The Three Branches of Power

It was a warm summer evening as Tim walked slowly down the center of the lonely country road. He was rather small for his thirteen years; his reddish hair was crew-cut and there was a troubled look in his deep blue eyes. Why had he bragged like that to Tom about not being afraid of anything or anybody?
Just that morning his older sister Sally said, "Tim, I hate to see you run around with Tom. He's too old for you. I'm afraid you'll get hurt. You know how he's always playing practical jokes."
The sound of an automobile horn made him jump to one side as a blue-and-white sedan slowed down almost to a stop. The couple in the car were strangers to him. "That's him," the girl said, loud enough for Tim to hear. "That's the boy who robbed the store." "Right!" the young man added. "Wonder if the old man is going to live?" The automobile turned around and speeded back toward town.
Old Mr. Jones was alone in his store when he passed there a little while ago. Tim remembered how his hands shook when he handed him his change. He had not robbed the store nor had he hurt the old man, but this was a small town and if the two people in the car identified him as the one who was guilty what chance did he have?
Tim jumped the ditch, crawled under the barbed-wire fence and ran toward a cane patch. He was panting when he reached the other side of the field. In the west, the sun, like a large ball of fire, slowly sank behind the trees. Far across the field a dog barked. It sounded to him like the barking of a hound. His heart pounded in his chest. He walked until he came to the fence next to the highway. He lay down on the ground and fell asleep.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-25