“Ah, but boys grow to be men,” Ultima said as she sipped the black, scalding coffee. “Ay, how true,” my mother said and clutched me tightly, “and what a sin it is for a boy to grow into a man—” It was a sin to grow up and be a man. “It is no sin,” my father spoke up, “only a fact of life.” “Ay, but life destroys the pureness God gives—” “It does not destroy,” my father was becoming irritated at having to go to church and listen to a sermon too, “it builds up. Everything he sees and does makes him a man—”
