I went straight upstairs, got the bird cage, took it down a it in front of herdoor. That settled that. Or so I imagined until the m when, as I wasleaving for work, I saw the cage perched on a sidewalk ash- waiting for thegarbage collector. Rather sheepishly, I rescued it and carried it bay room, acapitution that did not lessen my resolve to put Holly Golightly absolutely out of mylife. She was, I decided, "a crude exhibitionist," "a time waster," "an utter fake":someone o be spoken to again.And I didnt. Not for a long while. We passed each other oairs with loweredeyes. If she walked into Joe Bells, I walked out. At one point, Madame SapphiaSpahe coloratura and roller-skatihusiast who lived on the first floor,circuted a petition among the brownstoher tenants asking them to join herin having Miss Golightly evicted: she was, said Madame Spanel, "morallyobjeable" and the "perpetrator of all-night gatherings that endahesafety and sanity of her neighbors." Though I refused to sigly I felt MadameSpanel had cause to pin. But her petition failed, and as April approachedMay, the open-windowed, warm spring nights were lurid with the party sounds, theloud-pying phonograph and martini ughter that emanated from Apt. 2.It was no y to enter suspicious spes among Hollys callers, quitethe trary; but one day te that spring, while passing through the brownstoibule, I noticed a very provocative man examining her mailbox. A person in hisearly fifties with a hard, weathered face, gray forlorn eyes. He wore an old sweatstainedgray hat, and his cheap summer suit, a pale blue, hung too loosely on hisnky frame; his shoes were brown and brandnew. He seemed to have no iioning Hollys bell. Slowly, as though he were reading Braille, he kept rubbing afinger across the embossed lettering of her hat evening, on my way to supper, I saw the man again. He was standing acrossthe street, leaning against a tree and staring up at Hollys windows. Sinisterspecutions rushed through my head. Was he a detective? Or some underwent ected with her Sing Sing friend, Sally Tomato? The situation revived mytenderer feelings for Holly; it was only fair to interrupt our feud long enough to warhat she was being watched. As I walked to the er, headi toward theHamburg Heaven at Seventy-ninth and Madison, I could feel the mans attentionfocused on me. Presently, without turning my head, I khat he was followingme. Because I could hear him whistling. Not any ordinary tune, but the pintive,prairie melody Holly sometimes pyed on her guitar: Dont wanna sleep, dontwanna die, just wanna go a-travelin through the pastures of the sky. The whistlingtinued across Park Avenue and up Madison. Once, while waiting for a traffic lightto ge, I watched him out of the er of my eye as he stooped to pet a sleazyPomeranian. "Thats a fine animal you got there," he told the owner in a hoarse,trified drawl.Hamburg Heaven was empty. heless, he took a seat right beside me at thelong ter. He smelled of tobacd sweat. He ordered a cup of coffee, but whenit came he didnt touch it. Instead, he chewed on a toothpid studied me in thewall mirror fag us."Excuse me," I said, speaking to him via the mirror, "but what do you want?"The question didnt embarrass him; he seemed relieved to have had it asked."Son," he said, "I need a friend."He brought out a wallet. It was as worn as his leathery hands, almost falling topieces; and so was the brittle, cracked, blurred snapshot he handed me. There wereseven people in the picture, all grouped together on the sagging porch of a starkwooden house, and all children, except for the man himself, who had his arm aroundthe waist of a plump blond little girl with a hand shading her eyes against the sun."Thats me," he said, pointing at himself. "Thats her . . ." he tapped the plumpgirl. "And this one over here," he added, indig a tow-headed beanpole, "thatsher brother, Fred."I looked at "her" again: and yes, now I see it, an embryonic resemboHolly in the squinting, fat-cheeked child. At the same moment, I realized who theman must be."Youre Hollys father."He blinked, he frowned. "Her names not Holly. She was a Lumae Barnes. Was,"he said, shifting the toothpi his mouth, "till she married me. Im her husband.Doc Golightly. Im a horse doctor, animal man. Do some farming, too. ulip,Texas. Son, why are you ughin?"It wasnt real ughter: it was nerves. I took a swallow of water and choked; hepounded me on the back. "This heres no humorous matter, son. Im a tired man.Ive been five years lookin for my woman. Soon as I got that letter from Fred,saying where she was, I bought myself a ticket on the Greyhound. Lumae belongshome with her husband and her churren.""Children?""Thems her churren," he said, almost shouted. He meant the four other youngfaces in the picture, two bare-footed girls and a pair of overalled boys. Well, ofcourse: the man was deranged. "But Holly t be the mother of those children.Theyre older than she is. Bigger.""Now, son," he said in a reasoning voice, "I didnt cim they was her natural-bornchurren. Their own preother, precious woman, Jesus rest her soul, shepassed away July 4th, Independence Day, 1936. The year of the drought. When Imarried Lumae, that was in December, 1938, she was going on fourteen. Maybe anordinary person, being only fourteen, wouldnt know their right mind. But you takeLumae, she was an exceptional woman. She knew good-and-well what she wasdoing when she promised to be my wife and the mother of my churren. She pinbroke our hearts when she ran off like she done." He sipped his cold coffee, andg me with a searg earness. "Now, son, do you doubt me? Do youbelieve what Im saying is so?"