‘But, Willie,’ said Mrs Emily long ago, ‘didn’t you ever get lonely? Didn’t you ever want – things – that grown-ups wanted?’

I fought that out alone,’ said Willie. ‘I’m a boy, I told myself, I’ll have to live in a boys’ world, read boys’ books, play boys’ games, cut myself off from everything else. I can’t be both. I got to be only one thing – young. And so I played that way. Oh, it wasn’t easy. There were times -He lapsed into silence.

‘And the family you lived with, they never knew?’

‘No. Telling them would have spoiled everything. I told them I was a runaway; I let them cheek through official channels, police. Then, when there was no record, let them put in to adopt me. That was best of all; as long as they never guessed. But then, after three years, or five years, they guessed, or a traveling man came through, or a carnival man saw me, and it was over. It always had to end.’

‘And you’re very happy and it’s nice being a child for over forty years?’

‘It’s a living, as they say; and when you make other people happy, then you’re almost happy too. I got my job to do and I do it.’

He threw the baseball one last time and broke the reverie. Then he was running to seize his luggage. Tom, Bill, Jamie, Bob, Sam – their names moved on his lips. They were embarrassed at his shaking hands.

‘After all, Willie, it ain’t as if you’re going to China or Timbuktu. ‘~

‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ Willie did not move.

‘So long, Willie. See you next week!’

‘So long, so long!’

And he was walking off with his suitcase again, looking at the trees, going away from the boys and the street where he had lived, and as he turned the corner a train whistle screamed, and he began to run.

In the early morning, with the smell of the mist and the cold metal, with the iron smell of the train around him and a ill night of traveling shaking his bones and his body, and a smell of the sun beyond the horizon, he awoke and looked out upon a small town just arising from sleep. Lights were coming on, soft voices muttered, a red signal bobbed back and forth, back and forth in the cold air. A porter moved by, shadow in shadows.

‘Sir,’ said Willie.

The porter stopped.

‘What town’s this?’ whispered the boy in the dark.

‘Valleyville.’

‘How many people?’

‘Ten thousand. Why? This your stop?’

‘It looks green.’ Willie gazed out at the cold morning town for a long time. ‘It looks nice and quiet,’ said Willie.