"Why can‘t you accept me and stop talking?" cried the boy. His hands completely shielded his face. "Don‘t doubt, please don‘t doubt me!" He turned and ran from the table.
"Tom, come back!"
But the boy ran off along the canal toward the distant town.
"Where‘s Tom going?" asked Anna, returning for more dishes. She looked at her husband’s face. "Did you say something to bother him?"
"Anna," he said, taking her hand. "Anna, do you remember anything about Green Lawn Park, a market, and Tom having pneumonia?"
"What are you talking about?" She laughed.
"Never mind," he said quietly.
In the distance the dust drifted down after Tom had run along the canal rim. At five in the afternoon, with the sunset, Tom returned. He looked doubtfully at his father. "Are you going to ask me anything?" he wanted to know.
"No questions," said LaFarge.
The boy smiled his white smile. "Swell."
"Where‘ve you been?"
"Near the town. I almost didn‘t come back. I was almost" -the boy sought for a word- "trapped."
"How do you mean ‘trapped’?"
"I passed a small tin house by the canal and I was almost made so I couldn‘t come back here ever again to see you. I don‘t know how to explain it to you, there‘s no way, I can‘t tell you, even I don‘t know; it‘s strange, I don‘t want to talk about it."
"We won‘t then. Better wash up, boy. Suppertime."