vement. His mind was quick,
but it could not reason further without a basis for logic, a system
of reference, learned data from which further data could be inferred.
There was uneasiness in him, but no warning of danger; only a stirring
of memory that tried to rise to the conscious level. Wonderingly he
prodded the memory a little, as an inquisitive child pokes at a
slow-burning firecracker or a wary pup approaches its first cat. Like
the sharp crack of a squib, the quick spit of a cat, the memory erupted
and flung him back on his mental heels.

He felt a sensation that he knew was death though he had no name for
it, and his immature defenses sprang into action, tried in vain to block
the memory, to thrust Death back into its Pandora's Box. He impeded the
flood by an infinitesimal fraction of a second, and then full awareness
came and with it an understanding of the terrible thing that had
happened, the thing that he?--yes, _he_ had done.

The fledgling identity of "me" and "not me" sank forever into
submergence, never to rise again.

III

When he was almost four, Timmy spoke his first words. He said clearly
and matter-of-factly, "I want that one, Helen."

His mother's mouth slowly opened while her face turned gray with shock.
The buckling of her knees in cataplexy forced her to sit down heavily
on a kitchen chair not cushioned for such descents, but she was hardly
aware of it. Timmy, seated on the kitchen floor and surrounded by
half-grown pups owned by a neighbor, screwed his head around to glance
at her impatiently over his shoulder.

"I want that one," he repeated confidently, and pointed to the most
ill-proportioned of an ill-conceived litter of mongrels. Helen raised
shaking hands to her face, and screamed.

The quick scrape of a chair in the living room and the sound of hasty
footsteps glissading on the throw-rug in the hall heralded the approach
of Timmy's father. The doorway filled with flexing muscles that flexed
in vain, but somewhat at a disadvantage by the strictly static tableaux.
Helen sat at the table, her staring eyes fixed on the child who looked
back in blank astonishment. Even the pups were motionless, having
cowered in alarm at Helen's scream.

"What's the matter?" Timmy's father asked.

His voice was a spur rudely galvanizing her into action, into an awkward
convulsion that landed her on her knees beside Timmy. She gripped his
little shoulders with fierce intensity and almost gla