60
PARTISAN REVIEW
moment or two, directly in front of the church, on the lawn, or even
close up to the steps, and stare straight up into the sky along the
length of the steeple. I had to do this, I say, because of the thrilling
sensation of dizziness it gave
me.
My neck hurt and my head
swam, maybe I
even
tottered a step or two, but high overhead the
steeple pierced the blue sky; and if it was a day with clouds, the
spire rushed forward along them, bending further and further,
leaning and leaning, until it seemed certain the whole far-reaching
structure would topple down upon
me
and crash across the town.
That was how the steeple was from below. I knew it well that way.
But to know it from above-to
be
up
there
and look out and down
-my heart rose at the thought, and I was a little scared, too.
"Shamefaced as I was, I apologized--dido't I, Snitch?-But
he, like a good son, pretended not to know what I was talking about
and then went on to explain that for sailcloth he was supposed to
get Egyptian cotton but found he didn't have enough money. So he
bought thirty-six yards of feather-proof ticking instead. Smart,
wasn't he?
How
he knew about feather-proof ticking, nobody
knows, but when I .told his mother she said of course, that's just
what she would have gotten. So you see? Snitch and his mother
ftre the smart ones of the family.
Me,
I didn't even know that tick·
ing was feather-proofed!-Or is it 'proven'? You're a scholar."
_My brother smiled, but I could
see
he wasn't really paying atten–
tion, hearing instead that music coming down into the cellar from
the room above us, the sickish music of "The Palms."
Going up the last stairway my heart was pounding. The stair
was very narrow and looked unfinished, with walls sloping in on
us .so that we kept having to lean sideways to go ahead. Mr._Verne
went on up in front of
me.
I could
see
his kind of fat womanish
bottom as he bent over to duck the rafters that jutted out from the
sloping wall toward the center-post around which we were slowly
climbing. The air was dry and dusty and it was quite dark most
of the way, but at each turn you could
see
it was lighter up ahead.
I was honestly interested in seeing the steeple and the town from
there but I pretended to
be
even more so. My heart pounded and I
kept swallowing. I think I knew what was going to happen but at
the same time I didn't dare think of it either or I would have run
away. Then we came up into the light onto a small platform about
