“It is true,” she repeated. “And whether the earth flower and other people’s flowers and your flower are to bloom or not is what living is about. And everything makes a difference. Isn’t that a good reason for not being ‘wicked’?” We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to what she said. And I know that we understood. “Oh,” Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, “hurry home and tell Margaret Amelia. It’ll make it so much easier when she comes out to her supper.” * * * * * That night, on the porch alone with Mother and Father, I inquired into something that still was not clear. “But how can you _tell_ which things are wicked? And which ones are wrong and which things are right?” Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with a look that I knew--and his smile for me is like no other smile that I have ever known. “Something will tell you,” he said, “always.” “Always?” I doubted. “Always,” he said. “There will be other voices. But if you listen, something will tell you always. And it is all you need.” I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that all this had been known about for a long time. “That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us,” she said, “not just because we wanted her, but because--_that_ said so.” In us all a flower--and something saying something! And the earth flower trying to blossom.... I looked down the street: At Mr. Branchett walking in his garden, at the lights shining from windows, at the folk sauntering on the sidewalk, and toward town where the band was playing. We all knew about this together then. _This_ was why everything was! And there were years and years to make it come true. What if I, alone among them all, had never found out? XIV KING There was a certain white sugar bear and a red candy strawberry which we had been charged not to eat, because the strawberry was a nameless scarlet and the bear, left from Christmas, was a very soiled bear. We had all looked at these two things longingly, had even on occasion nibbled them a bit. There came a day when I crept under my bed and ate them both. It was a bed with slats. In the slat immediately above my head there was a knot-hole. Knot-hole, slat, the pattern of the ticking on the mattress, all remain graven on the moment. It was the first time that I had actually been conscious of--indeed, had almost _heard_--the fighting going on within me. Something was saying: “Oh, eat it, eat it. What do you care? It won’t kill you. It may not even make you sick. It is good. Eat it.” And something else, something gentle, insistent, steady, kept saying over and over in exactly the same tone, and so that I did not know whether the warning came from within or without:-- “It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten.” But after a little, as I ate, this voice ceased.