Properties
- end_line
- 4340
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:18:13.529Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4286
- text
- 4103 "Allie's dead--You always say that! If somebody's dead and everything, and in
4104 Heaven, then it isn't really--"
4105 "I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't
4106 I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake--
4107 especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're
4108 alive and all."
4109 Old Phoebe didn't say anything. When she can't think of anything to say, she
4110 doesn't say a goddam word.
4111 "Anyway, I like it now," I said. "I mean right now. Sitting here with you and just
4112 chewing the fat and horsing--"
4113 "That isn't anything really!"
4114 "It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell isn't it? People never think
4115 anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it,"
4116 "Stop swearing. All right, name something else. Name something you'd like to be.
4117 Like a scientist. Or a lawyer or something."
4118 "I couldn't be a scientist. I'm no good in science."
4119 "Well, a lawyer--like Daddy and all."
4120 "Lawyers are all right, I guess--but it doesn't appeal to me," I said. "I mean they're
4121 all right if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you
4122 don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play
4123 golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And
4124 besides. Even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you
4125 did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what
4126 you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the
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4127 back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and
4128 everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a
4129 phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't."
4130 I'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she's
4131 only a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it's
4132 not too bad.
4133 "Daddy's going to kill you. He's going to kill you," she said.
4134 I wasn't listening, though. I was thinking about something else--something crazy.
4135 "You know what I'd like to be?" I said. "You know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my
4136 goddam choice?"
4137 "What? Stop swearing."
4138 "You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like--"
4139 "It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a
4140 poem. By Robert Burns."
4141 "I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."
4142 She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I
4143 didn't know it then, though.
4144 "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all
4145 these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little
4146 kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge
4147 of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over
4148 the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come
4149 out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the
4150 rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's
4151 crazy."
4152 Old Phoebe didn't say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something,
4153 all she said was, "Daddy's going to kill you."
4154 "I don't give a damn if he does," I said. I got up from the bed then, because what I
4155 wanted to do, I wanted to phone up this guy that was my English teacher at Elkton Hills,
- title
- Chunk 9