ke it?
Like what?
Going out in the street like that when he is dead.
Out in the street like what?
Showing off to people because he is dead.
He wants me to get along with them.
So I tell them he is dead and they look up to me, they don’t tease me.
Showing off because he’s dead, that’s all you can show off about. Any other thing they’d tease me and I wouldn’t fight back.
How would your daddy like it?
But he likes me to get along with them. That’s why I-went out-showed off.
He felt so uneasy, deep inside his stomach, that he could not think about it any more. He wished he hadn’t done it. He wished he could go back and not do anything of the kind. He wished his father could know about it and tell him that yes he was bad but it was all right he didn’t mean to be bad. He was glad his father didn’t know because if his father knew he would think even worse of him than ever. But if his father’s soul was around, always, watching over them, then he knew. And that was worst of anything because there was no way to hide from a soul, and no way to talk to it, either. He just knows, and it couldn’t say anything to him, and he couldn’t say anything to it. It couldn’t whip him either, but it could sit and look at him and be ashamed of him.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said aloud. “I didn’t mean to do bad.”
I wanted to show you my cap, he added, silently.
He looked at his father’s morsechair.
Not a mark on his body.
He still looked at the chair. With a sense of deep stealth and secrecy he finally went over and stood beside it. After a few
