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By Root 2355 0

of facing Johnson again sickened him. The boy looked at him as if he were the guilty one, as if he were a moral leper. He knew without conceit that he was a good man, that he had nothing to reproach himself with. His feelings about Johnson now were involuntary. He would like to feel compassion for him. He would like to be able to help him. He longed for the time when there would be no one but himself and Norton in the house, when the child’s simple selfishness would be all he had to contend with, and his own loneliness.

He got up and took three serving dishes off the shelf and took them to the stove. Absently he began pouring the butterbeans and the hash into the dishes. When the food was on the table, he called them in.

They brought the book with them. Norton pushed his place setting around to the same side of the table as Johnson’s and moved his chair next to Johnson’s chair. They sat down and put the book between them. It was a black book with red edges.

“What’s that you’re reading?” Sheppard asked, sitting down.

“The Holy Bible,” Johnson said.

God give me strength, Sheppard said under his breath “We lifted it from a ten cent store,” Johnson said.

‘We?” Sheppard muttered. He turned and glared at Norton. The child’s face was bright and there was an excited sheen to his eyes. The change that had come over the boy struck him for the first time. He looked alert. He had on a blue plaid shirt and his eyes were a brighter blue than he had ever seen them before. There was a strange new life in him, the sign of new and more rugged vices. “So now you steal?” he said, glowering. “You haven’t learned to be generous but you have learned to steal.”

“No he ain’t,” Johnson said. “I was the one lifted it. He only watched. He can’t sully himself. It don’t make any difference about me. I’m going to hell anyway.”

Sheppard held his tongue.

“Unless,” Johnson said, “I repent.”

“Repent, Rufus,” Norton said in a pleading voice. “Repent, hear? You don’t want to go to hell.”

“Stop talking this nonsense,” Sheppard said, looking sharply at the child.

“If I do repent, I’ll be a preacher,” Johnson said. “If you’re going to do it, it’s no sense in doing it half way.”

“What are you going to be, Norton,” Sheppard asked in a brittle voice, “a preacher too?”

There was a glitter of wild pleasure in the child’s eyes.

“A space man!” he shouted.

“Wonderful,” Sheppard said bitterly.

“Those space ships ain’t going to do you any good unless you believe in Jesus,” Johnson said. He wet his finger and began to leaf through the pages of the Bible. “I’ll read you where it says so,” he said.

Sheppard leaned forward and said in a low furious voice, “Put that Bible up, Rufus, and eat your dinner.”

Johnson continued searching for the passage.

Put that Bible up! ” Sheppard shouted.

The boy stopped and looked up. His expression was startled but pleased.

“That book is something for you to hide behind,” Sheppard said. “It’s for cowards, people who are afraid to stand on their own feet and figure things out for themselves.”

Johnson’s eyes snapped. He backed his chair a little way from the table. “Satan has you in his power,” he said. “Not only me. You too.”

Sheppard reached across the table to grab the book but Johnson snatched it and put it in his lap.

Sheppard laughed. “You don’t believe in that book and you know you don’t believe in itl”

“I believe it!” Johnson said. “You don’t know what I believe and what I don’t.”

Sheppard shook his head. “You don’t believe it. You’re too intelligent.”

“I ain’t too intelligent,” the boy muttered. “You don’t know nothing about me. Even if I didn’t believe it, it would still be true.”

“You don’t believe it!” Sheppard said. His face was a taunt.

“I believe it!” Johnson said breathlessly. “I’ll show you I believe it! ” He opened the book in his lap and tore out a page of it and thrust it into his mouth. He fixed his eyes on Sheppard. His jaws worked furiously and the paper crackled as he chewed it.

“Stop this,” Sheppard said in a dry, burnt-out voice. “Stop it.”

The boy raised the Bible and tore out a page with