the kind of moment that dots life with flashes of insight and twinges of emotion . . . the kind most of us miss because we are not listening to life.

I stopped in my tracks. As I watched, that sorry piece of wood took on a new dimension. I now saw a piece of string dangling from one end of the slat. The lad quickly arched the wood and hooked one end of the string over the upper end of the slat. I dawned on me that he had a bow. There seemed to be no arrows. . . only a bow.

I studied him a moment then shook my head. I'm sure I half-chuckled when I spoke. No one had ever made me such an ingenuous offer.

"No, I don't believe so," I said. "I wouldn't have any use for it."

"Don't you have a boy?" he asked.

There was a contraction in my chest. "No, I don't," I said. I tried to answer casually-to cloak the little tremor in my voice. In the adult world I am prepared. But who can be prepared with children. With one unpredictable word they can pierce your heart . . . and your defenses.

It is always a surprise that others do not take my bachelorhood as forgranted as I do. I have to remind myself that I am thirty-seven. I probably look like I should have a boy; but I feel single. It is the only way I have ever felt. I do not feel thirty-seven, nor married, nor fatherly. But the boy could only conceive of me as a father.

"It's a good bow," he said. He pointed the bow skyward and drew back on the string. Suddenly there was a muffled cracking sound and the pine slat abruptly folded in the middle. Crestfallen, the boy picked up the end of the dangling string.

Some would say, "That's life!", but I only felt the sudden absence of it. Life was in the bow. It had been put there by the hands of a boy. For a while that worthless scrap of wood lived again. The lad had asked so little, but it was more than his bow could return. Now life was gone lying slivered-a corpse in his hands.

For a second I wondered if the boy would cry, but he did not. A veteran of some 8 or 9 years does not cry. It was not the first bow to break in his hands. But his face fell at the cracking sound. I couldn't see his eyes for his head was lowered. With his hands he tried to mend the broken bow. The break pulled apart and he tried to stick the ends back together but the experience of his years quickly showed him the futility of his efforts.

Now it was his turn to cloak his voice.

"Oh-h-h.. I wanted to buy something for my mother."

In a few years he would learn strong words to insert after his "Oh-h-h," but now it could only be a helpless, mute moment in the statement. Just as well! What word could express such disappointment . . . none that I have! "Oh?" I replied.

"It's for her birthday," he continued.

Once or twice I had walked on a few steps but the boy had followed along at the curb.

I still felt the touch of his question, "Don't you have a boy?" My life seemed happier than most. What would seem sacrifices to some, I perceived as gains. There was really only one exception . . . one sacrifice . . . and the boy had innocently put his finger right on it.

"How much do you need for the present?" I asked at length. He looked at me, puzzled.

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