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said.
    â€œTom hasn’t heard it,” I said. Tom had been setting at the corner of the table and hadn’t said a word.
    â€œIt won’t take but a second,” Locke said. “Remember the ditch in the lower end of the field, before Pa put the pipe in there? Joe and I was coming back from fishing and it had got dark.”
    â€œI’ve heard this story,” Lily said. “It’s a mean story.”
    â€œWell David hasn’t heard it, and neither has Tom,” Locke said. He took a sip of his coffee. “I had a string of fish in one hand and my pole in the other. And when I got to where the ditch was I took a little jump, like I had crossed the ditch, and said, ‘Watch out for the ditch, Joe.’ Then I jumped the trench in a long leap, quiet as I could. Behind me Joe took a leap from where I had told him to and landed right in the water.”
    â€œWasn’t you nice?” Florrie said. She looked at Tom. “That’s the kind of family we are. You better watch out for Locke.”
    â€œI g-g-got even,” Joe said, “when we dug for zircons.”
    â€œHe made me dig the pits, because I was the little brother,” Locke said.
    â€œYou all dug holes all over the pasture and mountainside,” I said. “And didn’t find a thing.”
    â€œI wasn’t looking for zircons,” Locke said. “I was an explorer, like Columbus. I was looking for the route to China.”
    â€œLooking for a way to get out of hoeing corn,” Florrie said.
    I brought out a plate of cookies and lit the lamp at the center of the table. “When are you going to get out of the army and settle down?” I said.
    â€œWhen I find a girl that suits me,” Locke said.
    â€œHow are you going to meet a girl off in the army?” I said. “And what girl wants a feller with such crazy ideas and a lack of faith?” I had said more than I meant to.
    â€œI have faith,” Locke said. “I have plenty of faith.”
    â€œGinny wants you to come back to the river and attend brush arbor meetings,” Florrie said.
    â€œI didn’t say that,” I said.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Pa said. Pa never did like to tease or argue about religion. He had a horror of disputation.
    â€œI saw somebody that was demon-possessed when I was in the Philippines,” Locke said.
    â€œI’ve seen a few people that was demon-possessed closer to home,” Florrie said.
    â€œNo, this man was a demoniac, like in the Bible,” Locke said. “They had locked him up like he was a lunatic. A doctor who had also studied for the ministry took me with him to the prison outside Manila. We was supposed to treat the prisoners. It was a part of the army’s plan to pacify the country, to send doctors and nurses out to treat the people. I was asked to go because I had studied tropical diseases.
    â€œWe went through this jail examining inmates and giving out pills. There was murderers and prisoners of war, terrorists and political prisoners. The Philippines are full of terrorists. We looked at bullet wounds and people with TB and malaria and jungle fevers you’ve never heard of. There was people with sores caused by funguses and ringworm, and people with gangrene. Everybody seemed glad to see us until we come to a cell where the man started screaming, ‘Stay away from me. Stay away.’ He had taken off his clothes and was climbing the bars like a monkey.”
    â€œMaybe he was d-d-d-descended from Darwin,” Joe said. Joe was always worrying about Darwin and the theory of evolution.
    â€œThis demoniac spit at us and hollered, ‘Stay away from me, stay away.’ He cussed up a storm. You never heard such oaths. The strangest thing was they said he didn’t even know English, and here he was swearing so I could understand him.”
    â€œWhat did the doctor do?” Tom said. Tom set up in his chair and put his