He did the work thoroughly, feeling down in the hole again, but found

nothing more. Then he stuffed the bag inside his blouse and buttoned up

his sweater with his well hand and somehow got up the stairs. That arm

pained him a lot, and he found his sweater was wet. So he took his

handkerchief and tied it tight around the place that hurt the most,

holding one end in his teeth to make the knot firm.

The sun blinded him as he stumbled down the back steps and went to get

his wheel, but somehow he managed it, plunging through the brakes and

tangles, and back to the road.

It ran in his brain where the Shaftons lived out in the country on the

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Jersey shore. He had a mental picture in the back of his mind how to

get there. He knew that when he struck the Highroad there was nothing

to do but keep straight on till he crossed the State Line and then he

would find it somehow, although it was miles away. If he had been

himself he would have known it was an impossible journey in his present

condition, but he wasn't thinking of impossibilities. He had to do it,

didn't he? He, Billy, had set out to make reparation for the confusion

he had wrought in his small world, and he meant to do so, though all

hell should rise against him. Hell! That was it. He could see the

flames in hot little spots where the morning sun struck. He could hear

the bells striking the hour in the world he used to know that was not

for him any more. He zigzagged along the road in a crazy way, and

strange to say he met nobody he knew, for it was early. Ten minutes

after he passed the Crossroads Elder Harricutt went across the Highway

toward Economy to his day's work, and he would have loved to have seen

Billy, and his rusty old wheel, staggering along in that crazy way and

smelling of whiskey like a whole moonshiner, fairly reeking with

whiskey as he joggled down the road, and a queer little tinkle now and

then just inside his blouse as if he carried loaded dice. Oh, he would

have loved to have caught Billy shooting crap!

But he was too late, and Billy swam on, the sun growing hotter on his

aching head, the light more blinding to his blood shot eyes, the lump

bigger and bluer on his grimy forehead.

About ten o'clock a car came by, slowed down, the driver watching

Billy, though Billy took no note of him. Billy was looking on the

ground dreaming he was searching for the state line. He had a crazy

notion it oughtta be there somewhere.




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