ffecting to whistle and keeping his eyes on the foliage overhead. He
still looked upward, even in the act of sitting down.

"Squirrel or something," he said, feebly, as if in explanation.

"Where?" Milla asked.

"Up there on a branch." He accepted a plate from her (she had provided
herself with an extra one), but he did not look at it or her. "I'm not
just exactly sure it's a squirrel," he said. "Kind of hard to make out
exactly what it is." He continued to keep his eyes aloft, because he
imagined that all of the class were looking at him and Milla, and he
felt unable to meet such publicity. It was to him as if the whole United
States had been scandalized to attention by this act of his in going
to sit beside Milla; he gazed upward so long that his eyeballs became
sensitive under the strain. He began to blink. "I can't make out whether
it's a squirrel or just some leaves that kind o' got fixed like one,"
he said. "I can't make out yet which it is, but I guess when there's a
breeze, if it's a squirrel he'll prob'ly hop around some then, if he's
alive or anything."

It had begun to seem that his eyes must remain fixed in that upward
stare forever; he wanted to bring them down, but could not face the
glare of the world. So the fugitive ostrich is said to bury his head in
the sand; he does it, not believing himself thereby hidden but trying to
banish from his own cognizance terrible facts which his unsheltered eyes
have seemed to reveal. So, too, do nervous children seek to bury their
eyes under pillows, and nervous statesmen theirs under oratory. Ramsey's
ostrichings can happen to anybody. But finally the brightness of the sky
between the leaves settled matters for him; he sneezed, wept, and for
a little moment again faced his fellowmen. No one was looking at him;
everybody except Milla had other things to do.

Having sneezed involuntarily, he added a spell of coughing for which
there was no necessity. "I guess I must be wrong," he muttered thickly.

"What about, Ramsey?"

"About it bein' a squirrel." With infinite timidity he turned his head
and encountered a gaze so soft, so hallowed, that it disconcerted him,
and he dropped a "drumstick" of fried chicken, well dotted with ants,
from his plate. Scarlet he picked it up, but did not eat it. For the
first time in his life he felt that eating fried chicken held in the
fingers was not to be thought of. He replaced the "drumstick" upon his
plate and allowed it to remain