to be a general in it.
And then, all of a sudden, there you stand on the top of those steps that are getting ready to pull away any minute and let that damn plane take you off into the sky, where Iâll never maybe see you again. You look so young and pretty and pale and sweet, and sure needing somebody to take care of you, and how you kept that way, God only knows. My poor old bow legs went like macaroni, and it took me a year to get up them steps to you and to get my arms around you, so slim and soft, and so good. And I canât say a damn word because the tears keep choking me, till I croak like a bawling calf being branded by a tenderfoot. And oh, my darling, darling sweetheart, donât forget me. Andplease be careful, because I just couldnât stand it if anything was to happen to you before I get you back to me again safe. Your friend and well-wisher, Jefferson Davis Wade
P. S. After I go to tell your pop, I guess I better join the army, as I am an officer in the State Guard. Maybe I could be of some use, I hope. See you in Tokyo.
J.D.W.
CHAPTER EIGHT
T RAVELING IS JUST ALIKE , whether you are in a boxcar with Pop and Willie when youâre a little girl going to Springfield, or a big girl riding to Champagne with a fly drummer you never saw before.
Traveling is waiting to get thereâthat is if you know where youâre going. Or traveling can be getting on a train by yourself to go to Chicago, with a ticket that youâve just bought and one dollar and sixty-five cents left, after making Pop take what you had, and both of you determined not to cry, because you canât stay in the house now with Uncle Ulrich. Pop can because he donât know like you do, and itâs all over anywayânothing will bring Willie back now.
Anyway, traveling is pretty much the same, even when you donât know where youâre going. You just sit there until you stop, eating nice lunches and breakfasts with flowers on âem. And not worrying about getting there, because Aunt Mary seems comfortable and the places you stop in are all foreign anyway.
In school my geography book was just too big to carry, so I used to hide it in the Girlsâ washroom, back of the john. Maybe thatâs where I got the idea for aplace to hide the cigarette tray and the cash box at Butchâs. I often wondered whether it would be there when I got back, and if somebody found it, whether Butch would think Iâd stolen the cash box. But he wouldnât think that, not after what happened last Thanksgiving nightâor rather the next night when the mother of the drunk society girl came in to ask if she couldnât maybe pay for any damage that her daughter might have done. I took her aside into the Ladiesâ and gave her back the big fat wad of bills her daughter had given to me just before she passed out. But Butch listened at the door so he knew I had had it since last night and hadnât said a word to anybody. And Butch said he thought I was sure nuts. But I noticed, after that, whenever there was trouble and the lights were snapped off, Iâd feel Butchâs roll pressed into my hand.
Traveling is fun, too, when you come to see that people that sure looked strange at first, because they maybe was a different color from other people, are just like the other people, only of a different color maybe, or of a different religion.
I learned that traveling. Like that time I was laughing with one of the boys (that I called Bill) at the other boy (that I called Coo) because Coo slipped on something slippery and fell right down on his fanny holding a big bowl of soup in both of his hands that he couldnât let go of. So Bill couldnât help laughing, which he does in a kind of a squeal. Through silly little things like that, we all seemed to get to be better friends than before.
Traveling to Rio was nice, even if I couldnât be sure whether this was where I got out and wave goodbye, orwhether I
And then, all of a sudden, there you stand on the top of those steps that are getting ready to pull away any minute and let that damn plane take you off into the sky, where Iâll never maybe see you again. You look so young and pretty and pale and sweet, and sure needing somebody to take care of you, and how you kept that way, God only knows. My poor old bow legs went like macaroni, and it took me a year to get up them steps to you and to get my arms around you, so slim and soft, and so good. And I canât say a damn word because the tears keep choking me, till I croak like a bawling calf being branded by a tenderfoot. And oh, my darling, darling sweetheart, donât forget me. Andplease be careful, because I just couldnât stand it if anything was to happen to you before I get you back to me again safe. Your friend and well-wisher, Jefferson Davis Wade
P. S. After I go to tell your pop, I guess I better join the army, as I am an officer in the State Guard. Maybe I could be of some use, I hope. See you in Tokyo.
J.D.W.
CHAPTER EIGHT
T RAVELING IS JUST ALIKE , whether you are in a boxcar with Pop and Willie when youâre a little girl going to Springfield, or a big girl riding to Champagne with a fly drummer you never saw before.
Traveling is waiting to get thereâthat is if you know where youâre going. Or traveling can be getting on a train by yourself to go to Chicago, with a ticket that youâve just bought and one dollar and sixty-five cents left, after making Pop take what you had, and both of you determined not to cry, because you canât stay in the house now with Uncle Ulrich. Pop can because he donât know like you do, and itâs all over anywayânothing will bring Willie back now.
Anyway, traveling is pretty much the same, even when you donât know where youâre going. You just sit there until you stop, eating nice lunches and breakfasts with flowers on âem. And not worrying about getting there, because Aunt Mary seems comfortable and the places you stop in are all foreign anyway.
In school my geography book was just too big to carry, so I used to hide it in the Girlsâ washroom, back of the john. Maybe thatâs where I got the idea for aplace to hide the cigarette tray and the cash box at Butchâs. I often wondered whether it would be there when I got back, and if somebody found it, whether Butch would think Iâd stolen the cash box. But he wouldnât think that, not after what happened last Thanksgiving nightâor rather the next night when the mother of the drunk society girl came in to ask if she couldnât maybe pay for any damage that her daughter might have done. I took her aside into the Ladiesâ and gave her back the big fat wad of bills her daughter had given to me just before she passed out. But Butch listened at the door so he knew I had had it since last night and hadnât said a word to anybody. And Butch said he thought I was sure nuts. But I noticed, after that, whenever there was trouble and the lights were snapped off, Iâd feel Butchâs roll pressed into my hand.
Traveling is fun, too, when you come to see that people that sure looked strange at first, because they maybe was a different color from other people, are just like the other people, only of a different color maybe, or of a different religion.
I learned that traveling. Like that time I was laughing with one of the boys (that I called Bill) at the other boy (that I called Coo) because Coo slipped on something slippery and fell right down on his fanny holding a big bowl of soup in both of his hands that he couldnât let go of. So Bill couldnât help laughing, which he does in a kind of a squeal. Through silly little things like that, we all seemed to get to be better friends than before.
Traveling to Rio was nice, even if I couldnât be sure whether this was where I got out and wave goodbye, orwhether I
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