Jeremy was aggrievedly sulking. If only Jason would stop being mad long enough to listen and let him explain!

Or at least believe he was sorry, because he was. Not that being sorry made him any righter, but –.

Oh, how could Jason be so mad at him for so long? This was the fourth day. The fourevereth day, maybe.

If he could just explain!

But Jason wouldn't let him! If he tried to talk about anything but did he want another biscuit or another blanket or something normal, Jason just said "No." He said he didn't want to hear it.

Not yet, anyway.

How was a guy supposed to end a punishment if they never talked about why he was being punished? Or even expect it to end?

Jeremy balled his hands into fists and pounded on the filled table in front of him to stop himself from crying. He was eight years old (almost) and that was too big to be being a crybaby about a deserved punishment.

He was not going to cry!

He was not!

Pound, pound.

"You break the legs off that table, Jason may take 'em to you," Josh said, dropping onto a seat beside his brother.

"Quit checkin' up on me."

"What, and have him get mad at me? No thanks."

"Go away."

"Well I will. I have to tell him you haven't wandered off again; you're still sitting in the camp." Josh thoughtfully didn't add the word pouting, even if that was what it amounted to. And, to be fair, he might have acted the same way himself.

"Yeah, or you'll get in trouble, too. I know."

"Sorry, kid, but, if you were me, which brother would you rather have mad at you?"

Jeremy half laughed at that. "Josh, is he ever–"

"I think maybe he's waiting for Da to get back."

"Is he gonna come back? He's been gone a long time." It had been just over a month, but it was only supposed to be two weeks.

"We'll hear if there's – anything."

"Maybe he – m-maybe he already d-did? Heard something?" M-maybe that's why he c-can't get unmad?"

"I never thought of that." Josh thought it over. "No. No, I don't think so. Somebody else from town would have come around and said something."

"Ya think so?"

"I do. I better get back, kid. See ya in a little while."

"I'll be here." The boy went back to sulking and not crying. And now worrying a little bit about Da, even if he thought Josh was probably right. Josh was pretty good about figuring out how things were about how things worked out. There was probably a big word for that, but he couldn't think of it.

But that didn't matter. He didn't need to know big (Josh said 'grown up') words if he wasn't even allowed to use little ones.

If not even Jason would listen to him, was there even any sense in talking?

At least not until Da came home?

If he did.

But what if he didn't?

What if Da didn't come home, and Jason stayed mad forever?

No, he was not going to cry. He was too big to cry about ever'thing. He had to DO something!

He ran around the small camp, kicking each and every one of the stumps that were being used for chairs or tables when the men were done working. There, that felt better!

He still felt like crying, though.

So he screamed. "Dumb bears! Dumb rocks! Dumb falling trees! Dumb roots! Dumb me! Dumb, dumb, dumb!"

That felt pretty good.

He stomped through some mud puddles, and that was satisfying, possibly because it made everything get dirty and wet, especially himself. It didn't matter if it made Jason mad, because he was already so mad he couldn't get madder, and maybe even if he did get madder, he'd yell at him for being badder, instead of just being polite alla the time.

He eyed the nearly four foot stump in the center , the one that Josh called Jason's podium where he explained the work every day. Kicking that would be satisfying, but since it was still rooted to the ground, it would probably hurt.

It'd serve Jason right if he could knock it over though. Make it pop right out of the ground.

Yeah, if it didn't come out of the ground when Jason leaned on it to talk, it wasn't gonna pop out of the ground if a little kid pushed and shoved on it. Not even if he ran fast at it, as fast as he ever could.

Come to think of it, almost none of the stumps came out that easy. The men had had to work hard to dig up AND cut off the roots of the ones they used for furniture, not just yank them.

Hmm.

He slosh/stomped through the mud back to the (real) table and (real) chair he had been sitting in when Josh came. He studied the stack of books he was probably supposed to read and wondered what would happen if he just sort of bumped into the table and knocked them off into the mud.

They'd probably make a big messy splash, but if they got too mudded, nobody'd ever be able to read them again.

If Jason ever talked normal to him again, he'd prob'ly read to him again, too. Jason could read stories pretty good.

And some of the books were Da's, and if he ever came back, he'd get mad if his books were ruint. And he – Da – might expect the destroyer to replace the books, and books costed a lot of money, he thought. If it was a lot of money for grown-ups, he didn't want to think how much morer it would cost a kid who was too little to do much work.

Yeah, that was a bad idea.

Still, the boy speculatively eyed both the 'podium' and the stack of books, finally exhaling a heavy sigh and reluctantly picked up one of the books and started reading. Reluctantly.