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By Root 8704 0

foolishness. Any man who wasn't on his job next time the whistle blew was fired and would have to get a move on and remember that the State of Pennsylvania had vagrancy laws. When the whistle blew again everybody went back to work except Ben and Nick. They walked off down the road with their bundles. Nick had tears in his eyes and was saying, "Too much gentle, too much patient. . . we do not know our strength yet." That night they found a brokendown schoolhouse a little off the road on a hil above a river. They'd bought some bread and peanut butter at a store and sat out in front eat-ing it and talking about what they'd do. By the time they'd finished eating it was dark. Ben had never been out in the country alone like that at night. The wind rustled the woods al around and the rapid river seethed down in the val ey. It was a chil y August night with a heavy dew. They didn't have any covering so Nick showed Ben how to take his jacket off and put it over his head and how to sleep against the wal to keep from getting sore lying on the bare boards. He'd hardly gotten to sleep when he woke up icycold and shaking. There was a window broken; he could see the frame and the jagged bits of glass against the cloudy moonlight. He lay back, musta been dreaming. Something banged on the roof and rol ed down the shin-gles over his head and dropped to the ground. "Hay, Ben, for chrissake wassat?" came Nick's voice in a hoarse whis-per. They both got up and stared out through the broken windowframe.

"That was busted before," said Nick. He walked over and opened the outside door. They both shivered in the chil y wind up the val ey that rustled the trees like rain, the river down below made a creaking grinding noise like a string of carts and wagons. A stone hit the roof above them and rol ed off. The next one went between their heads and hit the cracked plaster of the wal behind. Ben heard the click of the blade as

-429-Nick opened his pocketknife. He strained his eyes til the tears came but he couldn't make out anything but the leaves stirring in the wind.

"You come outa there . . . come up here . . . talk

. . . you son of a bitch," yel ed Nick.

There was no answer.

"What you think?" whispered Nick over his shoulder to Ben.

Ben didn't say anything; he was trying to keep his teeth from chattering. Nick pushed him back in and pul ed the door to. They piled the dusty benches against the door and blocked up the lower part of the window with boards out of the floor.

"Break in. I keel one of him anyhow," said Nick.

"You don't believe in speerits?"

"Naw, no such thing," said Ben. They sat down side by side on the floor with their backs to the cracked plaster and listened. Nick had put the knife down between them. He took Ben's fingers and made him feel the catch that held the blade steady. "Good knife. . . sailor knife," he whis-pered. Ben strained his ears. Only the spattering sound of the wind in the trees and the steady grind of the river. No more stones came.

Next morning they left the schoolhouse at first day. Neither of them had had any sleep. Ben's eyes were sting-ing. When the sun came up they found a man who was patching up a broken spring on a truck. They helped him jack it up with a block of wood and he gave them a lift into Scranton where they got jobs washing dishes in a hash joint run by a Greek.

. . . all fixed fastfrozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept

-430- away, all newformed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. . . . Pearldiving wasn't much to Ben's taste, so at the end of a couple of weeks, as he'd saved up the price of the ticket, he said he was going back home to see the old people. Nick stayed on because a girl in a candystore had fal en for him. Later he'd go up to Al entown, where a brother of his had a job in a steelmil and was making big money. The last thing he said when he went down and put Ben on the train for New York was, "Benny, you learn and study . . . be great man for workingclass and remember too much girls bad business."

Ben hated