But the boy had put his supper on the table and was beckoning him with
swift gesture. "You eat," he said pleadingly. And Achilles ate hastily
and gave directions for the basin of water and towels and a sponge, and
the boy carried them into the room beyond.

Half an hour later Alcibiades lay in bed, his clothes removed and the
blood washed from his face and hair. The clotted line still oozed a
little on the temple and the look of pain had not gone away. Achilles
watched him with anxious eyes. He bent over the bed and spoke to him
soothingly, his voice gentle as a woman's in its soft Greek accents;
but the look of pain in the boy's face deepened and his voice chattered
shrill.


They watched the ambulance drive away from in front of the striped
awning. Achilles held a card in his thin fingers--a card that would
admit him to his boy. Yaxis's eyes were gloomy with dread, and his
quick movements were subdued as he went about the business of the shop,
carrying the trays of fruit to the stall outside and arranging the
fruit under the striped awning. He was not to go out with the push-cart
to-day. There was too much work to do--and Achilles could not let the
boy go from him. Later, too, Achilles must go to the hospital--and to
the big house on the lake, and someone must be left with the shop.

So he kept the boy beside him, looking at him, now and then, with deep,
quiet eyes that seemed to see the city taking its toll of life--of
children--the children at play and the children at work. This land that
he had sought with his boys--where the wind of freedom blew fresh from
the prairies and the sea... and even little children were not safe! He
seemed to see it--through the day--this great monster that gathered them