I can see them now, exactly as they looked,
working about the table in the lamplight: Jake
with his heavy features, so rudely moulded
that his face seemed, somehow, unfinished;
Otto with his half-ear and the savage scar that
made his upper lip curl so ferociously under
his twisted mustache. As I remember them,
what unprotected faces they were; their very
roughness and violence made them defense-
less. These boys had no practiced manner
behind which they could retreat and hold
people at a distance. They had only their hard
fists to batter at the world with. Otto was
already one of those drifting, case-hardened
laborers who never marry or have children of
their own. Yet he was so fond of children!

[[95]]

p094 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p095w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p096

v?