nothing she said, nothing she did--or perhaps it was in everything she said and did. She washed and cooked for Jamie as before, took him into account as much as before as a part of the family, made him take second helpings at the table, smiled good night to him as he left the house--it was only that something had gone out of her familiarity. She seemed to do all that she did out of memory and from a great distance. And if something had gone out of her ease, something had come into it, too, a curiously still attention, as though she had been startled by some new aspect of something she had always known. Once or twice at the supper table, Eric caught her regard bent on Jamie, who, obliviously, ate. He could not read her look, but it reminded him of that moment at the birthday party when he had looked into Jamie's eyes. She seemed to be looking at Jamie as though she were wondering why she had not looked at him before; or as though she were discovering, with some surprise, that she had never really liked him but also felt, in her weariness and weakness, that it did not really matter now.

Now, as Eric entered the yard, he saw her standing in the kitchen doorway, looking out, shielding her eyes against the brilliant setting sun.

"Eric!" she cried, wrathfully. as soon as she saw him, "I've been looking high and low for you for the last hour. You're getting old enough to have some sense of responsibility and I wish you wouldn't worry me so when you know I've not been well."

She made him feel guilty at the same time that he dimly and resentfully felt that justice was not all on her side. She pulled him to her, turning his face up toward hers, roughly, with one hand.

"You're filthy," she said, then, "Go around to the pump and wash your face.

And hurry, so I can give you your supper and put you to bed."

And she turned and went into the kitchen, closing the door lightly behind her. He walked around to the other side of the house, to the pump.

On a wooden box next to the pump was a piece of soap and a damp rag. Eric picked up the soap, not thinking of his mother, but thinking of the day gone by, already half asleep: and thought of where he would go tomorrow. He moved the pump handle up and down and the water rushed out and wet his socks and shoes--this would make his mother angry, but he was too tired to care. Nevertheless, automatically, he moved back a little. He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water.

He had been many places, he had walked a long way and seen many things that day. He had gone down to the railroad tracks and walked beside the tracks for a while, hoping that a train would pass. He kept telling himself that he would give the train one more last chance to pass; and when he had given it a considerable number of last chances, he left the railroad bed and climbed a little and walked through the high, sweet meadows, He walked through a meadow where there were cows and they looked at him dully with their great dull eyes and mooed among each other about him. A man from the far end of the field saw him and shouted, but Eric could not tell whether it was someone who worked for his lather or not and so he turned and ran away, ducking through the wire fence. He passed an apple tree, with apples lying all over the ground--he wondered if the apples belonged to him, if he were still walking on his own land or had gone past it--but he ate an apple anyway and put some in his pockets, watching a lone brown horse in a meadow far below him nibbling at the grass and flicking his tail. Eric pretended that he was his father and was walking through the fields as he had seen his father walk, looking it all over calmly, pleased, knowing that everything he saw belonged to him. And he stopped and peed as he had seen his father do, standing wide-legged and heavy in the middle of the fields; he pretended at the same time to be smoking and talking, as he had seen his father do. Then, having watered the ground, he walked on, and all the earth, for that moment, in Eric's eyes, seemed to be celebrating Eric.

Tomorrow he would go away again, somewhere. For soon it would be winter, snow would cover the ground, he would not be able to wander off alone.

He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water; then he heard a low whistle behind him and felt a rough hand on his head and the soap fell from his hands and slithered between his legs onto the ground.

He turned and faced Jamie, Jamie without his dog.

"Come on, little fellow," Jamie whispered. "We got something in the barn to show you."

"Oh, did the calf come yet?" asked Eric--and was too pleased to wonder why Jamie whispered.

"Your poppa's there," said Jamie. And then: "Yes. Yes, the calf is coming now."

And he took Eric's hand and they crossed the yard, past the closed kitchen door, past the stone wall and across the field, into the barn.

"But this isn't where the cows are!" Eric cried. He suddenly looked up at Jamie, who closed the barn door behind them and looked down at Eric with a smile.

"No," said Jamie, "that's right. No cows here." And he leaned against the door as though his strength had left him. Eric saw that his face was wet, he breathed as though he had been running.

"Let's go see the cows." Eric whispered. Then he wondered why he was whispering and was terribly afraid. He stared at Jamie, who stared at him.

"In a minute," Jamie said, and stood up. He had put his hands in his pockets and now he brought them out and Eric stared at his hands and began to move away. He asked, "Where's my poppa?"

"Why," said Jamie, "he's down at The Rafters, I guess. I have to meet him there soon."

"I have to go," said Eric. "I have to eat my supper." He tried to move to the door, but Jamie did not move. "I have to go," he repeated, and, as Jamie moved toward him, the tight ball of terror in his bowels, in his throat, swelled and rose, exploded: he opened his mouth to scream, but Jamie's fingers closed around his throat. He stared, stared into Jamie's eyes.

"That won't do you any good," said Jamie. And he smiled. Eric struggled for breath, struggled with pain and fright. Jamie relaxed his grip a little and moved one hand and stroked Eric's tangled hair. Slowly, wondrously, his face changed, tears came into his eyes and rolled down his face.

Eric groaned--perhaps because he saw Jamie's tears or because his throat was so swollen and burning, because he could not catch his breath, because he was so frightened--he began to sob in great, unchildish gasps. "Why do you hate my father?"

"I love your father," Jamie said. But he was not listening to Eric. He was far away--as though he were struggling, toiling inwardly up a tall, tall mountain. And Eric struggled blindly, with all the force of his desire to live, to reach him, to stop him before he reached the summit.

"Jamie," Eric whispered, "you can have the land, You can have all the land."

Jamie spoke, but not to Eric: "I don't want the land."

"I'll be your little boy," said Eric. "I'll be your little boy forever and forever and forever--and you can have the land and you can live forever! Jamie!"

Jamie had stopped weeping. He was watching Eric.

"We'll go for a walk tomorrow," Eric said, "and I'll show it to you, all of it-- really and truly--if you kill my father I can be your little boy and we can have it all!"

"This land," said Jamie, "will belong to no one."

"Please!" cried Eric. "Oh, please! Please!"

He heard his mother singing in the kitchen. Soon she would come out to look for him. The hands left him for a moment. Eric opened his mouth to scream, but the hands then closed around his throat.

Momma. Momma.

The singing was farther and farther away. The eyes looked into his, there was a question in the eyes, the hands tightened. Then the month began to smile. He had never seen such a smile before. He kicked and kicked.

Momma. Momma. Momma. Momma.

Far away, he heard his mother call him.

Momma.

He saw nothing, he knew that he was in the barn, he heard a terrible breathing near him, he thought he heard the sniffing of beasts, he remembered the sun, the railroad tracks, the cows, the apples and the ground. He thought of tomorrow--he wanted to go away again somewhere tomorrow. I'll take you with me, he wanted to say. He wanted to argue the question, the question he remembered in the eyes--wanted to say, I'll tell my poppa you're hurting me. Then terror and agony and darkness overtook him, and his breath went violently out of him. He dropped on his lace in the straw in the barn, his yellow head useless on his broken neck.

Night covered the countryside and here and there, like emblems, the lights of houses glowed. A woman's voice called. "Eric! Eric!"

• • •

Jamie reached his wooden house and opened his door; whistled, and his dog came bounding out of darkness, leaping up on him: and he cuffed it down lightly, with one hand. Then he closed his door and started down the road, his dog beside him, his hands in his pockets. He stopped to light his pipe. He heard singing from The Rafters, then he saw the lights; soon, the lights and the sound of singing diminished behind him. When Jamie no longer heard the singing, he began to whistle the song he had heard.