{"id":"01KG0725JB8PA1B3W3FH26N49E","cid":"bafkreia4raeinpd6brrsx2rballdsmhpbqbb5qq5lx7x7cdjsuzbbydxf4","type":"chapter","properties":{"description":"# Chapter 21 of *The Catcher in the Rye*\n\n## Overview\nThis entity is a chapter from the novel *The Catcher in the Rye*, identified as Chapter 21. It exists in digital form as a structured text segment, extracted from a larger source file and divided into smaller chunks for processing. The chapter spans lines 3915 to 4350 of the source document and corresponds to pages 85 to 93 of the original print edition. It is part of the [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS) collection, which includes canonical literary works.\n\n## Context\nThe chapter is situated within the narrative arc of J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel, following the protagonist Holden Caulfield after his expulsion from Pencey Prep. It captures a pivotal moment when Holden secretly returns to his family’s apartment in New York City. The text reflects Holden’s internal struggles with alienation, authenticity, and his deep emotional connection to his younger sister, Phoebe. The chapter’s inclusion in the [More Classics](arke:01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS) collection underscores its status as a significant piece of American literature, preserved and structured for archival access.\n\n## Contents\nThe chapter details Holden’s stealthy return home and his late-night conversation with his sister Phoebe. He avoids his parents by deceiving a new elevator operator and sneaking into the apartment. Upon finding Phoebe asleep in their brother D.B.’s room, he observes her belongings—her neatly arranged clothes, school notebooks, and a new pair of shoes—revealing her personality and their mother’s care. After waking her, the siblings discuss her school play, a movie she saw, and her friendship with Alice Holmborg. When Phoebe discovers Holden has been expelled again, she reacts with emotional intensity, expressing fear of their father’s anger. Holden attempts to reassure her, mentioning a potential job on a ranch in Colorado. The conversation turns introspective as Holden reflects on his hatred of phoniness at Pencey, recalling specific incidents involving teachers and alumni. Phoebe challenges him to name something he genuinely likes, prompting Holden to express his love for his deceased brother Allie and the act of talking with her. He then reveals his fantasy of being “the catcher in the rye,” a protector of children’s innocence, inspired by a misheard poem by Robert Burns. The chapter ends as Holden prepares to call his former teacher, Mr. Antolini.","description_generated_at":"2026-01-27T17:21:40.059Z","description_model":"Qwen/Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507","description_title":"Chapter 21 of *The Catcher in the Rye*","end_line":4350,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:12:16.509Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"21","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":3915,"text":"  3748\t21\n  3749\tThe best break I had in years, when I got home the regular night elevator boy,\n  3750\tPete, wasn't on the car. Some new guy I'd never seen was on the car, so I figured that if I\n  3751\tdidn't bump smack into my parents and all I'd be able to say hello to old Phoebe and then\n  3752\tbeat it and nobody'd even know I'd been around. It was really a terrific break. What made\n  3753\tit even better, the new elevator boy was sort of on the stupid side. I told him, in this very\n  3754\tcasual voice, to take me up to the Dicksteins'. The Dicksteins were these people that had\n  3755\tthe other apartment on our floor. I'd already taken off my hunting hat, so as not to look\n  3756\tsuspicious or anything. I went in the elevator like I was in a terrific hurry.\n  3757\tHe had the elevator doors all shut and all, and was all set to take me up, and then\n  3758\the turned around and said, \"They ain't in. They're at a party on the fourteenth floor.\"\n  3759\t\"That's all right,\" I said. \"I'm supposed to wait for them. I'm their nephew.\"\n  3760\tHe gave me this sort of stupid, suspicious look. \"You better wait in the lobby,\n  3761\tfella,\" he said.\n  3762\t\"I'd like to--I really would,\" I said. \"But I have a bad leg. I have to hold it in a\n  3763\tcertain position. I think I'd better sit down in the chair outside their door.\"\n  3764\tHe didn't know what the hell I was talking about, so all he said was \"Oh\" and took\n  3765\tme up. Not bad, boy. It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands\n  3766\tand they'll do practically anything you want them to.\n  3767\tI got off at our floor--limping like a bastard--and started walking over toward the\n  3768\tDicksteins' side. Then, when I heard the elevator doors shut, I turned around and went\n\n<!-- [Page 85](arke:01KFYTAC8VQN3RRKC0SKNJEDZQ) -->\n  3769\tover to our side. I was doing all right. I didn't even feel drunk anymore. Then I took out\n  3770\tmy door key and opened our door, quiet as hell. Then, very, very carefully and all, I went\n  3771\tinside and closed the door. I really should've been a crook.\n  3772\tIt was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn't turn on any\n  3773\tlights. I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket. I certainly knew I\n  3774\twas home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn't smell like anyplace else. I\n  3775\tdon't know what the hell it is. It isn't cauliflower and it isn't perfume--I don't know what\n  3776\tthe hell it is--but you always know you're home. I started to take off my coat and hang it\n  3777\tup in the foyer closet, but that closet's full of hangers that rattle like madmen when you\n  3778\topen the door, so I left it on. Then I started walking very, very slowly back toward old\n  3779\tPhoebe's room. I knew the maid wouldn't hear me because she had only one eardrum. She\n  3780\thad this brother that stuck a straw down her ear when she was a kid, she once told me.\n  3781\tShe was pretty deaf and all. But my parents, especially my mother, she has ears like a\n  3782\tgoddam bloodhound. So I took it very, very easy when I went past their door. I even held\n  3783\tmy breath, for God's sake. You can hit my father over the head with a chair and he won't\n  3784\twake up, but my mother, all you have to do to my mother is cough somewhere in Siberia\n  3785\tand she'll hear you. She's nervous as hell. Half the time she's up all night smoking\n  3786\tcigarettes.\n  3787\tFinally, after about an hour, I got to old Phoebe's room. She wasn't there, though.\n  3788\tI forgot about that. I forgot she always sleeps in D.B.'s room when he's away in\n  3789\tHollywood or some place. She likes it because it's the biggest room in the house. Also\n  3790\tbecause it has this big old madman desk in it that D.B. bought off some lady alcoholic in\n  3791\tPhiladelphia, and this big, gigantic bed that's about ten miles wide and ten miles long. I\n  3792\tdon't know where he bought that bed. Anyway, old Phoebe likes to sleep in D.B.'s room\n  3793\twhen he's away, and he lets her. You ought to see her doing her homework or something\n  3794\tat that crazy desk. It's almost as big as the bed. You can hardly see her when she's doing\n  3795\ther homework. That's the kind of stuff she likes, though. She doesn't like her own room\n  3796\tbecause it's too little, she says. She says she likes to spread out. That kills me. What's old\n  3797\tPhoebe got to spread out? Nothing.\n  3798\tAnyway, I went into D.B.'s room quiet as hell, and turned on the lamp on the\n  3799\tdesk. Old Phoebe didn't even wake up. When the light was on and all, I sort of looked at\n  3800\ther for a while. She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the\n  3801\tpillow. She had her mouth way open. It's funny. You take adults, they look lousy when\n  3802\tthey're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't. Kids look all right.\n  3803\tThey can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.\n  3804\tI went around the room, very quiet and all, looking at stuff for a while. I felt\n  3805\tswell, for a change. I didn't even feel like I was getting pneumonia or anything any more.\n  3806\tI just felt good, for a change. Old Phoebe's clothes were on this chair right next to the\n  3807\tbed. She's very neat, for a child. I mean she doesn't just throw her stuff around, like some\n  3808\tkids. She's no slob. She had the jacket to this tan suit my mother bought her in Canada\n  3809\thung up on the back of the chair. Then her blouse and stuff were on the seat. Her shoes\n  3810\tand socks were on the floor, right underneath the chair, right next to each other. I never\n  3811\tsaw the shoes before. They were new. They were these dark brown loafers, sort of like\n  3812\tthis pair I have, and they went swell with that suit my mother bought her in Canada. My\n  3813\tmother dresses her nice. She really does. My mother has terrific taste in some things.\n  3814\tShe's no good at buying ice skates or anything like that, but clothes, she's perfect. I mean\n\n<!-- [Page 86](arke:01KFYTAC7V6A51G770QNWC6ES1) -->\n  3815\tPhoebe always has some dress on that can kill you. You take most little kids, even if their\n  3816\tparents are wealthy and all, they usually have some terrible dress on. I wish you could see\n  3817\told Phoebe in that suit my mother bought her in Canada. I'm not kidding.\n  3818\tI sat down on old D.B.'s desk and looked at the stuff on it. It was mostly Phoebe's\n  3819\tstuff, from school and all. Mostly books. The one on top was called Arithmetic Is Fun! I\n  3820\tsort of opened the first page and took a look at it. This is what old Phoebe had on it:\n  3821\tPHOEBE WEATHERFIELD CAULFIELD\n  3822\t4B-1\n  3823\tThat killed me. Her middle name is Josephine, for God's sake, not Weatherfield.\n  3824\tShe doesn't like it, though. Every time I see her she's got a new middle name for herself.\n  3825\tThe book underneath the arithmetic was a geography, and the book under the\n  3826\tgeography was a speller. She's very good in spelling. She's very good in all her subjects,\n  3827\tbut she's best in spelling. Then, under the speller, there were a bunch of notebooks. She\n  3828\thas about five thousand notebooks. You never saw a kid with so many notebooks. I\n  3829\topened the one on top and looked at the first page. It had on it:\n  3830\tBernice meet me at recess I have something\n  3831\tvery very important to tell you.\n  3832\tThat was all there was on that page. The next one had on it:\n  3833\tWhy has south eastern Alaska so many caning factories?\n  3834\tBecause theres so much salmon\n  3835\tWhy has it valuable forests?\n  3836\tbecause it has the right climate.\n  3837\tWhat has our government done to make\n  3838\tlife easier for the alaskan eskimos?\n  3839\tlook it up for tomorrow!!!\n  3840\tPhoebe Weatherfield Caulfield\n  3841\tPhoebe Weatherfield Caulfield\n  3842\tPhoebe Weatherfield Caulfield\n  3843\tPhoebe W. Caulfield\n  3844\tPhoebe Weatherfield Caulfield, Esq.\n  3845\tPlease pass to Shirley!!!!\n  3846\tShirley you said you were sagitarius\n  3847\tbut your only taurus bring your skates\n  3848\twhen you come over to my house\n  3849\tI sat there on D.B.'s desk and read the whole notebook. It didn't take me long, and\n  3850\tI can read that kind of stuff, some kid's notebook, Phoebe's or anybody's, all day and all\n  3851\tnight long. Kid's notebooks kill me. Then I lit another cigarette--it was my last one. I\n  3852\tmust've smoked about three cartons that day. Then, finally, I woke her up. I mean I\n  3853\tcouldn't sit there on that desk for the rest of my life, and besides, I was afraid my parents\n\n<!-- [Page 87](arke:01KFYTAC5J0ASA2QQN47S6DNB9) -->\n  3854\tmight barge in on me all of a sudden and I wanted to at least say hello to her before they\n  3855\tdid. So I woke her up.\n  3856\tShe wakes up very easily. I mean you don't have to yell at her or anything. All\n  3857\tyou have to do, practically, is sit down on the bed and say, \"Wake up, Phoeb,\" and bingo,\n  3858\tshe's awake.\n  3859\t\"Holden!\" she said right away. She put her arms around my neck and all. She's\n  3860\tvery affectionate. I mean she's quite affectionate, for a child. Sometimes she's even too\n  3861\taffectionate. I sort of gave her a kiss, and she said, \"Whenja get home7' She was glad as\n  3862\thell to see me. You could tell.\n  3863\t\"Not so loud. Just now. How are ya anyway?\"\n  3864\t\"I'm fine. Did you get my letter? I wrote you a five-page--\"\n  3865\t\"Yeah--not so loud. Thanks.\"\n  3866\tShe wrote me this letter. I didn't get a chance to answer it, though. It was all about\n  3867\tthis play she was in in school. She told me not to make any dates or anything for Friday\n  3868\tso that I could come see it.\n  3869\t\"How's the play?\" I asked her. \"What'd you say the name of it was?\"\n  3870\t\"'A Christmas Pageant for Americans.' It stinks, but I'm Benedict Arnold. I have\n  3871\tpractically the biggest part,\" she said. Boy, was she wide-awake. She gets very excited\n  3872\twhen she tells you that stuff. \"It starts out when I'm dying. This ghost comes in on\n  3873\tChristmas Eve and asks me if I'm ashamed and everything. You know. For betraying my\n  3874\tcountry and everything. Are you coming to it?\" She was sitting way the hell up in the bed\n  3875\tand all. \"That's what I wrote you about. Are you?\"\n  3876\t\"Sure I'm coming. Certainly I'm coming.\"\n  3877\t\"Daddy can't come. He has to fly to California,\" she said. Boy, was she wide-\n  3878\tawake. It only takes her about two seconds to get wide-awake. She was sitting--sort of\n  3879\tkneeling--way up in bed, and she was holding my goddam hand. \"Listen. Mother said\n  3880\tyou'd be home Wednesday,\" she said. \"She said Wednesday.\"\n  3881\t\"I got out early. Not so loud. You'll wake everybody up.\"\n  3882\t\"What time is it? They won't be home till very late, Mother said. They went to a\n  3883\tparty in Norwalk, Connecticut,\" old Phoebe said. \"Guess what I did this afternoon! What\n  3884\tmovie I saw. Guess!\"\n  3885\t\"I don't know--Listen. Didn't they say what time they'd--\"\n  3886\t\"The Doctor,\" old Phoebe said. \"It's a special movie they had at the Lister\n  3887\tFoundation. Just this one day they had it--today was the only day. It was all about this\n  3888\tdoctor in Kentucky and everything that sticks a blanket over this child's face that's a\n  3889\tcripple and can't walk. Then they send him to jail and everything. It was excellent.\"\n  3890\t\"Listen a second. Didn't they say what time they'd--\"\n  3891\t\"He feels sorry for it, the doctor. That's why he sticks this blanket over her face\n  3892\tand everything and makes her suffocate. Then they make him go to jail for life\n  3893\timprisonment, but this child that he stuck the blanket over its head comes to visit him all\n  3894\tthe time and thanks him for what he did. He was a mercy killer. Only, he knows he\n  3895\tdeserves to go to jail because a doctor isn't supposed to take things away from God. This\n  3896\tgirl in my class's mother took us. Alice Holmborg, She's my best friend. She's the only\n  3897\tgirl in the whole--\"\n  3898\t\"Wait a second, willya?\" I said. \"I'm asking you a question. Did they say what\n  3899\ttime they'd be back, or didn't they?\"\n\n<!-- [Page 88](arke:01KFYTAC98T78YBAN3QPWZ71RQ) -->\n  3900\t\"No, but not till very late. Daddy took the car and everything so they wouldn't\n  3901\thave to worry about trains. We have a radio in it now! Except that Mother said nobody\n  3902\tcan play it when the car's in traffic.\"\n  3903\tI began to relax, sort of. I mean I finally quit worrying about whether they'd catch\n  3904\tme home or not. I figured the hell with it. If they did, they did.\n  3905\tYou should've seen old Phoebe. She had on these blue pajamas with red elephants\n  3906\ton the collars. Elephants knock her out.\n  3907\t\"So it was a good picture, huh?\" I said.\n  3908\t\"Swell, except Alice had a cold, and her mother kept asking her all the time if she\n  3909\tfelt grippy. Right in the middle of the picture. Always in the middle of something\n  3910\timportant, her mother'd lean all over me and everything and ask Alice if she felt grippy.\n  3911\tIt got on my nerves.\"\n  3912\tThen I told her about the record. \"Listen, I bought you a record,\" I told her. \"Only\n  3913\tI broke it on the way home.\" I took the pieces out of my coat pocket and showed her. \"I\n  3914\twas plastered,\" I said.\n  3915\t\"Gimme the pieces,\" she said. \"I'm saving them.\" She took them right out of my\n  3916\thand and then she put them in the drawer of the night table. She kills me.\n  3917\t\"D.B. coming home for Christmas?\" I asked her.\n  3918\t\"He may and he may not, Mother said. It all depends. He may have to stay in\n  3919\tHollywood and write a picture about Annapolis.\"\n  3920\t\"Annapolis, for God's sake!\"\n  3921\t\"It's a love story and everything. Guess who's going to be in it! What movie star.\n  3922\tGuess!\"\n  3923\t\"I'm not interested. Annapolis, for God's sake. What's D.B. know about\n  3924\tAnnapolis, for God's sake? What's that got to do with the kind of stories he writes?\" I\n  3925\tsaid. Boy, that stuff drives me crazy. That goddam Hollywood. \"What'd you do to your\n  3926\tarm?\" I asked her. I noticed she had this big hunk of adhesive tape on her elbow. The\n  3927\treason I noticed it, her pajamas didn't have any sleeves.\n  3928\t\"This boy, Curtis Weintraub, that's in my class, pushed me while I was going\n  3929\tdown the stairs in the park,\" she said. \"Wanna see?\" She started taking the crazy adhesive\n  3930\ttape off her arm.\n  3931\t\"Leave it alone. Why'd he push you down the stairs?\"\n  3932\t\"I don't know. I think he hates me,\" old Phoebe said. \"This other girl and me,\n  3933\tSelma Atterbury, put ink and stuff all over his windbreaker.\"\n  3934\t\"That isn't nice. What are you--a child, for God's sake?\"\n  3935\t\"No, but every time I'm in the park, he follows me everywhere. He's always\n  3936\tfollowing me. He gets on my nerves.\"\n  3937\t\"He probably likes you. That's no reason to put ink all--\"\n  3938\t\"I don't want him to like me,\" she said. Then she started looking at me funny.\n  3939\t\"Holden,\" she said, \"how come you're not home Wednesday?\"\n  3940\t\"What?\"\n  3941\tBoy, you have to watch her every minute. If you don't think she's smart, you're\n  3942\tmad.\n  3943\t\"How come you're not home Wednesday?\" she asked me. \"You didn't get kicked\n  3944\tout or anything, did you?\"\n  3945\t\"I told you. They let us out early. They let the whole--\"\n\n<!-- [Page 89](arke:01KFYTACAE6N3CF0JWHA0GXDB9) -->\n  3946\t\"You did get kicked out! You did!\" old Phoebe said. Then she hit me on the leg\n  3947\twith her fist. She gets very fisty when she feels like it. \"You did! Oh, Holden!\" She had\n  3948\ther hand on her mouth and all. She gets very emotional, I swear to God.\n  3949\t\"Who said I got kicked out? Nobody said I--\"\n  3950\t\"You did. You did,\" she said. Then she smacked me again with her fist. If you\n  3951\tdon't think that hurts, you're crazy. \"Daddy'll kill you!\" she said. Then she flopped on her\n  3952\tstomach on the bed and put the goddam pillow over her head. She does that quite\n  3953\tfrequently. She's a true madman sometimes.\n  3954\t\"Cut it out, now,\" I said. \"Nobody's gonna kill me. Nobody's gonna even--C'mon,\n  3955\tPhoeb, take that goddam thing off your head. Nobody's gonna kill me.\"\n  3956\tShe wouldn't take it off, though. You can't make her do something if she doesn't\n  3957\twant to. All she kept saying was, \"Daddy s gonna kill you.\" You could hardly understand\n  3958\ther with that goddam pillow over her head.\n  3959\t\"Nobody's gonna kill me. Use your head. In the first place, I'm going away. What\n  3960\tI may do, I may get a job on a ranch or something for a while. I know this guy whose\n  3961\tgrandfather's got a ranch in Colorado. I may get a job out there,\" I said. \"I'll keep in touch\n  3962\twith you and all when I'm gone, if I go. C'mon. Take that off your head. C'mon, hey,\n  3963\tPhoeb. Please. Please, willya?'\n  3964\tShe wouldn t take it off, though I tried pulling it off, but she's strong as hell. You\n  3965\tget tired fighting with her. Boy, if she wants to keep a pillow over her head, she keeps it.\n  3966\t\"Phoebe, please. C'mon outa there,\" I kept saying. \"C'mon, hey . . . Hey, Weatherfield.\n  3967\tC'mon out.\"\n  3968\tShe wouldn't come out, though. You can't even reason with her sometimes.\n  3969\tFinally, I got up and went out in the living room and got some cigarettes out of the box\n  3970\ton the table and stuck some in my pocket. I was all out.\n  3971\t22\n  3972\tWhen I came back, she had the pillow off her head all right--I knew she would--\n  3973\tbut she still wouldn't look at me, even though she was laying on her back and all. When I\n  3974\tcame around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the other\n  3975\tway. She was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the fencing team at Pencey when I\n  3976\tleft all the goddam foils on the subway.\n  3977\t\"How's old Hazel Weatherfield?\" I said. \"You write any new stories about her? I\n  3978\tgot that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It's down at the station. It's very good.\"\n  3979\t\"Daddy'll kill you.\"\n  3980\tBoy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind.\n  3981\t\"No, he won't. The worst he'll do, he'll give me hell again, and then he'll send me\n  3982\tto that goddam military school. That's all he'll do to me. And in the first place, I won't\n  3983\teven be around. I'll be away. I'll be--I'll probably be in Colorado on this ranch.\"\n  3984\t\"Don't make me laugh. You can't even ride a horse.\"\n  3985\t\"Who can't? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about two\n  3986\tminutes,\" I said. \"Stop picking at that.\" She was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm.\n  3987\t\"Who gave you that haircut?\" I asked her. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebody\n  3988\tgave her. It was way too short.\n\n<!-- [Page 90](arke:01KFYTAC6THHPQ6FNJYSSRXX73) -->\n  3989\t\"None of your business,\" she said. She can be very snotty sometimes. She can be\n  3990\tquite snotty. \"I suppose you failed in every single subject again,\" she said--very snotty. It\n  3991\twas sort of funny, too, in a way. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and\n  3992\tshe's only a little child.\n  3993\t\"No, I didn't,\" I said. \"I passed English.\" Then, just for the hell of it, I gave her a\n  3994\tpinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way she was laying on her\n  3995\tside. She has hardly any behind. I didn't do it hard, but she tried to hit my hand anyway,\n  3996\tbut she missed.\n  3997\tThen all of a sudden, she said, \"Oh, why did you do it?\" She meant why did I get\n  3998\tthe ax again. It made me sort of sad, the way she said it.\n  3999\t\"Oh, God, Phoebe, don't ask me. I'm sick of everybody asking me that,\" I said. \"A\n  4000\tmillion reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of\n  4001\tphonies. And mean guys. You never saw so many mean guys in your life. For instance, if\n  4002\tyou were having a bull session in somebody's room, and somebody wanted to come in,\n  4003\tnobody'd let them in if they were some dopey, pimply guy. Everybody was always\n  4004\tlocking their door when somebody wanted to come in. And they had this goddam secret\n  4005\tfraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, Robert\n  4006\tAckley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn't let him. Just\n  4007\tbecause he was boring and pimply. I don't even feel like talking about it. It was a stinking\n  4008\tschool. Take my word.\"\n  4009\tOld Phoebe didn't say anything, but she was listen ing. I could tell by the back of\n  4010\ther neck that she was listening. She always listens when you tell her something. And the\n  4011\tfunny part is she knows, half the time, what the hell you're talking about. She really does.\n  4012\tI kept talking about old Pencey. I sort of felt like it.\n  4013\t\"Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too,\" I said.\n  4014\t\"There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer. His wife was always giving you hot chocolate\n  4015\tand all that stuff, and they were really pretty nice. But you should've seen him when the\n  4016\theadmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room.\n  4017\tHe was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an\n  4018\thour. He was supposed to be incognito or something. After a while, he'd be sitting back\n  4019\tthere and then he'd start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny\n  4020\tjokes. Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as if\n  4021\tThurmer was a goddam prince or something.\"\n  4022\t\"Don't swear so much.\"\n  4023\t\"It would've made you puke, I swear it would,\" I said. \"Then, on Veterans' Day.\n  4024\tThey have this day, Veterans' Day, that all the jerks that graduated from Pencey around\n  4025\t1776 come back and walk all over the place, with their wives and children and\n  4026\teverybody. You should've seen this one old guy that was about fifty. What he did was, he\n  4027\tcame in our room and knocked on the door and asked us if we'd mind if he used the\n  4028\tbathroom. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor--I don't know why the hell he\n  4029\tasked us. You know what he said? He said he wanted to see if his initials were still in one\n  4030\tof the can doors. What he did, he carved his goddam stupid sad old initials in one of the\n  4031\tcan doors about ninety years ago, and he wanted to see if they were still there. So my\n  4032\troommate and I walked him down to the bathroom and all, and we had to stand there\n  4033\twhile he looked for his initials in all the can doors. He kept talking to us the whole time,\n  4034\ttelling us how when he was at Pencey they were the happiest days of his life, and giving\n\n<!-- [Page 91](arke:01KFYTAC8RNCEC899TYS4HSWWN) -->\n  4035\tus a lot of advice for the future and all. Boy, did he depress me! I don't mean he was a\n  4036\tbad guy--he wasn't. But you don't have to be a bad guy to depress somebody--you can be\n  4037\ta good guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony\n  4038\tadvice while you're looking for your initials in some can door--that's all you have to do. I\n  4039\tdon't know. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been all out of breath. He\n  4040\twas all out of breath from just climbing up the stairs, and the whole time he was looking\n  4041\tfor his initials he kept breathing hard, with his nostrils all funny and sad, while he kept\n  4042\ttelling Stradlater and I to get all we could out of Pencey. God, Phoebe! I can't explain. I\n  4043\tjust didn't like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can't explain.\"\n  4044\tOld Phoebe said something then, but I couldn't hear her. She had the side of her\n  4045\tmouth right smack on the pillow, and I couldn't hear her.\n  4046\t\"What?\" I said. \"Take your mouth away. I can't hear you with your mouth that\n  4047\tway.\"\n  4048\t\"You don't like anything that's happening.\"\n  4049\tIt made me even more depressed when she said that.\n  4050\t\"Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don't say that. Why the hell do you say that?\"\n  4051\t\"Because you don't. You don't like any schools. You don't like a million things.\n  4052\tYou don't.\"\n  4053\t\"I do! That's where you're wrong--that's exactly where you're wrong! Why the\n  4054\thell do you have to say that?\" I said. Boy, was she depressing me.\n  4055\t\"Because you don't,\" she said. \"Name one thing.\"\n  4056\t\"One thing? One thing I like?\" I said. \"Okay.\"\n  4057\tThe trouble was, I couldn't concentrate too hot. Sometimes it's hard to\n  4058\tconcentrate.\n  4059\t\"One thing I like a lot you mean?\" I asked her.\n  4060\tShe didn't answer me, though. She was in a cockeyed position way the hell over\n  4061\tthe other side of the bed. She was about a thousand miles away. \"C'mon answer me,\" I\n  4062\tsaid. \"One thing I like a lot, or one thing I just like?\"\n  4063\t\"You like a lot.\"\n  4064\t\"All right,\" I said. But the trouble was, I couldn't concentrate. About all I could\n  4065\tthink of were those two nuns that went around collecting dough in those beatup old straw\n  4066\tbaskets. Especially the one with the glasses with those iron rims. And this boy I knew at\n  4067\tElkton Hills. There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn't\n  4068\ttake back something he said about this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile. James Castle\n  4069\tcalled him a very conceited guy, and one of Stabile's lousy friends went and squealed on\n  4070\thim to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to James\n  4071\tCastle's room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take back\n  4072\twhat he said, but he wouldn't do it. So they started in on him. I won't even tell you what\n  4073\tthey did to him--it's too repulsive--but he still wouldn't take it back, old James Castle.\n  4074\tAnd you should've seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists about\n  4075\tas big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out\n  4076\tthe window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But I\n  4077\tjust thought something fell out the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy or\n  4078\tanything. Then I heard everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so I\n  4079\tput on my bathrobe and I ran downstairs too, and there was old James Castle laying right\n  4080\ton the stone steps and all. He was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place,\n\n<!-- [Page 92](arke:01KFYTACC76Z6MCH5E7ZFSFA2K) -->\n  4081\tand nobody would even go near him. He had on this turtleneck sweater I'd lent him. All\n  4082\tthey did with the guys that were in the room with him was expel them. They didn't even\n  4083\tgo to jail.\n  4084\tThat was about all I could think of, though. Those two nuns I saw at breakfast and\n  4085\tthis boy James Castle I knew at Elkton Hills. The funny part is, I hardly even know\n  4086\tJames Castle, if you want to know the truth. He was one of these very quiet guys. He was\n  4087\tin my math class, but he was way over on the other side of the room, and he hardly ever\n  4088\tgot up to recite or go to the blackboard or anything. Some guys in school hardly ever get\n  4089\tup to recite or go to the blackboard. I think the only time I ever even had a conversation\n  4090\twith him was that time he asked me if he could borrow this turtleneck sweater I had. I\n  4091\tdamn near dropped dead when he asked me, I was so surprised and all. I remember I was\n  4092\tbrushing my teeth, in the can, when he asked me. He said his cousin was coming in to\n  4093\ttake him for a drive and all. I didn't even know he knew I had a turtleneck sweater. All I\n  4094\tknew about him was that his name was always right ahead of me at roll call. Cabel, R.,\n  4095\tCabel, W., Castle, Caulfield--I can still remember it. If you want to know the truth, I\n  4096\talmost didn't lend him my sweater. Just because I didn't know him too well.\n  4097\t\"What?\" I said to old Phoebe. She said something to me, but I didn't hear her.\n  4098\t\"You can't even think of one thing.\"\n  4099\t\"Yes, I can. Yes, I can.\"\n  4100\t\"Well, do it, then.\"\n  4101\t\"I like Allie,\" I said. \"And I like doing what I'm doing right now. Sitting here with\n  4102\tyou, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and--\"\n  4103\t\"Allie's dead--You always say that! If somebody's dead and everything, and in\n  4104\tHeaven, then it isn't really--\"\n  4105\t\"I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't\n  4106\tI? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake--\n  4107\tespecially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're\n  4108\talive and all.\"\n  4109\tOld Phoebe didn't say anything. When she can't think of anything to say, she\n  4110\tdoesn't say a goddam word.\n  4111\t\"Anyway, I like it now,\" I said. \"I mean right now. Sitting here with you and just\n  4112\tchewing the fat and horsing--\"\n  4113\t\"That isn't anything really!\"\n  4114\t\"It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell isn't it? People never think\n  4115\tanything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it,\"\n  4116\t\"Stop swearing. All right, name something else. Name something you'd like to be.\n  4117\tLike a scientist. Or a lawyer or something.\"\n  4118\t\"I couldn't be a scientist. I'm no good in science.\"\n  4119\t\"Well, a lawyer--like Daddy and all.\"\n  4120\t\"Lawyers are all right, I guess--but it doesn't appeal to me,\" I said. \"I mean they're\n  4121\tall right if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you\n  4122\tdon't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play\n  4123\tgolf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And\n  4124\tbesides. Even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you\n  4125\tdid it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what\n  4126\tyou really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the\n\n<!-- [Page 93](arke:01KFYTAC7NQYANKHD1G9HWV0TX) -->\n  4127\tback and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and\n  4128\teverybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a\n  4129\tphony? The trouble is, you wouldn't.\"\n  4130\tI'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she's\n  4131\tonly a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it's\n  4132\tnot too bad.\n  4133\t\"Daddy's going to kill you. He's going to kill you,\" she said.\n  4134\tI wasn't listening, though. I was thinking about something else--something crazy.\n  4135\t\"You know what I'd like to be?\" I said. \"You know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my\n  4136\tgoddam choice?\"\n  4137\t\"What? Stop swearing.\"\n  4138\t\"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like--\"\n  4139\t\"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!\" old Phoebe said. \"It's a\n  4140\tpoem. By Robert Burns.\"\n  4141\t\"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns.\"\n  4142\tShe was right, though. It is \"If a body meet a body coming through the rye.\" I\n  4143\tdidn't know it then, though.\n  4144\t\"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'\" I said. \"Anyway, I keep picturing all\n  4145\tthese little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little\n  4146\tkids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge\n  4147\tof some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over\n  4148\tthe cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come\n  4149\tout from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the\n  4150\trye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's\n  4151\tcrazy.\"\n  4152\tOld Phoebe didn't say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something,\n  4153\tall she said was, \"Daddy's going to kill you.\"\n  4154\t\"I don't give a damn if he does,\" I said. I got up from the bed then, because what I\n  4155\twanted to do, I wanted to phone up this guy that was my English teacher at Elkton Hills,\n  4156\tMr. Antolini. He lived in New York now. He quit Elkton Hills. He took this job teaching\n  4157\tEnglish at N.Y.U. \"I have to make a phone call,\" I told Phoebe. \"I'll be right back. Don't\n  4158\tgo to sleep.\" I didn't want her to go to sleep while I was in the living room. I knew she\n  4159\twouldn't but I said it anyway, just to make sure.\n  4160\tWhile I was walking toward the door, old Phoebe said, \"Holden!\" and I turned\n  4161\taround.\n  4162\tShe was sitting way up in bed. She looked so pretty. \"I'm taking belching lessons\n  4163\tfrom this girl, Phyllis Margulies,\" she said. \"Listen.\"\n  4164\tI listened, and I heard something, but it wasn't much. \"Good,\" I said. 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