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let these things be known.
    Shortly after, the dock horn squalled and afternoon activity officially began. Bathing suits replaced shorts, tennis rackets and ball bats ousted comic books, forced repose succumbed to violent movement. In a minute, the last of the boys had dashed out of the cabin with Tony, as usual, trudging off to the diamond, weighed down by the
Louisville Slugger
that was almost as long as he was.
    I finished my mail—a letter from my mother and one from a friend— and went to the door, stretching. Maybe an ice cream now.
    Then an urge; unkind, if you will. I suddenly wanted to read Tony’s letter. I wanted to see what his mother was like, I wanted to see if there was any hint in her words of the warped debilities she had transferred to her son. Was she young, wild, irresponsible? Or old, stolid, ignorant? I knew that Tony’s father had divorced her; Sid had told me that. But that was all I knew.
    I sat down on Tony’s bunk and picked up the letter.
    I hope you’re enjoing yourself. I hope you’ll be good. I hope I can come and see you. I hope you lisen to your counsiler
. (A smile from me.)
    I sat there. I read that letter again, not understanding. Where was “the blue suit and some shirts and some pants and everything?” I kept rereading the letter, not quite able to believe it, undergoing a strange, unrealistic feeling; one I had trouble adjusting to.
    There it was though. A ten-year-old boy who had to lie because there was nothing else to balance himself with. A little boy who could find equality only in imagining.
    I didn’t know what to do or think. I couldn’t tell Tony; I wouldn’t want him to know I’d read his letter. There was nothing to do, nothing to say. Just keep quiet, be a little ashamed for knowing and three cheers for people who breed children only to ruin them.
4.
    It was dark in the cabin; early morning. Everyone should have been asleep but I heard a moaning. I sat up with a rustling of bedclothes and listened hard.
    Tony.
    Realizing that, I suspected for a moment that it was a trick since he was excessively prone to them at all hours. I sat there listening a moment to see if he’d cease crying midnight wolf.
    He didn’t. The moaning went on and I got up and went over to his bed with my flashlight. I shone it down a little to the side of his face and saw his eyes, wide and stricken.
    “What’s the matter, Tony?” I asked quietly.
    “My foot hurts.”
    I pulled aside the army blanket and shone my flashlight there. It was
no wonder his foot hurt. It was swollen and inflamed, along the bottom of it a ragged gash, purple-edged with infection.
    “Good God, when did
this
happen?”
    “Couple days ago.”
    “How?”
    “I … j-jumped offa the dock and landed on a rock.”
    “Well, why didn’t you tell somebody?”
    “I was scared.”
    No answer to that; it was beyond argument. I could only care for him. As gently as I could, wincing along with him, I wrapped some gauze from my first-aid kit around the foot and told him we’d go to the dispensary in the morning.
    “You’ve got to
tell
people when you get hurt, Tony,” I said. “Don’t keep it a secret.”
    Only a sniffling and a tear from Tony Rocca. I felt a sudden rush of pity for the kid. My smile was as tender as a smile in the sleep-logy middle of the night can be.
    “It’s all right, Tony,” I said. “All right. Go to sleep now.”
    “Thanks, Matt.” Quietly and gratefully.
    I went back to my bed and lay awake awhile to see if he was going to be all right. He made no further sounds of pain and, after about fifteen minutes, I heard the delicate babbling of his snores. I turned on my side, amused at the parental feeling I had.
    The next morning I took Tony to the dispensary where I spent an hour or so with him, lending moral support while a scolding Miss Leiber lanced, drained, sulfa-powdered and bandaged. When we finally returned to the cabin, Tony had a slipper on his bad boot and he made a pathetic