I stole up to my cuddy in the garret.
I knelt again by the old black trunk. They had gone back on Tim and therefore on me. But God would not go back on us. I wept and said every prayer that my mother had taught me. And I said this one of my own:
“Lord, save Tim. Don’t let pop make him die.”
Boom! the report of a gun rang across the woods. I shuddered. Had God, too, gone back on me? If so, why?
I went to the attic window and waited breathlessly. I stretched myself flat on the dusty floor, so that I could see and not be seen. After a little while I saw my father climb over the zig-zag fence, carrying the trace over his shoulders.
In the evening they found me stained with dusty tears, asleep on the attic floor. My mother kissed me and petted me and told me that I was her king. It did no good, for she had taught me futile prayers. She put me to bed, but I would not pray. I sobbed while she said the hollow words for me. Then I heard her tell my father that she feared that I was going to be ill.
“Pooh!” said my father, “a child’s sorrows are like a child’s joys, they soon pass away.”
He had a way of checking off the events of life with some false axiom. And soon they thought I was asleep; and I heard him tell my mother how he had taken the trace off the dog after they reached the woods, how Tim had followed him to the great boulder down in the hollow, how Tim had wagged his tail when he told him to look for squirrels in the trees, and then when Tim looked up for the game, he shot him behind the ear, and the dog rolled over in the cave under the boulder.
That was the first night of my life when I did not close my eyes.