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river bank talking, and Stubby Smith went on and on about
how much he wanted a bicycle. Lem said, "If you really want
one, why don't you get it?"
The kids hooted at him and asked him why he didn't get
one. Lem had never thought about getting something big,
like a bicycle. He closed his eyes and looked at pictures until
he found one where little Lydia Morrow toddled into the street
in front of a runaway team, and Lem jumped after her and
pulled her back, and Mr. Morrow took Lem right into his
hardware store and gave him the bicycle he had in the win-
dow.
Lem chose that one. He ran up town and got to Morrow's
Hardware Store just as Lydia started into the street, and he
was back at the river an hour later with his new bicycle.
For a long time Lem thought the pictures he saw were just
pictures of things that were going to happen. He'd been al-
most grown up before he understood that his choosing a
thing made it happen. Before a horse race at the county fair,
he could see pictures of every horse in the race winning. If
he made a choice, so he could bet on a horse, that horse would
always win. He learned in a hurry that it wasn't smart to
win all the time, and usually he would bet without even
looking at pictures, but he always won enough money at the
fair to last him through the winter.
Lem was twelve when his father fell off the barn, and he
had to leave school and work the farm. He was only twenty
when his mother died, and he rented out the farm and built
himself a shack back in the woods, near the river, and that
was his home. He loved to hunt and fish, and he loved being
outdoors. As he got older a lot of people said it was a shame,
a healthy man like him not working, and getting married,
and raising a family. But he liked living alone, and he had
all the company he ever wanted because all the kids liked
to play down by the river, winter and summer. It never cost
him much to live, and if he needed anything he could look
at pictures and get what he wanted. If he felt like working
for a week or two, he could look at pictures and then walk
in to town and find a job waiting for him.
He'd had a happy life. He could choose a nice day, if he
wanted to go fishing, or snow, if he wanted to do track-
ing, or rain, if the farmers were having trouble about their
crops. When hunting season opened, Lem Dyer always got
the first and biggest buck. He never went fishing without
coming back with a nice string, And if a man needed help,
chances were that Lem could help him.
He'd never told anyone about the pictures, and it bothered
him, now that he was sixty-one, to think that maybe it was
God who was showing them to him. He wondered if God had
wanted him to do something important with them some-
thing big, like stopping wars, or getting the right man elected
president, or catching criminals. He knew he could have done
all those things, if he'd thought of them. There wasn't any-
thing he couldn't do just by seeing it in a picture and choosing
it.
But he never read the papers, and he'd never thought
much about the world outside Glenn Center. He was almost
too old to start, but he'd think some more about it, after he
got out of jail. Maybe he should do something about those
Russians so many people were worried about.
The clock on the Methodist Church was striking two when
Lem finally went to bed.
The sheriff brought him his breakfast at four o'clock, a big t
plate of ham and eggs, and toast, and lots of steaming coffee,
Lem could already hear the men arriving out behind the jail,
where the scaffold was.
Reverend Meyers came in before Lem finished eating, and
his thin face was pale and grim. "Ted is still trying," he said,
Lem nodded. He wanted to tell the Reverend that every-
thing would be all right, so he wouldn't worry, but if he did
that he might have to tell him about the pictures. The Rev-
erend was a good man, and Lem was sure he could trust him
if he trusted anybody.
He was still thinking about it when he finished his break-
fast. He got down on his knees to pray when the Reverend
asked him to, and then the sheriff came in and there wasn't
time. The sheriff and two deputies took Lem out to the scaf-
fold, with the Reverend following along behind them.
Lem hadn't known that he had so many friends. The crowd
filled the whole field and overflowed out into First Avenue.
There weren't any women and children, of course, but it
looked like every man from miles around had turned out.
Lem thought it was nice of them to get up so early in the
morning just for him. They waited quietly, not talking much
and looking the other way when Lem looked down at them.
The Reverend was talking with the sheriff at the edge of
the scaffold, talking fast, and with his hands gesturing ur-
gently. The sheriff kept shrugging and turning his hands
palms up and glancing at his watch. A deputy moved Lem
over the trap and put the rope around his neck, Lem looked
up and smiled a little when he saw it was an old rope.
The sheriff's hands were trembling when he stepped for-
ward. He patted Lem on the back, and the Reverend said a
little prayer and whispered, "God bless you, Lem," and out
in the crowd Lem saw District Attorney Whaley turn slowly
and stand with his eyes on the steeple of the Methodist
Church. Then there was nothing under Lem's feet, and he
was falling.
The savage jerk blurred his eyes with pain, but he kept
falling until he sank to his knees on the ground under the
scaffold. The air rocked with noise as everyone started talking
and shouting. Sheriff Harbson came down and helped Lem
out and stood there white-faced, staring, not able to talk.
"Get a new rope!" someone shouted, and the crowd began
to chant, "New rope! New rope!"
"You can't hang a man twice in one day," the Reverend
was shouting, and the sheriff found his voice and shouted
back, "He has to hang by his neck until dead. That's the law."
Then everyone turned toward the jail, where a deputy was
screaming and trying to fight his way through the crowd.
The sheriff, and the deputies, and Reverend Meyers took
Lem and started back to the jail with him. It took a long time,
because none of the crowd seemed in any hurry to get out of
their way. Lem had supposed that the men would be glad to
hear about the governor's reprieve, but they weren't. The
noise got louder and louder, and they were shouting
things like he'd heard in his cell the night before. Lem's
pained him, and his ankle hurt from the fall, and he was glad
it was over with.
They'd rounded the corner of the jail and started for the
entrance, on Main Street, when the roaring fury of the crowd
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