Recapitulation (2015)
“He was always volunteering. The year was 1922, he was thirteen years old. Around East High School he drew two kinds of attention, one kind from teachers and another from boys, especially the big boys and most especially the stupid ones. He would have given a good deal to be big and stupid so that he, too, could sneer at his little peaked face focused on the teachers ready to cry answers, and his little skinny arm flapping at every call to special duty.
“A castra? I’ll make one!” he said. “I kno...w a slough where there’s good clay. I’ll get some tonight after school.”
“Now that, Bruce,” said Miss Van Vliet, “is the spirit I like to see.”
They lived then on Seventh East, across from Liberty Park. The slough was clear down on Seventeenth South below Fifth East, where streets began to fade out into big truck gardens with shanties and staked-out goats. A good sixteen blocks, more than two miles, added to his walk home. A month before, he had made another volunteering expedition out there to get hydras and paramecia and amoebas for his zoology teacher, but this trip, in late November, was not quite the sunny autumn holiday the other had been.MoreLess
“A castra? I’ll make one!” he said. “I kno...w a slough where there’s good clay. I’ll get some tonight after school.”
“Now that, Bruce,” said Miss Van Vliet, “is the spirit I like to see.”
They lived then on Seventh East, across from Liberty Park. The slough was clear down on Seventeenth South below Fifth East, where streets began to fade out into big truck gardens with shanties and staked-out goats. A good sixteen blocks, more than two miles, added to his walk home. A month before, he had made another volunteering expedition out there to get hydras and paramecia and amoebas for his zoology teacher, but this trip, in late November, was not quite the sunny autumn holiday the other had been.MoreLess
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