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Show in my father's house/ 90 successful. My father was released December 15, 1945, having spent seven months in the state penitentiary. Although conditions of his parole kept him from living with his plural families, he doctored Danny through pneumonia crisis and ushered in the hope of Christmastide. By eavesdropping and asking 'too many questions,' I learned early of the arrests and my father's imprisonment, but I was ordered not to tell the other children. "Their mothers can tell them when they think it's time. Meanwhile, you must keep it secret and only talk with me about it," my mother warned. I felt stifled. Didn't she know how I hated secrets? One day I stood watching Danny flip walnuts at the cars whizzing on the highway. Always I felt that fence, a neat line dividing me from the rest of the world. Much too high for me to climb, just looking at the barrier gave me the same close feeling as when Danny sat on me, pinning my arms down so I couldn't move. A walnut hit a car window with a loud crack. "You'll get in trouble," I told Danny. "What if they stop and tell Mama?" He grabbed my hand and we ran for the treehouse in the big willow. "Are you afraid?" I asked as we hid in the deep shadows. Danny was the one who laughed when my mother swatted him with the yardstick for wading in the stream in his good shoes or |