He walked lazily about the grave until the Memorial Day procession
had entered the big iron gate a hundred yards away. Calhoun Perkins's
grave could not be seen from the plot where the townspeople had
gathered. The boy sat down with his back to the crowd. He did not know
how near the people were to him. He felt that they were staring down,
perhaps laughing, at him. So he tried to assume a careless air. He
picked up clods and tossed them at adjacent objects. Tiring of this,
he chewed the grass stems, and sucked the nectar from the corolla of
wild honeysuckles. But this did not keep the lump out of his throat,
and it did not subdue the turmoil of sorrow in his heart at the
thought that his father was scorned in the town. Once his small frame
shook with a strangled sob, but immediately afterward he threw an
unusually big clod at a post near by. He had been hearing voices and
footsteps on the brow of the hill for several minutes. Occasionally he
picked out a familiar voice, and once he heard Mealy Jones call his
name. He did not answer, but a woman standing a little further up the
hill asked Mealy, "Who is it, Harold?" "Bud," said the youngster.

"Bud who?" asked the woman's voice.

The Perkins boy heard the dialogue. He was sitting down, throwing
clods into the air, and catching them as they fell, and this appeared
to be an engrossing task.

"Bud Perkins. He's settin' down by his pa's grave," replied the boy on
the hill. The child by the fresh mound pictured himself as the other
boy saw him, and his eyes brimmed over with tears. He seemed so
desolate.

"Why don't you go to him?" insisted the woman, coming nearer.