It is hard to look at the stars and worry about what people think of you.

From Alfred’s journal

Slept badly and came out onto the top rail of the fence around two in the morning, when the yard lights were off and the sky over the Hendersons' field was doing the thing it only does in cold weather. I had gone out there sulking. A jay had taken my branch that afternoon in front of three other birds and I had been running the scene over since dusk, inventing the better thing I might have said. For years I thought the cure for that kind of smallness was to make yourself larger, to win the next one. It is hard to look at the stars and worry about what people think of you. Though I notice I came back down before sunrise, and by the time the light hit the fence I was thinking about the jay again, so whatever happened up there did not take.