
alone, on the darkest night in the most 
forbidding wood, with never an arched 
eyebrow, nor a quivering of the lip. 
It’s a matter of training. But you 
see Sonnyboy and myself had never 
chummed together during the very 
period when Fear was a formulative 
possibility. I was one of the Fathers 
who believed that boys could grow up, 
unattended and somehow get through. 
Differentiating “Fear” from lack of 
Courage—Sonnyboy, during all our re- 
cent adventures, had never once dis- 
played a yellow streak. I’m proud of 
manifold reassurances of it. We had 
been alone on the storm-swept Florida 
Key, Soldier Key, to be exact, when 
angry wind whipped the palms and 
angrier seas thundered in across a 
jagged bar from the interminable 
vastness beyond—and my memory of 
him still held firm—a brave little 
figure silhouetted 
in the doorway 
of the hut, calm, 
unafraid, al- 
though it was all 
very new and 
strange to him. 
There had been 
sharp thrills in 
sailboats as we 
scouted for Man- 
Plenty # Black Bass 
despite the 
Busy Dredges 
Reese on ee 

grove Snappers 
further up the 
Coast; there had 
been serene 
Page 7 
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g 
= 
nights, as black as pools of pitch, when 
he had gone out for water, during our 
stay at the absolutely remote farm in 
the Pennsylvania hills—and never 
once had I seen Fear written on his 
features. 
This unaccountably strange sensi- 
tiveness to darkness and the Un- 
known, had obviously slept, dormant, 
unawakened from the childhood train- 
ing of years long gone. And now—it 
was to dart forth—to taunt and 
humiliate me. 
Once again Mother had hugged us 
and kissed us and sent us Southward 
for our farewell Adventure. Always 
we had wanted her to go along, and 
always she had found some brilliant 
excuse for not accepting. Shrewd 
diplomat! 
in a narrower companionship, which 
made her say to herself “No, they will 


It was her spiritual faith - 


be better without me. They must 
grow to love each other, unhindered 
by my presence. Father and Son... 
Father and Son... just the two of 
them, for a little while longer!” 
We went to Miami... city of a 
thousand sporting Bagdad nights and 
days! We gloried in the regattas and 
the houseboat colonies . . . we cheered 
the polo ponies and the speeding 
power-racers ... we went deep-sea 
fishing and caught our sailfish... 
we bagged a wild-cat on the outskirts 
of a violet “plantation,” far out in the 
serub pine district. 
And always I was haunted by the 
shadow of separation. Sonnyboy was 
to go to college . . . his physical short- 
comings had been slowly healed and 
he must buckle down to unrestricted 
study, summer and winter. I would 
(Continued on page 35) 












