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“What is it, son?” he said.

He moved around the table from the head, started up on “J” once again.

“Papa, I never stole the stamps,” said Grover.

Gant put down the mallet, laid the chisel down. He came around the trestle.

“What?” he said.

As Grover winked his tar-black eyes, they brightened, the hot tears shot out.”I never stole the stamps,” he said.

“Hey? What is this?” his father said.”What stamps?”

“That Mr. Reed gave me, when the other boy was sick and I worked there for three days. . . . And Old Man Crocker,” Grover said, “he took all the stamps. And I told him Mr. Reed had given them to me. And now he owes me three ones—and Old Man Crocker says he don’t believe that they were mine. He says—he says—that I must have taken them somewhere,” Grover blurted out.

“The stamps that Reed gave you—hey?” the stonecutter said.”The stamps you had—” He wet his thumb upon his lips, threw back his head and slowly swung his gaze around the ceiling, then turned and strode quickly from his workshop out into the storeroom.

Almost at once he came back again, and as he passed the old gray painted-board partition of his office he cleared his throat and wet his thumb and said, “Now, I tell you—”

Then he turned and strode up toward the front again and cleared his throat and said, I tell you now—” He wheeled about and started back, and as he came along the aisle between the marshaled rows of gravestones he said beneath his breath, “By God, now—”

He took Grover by the hand and they went out flying. Down the aisle they went by all the gravestones, past the fly-specked angels waiting there, and down the wooden steps and across the Square. The fountain pulsed, the plume blew out in sheeted iridescence, and it swept across them; an old gray horse, with a peaceful look about his torn lips, swucked up the cool mountain water from the trough as Grover and his father went across the Square, but they did not notice it.

They crossed swiftly to the other side in a direct line to the candy shop. Gant was still dressed in his long striped apron, and he was still holding Grover by the hand. He opened the screen door and stepped inside.

“Give him the stamps,” Gant said.

Mr. Crocker came rocking forward behind the counter, with, the prim and careful look that now was somewhat like a smile.”It was just—” he said.

“Give him the stamps,” Gant said, and threw some coins down, on the counter.

Mr. Crocker rocked away and got the stamps. He came rocking back. “I just didn’t know—” he said.

The stonecutter took the stamps and gave them to the boy. And Mr. Crocker took the coins.

“It was just that—” Mr. Crocker began again, and smiled.

Gant cleared his throat: “You never were a father,” he said.”You never knew the feelings of a father, or understood the feelings of a child; and that is why you acted as you did. But a judgment is upon you. God has cursed you. He has afflicted you. He has made you lame and childless as you are—and lame and childless, miserable as you are, you will go to your grave and be forgotten!”

And Crocker’s wife kept kneading her bony little hands and said imploringly, “Oh, no—oh don’t say that, please don’t say that.”

The stonecutter, the breath still hoarse in him, left the store, still holding the boy tightly by the hand. Light came again into the day.

“Well, son,” he said, and laid his hand on the boy’s back.”Well son,” he said, “now don’t you mind.”

They walked across the Square, the sheeted spray of iridescent light swept out on them, the horse swizzled at the water-trough, and “Well, son,” the stonecutter said.

And the old horse sloped down, ringing with his hoofs upon the cobblestones.

“Well, son,” said the stonecutter once again, “Be a good boy.”

And he trod his own steps then with his great stride and went back again into his shop.