Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (280 page)

Roscoe's
son
moved
up
into
the
first
grade
after
a
year,
but
Benjamin
stayed
on
in
the
kindergarten.
He
was
very
happy.
Sometimes when
other
tots
talked
about
what
they
would
do
when
they
grew
up a
shadow
would
cross
his
little
face
as
if
in
a
dim,
childish
way
he realized
that
those
were
things
in
which
he
was
never
to
share.

The
days
flowed
on
in
monotonous
content.
He
went
back
a
third year
to
the
kindergarten,
but
he
was
too
little
now
to
understand
what the
bright
shining
strips
of
paper
were
for.
He
cried
because
the
other boys
were
bigger
than
he
and
he
was
afraid
of
them.
The
teacher talked
to
him,
but
though
he
tried
to
understand
he
could
not
understand
at
all.

He
was
taken
from
the
kindergarten.
His
nurse,
Nana,
in
her starched
gingham
dress,
became
the
centre
of
his
tiny
world.
On bright
days
they
walked
in
the
park;
Nana
would
point
at
a
great
gray monster
and
say
"elephant,"
and
Benjamin
would
say
it
after
her,
and when
he
was
being
undressed
for
bed
that
night
he
would
say
it
over and
over
aloud
to
her:
"Elyphant,
elyphant,
elyphant."
Sometimes Nana
let
him
jump
on
the
bed,
which
was
fun,
because
if
you
sat down
exactly
right
it
would
bounce
you
up
on
your
feet
again,
and if
you
said
"Ah"
for
a
long
time
while
you
jumped
you
got
a
very pleasing
broken
vocal
effect.

He
loved
to
take
a
big
cane
from
the
hatrack
and
go
around
hitting chairs
and
tables
with
it
and
saying:
"Fight,
fight,
fight."
When
there were
people
there
the
old
ladies
would
cluck
at
him,
which
interested him,
and
the
young
ladies
would
try
to
kiss
him,
which
he
submitted to
with
mild
boredom.
And
when
the
long
day
was
done
at
five
o'clock he
would
go
upstairs
with
Nana
and
be
fed
oatmeal
and
nice
soft mushy
foods
with
a
spoon.

There
were
no
troublesome
memories
in
his
childish
sleep;
no token
came
to
him
of
his
brave
days
at
college,
of
the
glittering
years when
he
flustered
the
hearts
of
many
girls.
There
were
only
the
white, safe
walls
of
his
crib
and
Nana
and
a
man
who
came
to
see
him
sometimes,
and
a
great
big
orange
ball
that
Nana
pointed
at
just
before his
twilight
bed
hour
and
called
"sun."
When
the
sun
went
his
eyes were
sleepy—there
were
no
dreams,
no
dreams
to
haunt
him.

The
past—the
wild
charge
at
the
head
of
his
men
up
San
Juan Hill;
the
first
years
of
his
marriage
when
he
worked
late
into
the
summer
dusk
down
in
the
busy
city
for
young
Hildegarde
whom
he
loved;