I leaned against a yellow ledge of rock with a subtle sickening faintish feeling. ‘I am afraid,’ I said inside me, ‘of this world and this life, and of all things little and large--nerves and Christmas days and poetry: toy deserts and all. How can I cope with it--I alone?’ Then I looked down at my Shoes of black soft dull leather and cloth, buttoned snugly around my ankles and with tough supple soles fit to take me to Jericho and back. Thus neatly armored I felt suddenly my blue-veined feet need fear nothing from sand and stone and hardness of ground. And if my feet are not afraid--my feet which bear weights of all-of-me--why should afraidness touch my spirit which is proud? There will be always Shoes in the world: stout stylish serviceable boots, and pale delicate rat-skin pumps, and satin mule-slippers. And always I shall have Shoes: in toy deserts I shall have black strong snug-buttoned ones. I looked at them in this toy-desert and straightway I wasn’t afraid. It has been often like that. So I love my Shoes. _An eerie quality_ To-morrow When I was Ten years old I played marbles ‘for keeps,’ smoked little pieces of rattan buggywhip in the hay-scented barn and slid ‘belly-buster’ down long winter hills on my sled. And I hammered and sawed ruinously with grownup tools, whistling happily. And I played with dolls absorbedly for hours on end. I was not boyish and not girlish. I was not childish except for an oddly hungry child-heart. I was myself. So long ago and longer I consciously owned an eerie quality which toppled over the edge of my humanness. And still own it. _A helliad_ To-morrow This noonday as I sat on the veranda two young lads stopped by the stone coping which borders this front yard, and conversed. One was eager-looking and about eleven years old. The other was perhaps thirteen and morose and he had a small rifle which he polished with a bit of waste, not lifting his gaze as they talked. Said the younger boy: ‘Say-Frank, I could ’a’ had that old shot-gun off my dad if I’d ’a’ went after it to Rocker that time.’ ‘Like hell you could,’ said Frank. ‘Say-Frank, you know that Winchester o’ Billy O’Rourke’s?--he made six bull’s-eyes and one inside ring with it day ’fore yesterday.’ ‘Like hell he did,’ said Frank. ‘Say-Frank, Mexicans and Indians can get a guy ev’ry time with a long-distance rifle without taking aim through the sight.’ ‘Like hell they can,’ said Frank. ‘Say-Frank, there’s a kid down on South Arizona that’s got a Colt automatic that’ll hit without him aiming at all.’ ‘Like hell there is,’ said Frank. ‘Say-Frank, you know them little brass machine-guns the militia’s got?--the bores o’ them things ’re rifled just like this.’ ‘Like hell they are,’ said Frank. ‘Say-Frank, my grandfather in Illinois ’s got a bullet in him he got at the battle o’ Fredericksburg in the Civil War.’