"Oh," the second said. "There's a clock in the unitarial steeple. You can find out the time from that. Haven't you got a watch on that chain?"
"I broke it this morning." I showed them my watch. They examined it gravely.
"It's still running," the second said. "What does a watch like that cost?"
"It was a present," I said. "My father gave it to me when I graduated from high school."
"Are you a Canadian?" the third said. He had red hair.
"Canadian?"
"He dont talk like them," the second said. "I've heard them talk. He talks like they do in minstrel shows."
"Say," the third said. "Aint you afraid he'll hit you?"
"Hit me?"
"You said he talks like a colored man."
"Ah, dry up," the second said. "You can see the steeple when you get over that hill there."
I thanked them. "I hope you have good luck. Only dont catch that old fellow down there. He deserves to be let alone."
"Cant anybody catch that fish," the first said. They leaned on the rail, looking down into the water, the three poles like three slanting threads of yellow fire in the sun. I walked upon my shadow, tramping it into the dappled shade of trees again. The road curved, mounting away from the water. It crossed the hill, then descended winding, carrying the eye, the mind on ahead beneath a still green tunnel, and the square cupola above the trees and the round eye of the clock but far enough. I sat down at the roadside. The grass was ankle deep, myriad. The shadows on the road were as still as if they had been put there with a stencil, with slanting pencils of sunlight. But it was only a train, and after a while it died away beyond the trees, the long sound, and then I could hear my watch and the train dying away, as though it were running through another month or another summer somewhere, rushing away under the poised gull and all things rushing. Except Gerald. He would be sort of grand too, pulling in lonely state across the noon, rowing himself right out of noon, up the long bright air like an apotheosis, mounting into a drowsing infinity where only he and the gull, the one terrifically motionless, the other in a steady and measured pull and recover that partook of inertia itself, the world punily beneath their shadows on the sun. Caddy that blackguard that blackguard Caddy
Their voices came over the hill, and the three slender poles like balanced threads of running fire. They looked at me passing, not slowing.
"Well," I said. "I dont see him."
"We didn't try to catch him," the first said. "You cant catch that fish."
"There's the clock," the second said, pointing. "You can tell the time when you get a little closer."
"Yes," I said. "All right." I got up. "You all going to town?"
"We're going to the Eddy for chub," the first said.
"You cant catch anything at the Eddy," the second said.
"I guess you want to go to the mill, with a lot of fellows splashing and scaring all the fish away."
"You cant catch any fish at the Eddy."
"We wont catch none nowhere if we dont go on," the third said.
"I dont see why you keep on talking about the Eddy," the second said. "You cant catch anything there."
"You dont have to go," the first said. "You're not tied to me."
"Let's go to the mill and go swimming," the third said.
"I'm going to the Eddy and fish," the first said. "You can do as you please."
"Say, how long has it been since you heard of anybody catching a fish at the Eddy?" the second said to the third.
"Let's go to the mill and go swimming," the third said. The cupola sank slowly beyond the trees, with the round face of the clock far enough yet. We went on in the dappled shade. We came to an orchard, pink and white. It was full of bees; already we could hear them.
"Let's go to the mill and go swimming," the third said. A lane turned off beside the orchard. The third boy slowed and halted. The first went on, flecks of sunlight slipping along the pole across his shoulder and down the back of his shirt. "Come on," the third said. The second boy stopped too. Why must you marry somebody Caddy
Do you want me to say it do you think that if I say it it wont be
"Let's go up to the mill," he said. "Come on."
The first boy went on. His bare feet made no sound, falling softer than leaves in the thin dust. In the orchard the bees sounded like a wind getting up, a sound caught by a spell just under crescendo and sustained. The lane went along the wall, arched over, shattered with bloom, dissolving into trees. Sunlight slanted into it, sparse and eager. Yellow butterflies flickered along the shade like flecks of sun.
"What do you want to go to the Eddy for?" the second boy said. "You can fish at the mill if you want to."
"Ah, let him go," the third said. They looked after the first boy. Sunlight slid patchily across his walking shoulders, glinting along the pole like yellow ants.
"Kenny," the second said. Say it to Father will you I will am my fathers Progenitive I invented him created I him Say it to him it will not be for he will say I was not and then you and I since philoprogenitive
"Ah, come on," the third boy said. "They're already in." They looked after the first boy. "Yah," they said suddenly, "go on then, mamma's boy. If he goes swimming he'll get his head wet and then he'll get a licking." They turned into the lane and went on, the yellow butterflies slanting about them along the shade.
it is because there is nothing else I believe there is something else but there may not be and then I You will find that even injustice is scarcely worthy of what you believe yourself to be He paid me no attention, his jaw set in profile, his face turned a little away beneath his broken hat.
"Why dont you go swimming with them?" I said. that blackguard Caddy
Were you trying to pick a fight with him were you
A liar and a scoundrel Caddy was dropped from his club for cheating at cards got sent to Coventry caught cheating at midterm exams and expelled
Well what about it I'm not going to play cards with
"Do you like fishing better than swimming?" I said. The sound of the bees diminished, sustained yet, as though instead of sinking into silence, silence merely increased between us, as water rises. The road curved again and became a street between shady lawns with white houses. Caddy that blackguard can you think of Benjy and Father and do it not of me
What else can I think about what else have I thought about The boy turned from the street. He climbed a picket fence without looking back and crossed the lawn to a tree and laid the pole down and climbed into the fork of the tree and sat there, his back to the road and the dappled sun motionless at last upon his white shirt. else have I thought about I cant even cry I died last year I told you I had but I didn't know then what I meant I didn't know what I was saying Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar. Man the sum of his climatic experiences Father said. Man the sum of what have you. A problem in impure properties carried tediously to an unvarying niclass="underline" stalemate of dust and desire. but now I know I'm dead I tell you
Then why must you listen we can go away you and Benjy and me where nobody knows us where The buggy was drawn by a white horse, his feet cropping in the thin dust; spidery wheels chattering thin and dry, moving uphill beneath a rippling shawl of leaves. Elm. No: ellum. Ellum.
On what on your school money the money they sold the pasture for so you could go to Harvard dont you see you've got to finish now if you dont finish he'll have nothing
Sold the pasture His white shirt was motionless in the fork, in the flickering shade. The wheels were spidery. Beneath the sag of the buggy the hooves neatly rapid like the motions of a lady doing embroidery, diminishing without progress like a figure on a treadmill being drawn rapidly offstage. The street turned again. I could see the white cupola, the round stupid assertion of the clock. Sold the pasture