The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1942-11-26

danced with her at partleS, ana
that pleased Harvey though he
wouldn't say so. They had been
married twenty-four years, and
they had been happy years.
This boy talked we'll. He had
seen a lot of the world. His ia
Their, so he said, was in cotton in
Brazil and his mother had died
when he was seven. Mona Lee felt
a choking lump of sympathy at
that. She loved boys so much. She
mothered every lanky male crea-
ture Harvey hired on the place.
The irony was that she had never
been able to mother Harvey Jun
ior, at all. Nor her young son-in
law, Oliver Kimball
Harvey Junior had always been
terribly self-sufficient, resenting
authority, reading books that wor-
ried his mother. But this boy here
in the car was pleasantly easy. He
had been around the world on
tramp freighter, he told her. He
had worked rigging wells and
wading hot mud in a Louisiana
swamp.
But you can't be more than
Itwenty?" she said.
I'm twenty-four I worked in
summer. played football in the
fall, and waited on tables in the
dormitory to get through school.
My father married again - and
though my stepmother's a good
scout, she has three kids of her
own, and didn't want to take
help from them"
She found herself telling him
about her daughter, Adelaide,
who was fair and calm and quick
minded like Harvey.
"She didn't want to go to col
lege. She's at home this year. but
think she's a little bit lost. She
has beaux hanging around, but ]
don't think she cares much about
any of them.
"You." said the boy abruptly
'have good hands for horse. In
Brazil last year, l rode a lot.
Those fellows down there are ter
rifle on horseback"
Mona Lee smiled a little. "Son,
grew up in a western saddle.
And I can generally make horse
do what I want him to do"
docs your daughter ride, too?'
"She used to. And then her ia
Their bought her little car and
now she says horses don't go fast
enough. This is our place now
it begins at this fence"
Good looking cattle" approved
Gary Tallman.
Every last head of that herd is
eligible for registry. Of course,
some of our stuff is just beef
stuff"
'Look out!' barked the boy.
It was Sims fault of course.
The fence should have been
tight, the red hog should have
never been browsing in that cl-
Jump of tall grass ready to dart
out, with porcine perversity,
where the concrete abutment of
a culvert stuck up.
There was a sickening swerve
and the car tottered on 2 wheels
for a breath before it roared
down the shoulder and in the
ditch, to end with a sickening,
jolting crash and smashing of
glass.
Mona Lee sat stunned for a
minute, her stomach hurting, her
neck twisted, the broken steering
wheel still in her hands. Her hat
was off and her lap was full of
glass, and there was blood run
ming into her eye, and her knees
burned and stung. Slowly she
got back her breath, opened her
taut fingers, looked around,
though merely moving her head
made her giddy.
The door on the other side was
open and hanging at crazy an
gle, and of Gary Tallman only
his booted feet were visible,
sticking up inside the car.
Mona Lee tried to open the
door beside her, but it was sprung
and would not move, so she
climbed over the boys legs and
tried to straighten his body
flung across the running board
his head on the ground. His face
was greenish gray and the skin
had been scraped off his forehead,
but he was breathing thinly
through his mouth. She remem-
bered about spines and that you
shouldn't lift an injured person,
so she dragged some dry grass
under his head and staggered
back to sit down on the culvert
till her head cleared a little.
Her ears were ringing so that
she did not hear the truck COM
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