And Old Arch would go to the residence buildings and he'd knock on someone's door--any door, chosen at random--and he'd say, "Have you seen the sky and do you know it's blue? Have you felt the soft kiss of the breezes? I can show you where to breathe fresh air." Maybe the people would say, "Phew! Does it smell like you, this fresh air?" and slam the door in his face. Or maybe they'd say, "Come on around to the back, Old Man, and we'll find you something to eat." Then Old Arch would shoulder his bed and pick up his billy can and his staff and walk down the stairs and go around to the back and walk up the stairs to the rear door. It might be an hour before he appeared there--it might be two. When he did, the people would ask, "Why didn't you say something? You should have known they wouldn't let you in the elevator! And twenty flights down and twenty flights up again is too much for a man of your years." Then, the next time he came they would do the same thing again. In the kitchen he would refuse all the pills and potions and shots, and insist on bulky foods. These he would eat neatly, holding aside the long white hair around his mouth and brushing the crumbs from it often. What he couldn't eat right away would go into his blackened billy can. The children would come before he finished--those of the household, and neighbor kids too. First they'd stand shyly and watch him from a doorway. Then they'd press closer. By the time he got through they'd be fighting to sit on his lap. The winner would climb up and sit there proudly. One of the losers, trying to prove he hadn't lost much, might wrinkle up his nose and say, "What's that awful stink, Old Man?" And Arch would answer mildly, "It's only wood smoke, son." Then the children would ask, "What's wood, please? And what's smoke?" And he would tell them. He would tell of the wind and the rain and the snow; of the cattalo herds that roamed to the west and the cities that lay to the east and the stars and the Moon that they never had seen. He would claim to have been in the endless forests and on the treeless plains and to have tasted the salt ocean and drunk of the freshwater lakes and rivers. The children would have heard, in their lessons and from their elders, enough to know what he was talking about. Sometimes they would tire of it, and ask him to tell of the distant planets and their far-off suns. But this he would not do. "You already hear too much about them," he'd say. "I want you to know Earth. Your own country. The one planet on which these plastic-covered cities are unnecessary, where you can actually go out and roll on the grass." Then the children might ask, "What's grass?" But their fathers would pointedly say, "What about the radioactivity, Old Man?" "I'm alive," he'd reply. "There's no radioactivity out there."