Home from the Hill by William Humphrey Page B

business—and quite a crowd was waiting to see Theron come home with his tail between his legs.
    But by a quarter of ten he had not shown up; nor had he by ten-fifteen. It was decided that he had taken the long way home rather than face us by coming through the square. He was that proud.
    At ten-thirty the Captain appeared, a worried look on his face which made it almost unnecessary for him to say, “Any you men seen my boy? He hasn’t come home, and his mama is worried.”
    We were afraid to tell, but more afraid to think what might happen if any harm had come to the boy on his way home. So we told, and offered to go with him to pick Theron up.
    He was nowhere on the road. We stole glances at each other in the light from the dashboard. Nobody said a word. When we reached the gate of the farm, the Captain stopped the car and switched off the ignition and let us sit there for a minute listening to each other breathe before saying, “Well?”
    It was just to start moving again and as a way of stalling, or maybe it was just to say anything at all, not because there was any sense in it, now, going on three hours since we had left him there, that somebody suggested going back down to the pond. It was a dangerous suggestion to make to the Captain, that his boy was so slow he would still be waiting for us there. But he said nothing and started the car and would simply have crashed through the gate if Ben had not jumped out of the back seat and run to open it, and jumped aside barely in time, then leapt on to the running-board, knowing he was not going to be stopped for, but knowing better than to let himself be left behind as a way of getting out of it. We bounced down the cow lane like a ship in a storm, the headlights shooting out over the ground, then flung against the sky. We bumped our heads on the top, and one of us held on to Ben out on the running board.
    The land began to dip, and, dropping down, the lights picked up the dark water. The land levelled and the beam of light rose and swung across the pond and as the Captain spun the wheel the beam ran along the water’s edge until it found Theron. He was sitting. Now he got to his feet and drew himself up straight and proud. The Captain switched off the ignition, but did not move, so we did not either.
    He slowly spread open the mouth of the sack and holding it towards us, commenced to whistle—short, rapid little peeps. His face, very white in the glare and against the blackness into which his black hair melted, showed nothing. Perhaps we sat in the car watching him and listening to his whistling for a minute; it seemed longer. We stole a glance at the Captain’s face. He was absorbed in the spectacle and very faintly smiling.
    We got out at last and slunk through the beam of light and followed the Captain around the edge of the pond. The boy did not budge, and only when we had all come to him did he leave off whistling. Dick Macaulay relieved him of the sack, and before dropping it to the ground, looked into it, as if half expecting to find it full. The Captain put his arm around his son’s shoulder and they began to walk back to the car. We started, but Macaulay stood still, so we all stopped. The Captain heard us stop, turned and looked at us and said, “Well?”
    None of us spoke.
    â€œWell?” he said.
    â€œThanks, Cap,” said Macaulay. He looked around at the rest of us in the glare of the headlights, and satisfied with what he read in our faces, turned back. A grin spread across his face. “I reckon us snipe’ll walk,” he said.
    It was Pritchard, speaking for all of us, the next time Theron came downtown afterwards, who called him “Lieutenant.”
    He liked that. But, “Sergeant will do for now,” he said.
    Not “Private,” you’ll notice.

8
    He was Mrs. Hannah’s only child, but he was his father’s son. From this distance in time it is possible to say that perhaps