Absolutely forbidden company or contact with the other sex by narrow parental decree, the boy Nathan, being a normal, healthy youngster, had either to repress natural maturing emotions until they found outlet in clandestine, perverted channels, or he had to gain worldly knowledge and sex-poise by the hard, raw route of searing experience when John was no longer able to make his decree effective. John Forge’s argument was that sex, as well as money, being a basic root of all human evil, the way to keep a boy from disaster was to prohibit him the company of sex altogether. John Forge had married unhappily, therefore all marriages were unhappy. Nat should not duplicate his father’s mistake if John had to kill him to save him from it. If Nathan attended any school or neighborhood gathering and his father heard of it afterward, the man had two questions ready for his son: (1) “Were there any girls present?” and (2) “Did you kiss ’em?” John Forge had a crazed obsession about his boy kissing a girl. In the school yard and even at church “sociables” we often played asinine childish games, “Ring Around the Rosy”, “Copenhagen” and “Drop the Pillow.” But Nathan, fearing his father’s wrath, was ever the wallflower. And he was deeply in love with Bernice-Theresa, or thought he was. Other boys kissed their “girls.” Why shouldn’t he? “I’ve got to kiss her! I’ve just simply got to kiss her!” he consequently affirmed to me; no emperor ever planned the ravishing of a rival kingdom with the sangfroid with which Nathan deliberated upon the necessity for osculatory assault on the Dresden Doll. “The thing to do,” I advised gravely, “is to get her alone where she can’t scream or bring help. And it’s got to be done in such a way that she don’t tell her folks! Because then they’ll tell your folks and your dad will just simply kill you!” This might seem impossible, but to fourteen nothing is impossible. We thought of intriguing Bernice into the woods at the edge of town, into the haunted dwelling next to the tannery, into all sorts of lonely, lugubrious places. But the difficulty lay in enticing her to the rendezvous and operating on her rosebud lips without scaring the Dresden Doll half out of her senses and bringing a boomerang back upon ourselves. Ultimately we resolved upon a bold maneuver: _We would kiss Bernice Gridley in church_! “We could send her and Elinore a note,” I planned, “asking ’em to wait after the Easter concert. I could keep Elinore and send Bernie out into the vestibule. Just as she comes through the door you could grab her and do it! Then run like the devil!” This was bold. It was terribly bold! Yet it was feasible. We had yet to learn that the ecstasy of osculation consists largely in the warmth and passion of reciprocity. We were midget cavemen, Nathan and I. Bernice-Theresa had to be kissed if our lives were forfeit.