ar now?"

"I don't care," said Tommy.

An hour later they came out of the woods together and started for the
house, old Frank strolling along pleasantly behind them. Joe's hair was
wet and plastered down over his face like an Indian's; Tommy's was also
wet under the white cloth hat. They had done more than look at fish;
they had gone in with them.

Tommy walked close to Joe: he had learned many thrilling facts, among
them that Joe lived in Greenville and had run away. This he had found
out, not all at once, but in fragments, while they splashed water over
one another, and later while they sat on the shaded bank of the creek.

Somebody had "beat Joe up--see!" Joe had exhibited a welt on his
shoulder and another on his leg in proof of the assertion. It seems that
previous to this Joe had swiped some bananas from the fruit stand of one
Tony, and that, previous to that, Joe had been hungry--"Hung'y as hell"
was Joe's way of putting it--a way that commended itself to Tommy at
once as being extremely picturesque. In fact, even while Joe talked he
kept on saying it over and over in his mind, so fine was the phrase and
so expansive.

There had been a "cop" in the story. Tommy did not know what a cop was
until Joe told him. "Dam ol' cop" was the phrase, to be exact. The cop
had chased him, then Joe had run away. It seemed that he didn't stop
running for a long time. There was also the driver of a motor truck in
the story, Mike by name. Mike drove the truck that carried an oil tank
from the city to a town. Mike had given him a lift; Mike often did that.
When they got out in the country here, Joe had asked Mike to let him
down--he wanted to get some blackberries. Mike had said he would pick
Joe up on the way back.

Such was the thriller Tommy had listened to. It hadn't come easy, this
story, but only after repeated questions. Now and then, while he was
telling it, Joe had looked at Tommy with a wry, wise grin, as if sizing
him up. He was little, and he couldn't talk plainly, but he seemed old
somehow. We live in deeds, not in years, as the poet says.

Joe was still grinning when they came into the back yard. He had held
back a time or two, as if he were afraid of that big house on the hill,
but Tommy had over-persuaded him. There wasn't anybody at home, he had
declared, but there were biscuits and jam in the kitchen.

Halfway between the barn lot and the house they were confronted by Aunt
Cindy. She was an enormous black