When Cincinnatus stopped the truck by the curb, the policeman strutted over. "You are from where?" he demanded.

"Covington, Kentucky, suh-just the other side of the river," Cincinnatus answered. He wouldn't have got uppity with a Covington cop, and he wasn't so rash as to think the police would be much friendlier on the north side of the Ohio.

"What do you do here?" the policeman asked. "Why don't you stay on the other side of the river where you belong?"

"I ain't plannin' on settling down in Cincinnati, suh," Cincinnatus said hastily. "My family and me, we're just passin' through."

"Where are you going to?" the policeman inquired.

"Headin' for Iowa," Cincinnatus told him. "Des Moines, Iowa."

"This is a good long way from Cincinnati," the cop said, as much to himself as to Cincinnatus. "You will the worry of the people in Iowa be, not the worry of the people here. Very well. You may go on." He even condescended to stop traffic and let Cincinnatus pull out once more. Cincinnatus would have been more grateful had it been less obvious that the policeman was getting rid of him.

"Welcome to the United States," Elizabeth remarked. "Welcome-but not very welcome."

"I was thinking that myself, not very long ago," Cincinnatus said. "Better here than if we'd headed down to Tennessee."

His wife didn't argue about that. He went back to concentrating on his driving. He knew where he was going, but he wasn't completely sure how to get there. Road maps left a lot to be desired. He'd studied as many as he could at the Covington library, so he knew how far from perfect they were. He also mistrusted road signs. Oh, roads in towns had names and numbers; he could rely on that. But he'd seen during the war that roads between towns might change names without warning or might never have had names in the first place. That made traveling more interesting for strangers.

He managed to get out of Cincinnati, and congratulated himself on that. Only after he'd been out of town for a while did he realize he was going due north, not northwest toward Indianapolis.

"Don't fret yourself about it none," Elizabeth said when he cursed himself for fourteen different kinds of a fool. "Sooner or later, you'll come across a road that runs into the one you should have used. Then everything'll be fine again."

"Sure, I'll come across that blame road," Cincinnatus snarled, "but how the devil will I know it's the right one? It won't look no different than any other road, and it won't have no sign on it, neither." He felt harassed.

He felt even more harassed a couple of minutes later, when one of the truck's inner tubes blew out with a bang that would have put him in mind of a gunshot had he not heard more gunshots than he'd ever wanted to hear the past few years. He guided the limping machine to the side of the road and began the slow, dirty business of repairing the puncture.

Motorcars and trucks kept rolling past him as if he weren't there. Every one of them-every one he noticed, anyhow-had a white face behind the wheel. Most, no doubt, wouldn't have stopped to help a white man, either. But would all of them have sped past a strange white without more than a single hasty glance? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe not, too.

At last, when he was wrestling the wheel back onto the axle, a Ford did pull up behind the truck. "Give you a hand?" asked the driver, a plump blond fellow in a straw hat and overalls.

"Just about done it now," Cincinnatus said. "Wish you'd come by a half hour ago; I don't mind tellin' you that."

"Believe it," the white man said. "Where you bound for?"

"Des Moines," Cincinnatus answered, and held up a filthy hand. "Yeah, I know I'm on the wrong road. I missed the right one down in Cincinnati. You know how I can get back to it from here?"

"Go up… lemme see… four crossings and then turn left. That'll put you heading toward the highway to Indiana," the white man said. He cocked his head to one side. "You got family in Des Moines?"

"No, suh," Cincinnatus said. "Just lookin' for a better place to live than Kentucky." He waited to see how the white man would take that.

"Oh. Good luck." The fellow climbed into his automobile and drove away.

"Thanks for the directions," Cincinnatus called after him. He couldn't tell whether the white man heard. He shrugged. The man had stopped, and had given him some help. He couldn't complain about that-even if, worn as he was, he felt sorely tempted. "Des Moines," he said. He'd be on the road again soon.

"Come on," Sylvia Enos said impatiently to George, Jr., and Mary Jane as they made their way across the Boston Common toward the New State House. "And hold on to my hands, for heaven's sake. If you get lost, how will I find you again in this crowd?"

U.S. flags fluttered from the platform that had gone up in front of the New State House. Red-white-and-blue bunting wreathed it. Although President Roosevelt wasn't scheduled to start speaking for another hour, the crowd was already growing rapidly. Most of the people gathering around the platform were men. Why not? They enjoyed the right to vote.

Even though Sylvia didn't, she wanted to hear what Roosevelt had to say for himself. She wanted to see him, too, and to have the children see him. They'd remember that for the rest of their lives.

Mary Jane, at the moment, had her mind on other things: "The dome sure is shiny, Ma!" she said, pointing. "It's as shiny as the sun, I bet."

"That's because it's gilded, silly," George, Jr., said importantly.

"What's gilded mean, Ma?" Mary Jane asked.

"It means painted with gold paint" her big brother told her.

"I didn't ask you, Mr. Know-It-All," Mary Jane said. "Besides, I bet you're making it up, anyway."

"I am not!" George, Jr., howled. "I ought to pop you a good one, is what I ought to do."

"I'll pop both of you if you don't behave yourselves," Sylvia said. What ran through her mind was that she'd remember this day for the rest of her life, but not because she'd seen the president.

"You tell Mary Jane that I do so know what gilded means," George, Jr., said. "I learned it in school. And there's a wooden codfish inside there somewhere, and it's gilded, too. They call it the Sacred Cod." He frowned. "I don't know what sacred means."

"It means holy" Sylvia said. "And your brother's right, Mary Jane. Gilded does mean painted with gold paint. And I'll thank you not to call him names. You're supposed to know better than that."

"All right, Ma," Mary Jane said in tones of such angelic sweetness, Sylvia didn't believe a word of it. The face Mary Jane made at George, Jr., a moment later said her skepticism had been well founded.

Sylvia worked her way as close to the platform as she could. It wasn't close enough to satisfy her children, who set up a chorus of, "We can't see!"

At the moment, there wasn't anything to see. Sylvia pointed that out, but it did nothing to stem the chorus. She finally said, "When the president starts to speak, I'll pick both of you up so you can see him, all right?"

"Will you pick both of us up at the same time?" Mary Jane sounded as if she liked the idea.

"No!" Sylvia exclaimed. "If I do that, you and your brother can pick me up afterwards and carry me home." She thought that might calm them down. Instead, it got them jumping around with excitement. George, Jr., did try to pick her up, and kept trying till she had to smack him to get him to quit.

After what seemed like forever, people started coming out of the New State House and going up onto the platform. They had the same look to them: plump men, middle-aged and elderly, many with big drooping mustaches, all of them in somber black suits with waistcoats. Most wore top hats; a few of the younger ones contented themselves with homburgs. They might have been rich undertakers. In fact, they were Democratic politicians.