drum beat, in the continuous flow of his walk, as though with each step he forgot for a split-
second where he was going.
“How’s Leper?” he asked in an offhand way.
“Oh Leper’s—how would he be? You know Leper—” The fight was moving toward us; I stalled
a little more, a stray snowball caught Finny on the side of the face, he shot one back, I seized
some ammunition from the ground and we were engulfed.
Someone knocked me down; I pushed Brinker over a small slope; someone was trying to tackle
me from behind. Everywhere there was the smell of vitality in clothes, the vital something in
wool and flannel and corduroy which spring releases. I had forgotten that this existed, this smell
which instead of the first robin, or the first bud or leaf, means to me that spring has come. I had
always welcomed vitality and energy and warmth radiating from thick and sturdy winter clothes.
It made me happy, but I kept wondering about next spring, about whether khaki, or suntans or
whatever the uniform of the season was, had this aura of promise in it. I felt fairly sure it didn’t.
The fight veered. Finny had recruited me and others as allies, so that two sides fighting it out had
been taking form. Suddenly he turned his fire against me, he betrayed several of his other
friends; he went over to the other, to Brinker’s side for a short time, enough to ensure that his
betrayal of them would heighten the disorder. Loyalties became hopelessly entangled. No one
was going to win or lose after all. Somewhere in the maze Brinker’s sense of generalship
disappeared, and he too became as slippery as an Arab, as intriguing as a eunuch. We ended the
fight in the only way possible; all of us turned on Phineas. Slowly, with a steadily widening grin,
he was driven down beneath a blizzard of snowballs.
When he had surrendered I bent cheerfully over to help him up, seizing his wrist to stop the final
treacherous snowball he had ready, and he remarked, “Well I guess that takes care of the Hitler
Youth outing for one day.” All of us laughed. On the way back to the gym he said, “That was a
good fight. I thought it was pretty funny, didn’t you?”
Hours later it occurred to me to ask him, “Do you think you ought to get into fights like that?
After all, there’s your leg—”
“Stanpole said something about not falling again, but I’m very careful.”
“Christ, don’t break it again!”
“No, of course I won’t break it again. Isn’t the bone supposed to be stronger when it grows
together over a place where it’s been broken once?”
“Yes, I think it is.”
“I think so too. In fact I think I can feel it getting stronger.”
“You think you can? Can you feel it?”