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Show IT PRATT W.N.U. release S- THE STORY THUS FAR: Forty-lour-year-old Wtlbcrt Winkle, who operates a repair shop in the alley back of his home, Is notified by his draft board that ne is in 1-A. He breaks the bad news to his domineering wife, Amy, who now hates to part with him. On arriving at camp Mr. Winkle is given his physical and to his great surprise and dismay, is accepted for service. He Is sent to Camp Squibb, a thousand miles from home, where he meets Mr. Tinker, a man of his own age. After much hard training, Mr. Winkle is called in before his superior su-perior officer and told he Is over 38 and can go home if he chooses, but Winkle says he'll stay In the army. He graduates from Motor Mechanics school. CHAPTER IX Mr. Winkle peered at him through his glasses and blinked. He has seen the Army work other wonders, even on himself, but never a miracle like this. "That's all right," he murmured. mur-mured. "I suppose," Freddie went on, "I'm responsible for you being called 'Pop,' too." "I don't mind," Mr. Winkle assured as-sured him. "In fact, I rather like at." "Me," said Mr. Tinker, "I don't toelieve it. It's somebody else pretending pre-tending to be him." "He's a reformed character," Jack agreed. Freddie looked at the bar. "I'm not so reformed I won't buy everybody every-body a drink." Over their glasses, in the noisy bar. Freddie explained how he had "I'm not so reformed I won't buy everybody a drink." come to see the light. He was articulate ar-ticulate about it. "The kid here did it," he said, indicating Jack. "When I figure the Army made him almost up to licking lick-ing me, I thought it must have something. Even for me. I got a iook at myself, I mean, what I had 'been. I didn't even like my mustache." mus-tache." "What about the Alphabet?" Mr, "Winkle inquired. "He isn't so bad," Freddie answered, an-swered, "when you get to know ihim." "You see?" Jack asked. "He's got the right attitude. Of course, he may still need a little polishing here and there, but I'm doing that." Jack gave a practical demonstration demonstra-tion of this when Freddie's gaze wandered to girls in the bar. "Come on," he told .Freddie, "you're a strictly USO type now." ... The next day Mr. Winkle was given giv-en a week's furlough. The permanent perma-nent post to whith he and the other Motor Mechanics School Graduates were to be sent wouldn't be ready to receive them for this length of time. He could, if he wished, re-turnhorne re-turnhorne at his own expense. Hr.it Amy a telegram and then boarded a train. Amy was at the station to meet him. At first they just stared at each other without being able to do anything else. It was an awkward moment. Then Amy cried, "Oh, Wilbert, I didn't think I would ever see you againl" They embraced. He felt clumsy when he kissed her. It was almost as strange coming back to her as it was leaving her. "Why," said Amy, "I hardly know you." She seemed surprised. She touched the buttons of his uniform. "How are you?" he asked. "I'm fine." She examined him again in some admiration. "I never nev-er thought you'd look like that in a uniform. And your stomach it's gone. You'll have to have your picture pic-ture taken." "Well," he asked again, "how aj;e you, Amy?" "I'm fine," she repeated. Mr. Winkle drove, for the novelty of feeling a regular car under his aands. It seemed light and dangerous danger-ous after the trucks and command cars with which he had dealt lately In his field training. He sensed Amy looking at him. "You've put on weight." She ipoke in an aggrieved tone. "I wrote you about it," he reminded. re-minded. "At least ten pounds." "Twelve and a half." "You never did that before." She sounded still more hurt. "No matter mat-ter how much I fed you." "It isn't the cooking." he assured her. "It's the exercise and being outdoors that makes you eat more." Though he knew she felt better after he said this, a restraint remained re-mained between them. They found they could not at once, and easily, take up where they left off. The months in between, during which each had had another life, interfered and came between them. They had to get to know each other all over again. Mr. Winkle sensed her staring at him anew, in a different way. He glanced at her, and saw that her gaze was contemplative, searching, a little suspicious. He feared that she was reverting to being a termagant, and that the effects of his suddenly being made into a soldier were wearing off. He supposed he couldn't be sure about that until after the war and he returned, re-turned, if he did. to his regular life. "Wilbert," she asked, "did you see any women?" "I told you I'd send you a postcard post-card when I found somebody else," he said. "You didn't get one, did you?" "No," she admitted slowly. She sat staring at him and he turned to look her for an instant straight in the eye. "I'm glad I didn't," she told him in a low voice. Mr. Winkle was happy when she dropped the subject. It was his turn to feel hurt when they reached the house and sneaked inside so none of the neighbors would see him. Penelope, instead of greeting him joyously, as would have been expected, ex-pected, scrunched down on the floor, growling and barking, and glaring at him with disapproval. Mrs. Winkle Win-kle scolded her, but it made no impression. im-pression. Even when Mr. Winkle spoke to her coaxingly and let her sniff his hand, she wouldn't accept him or have anything to do with him. So far as Penelope was concerned, con-cerned, he was a stranger in his own house. It was barely daylight when he awakened. He expected to hear the bustle of many men moving and cursing and the bugle tootling its dreadful call. He listened, not quite sure of where he was. He heard Amy's light breathing. He looked at his watch. It was exactly 5:45. He tried to go back to sleep again. This was the morning of his kingship. king-ship. But the king couldn't sleep any more. Harsh habit interfered, refusing re-fusing him his crown. It being also his accustomed time to eat, he felt hungry. After a time he got up quietly, put on his bath-. bath-. robe, over his pajamas, and went out. Downstairs, Penelope growled, snarled when he spoke to her, and snapped when he made to pat her. He wandered outdoors just as a strange newsboy delivered the paper. pa-per. The boy looked at him, startled, star-tled, then interested, then wise, and went away whistling. Mr. Winkle didn't approve of such precocious behavior in one so young. He investigated the kitchen, over Penelope's continued protests, and devoured odd assortments of food. He had an idea that tickled him. Sometime later, with a daintily prepared tray and the newspaper resting at one side of it, he went in to awaken Amy. Her eyes went wide and staring as he saluted and announced: "Breakfast in bed for you, queen." Mr. Winkle visited his shop to see that his tools and machines were in good order. He made small repairs about the house. He had his photograph photo-graph taken so that Amy could have him up over the mantel while he was away, or if he didn't ever return. He talked with Mr. Wescott, who first laughed outright at the sight of Mr. Winkle in his uniform and then was prone to be triumphant about his prediction for him. "What did I tell you?" he crowed. "You're being be-ing used as a mechanic, just like I said. You'll stay right here." Formerly he and Mr. Wescott had considered together the large and broad scale aspects of war, and now his neighbor expected that, as an actual military man, he would have some expert ideas. "Our antitank guns," Mr. Wescott inquired, "are they going to be able to stop the Germans?" "I don't know a thing about them," said Mr. Winkle. "But surely in your training " Mr. Winkle coughed apologetically. apologetical-ly. "I never saw one." Mr. Wescott considered. A little of his pompousness left him and he proposed, "Perhaps I shouldn't be asking such questions. You probably proba-bly have your orders not to let out any military secrets." "No," said Mr. Winkle, "that isn't it. I don't know any military secrets." se-crets." "Tanks?" asked Mr. Wescott. "I've never seen a tank." Mr. Wescott stared at him. He dropped the subject, and took up the Mediterranean campaign. "How is it coming along?" Mr. Winkle asked. "Do you mean to say you don't know?" demanded Mr. Wescott. "Well," said Mr. Winkle, "I hardly ever saw a paper in camp. Since I've been home I've glanced at the headlines a little, but I haven't read the details much." "You," spluttered Mr. WescoLL "above aH people, you, in the service serv-ice " "There isn't much time to think about it," Mr. Winkle apologized. "But you don't even sound interested," inter-ested," Mr. Wescott complained. "Somehow," said Mr. Winkle, "I've come to leave that up to the generals." "Of course," said Mr. Wescott stiffly. "Yes. Of course." He gathered gath-ered the forces of his indignation and scolded pettishly, "All I can say is that you aren't any more of a soldier than I thought you'd be." Too late, Mr. Winkle realized that he had offended his neighbor, thai Mr. Wescott thought he meant to squelch and ridicule him as an armchair arm-chair strategist. That had not been his intention at all. It was simply that he and Mr. Wescott had grown apart, that they had become strangers. strang-ers. Domestically, the Winkles were as' happy as they ever had been. They lived the few days he was home like a honeymoon taken up from where it was dropped many years before. Amy seemed intent on making up to Mr. Winkle the period she had been shrewish, and he decided to enjoy this, no matter what might happen after the war. She sewed on several buttons for him, and though her way wasn't exactly ex-actly the manner in which he had learned to sew, he was delighted to have her do it. After that first morning, Mr. Winkle managed to stay in bed long enough for Amy, by getting up very early, to bring him his breakfast there. The weather was fine and Mrs. Winkle squandered her gasoline ration ra-tion by going on a picnic with him every day into the woods. On these trips even Penelope agreed to wag her tail sluggishly at the soldier, though she still wouldn't accept him wholeheartedly. They spoke little of the war and his portion of it. Not that they took it for granted, or had become fatalistic fatal-istic about it, but they wished to forget it during the time they had together. Only on the day of his departure did the war .come again between them. Once more he held her in his arms. She wept, and he felt like crying, too. Then, when they parted, for a fleeting instant before they spoke or moved again, he saw that she looked at him defiantly, nearly with antagonism. But it wasn't a 'y But the King couldn't sleep any more. hen-pecking look. It was like the unreasonable anger of a person who loves another a great deal when the other has put himself in mortal danger. dan-ger. Sergeant Technician Wilbert George Winkle would have preferred to be alone in one of the upper berths rather than occupying a lower low-er berth with Corporal Technician Tinker. But that was the way the Army said it was to be on the troop train roaring through the cold night, and that was the way it was. Mr. Tinker, besides taking up most of the space with his bulk, leaving only a few inches for Mr. Winkle, was in addition restless because, having boarded the train at night, none of them even knew in which direction it was going. All they were sure of was that they were being shipped to an embarkation em-barkation port. Mr. Tinker twisted, nearly knocking knock-ing Mr. Winkle out of the berth, and stared out the window. "Not a star," he said. "Mebbe I couldn't read them anyway, but you say you can." "I think we're going south," the man above them called down. "What do you think we're going to, the Civil War?" someone demanded. de-manded. "I hear they ain't finished fighting it down there yet." "Naw," another differed. "It's east. That means England and the Nasties." This was for Mr. Tinker's sake, to devil him about being sent to fight the Germans instead of the Japs. "What's it matter which way?" someone else wanted to know. "You ain't going to get off and catch another an-other train, are you?" (TO RR CONTINUED 1 |