n, sometimes the richer roly-poly,
redolent of cinnamon and spice, a confection prized to this day, openly
by the young, secretly by the old. Nor did Lewis receive her with empty
hands. One day a monster guava, kept cool under moist leaves, greeted
her eyes; the next, a brimming hatful of the tart imbu. If fruit failed,
there was some wondrous toy of fingered clay or carved wood, or,
perhaps, merely a glimpse of some furry little animal drawn to Lewis's
knee by the power of vast stillness.

Lewis could not have told what it was he felt for Natalie. She was not
beautiful, as children of the world go. Her little nose was saddled with
freckles. Her eyes were brown, with a tinge of gold, but they were too
big for her pale face. She was thin and lanky. Her hair, which matched
the color of her eyes, might have been beautiful, but hair done in hard,
tight braids has no chance to show itself. Lewis only knew that even
when most grave Natalie's note was a note of joy--the only note of joy
in all Nadir. To hear her cry, panting from her haste, "What is it
to-day, Lew? A guava? O, Lew, what a _beauty_!" was ample reward for the
longest search.

But there were days when Lewis and his goats were too far afield for
Natalie to come. On those days Lewis carried with him sometimes a book,
but more often a lump of clay, wrapped in a wet cloth. He would capture
some frolicking kid and handle him for an hour, gently, but deeply,
seeking out bone and muscle with his thin, nervous fingers. Then he
would mold a tiny and clumsy image of the kid in clay. No sooner was it
done than idleness would pall upon him. Back would go the clay into the
wet cloth, to be kneaded into a shapeless mass from which a new creation
might spring forth, a full-grown goat, his pony, any live thing upon
which he could first lay his hands.

Even so, those days were long. The books he had read many, many times.
Sometimes the clay would turn brittle under the morning sun, sometimes
his fingers forgot what cunning they had, sometimes black thought fell
upon him and held him till he felt a vague despair. He stood within the
threshold of manhood. Who was he? What was life? Was this life?

About him men married and begat children, goats begat goats, cattle
begat cattle, one day begat another. Lewis sat with hands locked about
his knees and stared across the low hills out into the wide plain. "The
Bible is wrong," he breathed to himself. "The world will never, never
end.