The Book of Knowledge by Doris Grumbach Page B

for the absence of its cupped holder.
    â€˜It looks like my father’s thumbnail,’ she said, and then returned to her search for other superlative examples. Caleb was irritated by what seemed to him to be a foolish boast. Roslyn’s unconditional admiration of her father extended, he thought, to the tips of his fingers, to his carved leg, to his status, she often said, as the City’s most successful broker.
    Caleb had never noticed any similarity between acorns and Mr. Hellman’s fingertips. But now that Roslyn had pointed it out, he began to imagine that all the scattered acorns he saw were disconnected nails, removed from the poor man’s thumbs at the same time as his leg had been taken. He stopped collecting, sat back on his heels, and began to compose a scenario:
    Terrible corporeal punishment had been inflicted on a tribe of conquered giants. Now, minus the ends of their fingers, they roamed the dark outer shore of the Rockaway peninsula. Globules of blood fell from their useless hands. Who had committed these atrocities? Retributive animals whose only food was the succulent nails of goliaths? No. Tribal enemies who punished their captives by biting off the ends of the giants’ fingers with their sharp teeth, and consumed them as an essential part of their diets.
    â€˜Caleb. Listen to me,’ said Roslyn.
    â€˜What?’ Caleb disliked having to return from the country of bloody punishments.
    â€˜I’ve called the Talkies to order. We’re going to play marbles with the acorns, the ones without their collars.’
    â€˜All right,’ Caleb said with some reluctance.
    Kate and Lion were summoned from scavenging under trees farthest from the house. Their collecting had been indiscriminate, with none of the older children’s concern for color, completeness, and perfection of shape. So their pails were full and heavy. Putting them down, they stood waiting to be instructed in the rules of Roslyn’s new game.
    She placed the largest acorn she could find, a prize picked up unaccountably by Lion, in the middle of a wide space in the dirt and drew a circle with a stick. Each child took up a position on the diameter and tried to hit the prime seed with smaller, less valuable ones. Whoever managed this was awarded the acorn in the center.
    â€˜Be careful, Roslyn,’ said Lion. ‘Don’t throw so hard. I don’t want my good one to get dented.’
    â€˜That’s what it’s there for,’ said Roslyn loftily. As hard as she could she threw her missile at Lion’s prized acquisition, and hit it.
    The new game, like Roslyn’s other enterprises that summer, ended abruptly. Lion started to cry. Roslyn threw his center piece back at him, having to retrieve it from her pile. Caleb accused her of purposeful brutality. Lion started down the street, and Roslyn, angry at everyone, followed the weeping boy.
    No farewells were exchanged among the four friends, nor did the Flowers children see the Schwartzes and the Hellmans on the morning after Labor Day when two black sedans carried them and their maids northwest on the Long Island roads. The De Soto and the La Salle (for Lester Schwartz had just acquired a new car) joined the long lines of vehicles leaving the seashore towns for the beloved City, as most of the summer vacationers thought of it. The two families had had enough of sun, fresh air, salt water, and empty evenings and, in fact, of all the ever-green outdoors that the short country exile had offered them. They were delighted to be returning to ‘civilization,’ a word they used for the cement caverns of New York City.
    The remainder of September was unusually warm. The Flowers children found it difficult to return to school, but they were resigned and went dutifully. They did not get home until well after three o’clock and then were sent immediately to their rooms to rest. Emma thought ceaselessly about the polio warnings. She was