a separate piece disc three chapter six piece had deserted Devon although not in the look of the campus and village they retained much of their dreaming summer come fall had barely touched the full splendor of the trees and during the height of the day the Sun briefly regained its summertime power in the air there was only an edge of coolness to imply to coming winter but all had been caught up like the first fallen leaves by a new and energetic wind the summer session a few dozen boys being force-fed education a stopgap while most of the Masters were away and most of the traditions stored against sultriness the summer session was over it had been the school's first but this was its 160 third winter session and the forces reassembled for it scattered the easygoing summer spirit like so many fallen leaves the Masters were in their places for the first Chapel seated in stalls in front of and at right angles to us suggesting by their worn expressions and careless postures that they had never been away at all in an apse of the church sat their wives and children the objects during the tedious winter months of our ceaseless ritual speculation why did he ever marry her what in the world ever made her marry him how could the two of them ever have produced those little monsters the Masters favored seersucker on this mild first day the wives broke out their hats five of the younger teachers were missing gone into the war mr. Pike had come in his naval ensign z' uniform some reflux must have survived Midshipmen school and brought him back to Devon for the day his face was as mild and hopeless as ever mooning above the snappy rigid blouse it gave him the air of an impostor continuity was the key note the same hymns were played the same sermon the same announcements made there was one surprise maids had disappeared for the duration a new phrase then but continuity was stressed not beginning again but continuing the education of young men according to the unbroken traditions of Devon I knew perhaps I alone knew that this was false Devon had slipped through their fingers during the warm overlooked months the traditions had been broken the standards let down all rules forgotten in those bright days of truancy we had never thought of what we owed Devon as the sermon this opening day exhorted us to do we had thought of ourselves of what Devon owed us and we'd taken all of that and much more today's him was dear Lord and father of mankind forgive our foolish ways we had never heard that during the summer either ours had been away word gypsy music leading us down all kinds of foolish gypsy ways Unforgiven I was glad of it I had almost caught the rhythm of it the dancing clicking jangle of it during the summer still it had come to an end in the last long rays of daylight at the tree when Phineas fell it was forced on me as I sat chilled through the chapel service that this probably vindicated the rules of Devon after all wintry Devon if you broke the rules then they broke you that I think was the real point of the sermon on this first morning after the service ended we set out 700 strong the regular winter throng of the Devon school to hustle through our lists of appointments all classrooms were crowded swarms were on the crosswalks the torment or ease were as noisy as factories every bulletin board was a forest of notices we'd been an idiosyncratic leaderless band in the summer undirected except by the eccentric notions of Phineas now the official class leaders and politicians could be seen taking charge assuming as a matter of course their control of these walks and fields which had belonged only to us I had the same room which Finney and I had shared during the summer but across the hall in the large suite where leper lepellier had dreamed his way through July and August amid sunshine and dust motes and windows through which the ivy had reached tentatively into the room here Brinker Hadley had established his headquarters emissaries were already dropping in to confer with him leper luckless in his last year as all the others had been moved to a room lost in an old building off somewhere in the trees toward the gym after morning classes and lunch I went across to see Brinker started into the room and then stopped suddenly I didn't want to see the trays of snails which leper had passed the summer collecting replaced by Brinker's files not yet although it was something to have this year's dominant student across the way ordinarily he should have been a magnet for me the center of all the excitement and influences in the class ordinarily this would have been so if the summer the Gypsy days had not intervened now Brinker with his steady wit and ceaseless plans Brinker had nothing to offer in place of lepers dust motes and creeping ivy and snails I didn't go in in any case I was late for my afternoon appointment I never used to be late but today I was later even then I had to be I was supposed to report to the CRU house down on the banks of the lower river there are two rivers at Devon divided by a small dam on my way I stopped on the footbridge which crosses the top of the dam separating them and looked upstream at the narrow little devon river sliding toward me between its thick fringe of pine and birch as i had to do whenever i glimpsed this river i thought of phineas not of the tree and pain but of one of his favorite tricks finneus in exaltation balancing on one foot on the prow of a canoe like a river god his raised arms invoking the air to support him face transfigured body a complex set of balances and compensation each muscle aligned in perfection with all the others to maintain this supreme fantasy of achievement his skin glowing from immersions his whole body hanging between river and sky as though he had transcended gravity and might by gently pushing upward with his foot glide a little way higher and remained suspended in space encompassing all the glory of the summer and offering it to the sky then an infinitesimal veering of the canoe and the line of his body would break the soaring arms collapse up shoot an uncontrollable leg and Phineas would tumble into the water roaring with rage I stopped in the middle of this hurrying day to remember him like that and then feeling refreshed I went on to the crew house beside the Tidewater River below the dam we had never used this lower River the NAG WOM set during the summer it was ugly saline fringed with Marsh mud and seaweed a few miles away it was joined to the ocean so that its movements were governed by unimaginable factors like the Gulf Stream the polar ice cap in the moon it was nothing like the freshwater devon above the dam where we'd had so much fun all the summer the Devon's course was determined by some familiar Hills a little inland it rose among Highland farms and forests which we knew passed at the end of its course through the school grounds and then through itself with little spectacle over a small waterfall beside the diving dam and into the turbid Nawabs at the Devon school was astride these two rivers at the crew house Quackenbush in the midst of some milling oarsmen in the damp main room spotted me the instant I came in with his dark expressionless eyes Quackenbush was the crew manager and there was something wrong about him I didn't know exactly what it was in the throng of the winter terms at Devon we were at opposite extremities of the class and to me there only came the disliked edge of Quackenbush his reputation a clue to it was that his first name was never used I didn't even know what it was and he had no nickname not even an unfriendly one late Forester he said in his already matured voice he was a firmly masculine type perhaps he was disliked only because he had matured before the rest of us yeah sorry I got held up the crew waits for no man he didn't seem to think this was a funny thing to say I did and had to chuckle well if you think it's all a joke I didn't say it was a joke I've got to have some real help around here this crew is going to win the New England scholastics or my name isn't cliff Quackenbush with that blank filled I took up my duties as assistant senior crew manager there is no such position officially but it sometimes came into existence through necessity and was the opposite of a sign of cure it was all work and no advantages the official assistant to the crew manager was a member of the class below and the following year he could come into the senior manager ship with its rights and status an assistant who was already a senior ranked nowhere since I had applied for such a nonentity of a job Quackenbush who had known as little about me as I had about him knew now get some towels he said without looking at me pointing out a door how many who knows get some as many as you can carry that won't be too many jobs like mine were usually taken by boys with some physical disability since everyone had to take part in sports and this was all disabled boys could do as I walked toward the door I suppose that Quackenbush was studying me to see if he could detect a limp but I knew that his flat black eyes would never detect my trouble Quackenbush felt mellower by the end of the afternoon as we stood on the float in front of the crew house gathering up towels you never rode did you he opened the conversation like that without pause of question mark his voice sounded almost too mature as though we were putting it on a little he sounded as though he were speaking through a tube no I never did I wrote on the lightweight crew for two years he had a tough Bantam body easily detectable under the tight sweatshirt he wore I wrestle in the winter he went on what are you doing in the winter I don't know managed something else you're a senior aren't you he knew that I was a senior yeah starting a little late to manage teams aren't you am i damn right you are he put indignant conviction into this pouncing on the first sprig of assertiveness in me well it doesn't matter yes it matters I don't think it does go to hell Forrester who the hell are you anyway I turned with an inward groan to look at him Quackenbush wasn't gonna let me just do the work for him like the automaton I wish to be we were going to have to be pitted against each other it was easy enough now to see why for Quackenbush had been systematically disliked since he first set foot in devon with careless disinterested insults coming at him from the beginning voting for and applauding the class leaders through years of attaining nothing he wanted for himself I didn't want to add to his humiliations I even sympathized with his trembling goaded egotism he could no longer contain the furious arrogance which sprang out now at the mere hint of opposition from someone he had at last found whom he could consider inferior to himself I realized that all this explained him and it wasn't the words he said which angered me it was only that he was so ignorant that he knew nothing of the Gypsy summer nothing of the loss which I was fighting to endure of skylarks and splashes and petal bearing breezes he hadn't seen lepers snails or the Charter of the super suicide Society he shared nothing new nothing felt nothing as phineas had done you Quackenbush don't know anything about Who I am that launched me and I had to go on and say or anything else listen you maimed son of a I hit him hard across the face I didn't know why for an instant it was almost as though I were maimed then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me Quackenbush had clamped his arm in some kind of tight wrestling grip around my neck and I was glad in this moment not to be a I reached over grasped the back of his sweatshirt wrenched and it came away in my hand I tried to throw him off he lunged at the same time and we catapulted into the water the dousing extinguished Quackenbush his rage and he let go of me I scrambled back onto the float still seared by what he had said the next time you call anybody maimed I bit off the words harshly so he would understand all of them you better make sure they are first get out of here Forrester he said bitterly from the water you're not wanted around here Forrester get out of here I fought that battle that first skirmish of a long campaign for Finny until the back of my hand cracked against Quackenbush his face I'd never pictured myself in the role of thinnies defender and I didn't suppose that he would have thanked me for it now he was too loyal to anything connected with himself his roommate his dormitory his class his school outward in vastly expanded circles of loyalty until I couldn't imagine who would be excluded but it didn't feel exactly as though I had done it for Phineas it felt as though I had done it for myself if so I had little profit the show as I struggled back toward the dormitory dripping wet with the job I had wanted gone temper gone mind circling over and over through the whole soured afternoon I knew now that it was fall all right I could feel it pressing clam away against my wet clothes and unfriendly discomforting breath in the air an edge of wintry chill air that shriveled soon to put out the lights on the countryside one of my legs wouldn't stop trembling whether from cold or anger I couldn't tell I wished I'd hit him harder someone was coming toward me along the bent broken lane which led to the dormitory a lane out of old London ancient houses on either side leaning as though soon to tumble into it cobblestones heaving underfoot like a brick Dover ocean squall a figure of great height advanced down them toward me it could only be mr. Lud's Bree no one else could pass over these stones with such contempt for the idea of tripping the houses on either side were inhabited by I didn't know who wispy fragile old ladies seemed most likely I couldn't talk into any one of them there were angles and bumps and bends everywhere but none big enough to conceal me mr. Lud's burry loomed on like a high masted clipper ship in this rocking passage and I tried to go stealthily by him on my watery squeaking sneakers just one moment for a stir if you please mr. Leeds buries voice was bass British and his Adam's apples seemed to move as much as his mouth when he spoke has there been a cloud burst in your part of town no sir I'm sorry sir I fell into the river I apologized by instinct to him for this mishap which discomforted only me and could you tell me how and why you fell into the river I slipped yes after a pause he went on I think you've slipped in any number of ways since last year I understand for example that there was gaming in my dormitory this summer while you were living there he was in charge of the dormitory one of the dispensations of those days of deliverance I realised now had been his absence Gaming what kind of gaming sir cards dice he shook his long hand dismissing Lee I didn't inquire it didn't matter there won't be any more of it I don't know who that would have been Knights of blackjack and poker and unpredictable games invented by Phineas rose up in my mind the backroom of lepers sweet a lamp hung with a blanket so that only a small blazing circle of light fell sharply amid the surrounding darkness Phineas losing even in those games he invented betting always for what should win for what would have been the most brilliant successes of all if only the cards hadn't betrayed him Finny finally betting his icebox and losing it that contraption to me I thought of it because mr. loves Barry was just then saying and while I'm putting the dormitory back together I'd better tell you to get rid of that leaking icebox nothing like that is ever permitted in the dormitory of course I noticed that everything went straight to seed during the summer and that none of you old boys who knew our standards so much has lifted a finger to help mr. Prudhomme maintain order as a substitute for the summer he couldn't have been expected to know everything there was to be known at once you old boys simply took advantage of the situation I stood there shaking in my wet sneakers if only I'd truly taken advantage of this situation seized and held and prized the multitudes of advantages the summer offered me if only I had I said nothing on my face I registered the bleak look of a defendant who knows the court will never be swayed by all the favorable evidence he has it was a schoolboy look mr. Lutz Barry knew it well there's a long-distance call for you he continued in the tone of the judge performing the disagreeable duty of telling the defendant his right I've written the operator's number on the pad beside the telephone in my study you may go in and call thank you very much sir he sailed on down the lane without further reference to me and I wondered who was sick at home but when I reached his study Lowe's Sealand gloomy with books black leather chairs a pipe rack frayed brown rug a room which students rarely entered except for a reprimand I saw on the pad not an operator's number from my hometown but one which seemed to interrupt the beating of my heart I called this operator and listened in wonder while she went through her routine as though this were just any long-distance call and then her voice left the line and it was preempted and charged by the voice of Phineas happy first day of the new academic year thanks thanks a lot it's a you sound I'm glad to hear your stop stuttering on paying for this who are you rooming with nobody they didn't put anyone else in the room saving my place for me good old Devin but anyway you wouldn't have let him put anyone else in there would you friendliness simple outgoing affection that was all I could hear in his voice no of course not I didn't think you would roommates or roommates even if they do have an occasional fight god you are crazy when you are here and I guess I was I guess I must have been completely over the falls I wanted to be sure you'd recovered that's why I called up I knew that if you'd let them put anybody else in the room in my place then you really were crazy but you didn't I knew you wouldn't well I did have just a trace of doubt that was because you talk so crazy here I have to admit I had just a second when I wondered I'm sorry about that Jean naturally I was completely wrong you didn't let them put anybody else in my spot no I didn't let them I could shoot myself for thinking you might I really knew you wouldn't no I wouldn't and I spent my money on a long-distance call all for nothing well it's spent on you too so start talking pal and it better be good start with sports what are you going out for crew well not exactly crew managing crew assistant crew manager assistant crew manager I don't think I've got the job assistant crew manager I got in a fight this after assistant crew manager no voice could course with dumbfound meant like Finney's you are crazy listen Finny I don't care about being a big man on the campus or anything what much more clearly than anything in mr. Lud's berry study I could see his face now grimacing and wide obsessed stupa fication who said anything about whoever they are well then what are you so worked up for why do you want to manage crew for what do you want to manage for what's that got to do with sports the point was the grace of it was that it had nothing to do with sports for I wanted no more of sports they were barred from me as though when dr. Stan poll said sports are finished he had been speaking of me I didn't trust myself in them and I didn't trust anyone else It was as though football players were really bent on crushing the life out of each other as though boxers were in combat to the death as though even a tennis ball might turn into a bullet this didn't seem completely crazy imagination in 1942 when jumping out of trees stood for abandoning a torpedoed ship later in the school swimming pool we were given the second stage in that rehearsal after you hit the water you made big splashes with your hands to scatter the flaming oil which would be on the surface SOTA phineas I said I'm too busy for sports and he went into his incoherent groans and jumbles of words and I thought the issue was settled until at the end he said listen pal if I can't play sports you're going to play them for me and I lost part of myself to him then and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first to become a part of Phineas Chapter seven Brinker Hadley came across to see me late that afternoon I'd taken a shower to wash off the sticky salt of an iguana at river going into the Devon was like taking a refreshing shower itself you never had to clean up after it but the Nawabs it was something else entirely I'd never been in it before it seemed appropriate that my baptism there had taken place on the first day of this winter session and that I'd been thrown into it in the middle of a fight I washed the traces off me and then put on a pair of chocolate brown slacks a pair which Phineas had been particularly critical of when he wasn't wearing them and a blue flannel shirt then with nothing to do until my French class at five o'clock I began turning over in my mind this question of sports but Brinker came in I think he made a point of visiting all the rooms near him the first day well Jean his beaming face appeared around the door Brinker looked the standard preparatory school article in his grey gabardine suit with square hand-sewn looking jacket pockets a conservative necktie and dark brown cordovan shoes his face was all straight lines eyebrows mouth nose everything and he carried his six feet of height straight as well he looked but happened not to be athletic being too busy with politics arrangements and offices there was nothing idiosyncratic about Brinker unless you saw him from behind I did as he turned to close the door after him the flaps of his gaberdine jacket parted slightly over his healthy rump and it is that without any sense of derision at all that I recall as Brinker's salient characteristic those healthy determined not over exaggerated but definite and substantial buttocks here you are and your solitary splendor he went on gee Neely I can see you have real influence around here this big room all to yourself I wish I knew how to manage things like you he grinned confidingly and sat down on my cot leaning on his elbow and a relaxed at home way it didn't seem fitting for Brinker Hadley the hub of the class to be congratulating me on influence I was going to say that while he had a roommate it was frightened brownie perkins who would never impinge on Brinker's comfort in any way and that they had two rooms the front one with a fireplace not that i grudged him any of this I liked Brinker in spite of his winter session efficiency almost everyone liked Brinker but in the pause I took before replying he started talking in his light-hearted way again he never let a dull spot appear in conversation if he could help it I'll bet you knew all the time Finny wouldn't be back this fall that's why you picked him for a roommate right what I pulled quickly around in my chair away from the desk and faced him no of course not how could I know a thing like that in advance Brinker glanced swiftly at me you fixed it he smiled widely you knew all the time I'll bet it was all your doing don't be nutty Brinker I turned back toward the desk and began moving books with rapid pointlessness what a crazy thing to say my voice sounded too strained even to my own blood pounded ears ah the truth hurts eh I looked at him as sharply his eyes can look he'd struck an accusing pose sure I gave a short laugh sure then these words came out of me by themselves but the truth will out his hands fell ledin Leon my shoulder rest assured of that my son and our free democracy even fighting for its life the truth will out I got up I feel like a smoke don't you let's go down to the bottom yes yes to the dungeon with you the butt room was something like a dungeon it was in the basement or the bowels of the dormitory there were about ten smokers already there everyone at Devon had many public faces in class we looked if not exactly scholarly at least respectably alert on the playing fields we looked like innocent extroverts and in the butt room we looked very strongly like criminals the school's policy in order to discourage smoking was to make these rooms as depressing as possible the windows near the ceiling were small and dirty the old leather furniture spilled its innards the tables were mutilated the walls ash colored the floor concrete a radio with a faulty connection played loud and rasping for a while then suddenly quiet and insinuating here's your prisoner gentlemen announced Brinker seizing my neck and pushing me into the butt room ahead of him I'm turning him over to the proper authorities high spirits came hard in the haze of the butt room a slumped figure near the radio which happened to be playing loud at the moment finally roused himself to say what's the charge doing away with his roommate so he could have a whole room to himself rankest treachery he paused impressively practically fratricide with a snap of the neck I shook his hand off me my teeth set Brinker he raised an arresting hand not a word not a sound you'll have your day in court god dammit shut up I swear to god you ride a joke longer than anybody I know it was a mistake the radio had suddenly gone quiet and my voice ringing in the abrupt releasing hush galvanized them all so you killed him did you a boy uncoiled tensely from the couch well Brinker qualified judiciously not actually killed Finney's hanging between life and death at home in the arms of his grief-stricken old mother I had to take part in this or risk losing control completely I didn't do hardly a thing I began as easily as it was possible for me to do I all I did was drop a little bit a little pinch of arsenic in his morning coffee liar Brinker glowered at me trying to weasel out of it with a false confession eh I laughed at that laughed uncontrollably for a moment at that we know the scene of the crime Brinker went on high in that that funeral tree by the river there wasn't any poison nothing as subtle as that oh you know about the tree I tried to let my face fall guiltily but it felt instead as though it were being dragged downward yeah yeah there was a small a little contretemps the tree no one was diverted from the issue by this triad a funny French pronunciation tell us everything a younger boy at the table said huskily there was an unsettling current in his voice a genuinely conspiratorial note as though he believed literally everything that had been said his attitude seemed to me almost obscene the attitude of someone who discovers a sexual secret of yours and promises not to tell a soul if you'll describe it in detail to him well I replied in a stronger voice first I stole all his money then I found that he'd cheated on his entrance test to Devin and I blackmailed his parents about that then I made love to his sister and mr. Lutz buries study then I it was going well faint grins were appearing around the room even the younger boys seemed to suspect that he was being sincere about a joke a bad mistake to make a Devin then I I only had to add pushed him out of the tree and the chain of implausibility would be complete then I just those few words and perhaps this dungeon nightmare would end but I could feel my throat closing on them I could never say them never I swung on the younger boy what did I do then I demanded I'll bet you've got a lot of theories come on reconstruct the crime there we were at the tree then what happened Sherlock Holmes his eyes swung guiltily back and forth then you pushed him off I'll bet lousy bet I said offhandedly falling into a chair as though losing interest in the game you lose I guess you're dr. watts after all they laughed at him a little and he squirmed and looked guilty err than ever he had a very weak foothold among the butt room crowd and I'd pretty well pushed him off it his glance flickered out at me from his defeat and I saw to my surprise that I had by making a little fun of him brought upon myself his unmixed hatred for my escape this was a price I was willing to pay French French I exclaimed enough of this calls for a Tom I've got to study my French and I went out going up the stairs I heard a voice from the butt room say funny he came all the way down here and didn't even have a smoke but this was a clue they soon seemed to forget I detected no Sherlock Holmes among them nor even a dr. Watson no one showed any interest in tracking me no one pride no one insinuated the daily lists of appointments lengthened with the Rays of the receding autumn Sun until the summer the opening day even yesterday became by the middle of October something gotten out of the way and forgotten because tomorrow bristled with so much to do in addition to classes and sports and clubs there was the war Brinker Hadley could compose his shortest war poem ever written the war is a bore if he wanted to but all of us had to take stronger action than that first there was the local apple crop threatening to rot because the harvesters had all gone into the army or war factories we spent several shining days picking them and were paid in cash for it Brinker was inspired to write his Apple owed our chore is the core of the war and the novelty and money of these days excited us life at Devon was revealed as still very close to the ways of peace the war was at worst only a bore as Brinker said no more taxing to us than a day spent at harvesting in an apple orchard not long afterward early even for New Hampshire snow came it came theatrically late one afternoon I looked up from my desk and saw that suddenly there were big flakes twirling down into the quadrangle settling on the carefully pruned shrubbery bordering the crosswalks the three Elms still holding many of their leaves the still green lawns they gathered there thicker by the minute like noiseless invaders conquering because they took possession so gently I watched them whirl past my window don't take this seriously the playful way they fell seemed to imply this little show this harmless trick it seemed to be true the school was thinly blanketed that night but the next morning a bright almost balmy day every flake disappeared the following weekend however it snowed again then two days later much harder and by the end of that week the ground had been clamped under snow for the winter in the same way the war beginning almost humorously with announcements about maids and days spent at apple picking commenced its invasion of the school the early snow was commandeered as its advance guard leper lepellier didn't suspect this it was not in fact evident to anyone at first but leper stands out for me as the person who was most often and most emphatically taken by surprise by this and every other shift in our life at Devon the heavy snow paralyzed the railroad yards of one of the large towns south of us on the Boston and main line at Chapel the day following the heaviest snowfall 200 volunteers were solicited to spend the day shoveling them out as part of the emergency usefulness policy adopted by the faculty that fall again we would be paid so we all volunteered Brinker and i and chat douglass and i even noticed Quackenbush but not leper he generally made little sketches of birds and trees in the back of his notebook during chapel so that he probably hadn't heard the announcement the train to take us south to the work and arrive until after lunch and on my way to the station taking a shortcut through a meadow not far from the river I met leper I'd hardly seen him all fall and I hardly recognized him now he was standing motionless on the top of a small Ridge and he seemed from a distance to be a scarecrow leftover from the growing season as I plotted toward him through the snow I began to differentiate items of clothing a dull green deerstalkers cap brown earmuffs a thick grey woollen scarf then at last I recognized the face in the midst of them lepers pinched and pink his eyes peering curiously towards some distant woods through steel rimmed glasses as I got nearer I noticed that below his long tan canvas coat with sagging pockets below the red and black plaid woolen knickers and green patties he was wearing skis they were very long wooden and battered and had two decorative old-fashioned knobs on their tips you think there's a path through those woods he asked in his mild tentative voice when I got near leopard didn't switch easily from one train of thought to another and even though I was an old friend whom he'd not talked to in months I didn't mind his taking me for granted now even at this improbable meeting in a wide empty field of snow I'm not sure leper but I think there's one at the bottom of the slope oh yeah I guess there is we always called him leper to his face he wouldn't have remembered to respond to any other name I couldn't keep from staring at him at the burlesque Explorer look of him what are you I asked that last um what are you doing anyway I'm touring touring I examined the long bamboo ski poles he held how do you mean touring touring it's the way you get around the countryside in the winter touring skiing it's how you go overland in the snow where are you going well I'm not going anywhere he bent down to tighten the lacings on a putty I'm just touring around there's that place across the river where you could ski the place where they have the rope tow on that steep hill across from the railroad station you could go over there no I don't think so he surveyed the woods again although his breath had fogged his glasses that's not skiing why sure that skiing it's a good little run you can get going pretty fast on that hill yeah but that's it that's why it isn't skiing skiing isn't supposed to be fast skis are for a useful locomotion he turned his inquiring eyes on me you can break a leg with that downhill stuff not on that little hill well it's the same thing it's part of the whole wrong idea they're ruining skiing in this country rope tows and chair lifts and all that stuff you get carted up and then you whiz down you never get to see the trees or anything oh you see a lot of trees shoot by but you never get to really look at trees at a tree I just like to go along and see what I'm passing and enjoy myself he'd come to the end of his thought and now he slowly took me in noticing my layers of old clothes what are you doing anyway he asked mildly and curiously going to work on the railroad he kept gazing mildly and curiously at me shovel out those tracks that work they talked about in Chapel this morning you remember have a nice day at it anyway he said I will you - I will if I find what I'm looking for a beaver dam it used to be up the devon aways in a little stream that flows into the devon it's interesting to see the way the Beavers adapt to the winter have you ever seen it no I've never seen that well you might want to come sometime if I find the place tell me if you find it with leper it was always a fight a hard fight to win when you were 17 years old and lived in a keyed up competing school to avoid making fun of him but as I'd gotten to know him better this fight had been easier to win shoving in his long bamboo poles he pushed deliberately forward and slid slowly away from me down the gradual slow standing very upright his skis far apart to guard against any threat to his balance his poles sticking out on either side of him as though to ward off any interference I turned and trudged off to help shovel out New England for the war we spent an odd day toiling in that railroad yard by the time we'd arrived there the snowed become drab and suited wet and heavy we were divided into gangs each under an old railroad man Brinker chat and I managed to be in the same group but the playful atmosphere of the apple orchard was gone of the town we could only see some dull red brick mills and warehouses surrounding the yards and we laboured away among what the old man directing us called the rolling stock grim freight cars from many parts of the country immobilized in the snow Brinker asked him if it shouldn't be called unrolling stock now and the old man looked back at him with blurry dislike and didn't reply nothing was very funny that day the work became hard and unvarying I began to sweat under my layers of clothes by the middle of the afternoon we lost our fresh volunteer look the grime of the railroad and the exhaustion of manual laborers were on us all we seemed up a piece with the railroad yards and the mills and the warehouses the old man resented us or we made him nervous or maybe he was as sick as he looked for whatever reason he grumbled and spat and alternated between growling orders and rubbing his big unhealthy belly around four-30 there was a moment of cheer the mainline had been cleared and the first train rattled slowly through we watched it advance toward us the engine throwing up balls of steam to add to the heavy overcast all of us lined both sides of the track and got ready to cheer the engineer and the passengers the coach windows were open and the passengers surprisingly were hanging out they were all men I could discern all young all alike it was a troop train over the clatter and banging of the wheels and couplings we cheered and they yelled back both sides taken by surprise they weren't much older than we were and although probably just Kreutz they gave off the impression of being an elite as they were carried past our drab ranks they seem to be having a wonderful time their uniforms looked new and good they were clean and energetic they were going places after they'd gone we laborers looked rather emptily across the newly cleared rails and each other at ourselves and not even Brinker thought of the timely remark we turned away the old man told us to go back to other parts of the yard and there was no more real work done that afternoon stranded in this mill town railroad yard while the whole world was converging elsewhere we seemed to be nothing but children playing among heroic men the day ended at last gray from the beginning its end was announced by a deepening gray of sky snow faces spirits we piled back into the old dispirited lee lit coaches waiting for us slumped into the uncomfortable green seats and no one said much until we were miles away when we did speak it was about aviation training programs and brothers in the service and requirements for enlistment and the futility of Devon and how we would never have war stories to tell our grandchildren and how long the war might last and whoever heard of studying dead languages at a time like this Quackenbush took advantage of a break in this line of conversation to announce that he would certainly stay at Devon through the year however half-cocked others might rush off he elaborated without encouragement citing the advantages of Devon's physical hardening program and of a high school diploma when he did in good time reach basic training he for one would advance into the army step by step you for one echoed someone contemptuously you are one someone else said which army Quackenbush Mussolini's nah he's a kraut he's a kraut spy how many rails did you sabotage today Quackenbush I thought they interned all Quackenbush 'as the day after Pearl Harbor - which Brinker added they didn't find him he hid his light under a Quackenbush we were all tired at the end of that day walking back to the school grounds from the railroad station and the descending darkness we overtook a lone figure sliding along the snow-covered edge of the street will you look at lapel Y a began Brinker irritably who does he think he is the abominable snowman he's just been out skiing around I said quickly I didn't want to see today's strained tempers exploding on Lepper then as we came up beside him did you find the damn leper he turned his head slowly without breaking his forward movement of alternately planted poles and thrust skis rhythmically but feebly continuous like a homemade piston engines you know what I did find it his smile was wide and unfocused as though not for me alone but for everyone and anything which wished to share this pleasure with him and it was really interesting to see I took some pictures of it and if they come out I'll bring them over and show you what damn is that Brinker asked me it's a well a little dam up the river he knows about I said I don't know of any dam up the river well it's not in Devon itself it's in one of the tributaries tributaries to the Devon you know a little creek or something he knit his brows and mystification what kind of a dam is this anyway well he couldn't be put off with half a story it's a beaver dam Brinker's shoulders fell under the weight of this news that's the kind of a place I'm in with a world war going on a school for photographers of beaver dams the beaver never appeared himself leper offered Brinker turned elaborately toward him didn't he really no but I guess I was pretty clumsy getting close to it so he might have heard me and been frightened well Brinker's expansive dazed tone suggested that here was one of life's giant ironies there you are yeah agreed leper after a thoughtful pause there you are here we are I said pulling bring her around the corner we'd reached which led to our dormitory so long leper glad you found it oh he raised his voice after us how was your day how did the work go just like a stagette Eve Brinker roared back it was a winter wonderland every minute and out of the side of his mouth to me everybody in this place is either a draft-dodging Crowder of the scornful force of his tone turned the word into a curse a naturalist he grabbed my arm agitatedly i'm giving it up i'm going to enlist tomorrow I felt a thrill when he said it this was the logical climax of the whole misbegotten day this whole out of joint term at Devon I think I've been waiting for a long time for someone to say this so that I could entertain these decisive words myself to enlist to slam the door impossibly on the past to shed everything down to my last bit of clothing to break the pattern of my life that complex design I'd been weaving since birth with all its dark threads it's unexplainable symbols set against the conventional background of domestic white and schoolboy blue all those tangled strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep flowing I yearn to take giant military shears to it snap bitten off in an instant and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain flat khaki design however twisted they might be not that it would be a good life the war would be deadly all right but I was used to finding something deadly and things that attracted me there was always something deadly lurking and anything I wanted anything I loved and if it wasn't there as for example with Phineas then I put it there myself but in the war there was no question about it at all it was there I separated from Brinker in the quadrangle since one of his clubs was meeting and he couldn't go back to the dormitory yet I've got to preside at a meeting of the Golden Fleece debating society tonight he said in a tone of amazed contempt the Golden Fleece debating society we're mad here all mad and he went off raving to himself in the dark it was a night made for thoughts sharp stars pierced singly through the blackness not sweeps of them or clusters or milky ways as there might have been in the South but single chilled points of light as unromantic as knife blades Devin muffled under the gentle occupation of the snow was dominated by them the cold Yankee stars ruled this night they didn't invoke in me thoughts of God or sailing before the mast or some great love as crowded night skies at home had done I thought instead and the light of these cold points of the decision facing me why go through the motions of getting an education and watch the war slowly chip away at the one thing I'd loved here the peace the measureless careless piece of the devon summer others the Quackenbush is of this world could calmly watch the war approach them and jump into it at the last and most advantageous instant as though buying into the stock market but I couldn't there was no one to stop me but myself putting aside soft reservations about what I owed Devon and my duty to my parents and so on I reckoned my responsibilities by the light of the unsentimental night sky and knew that I owed no one anything I owed it to myself to meet this crisis in my life when I chose and I chose now I bounced zestfully up the dormitory stairs perhaps because my mind still retained the image of the sharp night stars those few fixed points of light in the darkness perhaps because of that the warm yellow light streaming from under my door came as such a shock it was a simple case of a change of expectation the light should have been off instead as though alive itself it poured in a thin yellow slab of brightness from under the door illuminating the dust and splinters of the hall floor I grabbed the knob and swung open the door he was seated in my chair at the desk bending down to adjust the gross encumbrance of his leg so that only the familiar ears set close against his head were visible and his short cut brown hair he looked up with a provocative grin hi pal where's the brass band everything that had happened throughout the day faded like that first false snowfall of the winter Phineas was back chapter 8 I can see I never should have left you alone Phineas went on before I could recover from the impact of finding him there where did you get those clothes his bright and dignity swept from my battered gray cap down the frayed sweater and paint stained pants to a pair of clodhoppers you don't have to advertise like that we all know you're the worst dressed man in the class I've been working that's all these are just work clothes in the boiler room on the railroad shoveling snow he sat back in the chair shoveling railroad snow well that makes sense we always did that the first term I pulled off the sweater under which I was wearing a rain slicker I used to go sailing in a kind of canvas sack Phineas just studied it in wordless absorption I like the cut of it he finally murmured I pulled that off revealing an army fatigue shirt my brother had given me very topical said Phineas through his teeth after that came off there was just my undershirt stained with sweat he smiled at it for a while and then said as he heaved himself out of the chair there you should have worn that all day just that that has real paste the rest of your outfit was just gilding that lily of a sweatshirt glad to hear you liked it not at all he replied ambiguously reaching for a pair of crutches which leaned against the desk I took the sight of this alright I'd seen him on crutches the year before when he broke his ankle playing football at Devon crutches had almost as many athletic associations as shoulder pads and I'd never seen an invalid whose skin glowed with such health accenting the sharp clarity of his eyes or one who used his arms and shoulders on crutches as though on parallel bars as though he'd do a somersault on them if he felt like it Phineas vaulted across the room to his cot yanked back the spread and then groaned Oh that's not made-up what is all this crap about no maids no maids I said after all there's a war on it's not much of a sacrifice when you think of people starving and being bombed and all the other things my unselfishness was responding properly to the influences of 1942 in these past months Phineas and I had grown apart on this I felt a certain disapproval of him for grumbling about a lost luxury with a war on after all I repeated there is a war on is there he murmured absently I didn't pay any attention he was always speaking when his thoughts were somewhere else asking rhetorical questions and echoing other people's words I found some sheets and made up his bed for him he wasn't a bit sensitive about being helped not a bit like an invalid striving to seem independent I put this on the list of things to include when I said some prayers the first in a long time that night in bed now that Phineas was back it seemed time to start saying prayers again after the lights went out the special quality of my silence let him know that I was saying them and he kept quiet for approximately three minutes then he began to talk he never went to sleep without talking first and he seemed to feel that prayers lasting more than three minutes were showing off God was always unoccupied in Phineas universe ready to lend an ear any time at all anyone who failed to get his message through in three minutes as I sometimes failed to do when trying to impress him Phineas with my sanctity wasn't trying he was still talking when I fell asleep and the next morning through the icy atmosphere which one window raised an inch had admitted to our room he woke me with the over indignant shout what is all this crap about no maids he was sitting up in bed as though ready to spring out of it totally and energetically awake I had to laugh at this indignity a fleet with the strength of five people complaining about the service he threw back his bedclothes and said hand me my crutches will you until now in spite of everything I'd welcomed each new day as though it were a new life we're all past failures and problems were and all future possibilities and Joy's open and available to be achieved probably before night fell again now in this winter of snow and crutches with Phineas I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of the night before that sleep suspended all that changed nothing that you couldn't make yourself over between dawn and dusk phineas however didn't believe this I'm sure he looked down at his leg every morning first thing as soon as he remembered it to see if it hadn't been totally restored while he slept when he found on this first morning back at Devin that it happened still to be crippled and in a cast he said in his usual self-contained way hand me my crutches Willia Brinker Hadley next door always awoke like an express train there was a gathering Rumble through the wall as Brinker reared up in bed coughed hoarsely slammed his feet on the floor pounded through the freezing air to the closet for something in the way of clothes and thundered down the hall to the bathroom today however he veered and broke into our room instead ready to sign up he shouted before he was through the door you ready to an finis you ready to end what pursued finis from his bed who's ready to sign and n what finis by god you're back sure confirmed finis with a slight pleased grin so Brinker curled his lip at me your little plot didn't work so well after all what's he talking about said finis as I thrust his crutches beneath his shoulders just talking I said shortly what does Brinker ever talk about you know what I'm talking about well enough no I don't oh yes you do are you telling me what I know damn right I am what's he talking about said finis the room was bitterly cold I stood trembling in front of Phineas still holding his crutches in place unable to turn and face Brinker and this joke he'd gotten into his head this catastrophic joke he wants to know if I'll sign up with him I said and lists it was the ultimate question for all seventeen year olds that year and a drove Brinker's insinuations from every mind but mine yeah said Brinker and list cried fini at the same time his large and clear eyes turned with an odd expression on me I'd never seen such a look in them before after looking at me closely he said you're going to enlist well I just thought last night after the railroad work you thought you might sign up he went on looking carefully away Brinker drew one of its deep senatorial breaths but he found nothing to say we three stood shivering in the thin New Hampshire morning light Finney and I in pyjamas Brinker in a blue flannel bathrobe and ripped moccasins when will you Finny went on oh I don't know I said it was just something Brinker happened to say last night that's all I said Brinker began in an unusually guarded voice glancing quickly at Phineas I said something about enlisting today Finny hobbled over to the dresser and took up his soap dish I'm first in the shower he said you can't get that cast wet can you ask Brinker no I'll keep it outside the curtain I'll help said Brinker no said fini without looking at him I can manage all right how can you manage all right Brinker persisted aggressively I can manage all right Finny repeated with a set face I could hardly believe it but it was too plainly printed in the closed expression of his face to mistake too discernible beneath the even tone of his voice Phineas was shocked at the idea of my leaving in some way he needed me he needed me I was the least trustworthy person he had ever met I knew that he knew or should know that too I'd even told him I had told him but there was no mistaking the shield of remoteness in his face and voice he wanted me around the war then passed away from me and dreams of enlistment and escape and a clean start lost their meaning for me sure you can manage the shower alright I said but what difference does it make come on Brinker's always kurz always getting there first and list what a nutty idea it's just Brinker wanting to get there first again I wouldn't enlist with you if you were General MacArthur's eldest son Brinker reared back arrogantly and who do you think I am but Finney hadn't heard that his face had broken into a wide and dazzled smile at what I'd said lighting up his whole face and list I drove on I wouldn't enlist with you a few were Elliott Roosevelt first cousin said Brinker over his chin once removed he wouldn't enlist with you Finny plunged in if you were Madame Chiang kai-shek well I qualified in an undertone he really is Madame Chiang kai-shek well fan my brow cried fini giving us his stunned look of total appalled horrified amazement who would have thought that Chinese the Yellow Peril right here at Devon and as far as the history of the class of 1943 at the Devon school is concerned this was the only part of our conversation worth preserving Brinker had Lee had been tagged with a nickname at last after four years of creating them for others and eluding one himself Yellow Peril Hadley swept through the school with the speed of a flu epidemic and it must be said to his credit that Brinker took it well enough except when and it's inevitable abbreviation people sometimes called him yellow instead of peril but in a week I'd forgotten that and I've never since forgotten the days look on Vinny's face when he thought that on the first day of his return to Devon I was going to desert him I didn't know why he'd chosen me why it was only to me that he could show the most humbling sides of his handicap I didn't care for the war was no longer eroding the peaceful summer stillness I had prized so much at Devon and although the playing fields were crusted under a foot of congealed snow and the river was now a hard gray white lane of ice between gaunt trees peace had come back to Devon for me so the war swept over like a wave of the seashore gathering power and size as it bore on us Oh well mning in its rush seemingly inescapable and then at the last moment alluded by a word from Phineas I'd simply ducked that was all and the waves concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead no doubt throwing others roughly up on the beach but leaving me peaceably treading water as before I didn't stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful when the tide is coming in this ends disc 3