Free Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon

father’s face. That watchman was drunk, he smelled of sweat and dirty skin and cheap liquor just like the father, he yelled at George sudden the same old way, like he did not have to draw breath, it was there ready for yelling.
    That whole thing was too much for George and so he slid back into the woods and he roamed around in there for a long time, three, four days. He never did remember. He did not eat sleep probably not even a drink of water. One thing came clear later like a picture, it was the cave and the smell of their blanket and Anna sitting by him crying. Whatever else really happened is only what he was told. Anna brought him back to Aunt Mary’s place. He was weak and sick and he had a bad fever, and how she took him so far is a miracle but then she was pretty strong.
    He was sick a week, just laying there in his room and not saying nothing even when he got well enough to. Aunt Mary explained about Uncle Jim as much as she could, especially when he was not around to hear her. She said he was a little man through and through and always was mad at a big man just for that. She even told him they had quarreled, her and Uncle Jim, about George. He never really said there was funny business but he said she looked at big old George with his yellow hair and his muscles in a way that she should not even if she did not know it herself. And also Uncle Jim was no spring chicken no more. So when you added it up it was a high heap, Uncle Jim was mad at him because he was young, because women thought he was good looking, because he was strong, because his wife liked him, and on top of all that because he could not figure him out, you can not when a guy never says anything. So to cream it off on the top is, Uncle Jim thought that night with the skunk he was laughing at him. George was not laughing at him. A thing like that is funny but not when you are there.
    Uncle Jim never said he was sorry or anything but Aunt Mary said he was and George believed her. Uncle Jim just never mentioned it again and you would not believe it but things went on like before. But you have to remember George was used to all hell breaking loose and then everything just going on again, from he was a child. Maybe things was even a little better than before. Uncle Jim, he had shot himself a big lump and it was slow to fill up again, also he must be trying to hold off from that type thing he was not proud of. It did not really make much difference to George, he was used to it, and Aunt Mary was as kind as she could be while scared of what Uncle Jim said about liking George too much. But it really was better and no fooling with George and Anna, because it done Anna a lot of good to take care of him that once when he could not help himself, and it done George good too. There was many a time when George thought back to that, cuts and fever and the whole thing, it was what a guy really wants all the way down inside—to have your fill, to be safe with someone taking care, and just to quit thinking.
    Everything smoothed over like that until George was nineteen and Anna got sick.
    The only good thing about it was George knew why she was sick, she was knocked up, that is why. If she just did not show up and he got to hanging around her pa’s place asking, it would of been even worse a mess. Because he was never sure but he thought they knew what was wrong with her and you can bet they were crazy trying to figure out who was the guy. They was a stiff-neck bunch, her folks, and they would not let it get around but all the same, any guy around asking after her would of been on the spot. So it was a good thing he knew and could stay away. She was sick already when she told him. She was throwing up all the time, they call it morning sickness but this did not need mornings, she could not hold nothing on her stomach any time. She missed her period two times already, well, he knew that really before she did, she never used to keep track. So when she stopped showing up