I looked at him. His face—growing a bit less freckled now—was held between his hands as he lay on his chest and looked vaguely off across the smooth river where the trout were jumping. But before I could comment caustically on this he asked, “Whatter you gonna be, Billy?”
“I dunno. I’ll be a business man, I guess, and make barrels of money—as much as Mr. Gridley.”
“What kind of business?”
“Oh, I dunno. I’ll own a factory, I guess—and be president of a bank afterwards, so when I want money all I gotta do is go into my bank and help myself.”
We lay in silence for several minutes. Then I persisted:
“If you’re gonna be a writer, whatcher gonna write?”
“Oh, books and poems and things—that hurt me so much sometimes when I look at ’em.”
“Huh! That ain’t a regular business. That’s a lazy man’s job. Judge Prescott says so. His daughter, Annie, married somebody who writes poetry and the Judge has to support both of ’em. I heard him say so. Betcha your pa don’t letcher, anyhow!”
“Betcher he will! Betcher he won’t have anything to say about it—damn him!”
Nathan’s lips tightened. It was not petulancy; it was the bitterness of mistreated childhood.