The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [34]
Finishing their sodas, they returned toward Helen’s. They paused before the clapboard frame house of the O’Callaghans. It was set about twenty yards back from the sidewalk, with a well-kept lawn and a large oak in front. Studs and Helen wondered why people lived in such an old-fashioned house, especially when they were rich like the O’Callaghans were. They were stumped by this. Studs tried to think what the neighbor-hood had been like when Old Man O’Callaghan first settled there and built his house, cutting down trees and living alone just like a pioneer. It must have been like a forest. That must have been good except for the wind at night. Even now, when you lived in a brick house that was all burglar-locked, and there weren’t any trees for the wind to blow through, the wind at night was something you almost couldn’t stand to hear. What must it have been then? It must have sounded like a horde of ghosts rising from a rainy cemetery, or an army of devils and demons; and he didn’t know how Old Man O’Callaghan and his wife stood it. And what about the pioneers? The wind in the trees all around their houses must have sounded like Indians, and they must have jumped out of bed every five minutes and grabbed their guns. He would have liked to be a pioneer and go out to fight Indians and build log cabins. He would have had a swell time, pot-shotting Indians, rescuing girls like Lucy from them, and from smugglers and hold-ups. Or maybe he’d have been an outlaw like Jesse James. That would have been the real stuff, and no outlaw as tough as he would have been would have feared the wind. No, sir!
They played kicking goals between two lampposts. A punt passing over the goal line untouched was a point, and a drop kick was three. They were about even as kickers, and gave each other a good match, and they trusted each other and knew there was no cheating, so they could go ahead and play, not having any squabbles or having to talk and chew the rag a lot. It was swell for Studs to play, kicking, watching the ball soar up and away, and maybe fall in back of the goal line, knowing he had made the good kick and scored that point, or to make a drop kick, or to run back and pick one of Helen’s southpaw kicks out of the air. And just to go ahead playing, not bothering to talk or think of anything, except now and then to imagine that Lucy was in the window watching. They played a long time, and winded themselves; when they quit, Studs was leading thirty to twenty-five.
They sat on Helen’s front steps.
“You know, I always used to think I’d feel a little different when I graduated from grammar school, but here it’s a couple of weeks ago, and I don’t see any difference yet. Everything seems pretty much the same, and well. I don’t know. Here I am graduated, and I’m wearin’ short pants again, and got to listen to my old man the same as I did before I was graduated, and I come around, and everything and everybody’s the same, kidding the punks, playing chase-one-chase-all, and blue-myblackberry, and baby-in-the-hole, and all that sort of thing, just like before, and, well, in the fall I’ll have to go to high school, and, well, things are just not like I imagined they would be after I graduated.”
“I feel the same way,” Helen said.
“I feel the same; and it’s no different when you get confirmed. You are supposed to change, and something that’s a mystery called a character is stamped on your soul, that is, if you’re a Catholic; but you don’t really seem to change any. Anyway, I didn’t seem to,” Studs pondered.
“Well, I never got confirmation, but I think I know what you mean. But my father and mother, they don’t think so much of confirmation,” said Helen.
“Of course we’re taught different than you. We’re taught that you shouldn’t feel that way about the thing. You should believe in God and in the Church, and do