The Children by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

plate.”
    â€œAwright:”
    â€œPoor, hurt, tiny one.”
    He gulped his food down. He wanted to be out. He wanted to go downstairs, to tell Marie what a wonderful thing he had done.
    I WONDER just how much one thing is related to another. If I had not fallen from the roof, would I have ever had Marie?
    Now I am happy and tired; I have escaped a beating. And outside the sun is still shining. I have only to gulp down my food to be out there in the sunshine.

NINE

    M ARIE, TOSSING HER HEAD, FLINGING HER YELLOW HAIR from side to side, paraded back and forth in front of her house. Now and then, she stopped to regard an outthrust leg, cocking her head from one side to another, and her movement was full of instinctive coquetry and grace. Oh, she knew what she was about, and she said to herself that if Ishky were going to be such a fool—well, she would waste only a minute or two more upon him.
    Ishky sat on his stoop, rolling an immie from one hand to another, watching it flash and sparkle as it twisted through the air. If Ishky had an accomplishment, it was the ability to concentrate upon one thing to the exclusion of all else—apparently. And now, to the rest of the world, it seemed that he was concentrating all his powers upon the immie. There was nothing else but the immie, which, for all of him, might he one of the rarest of jewels. Did anyone think otherwise?
    Thomas Edison came toward him cautiously, with a good deal of awe. Thomas Edison rolled his moon face and looked at the immie.
    â€œHey, Ishky.”
    Immie from hand to hand—immie from hand to hand.
    â€œHey, Ishky!”
    Marie said to herself, “Huh, anyone could do it. Jumping off a roof! As if there were anything to that!”
    â€œHey Ishky.”
    Ishky thought, “Marie is across the street. Then is she watching me? But who else, if not me? Will she come over here?”
    â€œHey, Ishky!”
    He glanced up. “Whaddya wan’?”
    â€œYou ain’ saw?”
    â€œNaw, I ain’ saw.”
    â€œWasya hurt?”
    â€œGotta liddle cut.”
    â€œGeesus!”
    â€œYeah.”
    Thomas Edison stood there hesitatingly, and Ishky went on rolling his immie from hand to hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Marie had stopped her walking. She was staring at him now. Did that mean she would come over?
    â€œC’n I sit by yuh, Ishky?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Thomas Edison sat down by him, still staring at the immie. The more he stared, the more magic there appeared to be in the immie; and he hoped Ishky would not chase him away.
    And now Marie, facing gingerly toward Ishky, stepped into the gutter. Slowly, she came toward Ishky, ruffling out her dress. Ah, how beautiful she was—all everlasting and wonderful beauty. That is what Ishky thought.
    â€œAw, Ishky!” she cried.
    He glanced up at her, glanced down quickly then at his immie, and with that Marie felt herself burning up inside.
    â€œDirdy liddle louse—sittin’ wid a halfwit!” she screamed.
    Ishky paid no attention, but Thomas Edison screamed back, “Go screw, youh wop!”
    â€œLousy mick!”
    â€œGo screw!”
    â€œStinkin’ lousy” mick!”
    Thomas Edison rose to his feet. He hated girls. They were like roaches and bedbugs, put in the world for no other purpose than that of creating misery, and most of their jabs were directed at him. He knew that he was a halfwit, and most of the time he accepted the fate with a good deal of complacency. Sometimes, he was even proud of it. But girls never made him proud of it.
    Now he knew what he would do with her. He would smear her clean dress with mud from the gutter, and he would smear the mud on her face too. And he would laugh while she screamed and clawed.
    She stood waiting for him. “Lousy mick!”
    â€œYuh’d better run.”
    â€œDoncha touch me.”
    Then Ishky put a stop to what might have followed. “Ledda