father and mother. Malachy and Michael run up to me in the lane and say, God, you’re walking very slow. Can’t you run anymore? It’s a bright day and I’m happy till I see Dad sitting in the kitchen with Alphie on his lap and there’s an empty feeling in my heart because I know he’s out of work again.All along I was sure he had a job, Mam told me he did, and I thought there would be no shortage of food and shoes. He smiles at me and tells Alphie, Och, there’s your big brother home from the hospital. Mam  tells  him  what  the  doctor  said, that  I’m  to  have  plenty  of nourishing food and rest.The doctor said beef would be the right thing for building me up again. Dad nods. Mam makes beef tea from a cube and Malachy and Mike watch me drink it.They say they’d like some too but Mam says go away, ye didn’t have the typhoid. She says the doctor wants me to go to bed early. She tried to get rid of the fleas but they’re worse than ever with the warm weather we’re having. Besides, she says, they won’t get much out of you all bones and little skin. I lie in bed and think of the hospital where the white sheets were changed every day and there wasn’t a sign of a flea.There was a lavatory where you could sit and read your book till someone asked if you were dead.There was a bath where you could sit in hot water as long as you liked and say, I do believe, Induced by potent circumstances That thou art mine enemy, And saying that helps me fall asleep. When Malachy and Michael get up for school in the morning Mam tells me I can stay in bed. Malachy is in fifth class now with Mr. O’Dea and he likes to tell everyone he’s learning the big red catechism for Con- firmation and Mr. O’Dea is telling them all about state of grace and Euclid and how the English tormented the Irish for eight hundred long years. I don’t want to stay in bed anymore.The October days are lovely and I want to sit outside looking up the lane at the way the sun slants along the wall opposite our house. Mikey Moloney brings me P. G. Wodehouse books his father gets from the library and I have great days with Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and all the Mulliners. Dad lets me 203