Page 56

By Jack Joseph Smith

Which way shall we go? Asked Daniel, his eyes excited. Lets run along the ridge. Okey. Everyone toward Kennedy forest, Daniel and I said with whispering depth. We were off and runing again with our feet rising with our spirits like a flat rock skimming across a smooth lake. We ran along the ridge over the forest loudly laughing and yelling at the ghosts that were clearly being burned in waves of heat that were falling like the sun through the trees. The late afternoon was bringing a wind and the sky was changing. We headed home across the field and the little girls were happy. We boys were playing and paying no attention to them, but they liked us now and keep close behind us. When we started walking on the road I asked Daniel if he thought Mr. Metzes had gone away. We really wanted to see him. He was so alone and all. Living by himself with no one to talk to. And his wife and children burned alive or living far away from him, because he wouldn't leave his place. He just wanted to stay there I guess and look around at what he had built on the top of the hill by the apple trees. I bet he loved to see them blossom in the spring when all the birds were singing and he was sad, because all the humans he loved weren't there to talk to him any more. He really gave us life when we were telling stories about him. Gee, we really did want to see him. Cause we weren't afraid of him, even if he had chased us with his gun and shot it so loud so that it scared us out of our wits. Something like that did happen you know, because our heads were banging so much when we were runing away from him. But he was so big we couldn't stay and talk him into puting his gun down. I guess he did go away, I said to Danial, but I

Original Scan

Page 56

AI Interpretation

GPT

Running home from the orchard, the children turn their escape into admiration for Mister Metzes, imagining his loneliness, bravery, ruined household, and the life his field keeps giving them.

Fear is already changing into devotion here, because the gunshot story makes him larger without making him hateful. Metzes field becomes a place where danger, pity, and play hold together, and the boys begin wanting not just to raid his land but to be recognized by him.

Claude

The flight home, feet 'rising with our spirits like a flat rock skimming across a smooth lake', turns into an act of empathy: the boys invent a backstory of loneliness for Mr. Metzes - 'his wife and children burned alive or living far away', a man who 'wouldn't leave his place'. The narrator notices that the storytelling is reciprocal - 'He really gave us life when we were telling stories about him' - and admits the gunshot may have been their own pounding heads ('our heads were banging so much'), so the menace was partly self-generated. The compassion they build here is what will later license the speaker's ritual burning of the field in Metzes's honor.