"
"A bad lot," said the first voice as they moved away.
Dan sat rigid with his back to the telegraph pole, his feet in the
gutter, his mouth fallen open, staring dully ahead of him. Then suddenly
he reached blindly for a rock, and staggered to his feet, but the figures
had disappeared in the darkness. He sat down again, while his breath came
in short, hard gasps. It was a lie! His mother was not bad! He knew she
was good. He wanted to shriek it to the world. But even as he
passionately defended her to himself, fears assailed him.
Why had they always lived so differently from other people? Why was he
never allowed to ask questions or to answer them or to know where his
mother went or how they got their living? What were the parcels she
always kept locked up in the trunk in the closet? Events, little heeded
at the time of occurrence, began to fall into place, making a hideous and
convincing pattern. Dim memories of men stole out of the past and threw
distorted shadows on his troubled brain. There was Bob who had once given
him a quarter, and Uncle Dick who always came after he was in bed, and
Newt--his neck stiffened suddenly. Newt, whom his mother used always to
be talking about, and whose name he had not heard now for so long that he
had almost forgotten it. Skeeter Newson--Newt--"The Lewis Woman." He saw
it all in a blinding flash, and in that awful moment of realization he
passed out of his childhood and entered man's estate.
Choking back his sobs, he fled from the scene of his disgrace.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84