A mosquito was in the room, and its needlelike whine so disturbed Olive that she forgot why she was keeping Wally's room in darkness; she turned on the lights to hunt for the mosquito. Wouldn't there be terrible mosquitoes where Wally was? The Burmese mosquitoes were speckled (and much larger than the Maine variety).

Ray Kendall was also alone, but he was only mildly bothered by the mosquitoes. It was a still night, and Ray watched the silent heat lightning violate the blackout conditions along the coast. He was worried about {490} Candy. Raymond Kendall knew how someone else's death could arrest your own life, and he regretted (in advance) how the forward motion of Candy's life might be halted by her losing Wally. 'If it was me,' Ray said aloud, Td take the other fella.'

'The other fella,' Ray knew, was more like Ray; it wasn't that Ray preferred Homer Wells to Wally-it was that Ray understood Homer better. Yet Ray did not disrupt a single snail while he sat on his dock; he knew that it took a snail too long to get where it was going.

'Every time you throw a snail off the dock,' Ray teased Homer Wells, 'you're making someone start his whole life over.'

'Maybe I'm doing him a favor,' said Homer Wells, the orphan. Ray had to admit that he liked that boy.

The heat lightning was less spectacular from the cider house roof-the sea was not visible even in the brightest flashes. Yet the lightning was more disquieting there; both its distance and its silence reminded Candy and Homer Wells of a war they could not feel or hear. For them, it was a war of far-off flashes.

'I think he's alive,' Candy said to Homer. When they sat together on the roof, they held hands.

'I think he's dead,' said Homer Wells. That was when they both saw the lights go on in Wally's room.

That night in August, the trees were full, the boughs bent and heavy, and the apples-all but the bright, waxy-green Gravensteins-were a pale green-going-topink. The grass in the rows between the trees was knee-high; there would be one more mowing before the harvest. That night there was an owl hooting from the orchard called Cock Hill; Candy and Homer also heard a fox bark from the orchard called Frying Pan.

'Foxes can climb trees,' said Homer Wells.

'No, they can't,' Candy said.

'Apple trees, anyway,' Homer said. 'Wally told me.'

'He's alive,' Candy whispered.

In the flash of heat lightning that illuminated her face, {491} Homer saw her tears sparkle; her face was wet and salty when he kissed her. It was a trembling, awkward proposition -kissing on the cider house roof.

'I love you,' said Homer Wells.

'I love you, too,' Candy said. 'But he's alive.'

'He isn't,'Homer said.

'I love him,' Candy said.

'I know you do,' said Homer Wells. 'I love him, too.'

Candy lowered her shoulder and put her head against Homer's chest so that he couldn't kiss her; he held her with one arm while his other hand strayed to her breast, where it stayed.

'This is so hard,' she whispered, but she let his hand stay where it was. There were those distant flashes of light, out to sea, and a warm breeze so faint it barely stirred the apple leaves or Candy's hair.

Olive, in Wally's room, followed the mosquito from a lampshade (against which she was unable to strike it) to a spot on the white wall above Homer's bed. When she mashed the mosquito with the heel of her hand, the dime-sized spot of blood left on the wall surprised her-the filthy little creature had been gorging itself. Olive wet her index finger and dabbed at the blood spot, which only made the mess worse. Angry at herself, she got up from Homer's bed, unnecessarily smoothing his untouched pillow; she smoothed Wally's untouched pillow, too; then she turned off the night-table lamp. She paused in the doorway of the empty room to look things over, and turned off the overhead light.

Homer Wells held Candy around her hips-to help her off the roof. They must have known it was precarious to kiss on top of the cider house; it was more dangerous for them on the ground. They were standing together, arms loosely around each other's waists-his chin touching her forehead (she was shaking her head, No, No, but just a little)-when they both became aware that the lights from Wally's room were out. They leaned against each other as they walked to the cider house, the {492} tall grass clutching at their legs.

They were careful not to let the screen door bang. Who could have heard it? They preferred the darkness; because they did not reach for the light switch in the kitchen, they never came in contact with the cider house rules that were tacked next to it. Only the palest flashes of the heat lightning showed them the way to the sleeping quarters, where the twin rows of iron beds stood with their harsh springs exposed-the old mattresses rolled in Army barracks fashion at the foot of each bed. They unrolled one.

It was a bed that had held many transients. The history of the dreams encountered upon that bed was rich. The small moan that caught in the back of Candy's throat was soft and difficult to hear above the iron screeching of the bed's rusted springs; the moan was as delicate in that fermented air as the fluttery touch of Candy's hands, lighting like butterflies upon Homer's shoulders, before he felt her hands grip him hard-her fingers sinking in as she held him tight. The moan that escaped her then was sharper than the grinding bed springs and nearly as loud as Homer's own sound. Oh, this boy whose crying had once been a legend upriver in Three Mile Falls- oh, how he could sound!

Olive Worthington, rigid in her bed, listened to what she thought was an owl on Cock Hill. What is it hooting about? she thought. She thought of anything that would distract her from her vision of the mosquitoes in the jungles of Burma.

Mrs. Grogan lay wide awake, momentarily frightened for her soul; the good woman had absolutely nothing to fear. It was an owl she heard-it made such a mournful sound.

Wilbur Larch, who seemed always to be wide awake, passed his skillful, careful fingers across the keyboard of the typewriter in Nurse Angela's office. 'Oh please, Mr. President,' he wrote.

Young Steerforth, who suffered allergies to dust and to {493} mold, found the night oppressive; it seemed to him that he couldn't breathe. He was lazy about getting out of bed, and therefore blew his nose on his pillowcase. Nurse Edna rushed to him at the sound of such thick and troubled trumpeting. Although Steerforth's allergies were not severe, the last orphan who was allergic to dust and mold was Fuzzy Stone.

'You have done so much good, already,' Wilbur Larch wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt. 'And your voice on the radio gives me hope. As a member of the medical profession, I am aware of the insidiousness of the disease you have personally triumphed over. After you, anyone who holds your office will be ashamed if he fails to serve the poor and the neglected-or should be ashamed…'

Ray Kendall, stretched out upon his dock as if the sea had cast him up there, could not make himself get up, go inside, and go to bed. It was rare for the coastal air to be so torpid; the air was simply air-as-usual at St. Cloud's.

'I saw a picture of you and your wife-you were attending a church service. I think it was Episcopal,' wrote Wilbur Larch to the President. 'I don't know what they tell you in that church about abortion, but here is something you should know. Thirty-five to forty-five percent of our country's population growth can be attributed to unplanned, unwanted births. Couples who are well-to-do usually want their babies; only seventeen percent of the babies born to well-to-do parents are unwanted. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE POOR? Fortytwo percent of the babies born to parents living in poverty are unwanted. Mr. President, that is almost half. And these are not the times of Ben Franklin, who (as you probably know) was so keen to increase the population. It has been the goal of your administration to find enough things for the present population to do, and to better provide for the present population. Those who plead for the lives of the unborn should consider the lives of the living. Mr Roosevelt-you, of all people!-you {494} should know that the unborn are not as wretched or as in need of our assistance as the born! Please take pity on the born!'