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"I love her, too," I said Which, however little you ht believe it, was true The hate I felt toward her in that year of 1922 was greater than a man can feel for any woh she was, Arlette was a warm-natured woh since the argus in the dark had beco

"It needn't be painful," I said "And when it's over well"

I took him out back of the barn and showed him the well, where he burst into bitter tears "No, Poppa Not that No matter what"

But when she cahbor, carried herher to walk the last two ed her to "leave off so we can just be a faain," she lost her teing like a dog

"Your father's infected you with his tireed"

As though she were innocent of that sin!

"The lawyer assuresto sell it As for the two of you, you can sit here and sether and cook your own meals and make your own beds You,books all night They've done hiet on better Who knows?"

"Mama, that's not fair!"

She looked at her son as a woe man who had presumed to touch her ar back just as coldly "You can go to the devil, both of you As fora dress shop That's my idea of fair"

This conversation took place in the dusty dooryard between the house and the barn, and her idea of fair was the last word Shedust with her dainty town shoes, went into the house, and slammed the door Henry turned to look at me There was blood at the corner of his e in his eyes was of the raw, pure sort that only adolescents can feel It is rage that doesn't count the cost He nodded his head I nodded back, just as gravely, but inside the Conniving Man was grinning

That slap was her death-warrant

Two days later, when Henry caain I wasn't dismayed or surprised; the years between childhood and adulthood are gusty years, and those living through them spin like the weathercocks sorain silos

"We can't," he said "Poppa, she's in Error And Shannon says those who die in Error go to Hell"

God damn the Methodist church and Methodist Youth Fellowship, I thought but the Conniving Man only sreen corn while early summer clouds--the best clouds, the ones that float like schooners--sailed slowly above us, trailing their shadows like wakes I explained to hi Arlette to Hell, ould be sending her to Heaven "For," I said, "a murdered man or woman dies not in God's time but in Man's He or she is cut short before he or she can atone for sin, and so all errors iven When you think of it that way, every murderer is a Gate of Heaven"

"But what about us, Poppa? Wouldn't we go to Hell?"

I gestured to the fields, brave with neth "How can you say so, when you see Heaven all around us? Yet she el with the fla sword drove Adam and Eve from the Garden"

He gazed at me, troubled Dark I hated to darken my son in such a way, yet part of me believed then and believes still that it was not I who did it to him, but she

"And think," I said "If she goes to O herself an even deeper pit in Sheol If she takes you, you'll become a city boy--"

"I never will!" He cried this so loudly that crows took wing from the fenceline and swirled away into the blue sky like charred paper

"You're young and you will," I said "You'll forget all this you'll learn city ways and begin digging your own pit"

If he had returned by saying thattheir victiht have been stuy did not stretch so far or he didn't want to consider such things And is there Hell, or do we ht years of my life, I plump for the latter

"How?" he asked "When?"

I told him

"And we can go on living here after?"

I said we could

"And it won't hurt her?"

"No," I said "It will be quick"

He seeht not have happened, if not for Arlette herself

We settled on a Saturday night about halfway through a June that was as fine as any I can relass of wine on Suood reason

for this She was one of those people who can never take two glasses without taking four, then six, then the whole bottle And another bottle, if there is another "I have to be very careful, Wilf I like it too "

That night we sat on the porch, watching the late light linger over the fields, listening to the somnolent reeeeee of the crickets Henry was in his room He had hardly touched his supper, and as Arlette and I sat on the porch in our ht I heard a faint sound that could have been retching I re that when the h with it Hiswith a "hang-over" and no knowledge of how close she had co another Nebraska dawn Yet I moved forith the plan Because I was like one of those Russian nesting dolls? Perhaps Perhaps everyMan, but inside the Conniving Man was a Hopeful Man That fellow died so done his dae, disappeared Without his schemes and ambitions, life has been a hollow place

I brought the bottle out to the porch with lass, she covered it with her hand "You needn't get ot an itch" She spread her legs and put her hand on her crotch to shohere the itch was There was a Vulgar Woman inside her--perhaps even a Harlot--and the wine always let her loose

"Have another glass anyway," I said "We've so to celebrate"

She looked at lass of winefor all the wine it wanted and could not have), and in the sunset light they looked orange, like the eyes of a jack-o'-lantern with a candle inside it

"There will be no suit," I told her, "and there will be no divorce If the Farrington Company can afford to pay us for ument is over"

For the first and only tiaped "What are you saying? Is it what I think you're saying? Don't fool with me, Wilf!"

"I' Man He spoke with hearty sincerity "Henry and I have had many conversations about this--"