But mostly he followed the Revolution; he moved in the sounds and shadowing of boys, and more often than not, his tongue slickly protruding in a smile, he wore a hand, like a white hat, moving, on his head....

THE RIVER THAT WENT TO THE SEA

EVERY NIGHT AFTER kissing mother, mashing her warm sweet hugeness into his small arms, and rubbing the abrasive cheek of father, so full of the odor of tobacco and machinery, he would run to the bathroom and stand enchanted with the secret note in his hand, poised, ready to send it on its way. And the note would read, “Dear Mermaid, I am Tom Spaulding and I live at 11 South Saint James in Green Town, Illinois and—”

Then he would press the toilet handle. The clear cool waters would gush with a throttling roar down the tile throat. At the very last moment, he would drop his secret note into the vanishing river. The waters would cease flowing. All would be quiet. The note was gone. He would stand for a moment thinking, It’s going on down to the sea, now, way on down to the sea. And then he would go to bed. I wonder if she’s reading it now, he thought, lying there. I wonder if she is.

OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER!

IN CHILDHOOD HE saw the yellow rubber ball flung over the topmost slats of the house, pause against the Illinois summer sky and come dribbling down the opposite side, while the children sang.

“Over, over, over! Over, Annie, over!”

Sometimes it sounded like a person calling a dog.

“Rover, rover, rover!” they cried. “Rover, any Rover?”

On the moist green lawn at seven in the evening when the distant clatter of dishes told of mother cleansing them in the house, as shadows were spread like carpets for them to sit on, they began to play the game.

“Pick a word?” asked Hilda, flopping her buttery coils of hair. “Umm.” She squinched her nose until the freckles were lost. “How about ‘storm’?”

The seven other children digested the word. They looked at each other with questions in their shadowsy eyes. “Yes,” someone said. “Yes,” everyone agreed. “Let’s try storm.”

“Storm, storm, storm, storm, storm, storm!” they cried. “Storm, storm, storm, storm, storm, storm, storm, storm, storm!”

Then they stopped abruptly, withheld their mirth a moment and one of them said, “What does that mean? Storm? Is it a word? It sounds so queer. That isn’t a word at all!”

THE RPOJECTOR

HE HAD THIS small motion picture projector hidden in his head and when he went to bed at night he ran films from the time the lights went out until his eyes closed and he could no longer see the oblong on the wall full of witches and castles and monsters and misty seas. He ran the films every night for years and nobody knew how talented he was. He never told a soul about his magnificent ability. It was better that way.

THE PEOPLE WITH SEVEN ARMS

“IT CAME LATE,” said Grandfather. “For Tom. It started early for you and it’s still going on. Discovering things, looking at things, smelling, sniffing, tasting things. Hearing things. It should never stop. It stops for most people, but they shouldn’t let it. Don’t let it. Keep it up all your life. I do. I do keep it up every day. Like with the lawn, and the dandelion wine. See, hear, feel, touch, smell, know, and you love. Put out your hands. God gave you seven. Your two regular ones, plus nose, mouth, eyes, ears, skin.

“When you stop knowing you stop loving and when you stop loving you’re not living, and when you’re not living, Douglas boy, you might as well be dead.”

A SERIOUS DISCUSSION (or EVIL IN THE WORLD)

“DOUGLAS,” SAID GRANDFATHER, “You must Iearn as soon as possible the difference between the real world and the world the way you would like it. The difference between the way some people teach us the world is, and the way it happens to be. For only then will you know what to expect, boy. You will see the world clear. And you won’t be a cynic, a man with a bunch of dreams still lying around in the back of the mind, that turns him sour on everything. And you won’t be a skeptic, either, really. I don’t even know if there’s a name for it, boy. You’ll just be someone that looks at the world straight off and sees it. You can even enjoy the duplicity of man, somehow. By recognizing that evil is natural to man, you should be able to cope with it better.”

THE FIREFLIES

“FIREFLIES NEVER QUITE make it back,” said Grandfather, on the bottom front porch stair.

“Make it back where?”

“My father used to say they were stars got shaken loose. On summer nights, he said, God cleaned his furnace, shook it down. Coals dropping everywhere. Run out and pick up a few, he’d say. I’d run. Come back, a light in each hand.”

“I’ll catch some,” said Douglas.

“Thanks.”

Douglas moved like a breath. There was darkness and stars in the heavens and stars on the lawn.

“They don’t even burn!”

“No. Gentle now.”

“They’ve gone out!”

“Startled.”

The fireflies were transferred to Grandfather’s cupped hands. Later, they lit up again.

“I wish I could glow like that.”

“Why, boy, you do. We all do, at times. Poets say love burns with a pure light. Here’s proof. Anything as beautiful as this must be important.”

“I don’t light up like that.”

“Saw you looking at your mother yesterday. In a dark room, bet I could read a book by your face.”

“Aw.”

“Yes, sir!” Grandfather held up the fireflies. “Better let them get back to brightening the corner where they are.” He opened his hand. They lit the air softly, flying away. “Yes, sir, love is a wonderful thing.”

“We go out in the lobby and eat popcorn or go to the toilet until it’s over, matinees.”

“You’ve got yourself an argument.”

“It’s pretty silly, some Saturdays.”

“You ever see Grandma and me on the movie screen down there?”

“Heck, no.”

“Ever seen your mother, father, yourself, your brother on that screen?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m afraid you never will. Or any of your friends or aunts or uncles, or the boarders here. On the day when the Elite theatre starts showing Grandma and me and your mother and father and all the other relatives and boarders, tell me, I’ll come down with you. We’ll stay until midnight and they sweep us out with the popcorn. In the meantime, Douglas, you keep right on marching to the restroom when things get silly on the screen. You’ve got good common sense in that head. Everybody knows love isn’t like that.”

“Charlie Henwood says he sure hopes not.”

“Maybe you’re wondering what it is, then? It’s what I said; it’s you and me and Grandma and all our children and the children of uncles and cousins, and all the boarders here. It’s how we all feel about each other most of the time, subtract the fights and meanness. Simple as that. It’s trying to live peaceably in an un-peaceable world. It’s Grandma baking a pumpkin pie and me whittling you a hickory whistle. It’s you sitting here right now listening very politely. And you and your brother going to sleep winter nights and warming your feet, one on the other. It’s your mother worrying when your father works late, and there may have been an accident. It’s all of us laughing at the dinner table. It’s Neva playing for us to sing in the parlor. It’s sitting here on the porch nights, or a game of checkers in the fall, inside. It’s so darned many things I can’t tell them all. But it’s a miracle if you find them on that silver screen downtown Saturday matinees. Almost as hard to find in the evening shows. Once a year maybe I see Grandma on the screen, or myself, or someone I know. The rest of the time it might as well be a bunch of rabbits hitting each other on the head with clubs, for all I understand the shows. Do you know why they put those kissing scenes in films? They can’t think of anything to say that means anything. It’s the trademark of an empty man. When they show you that sort of thing, Douglas, you just stroll right out of the theatre and stand on the nearest street-corner. You’ll see more real love in the popcorn man’s cat and her kittens than you’ll ever buy for a dime at the show. Don’t let it fool you. The kiss is just the first note of the first bar, played by a piccolo. What follows is either a symphony or a riot, everyone trying to get out the door.”