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Show 33 "Take your time, Son, you've got plenty of it." "That reminds me," said Mother, "who took the clock off the sideboard?" "I did." I concentrated on cutting my bacon. "What for?" "It's in my room. I needed it for an experiment." "An experiment? With chemicals!" "To see how long I could hold my breath." "Oh, cunning," said Henry. "Did it work?" Davy wanted to know. "Isn't that dangerous?" said Mother. "Jesus H!" said Henry, and looked at the ceiling. "Dangerous." "It could be. If he couldn't get his breath again." "Yeah, he's so dumb he might hold his breath till he passed out." "That's just what I meant, smartie." "So? Then his natural reflexes would take over and he'd just start breathing again." "He could hurt himself falling. I don't like that tone with me, Henry." They'd forgotten about me. If I had gotten up at the right time, my parents would have been in the kitchen, so I gave up trying to be a window peeper. Besides, the new house we were building on the farm was nearly finished, we were moving soon, I was graduating from eighth grade, and, shameful as it was, I forgot that yellow-haired woman. The previous fall after third cutting of hay, after the potatoes had been dug, the wheat threshed and the corn shucked, pumpkins lying in the frosted garden like beached suns, we had started building our new house, my father drawing up the plans, my father and we boys and the hired man Donald Best starting to dig the basement with shovels and a scoop pulled by a team |