“Used to have money you just handed around,” Nitty said.
“The emperors of China used lumps of silver stamped with an imperial seal,” Mr. Parker told him. “But by restricting money solely—in the final analysis—to entries kept by the Federal Reserve Bank, the entire cost of printing and coining is eliminated, and of course control for tax purposes is complete. While for identification retinal patterns are unsurpassed in every—”
Little Tib stopped listening. A train was coming. He could hear it far away, hear it go over a bridge somewhere, hear it coming closer. He felt around for his stick and got a good hold on it.
Then the train was louder, but the noise did not come as fast. He heard the whistle blow. Then Nitty was picking him up with one strong arm. There was a swoop and a jump and a swing, swing, swing, and they were on the train and Nitty set him down. “If you want to,” Nitty said, “you can sit here at the edge and hang your feet over. But you be careful.”
Little Tib was careful. “Where’s Mr. Parker?”
“Lying down in the back. He’s going to sleep—he sleeps a lot.”
“Can he hear us?”
“You like sitting like this? This is one of my most favorite of all things to do. I know you can’t see everything go by like I can, but I could tell you about it. You take right now. We are going up a long grade, with nothing but pinewoods on this side of the train. I bet you there is all kinds of animals in there. You like animals, George? Bears and big old cats.”
“Can he hear us?” Little Tib asked again.
“I don’t think so, because he usually goes to sleep right away. But it might be better to wait a little while, if you’ve got something you don’t want him to hear.”
“All right.”
“Now there’s one thing we’ve got to worry about. Sometimes there are railroad policemen on these trains. If someone is riding on them, they throw him off. I don’t think they’d throw a little boy like you off, but they would throw Mr. Parker and me off. You they would probably take back with them and give over to the real police in the next town.”
“They wouldn’t want me,” Little Tib said.
“How’s that?”
“Sometimes they take me, but they don’t know who I am. They always let me go again.”
“I guess maybe you’ve been gone from home longer than what I thought. How long since you left your mom and dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Must be some way of telling blind people. There’s lots of blind people.”
“The machine usually knows who blind people are. That’s what they say. But it doesn’t know me.”
“They take pictures of your retinas—you know about that?”
Little Tib said nothing.
“That’s the part inside your eye that sees the picture. If you think about your eye like it was a camera, you got a lens in the front, and then the film. Well, your retinas is the film. That’s what they take a picture of. I guess yours is gone. You know what it is you got wrong with your eyes?”
“I’m blind.”
“Yes, but you don’t know what it is, do you, baby. Wish you could look out there now—we’re going over a deep place, lots of trees and rocks and water way down below.”
“Can Mr. Parker hear us?” Little Tib asked again.
“Guess not. Looks like he’s asleep by now.”
“Who is he?”
“Like he told you. He’s the superintendent; only they don’t want him anymore.”
“Is he really crazy?”
“Sure. He’s a dangerous man too, when the fit comes on him. He got this little thing put into his head when he was superintendent to make him a better one—extra remembering and arithmetic, and things that would make him want to work more and do a good job. The school district paid for most of it; I don’t know what you call them, but there’s a lot of teenie little circuits in them.”
“Didn’t they take it out when he wasn’t superintendent anymore?”
“Sure, but his head was used to it by then, I guess. Child, do you feel well?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so good. Kind of pale. I suppose it might just be that you washed off a lot of the dirt when I told you to wash that face. You think it could be that?”
“I feel all right.”
“Here, let me see if you’re hot.” Little Tib felt Nitty’s big, rough hand against his forehead. “You feel a bit hot to me.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Look there! You see that? There was a bear out there. A big old bear, black as could be.”
