.Good night then. I

You re my alarm clock, the boy said

"Age is my alarm clock, "the old man said. Why do old men wake so

early? Is it to have one longer day

.I don't know, "the boy said. "All I know is that young boys sleep late

and hard.

e can remember it, " the old man said. "T ll wake you in time

I do not like for him to wake me. It is as though I were inferior

I know.

Sleep well old man

The boy went out. They had eaten with no light on the table and the old

man took off his trousers and went to bed in the dark. He rolled his trousers

up to make a pillow, putting the newspaper inside them. He rolled himself in

the blanket and slept on the other old newspapers that covered the springs of

the bed

He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a

boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt

his eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along

that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw

the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of

the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze

brought at morning