Free The Children by Howard Fast

street.”
    â€œDon’t you know, my little one, how God cares for children? God will punish the barbarian; but the laughter of children is music in His ears. You are innocent.”
    â€œI saw the devil.”
    â€œNo, no. You see, we are in a land of barbarians, my child …”
    Marie saw that her mother was crying too; she saw more than that. She saw past the line that separated her world from her mother’s. And because she knew that she would go down to the cellar again, she wept with her mother.

FIFTEEN

    I HAVE TOLD YOU A LOT ABOUT THE BLOCK, AND I WILL tell you some more; but not too much. If I tell you too much, you will not believe; if I call my story The Children, you will raise your brows—because there are no such children in the world. But aren’t there? What do you know about children? And what do children know about the other world, where you work—and try to pay your rent? But are the worlds so different? If once all men were what we were then—then have men changed? I don’t know. But in the end, after I have told you all about Shomake’s fiddle, about what happened to Blackbelly, I will tell you of Ollie, and maybe a little about Thomas Edison.
    Y OU WILL ADMIT that being a friend of Ollie’s is better than being Shomake’s friend. I don’t have to be afraid any more. But that is not all. Oh no, don’t for a moment believe that I, Ishky, am that dull. You see, I know Ollie. Can anybody know Ollie better than I do? Ollie is a fighting machine, but he is not at all the kind of a machine Blackbelly is; he is all nerves and emotion. And in my way, without thinking too much, I decide that I will play on that. Now this is how it all came about.
    In the dark coal bin, I know Ollie is thinking. I am thinking, too.…
    â€œGeesus, whatta fight!”
    Ollie says, “Duh whole block’s lousy wid niggers.”
    I agree with Ollie. “Black basteds.”
    â€œWe oughta have a gang.” That’s what Ollie says, and I know he’s not sure of himself. If he were sure of himself, would he confide in me?
    â€œIt oughta be yer gang,” I say.
    â€œDam tootin’.”
    â€œBetcha you could lick anybody,” I say.
    â€œDam tootin’.”
    Now my chance has come, and I go about it very craftily; oh, never fear—I am nobody’s fool.
    â€œYuh gonna lemme in it, Ollie?” I want to know.
    â€œYou can’ fight.”
    â€œI could makeya schemes, Ollie. I read a lotta books.”
    â€œLookit duh way Blackbelly almost kilt yuh.”
    â€œListen, Ollie,” I tell him. “You an’ me could have duh biggest gang aroun’. We could kick duh shid oudda any block.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œSure, Ollie.”
    â€œWe gotta git a gang.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Thomas Edison saw Blackbelly and his gang chase Ollie and Ishky down the cellar. He ran across the street, taking refuge in front of the shoe store until the colored boys had gone. Then he crept into the hallway, down into the cellar, and he lay there, listening to Ishky’s and Ollie’s eager plans. The more they spoke, the more it appealed to him, and finally he could contain himself no longer.
    â€œHey, Ollie!”
    â€œGeesus, who’s dat?”
    â€œJus’me.”
    â€œIt’s nuts.”
    â€œGit oudda here, loony!”
    â€œAw—Ollie.”
    â€œScrew, bughouse.”
    â€œLemme in duh gang, Ollie. Ollie—”
    Simultaneously, Ishky and Ollie fell on him, kicking him and beating him up into the hallway. Tearfully, Thomas Edison fell and stumbled up, fled then into the bright sunlight. Still stumbling, nodding his over-large head from side to side, he made his way down to his house.
    The wooden shack where they all lived was always dirty; there were three rooms, in which eight of them lived, Ollie and Thomas Edison, brothers and sisters, mother and father, and the grandmother.