Short Stories
the room that bit into his body.
As he toppled on the edge of the bed it seemed that he must
fall head-first to the floor. But consciousness fluttered up in him.
He righted himself and for a moment perilously balanced. Then
he struck the floor on his feet. On the instant his mother seized
him by the shoulders and shook him. Again his fists struck out,
this time with more force and directness. At the same time his
eyes opened. She released him. He was awake.
"All right," he mumbled.
She caught up the lamp and hurried out, leaving him in
darkness.
"You'll be docked," she warned back to him.
He did not mind the darkness. When he had got into his
clothes, he went out into the kitchen. His tread was very heavy
for so thin and light a boy. His legs dragged with their own
weight, which seemed unreasonable because they were such
skinny legs. He drew a broken-bottomed chair to the table.
"Johnny!" his mother called sharply.
He arose as sharply from the chair, and, without a word,
went to the sink. It was a greasy, filthy sink. A smell came up
from the outlet. He took no notice of it. That a sink should smell
was to him part of the natural order, just as it was a part of the
natural order that the soap should be grimy with dish-water and
hard to lather. Nor did he try very hard to make it lather. Several
splashes of the cold water from the running faucet completed
the function. He did not wash his teeth. For that matter he had
never seen a tooth-brush, nor did he know that there existed be-
ings in the world who were guilty of so great a foolishness as
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