{"id":"01KG07D1RXDVQCF0J9BWTHKA99","cid":"bafkreiae5sbybnwrkbvj27yt4k365obyb3xodp4pnmniwuszyiigrzgtsa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4340,"extracted_at":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.529Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KFYTG9MG93RTB6YAW34V48XG","start_line":4286,"text":" 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\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,","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG0725JB8PA1B3W3FH26N49E","peer_label":"21","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.975Z","ts":"2026-01-27T17:18:13.975Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}