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SO BIG

now, but he'll be different.. . . Twenty-second Street. . . Twelfth. . . Look at all the people!. . . I’m enjoying this. No use denying it. I’m enjoying this. Just as I enjoyed driving along with Klaas Pool that evening, years and years ago. Scared, but enjoying it. Perhaps I oughtn’t to be—but that’s hypocritical and sneaking. Why not, if I really do enjoy it! I'll wake him . . . Dirk! Dirk, we’re almost there. Look at all the people, and the lights. We’re almost there.”

The boy awoke, raised himself from his bed of sacking, looked about, blinked, sank back again and curled into a ball. “Don’t want to see the lights. . . people. . .

He was asleep again. Selina guided the horses skilfully through the downtown streets. She looked about with wide ambient eyes. Other wagons passed her. There was a line of them ahead of her. The men looked at her curiously. They called to one another, and jerked a thumb in her direction, but she paid no heed. She decided, though, to have the boy on the seat beside her. They were within two blocks of the Haymarket, on Randolph Street.

“Dirk! Come, now. Come up here with mother.” Grumbling, he climbed to the seat, yawned, smacked his lips, rubbed his knuckles into his eyes.

“What are we here for?”

“So we can sell the garden truck and earn money.”

“What for?”

“To send you to school to learn things.”