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"But I reirl, even one who had bad habits We'd make rules Not harsh ones Just so around the house

"My mother did that Of course, in those days there were punish More often, up to --

"I suppose these days it would be no TV I wonder if a little girl would mind too much that we don't have a television, Toby I suppose I could get a s

"Of course, it would be only for a feeeks A child can do without television for a feeeks We'd read a lot, I expect"

The wo and sain"

She took her teacup to the sink and began to wash the few dishes that were there "Bird feeder needs filling," she said, looking through theto the place where it hung fronarled apple tree

"I could ask the boy to do so like that It could be one of his chores"

Carefully she dried the cup and saucer and replaced them in the cupboard She washed the spoon

"I wonder why they describe hiry about?"

She folded the linen towel in half and hung it neatly over the handle of the oven door "Ti lifted his head and then rose eagerly at the sound of the fa for the leash, which she had taken fro

"His na as she leaned down to fasten the leash to his collar "He's an angry little boy named John, and we must be very patient with him He'll be here Friday"

9

In the Heap, Littlest One, half asleep, heard one of the older dreaiversShe could hear the softly and perceived that the conversation was about her "She'll be fine," Thin Elderly replied to a murmured question "She's clever It's just her curiosity that interferes But curiosity's a good thing, actually"

It had been a fairly easy night Most nights were easy, she found, now that she had gotten the hang of it They went about, collecting fragood at that and enjoyed it And Thin Elderly, now that he was in charge instead of Fastidious, had found untouched places: the dishes, for example Fastidious had never once touched dishes

The woman's dishes, which had come to her froful frags: a child (the wo, seated alone at a table after everyone else had gone Refusing to eat soht It was a sweet , because the child's mother, she perceived, had eventually taken the hated carrots aith a sentlest touch, Littlest collected the child's petulant sulk, the wo smile, a bib with an embroidered rabbit, and even the hand-painted flowers on a sht; she could coraph, and perhaps some remembered music that she had found in the piano

In a soiver na about dishes he had touched during his evening's ned as a kind of punishh to his duties, was an apartment on the first floor of a dilapidated house that stood unattractively in a yard thick eeds and cluttered with discarded, forgotten things It was not a good assign, and he had groaned when he received it But they told him that he would be proently and without coh, he had become oddly fond of the unkempt apartment and its unhappy occupant, a thin, sad woarette froht visits he searched for pleasant fragments to touch and had found them, to his own surprise, in a folded sweater, a book left open, a broken seashell on a shelf, a badly framed snapshot of a ss to her, the ave them to her in dreams Now and then she smiled in her sleep and he felt that he had done a tiny, invisible good deed

Strapping had been surprised by the dishes, for he had been taught that dishes are thick with touchable fragments of happiness: pieces of birthday parties, holiday athered at tables But the woman's dishes, unmatched, stacked at random on an open shelf in her shabby, unclean kitchen, held only fragret and sorrow He found fear there, as well, for although the dishes he touched that night had been whole, they still contained fear frage, tears and threats No good dreahtmares, and he had finally turned away and left the kitchen, fluttering back to the s, the butt-cluttered ashtrays, and the outdated TV Guide on a table ringed with stains An empty beer bottle stood on the table beside a half-eaten sandwich, but Strapping ignored those things

He went once again to the painted shelf on the wall, to the seashell displayed there It was the one object that he enjoyed the h with sunshine, the tangy whiff of salt, a child's laughter pealing across the breeze, and cool foaritty sand at the ocean's edge Collecting all of that at once eighty But Strapping was strong He touched the shell, sain with the dream she loved and needed most

This tied hand of the child who had picked it up He felt the warm lint-lined pocket of the boy's shorts as he placed the seashell there with others he had collected Strapping gathered those things for the dreas that he became heavy with the woman slept