Ben seldom suppressed the talk. He liked to offer details of adult wisdom, or new words that Reuben would roll with relish on the tongue. The stories gained in sophistication, especially during the last three or four years, when the boy had developed a taste for listening to Jesse Plum. Princesses appeared; decapitations were limited to villains, wizards and Frenchmen. Allegory too: the tales no longer rambled but were innervated by unifying purpose, and Ben knew rather plainly that he was receiving gifts from a mind altogether separate and unlike his own. Ru also acquired some tact, and awareness of the times when Ben preferred to sleep. If he itched with questions, though, and found Ben reluctant to answer, Ru might take advantage of his smaller size, punch and prod, try to smother Ben with the covers or nag after the forbidden tickle-spot at the edge of the ribs. He could hurt if he gripped a handful of hair, but he generally managed to stop short of open war. Ben imagined, sometimes with uneasiness, that his brother could study his mind, feel with his nerves, control him as a small man controls a big horse with wit alone. After such assaults, secondary eruptions would demonstrate that the little wretch was still awake--pinches, pokes, muffled war whoops, prohibited words: original sin taking its own time to simmer down. Nowadays Ru's stories would be delivered _sotto voce_, lest Father shout up telling the boys to go to sleep. The hushed story-teller's voice illuminated the inner world, making of the night a sheltering room. Ben would be more aware of his brother than if darkness had not hidden him--the warmth, the harmless small-boy smell of him, above all the voice and its comic or startling or grandiose inventions.... Ben sighed in the exasperation of insomnia, and slid out of bed to stand barefoot in the cold, saying a proper prayer in an undertone. His mother preferred to kneel, but admitted it was wise to conform to surrounding custom lest one forget in a public place. Puritans did not kneel, regarding it as a mark of popery. Faintly relieved, Ben walked to the garret window to glance into the winter night, wondering if a dark moving thing he saw was that it ought to be. Yes--the watch, on his rounds. Ben could make out the black stem line of a jutting flintlock. The shadowy important man marched along the northern limit of the stockade, passing out of sight to Ben's left behind the meeting-house. "Ben, what ails thee?--can't sleep?" "Restless." Ben stumbled back into bed shivering, squirming down away from the cold. "Go back to sleep--sorry I disturbed thee." It must be after midnight, Ben thought, and all well. But as he tried to settle himself, inviting sleep with a better conscience, the snow outside the palisade, pressed high against the logs, nagged at him like the thought of a broken lock on a back door. _Chapter Two_