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By Root 4435 0

of the singletrees, unbuckled the harnesses and dragged them through the dust and boosted them, all he could lift, onto their pegs in the shed. When he came out, his father and Nellie were just disappearing inside the house. Mrs. Olpen was resting halfway up the hill, with her head down and her hand on her knee. Ollie took the oat pail and poured three equal heaps onto the ground. The mules and the mare bent their heads to the piles, nudging him out of the way. He watched Mrs. Olpen make it to the door and go in. The lightning cut a jagged gash in the clouds upriver, and after several seconds the thunder went rumbling away. A wind whirling down the opposite slope hit the river and roughened the slick water of the pool.

He felt lonely, small, and scared. He wished he could cross the bridge before the storm came on. What if his father should forget, and not come back for him? What if his mother was so sick he couldn't leave? Or dying? Abandoned on the wrong side, he could not cross because he had already been disobedient twice and knew he must be punished.

He had been waiting at the end of the bridge for a long time before his father came down the path and out onto the span without touching the rope, and pounded across as if the swaying planks were bedrock. Ollie stood up. "Is she all right?"

His father, in a hurry, took his hand. "I think so. I hope so."

"Is she crying?"

Now his father looked at him in a searching way, and the hurry went out of him. He let go Ollie's hand, leaned against the cliff, and filled his pipe. "She'll have to cry some more before it's over. But she'll be all right if that doctor will only get here."

There was a swarming smell of rain in the air, the sweet smell of tobacco, then the sulphur smell of a lucifer match, then smoke.

"Mrs. Olpen's dirty," Ollie said.

"She's a whole lot better than nothing. She's kind-hearted, at least."

They stood silent, Ollie as close to his father as he could stand without bumping into him. The north winked brightly, winked again before the first flash had been wiped from his eyeballs. Thunder crashed loud, then louder, then began to roll. Full of his feelings, which included a sense of sin, Ollie stood in the drift of pipe smoke and instead of looking at his father, looked at the river, where heavy drops, un-felt in the shadow of the cliff, were dimpling the water.

His father's hand came heavily down on his shoulder. He froze. Now it was coming. He accepted it, he knew it was deserved. The fingers squeezed hard on the bones. His father said, "Ollie, you did something."

"Yes, sir."

"You did something very grown up. Nobody could have done better."

Ollie's eyes flew up to his father's face. The face looked down at him seriously. The hand was so heavy on his shoulder that he had to brace himself to stand straight under it. As if testing the resistance it invoked, the hand left the shoulder and fitted itself around the back of Ollie's neck. The fingers closed clear around his throat under his chin. "You're all right, my friend," his father said. "You know that?"

As if impatiently, he let go, though Ollie would willingly have stood there all evening with that hand on him. "We'd better get back before we get wet."

Uncertainly Ollie offered his hand, to be led across, but his father looked down at him with his eyes narrowed and said, "You came across by yourself when you went for John and Mrs. Olpen, is that right?"

Was it coming now? First praise and then punishment? "Yes, sir."

"Have any trouble?"

"No, sir."

"Scare you, after this afternoon?"

"No, sir. A little."

"Did you think about this afternoon? Did you think you might be punished?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you'd done it for any reason than getting help for Mother, I'd have to punish you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Your mother doesn't know, and we won't tell her. It would only worry her when she shouldn't be worried. Now do you want to go back by yourself?"

The look they exchanged was like a promise. "Yes, sir."

His father motioned him onto the bridge, stepped out of the way to