TH E SCOUT MASTER
389
you to go with us as our visitor." It was more command than invita–
tion and I said :
"Yes, sir."
"You two get yourselves a nap," he said and as he moved away
he pulled the door closed behind him.
Brother went to the closet and pulled out his Scout suit. I sat
up on the side of the bed. Thursday night is Scout night, I said to
myself. He and Uncle Jake would be going to Scout Meeting the
same as on any other Thursday. This made it all quite real now.
A sort of joy took possession of me. I saw that Brother, in
his
way,
was quite as disturbed as I by what had happened. Father had already
expressed his rage as he entered the house. Mother I could hear
talking and weeping intermittently in Virginia Ann's bedroom.
Uncle Jake would be off somewhere by himself looking out a window.
I felt somehow that I could hear Aunt Grace saying to Virginia Ann,
"You're a fool. You're a real little fool."
Brother was scrutinizing his uniform, brushing his shirt, loosen–
ing the knot of his kerchief. He would not look at me. Finally, with–
out raising his eyes, he said, "You weren't asleep. Did you or didn't
you go down and spy on them?" I made no answer. Now for some
reason I felt myself blushing. I had no mind to answer him, I cared
not whether he thought I had crept down the steps and spied on
them or had remained in our room sleeping. Though I had not done
so, I felt momentarily that I had. I could hardly remember whether
I had or had not. But that was no matter. Actually I seemed to have
forgotten Virginia Ann and Bill Evers. I was concerned only with
Brother's eagerness to get into his uniform and be gone to the Boy
Scout Meeting. For I saw what he was trying to interest himself in
the meeting that was still several hours off. I saw that he was suffi–
ciently disturbed to be trying to interest himself in other things. He
hung his khaki trousers and shirt on a chair and began to move to–
ward the bed. When he had lain down beside me he said, "Well, they
were only necking, but they sure were
at
it." It had not occurred to
me to imagine what they might have been doing, for I'd not have
known exactly how to imagine
it.
When Uncle Jake woke us he was dressed in his khaki Scout
clothes. It was dark outside, and he had turned on the light and gone
back into the hall to bring in a tray of sandwiches and two glasses of
mille Brother dressed himself in his khakis, and we ate.
Brother kept trying to make Uncle Jake talk about things per-
