24
PARTISAN REVIEW
loud. It was so very simple and he was astonished that he had
not thought of doing this before.
Dubie put the match carefully back into the box, rose
and tip-toed out of the room. Outside, in the air, he walked
with a dignified step up the slope and across the yard to
the
large wooden building. There was no hurried feeling in him.
He felt relaxed and joyful, not wooden and paralyzed as he
had felt before.
The guard at the door who had waked him half an hour
earlier nodded sleepily. Dubit went up to the dormitory and
taking a red handkerchief his mother had given him-it had
belonged to his father-laid his mouth organ, his tooth brush
which had been given him at school and which his mother had
insisted on sending with him, and a few other possessions in
it.
The rising bell had not rung, but some of the boys were awake.
Dubie walked to those who were awake and said gravely,
'}I'm going home. Goodbye."
With a grave solemn gesture he tucked the handkerchief
tied up, under his arm. He went to all the boys who were awake
and said gravely, "Goodbye."
They stared at him.
He walked out of the door. The guard in his chair snorted,
jerked up his head, looked at Dubie and went back to sleep
agam.
The cook was the first to notify Mister Anderson that
Dubie was gone. He found no fire built in the kitchen Stove and
began asking questions.
"I don't know," the boys answered Mister Anderson. The
one who was a trusty told Mister Anderson in the hall, "He
said he was goin' home."
Mister Anderson took one of the guards and hurried down
the road. By this time Dubie had been on the road for more
than twenty minutes. He saw the open country before him and
it made him feel that he wanted to laugh. It was so easy and
simple. There was the fresh morning, and the fresh road before
him. The road was taking him away from the white man, Mister
Anderson, who held the strap and wore a revolver and opened
his red mouth to shout. The stove was behind, and the fires
which made him see Clissy with the other children through the
flames, the black faces that had gone down into the open mouth
of the fire.
Dubie walked on even when he heard Mister Anderson be-
