Larry wandered away. He didn’t want to play with the other boys; so he wended his way down to the sheriff’s office, where he found Breezy Hill, the deputy. Breezy was long-faced, bony of face and body, with bushy eyebrows and a shock of sandy hair, which stood up like the roach on a grizzly bear. One side of his face bulged with a huge chew of tobacco most of the time.
“Hyah, Larry!” he called, when the boy stopped in the doorway.
“Hyah,” grinned Larry. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Meditatin’ on my sins,” seriously.
“What’s a sin?”
“A sin?” Breezy spat thoughtfully, and Larry came in beside the desk. “That’s kinda hard to answer, Larry. But it ’pears to me that a sin is somethin’ we all want to commit, but we’re scared of what folks will say.”
“Would folks say somethin’?”
“Would they?” explosively. “Good gosh. I’ll say they would! I’d almost bet that ninety per cent. of the conversation of folks deal with the sins of somebody else. You know what I mean? They talk about the wrong things somebody else has done.”
“Like that talk about my dad?”
Breezy blinked thoughtfully for a few moments. “Yeah,” softly. “I reckon. You don’t remember him, do yuh?”