with all her eyes. "What on Mars is the matter with you?"

"I—urp." He stands up fast.

"Frankie with only two eyes! Come back to Nita with three eyes!"

Frankie with he don't care how many eyes nobody has only gallops on up the slope and over the hill.

In time Frankie finds himself back on the moon and laid out beside the old man's chair.

"Well, Frankie?"

"Nita ain't so bad, spare peeper and all—I guess." Frankie rests a hand gently where his stomach is. "But them loo-loos." Frankie closes his two eyes. "Pop—ain't nobody on earth built to handle them things."

The old man sighs.

Frankie tries to keep his voice from shaking. "Pop—there just ain't no other dame like Mary no place in Creation."

The chair squeaks softly as the old guy just rocks away.

Frankie puts his hands over his own puss. "She's gone and I just don't know what to do or nothing."

The old man says quiet like, "Got a pretty good thing in Link One. Can dig in and work it up into a string, Frankie."

Frankie, though, feels like a starved pup lost a million miles from home. "But the house with all the rooms and flowers and kids and ... aw, nuts." He ain't bawled since a kid. But he makes up for it now. His tears come squirting up through his fingers over his map like small spouters from a leaky garden hose and fall back down on him.

The old man pats him on the shoulder. "Oh, Frankie, Frankie."

But Frankie's tears are sopping himself from head to foot now.

And the old man's voice changes. "Frankie, can't you hear me?" Also Frankie's being shook fit to rattle his brain loose.

Frankie blinks, not only because that ain't the old man's voice and somebody's shining a light in his pan, but also because water's banging down on him by the wash-tub full. And when he does see who's yammering, "Frankie what's the matter with you!" at him, he mumbles dizzily, "It's you?"

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