Cousin Billy Clyde wasn't allowed to play with Dooley and me for a while.

His mother said something about cussing and telling lies. While we appreciated her efforts to protect us from his bad influence, we doubted that it was really necessary.

As far as we could tell he really wasn't much worse about those things than we were.

We must have been the envy of every mother in our neighborhood. They often pointed and whispered when they saw Dooley and me out in a crowd.

I think quite a few of them were trying to protect us from the evil influence of their children. They also knew of our ability to break in new toys. Sometimes we got blamed when a cheap bicycle or snow sled got broken.. We could never understand their thinking.

"Can Billy Clyde go to the creek with us?" Dooley asked through the screen door. "You boys get on home before I tell your mama on you," his mother responded.

I guess she knew our mothers didn't want us running around with him, although I can't ever remember my mother saying anything like that. Reputations are hard to come by, and we had earned ours the hard way.

However, we were not nearly as good as people seemed to think we were. I knew for a fact that Billy Clyde had nothing to do with burning that old hollow tree that caught the woods on fire.. Dooley had accidentally done that while trying to smoke a squirrel out of it.

Cousin Billy Clyde often got blamed for things he didn't really do.

That may have been related to that lying stuff his mama kept talking about. Why would she want to blame him with that anyway.... He wasn't even around when it happened.

It didn't burn up that much of their woods anyway...

People know us mostly by reputation, and they may have it all wrong. God knows who we really are.. How should we live before God who knows our every thought?