Its queer, the things you remember. When life has crumpled suddenly and left you standing there, alone. It's not the big important things that you remember when, you come to that; not the plans of years, not the love nor the hopes you've worked so hard for. It's the little things that you remember then; the little things you hadn't noticed at the time. The way a hand touched yours, and you too busy to notice; the hopeful little inflection of a voice you didn't really bother to listen.

John Camody found that out, staring through the living-room window at the cheerful Tuesday afternoon life of the street. He kept trying to think about the big important things, lost now --- the years and the plans, the hopes and the love. But he couldn't quite get them focused sharply in his mind just now --- not this afternoon.

They --- those important things were like a huge but nebulous background in his mind. All he could remember, now, was a queer little thing; nothing really, if you stopped and thought about it in the light of the years and the plans and the --- the great love. It was only something his little girl had said to him one evening, two --- perhaps three weeks ago. Nothing if you looked at it rationally --- the sort of thing that kids are always saying.

But it was he was remembering now.

That particular night, he had brought home form the office a finished draft of the annual stockholder's report. Very important, it was. Things being as they were, it meant a great deal --- to his future; to the future of his wife and his little girl. He sat down to re-read it before dinner. It had to be right; it meant so much.

And just as he turned a page, Marge, his little girl, came with a book under her arm. It was a green-covered book, with a fairy-tale picture pasted on it. And she said: "Look daddy." He glanced up and said, "Oh, fine. A new book, eh?"

"Yes Daddy," she said, "will you read me story in it"?

"No, dear. Not just now," he said.

Marge just stood there with the book open at the lovely picture. It was a long time before she said anything else. He read through two more pages explaining in full detail, as he has directed the shift in markets over the past twelve months, the plans outlines by the sales department for meeting these problems which, after all, could safely be ascribed to local conditions, and the advertising programme which after weeks of conferences had been devised to stabilize and even increase the demand for their products.

"But it is a lovely picture, Daddy. And the story looks so exciting," Marge said.

"I know," he said. "Ah.... Mnnn. Some other time. Run along now." "I'm sure you'd enjoy it, Daddy," Marge said. "Eh? Yes. I know I would. But later...."

"Oh", Marge said. "Well some other time then. Will you Daddy, some other time?"

"Of course," he said. "You bet."

But she didn't go away. She still stood there quietly, like a good child. And after a long time, she put the book down on the stool at his feet, and said: "Well, whenever you get ready, just read it to yourself. Only read it loud enough so I can hear too." "Sure", he said, "Sure.....later".

And that was what John Carmody was remembering --- now, not the long plans of love and care for the years ahead. He was remembering the way a well-mannered child had touched his hand with timid little fingers, she said: "just read it to yourself. Only read it loud enough so I can hear too."

And that was why, now he put his hand on the book from the corner table, where they had piled some of Marge's playthings, picking them up from the floor where she had left them.

The book wasn't new anymore; and the green cover was dented and thumbed. He opened it to the lovely picture.

And reading that story, his lips moving stiffly with anguish to form the words, he didn't try to think anymore, as he should be thinking, about the important things; about his careful and shrewd and loving plans for the years to come; and for a little while he forgot, even, the horror and bitterness of his hate for the half drunken driver who had careened down the street in a second-hand car --- and who was now in jail on manslaughter charges.

He didn't even see his wife --- white and silent --- dressed to be with Marge for the last time, standing in the doorway, trying to make her voice say calmly, "I'm ready, dear. We must go."

Because John Carmody was dreaming:

"Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a wood-cutter's hut in the Black Forest. And she was so fair that the birds forget their singing from the bough, looking at her. And there came a day when...."

He was reading it to himself. But loud enough for her to hear, too. Maybe.