OCR Text |
Show VVfi V-Vi' W.N.O.SERVICE Sjr"sg W THE STORY THUS PAR: Amoi Croy and his wife fettled on a farm In Mls-lonrl, Mls-lonrl, where Homer was born. Sunday meant church, company for dinner and steer welshing. The Croys attended the Omaha Exposition, where Homer had his first taste of the outside. He finished high school and college, then went to New York City where he secured a job as cub on Theodore Dreiser's woman's magazine. maga-zine. On a visit home he was glad to learn that Phebe, who had been his father's fa-ther's housekeeper since his mother's death, was to marry his father. Homer returned to New York and had his first novel, "Boone Stop," accepted for publication. pub-lication. Royalties were practically nothing noth-ing on this book. CHAPTER XX The old settlers were going. He and Phebe would get in the buggy and Join the procession. When there was a G.A.R. funeral, he would put on his old blue uniform and stand by the grave; then he would come home and hang the uniform in the closet till next time. He wrote no more at all Phebe's letters always ended, "Your father lays to come home whenever you can." The Inevitable happened. One day I got a telegram. "Your father is failing. Phebe." No one came to meet me at the depot; there was no one to swing my grip. But when I got out of the Jitney, Phebe was at the door to meet me, looking old and worn, her yes still framed in the gold glasses. "He's been asking all morning when you'd get here." I built a home in Forest Hills, Long Island, New York ("The Little Lit-tle House with the Big Mortgage" I called it) and wrote two more ping books. I wrote all sorts of stuff, and that's just about what it was'. There was my old trouble of never nev-er being able to tell whether what I was writing was good, or not. It all seemed good when the words were flowing; pretty bad when the words were stiff and cold. But I kept grinding away and managed to make a living. We had more ambitious plans than burning a mortgage, and soon we were about them. Yes, actually on the way to Europe. One of the persons on the ship was Walter Lipp-mann. Lipp-mann. I wrote him a note I would like to meet him, and soon I was buying him a drink. How sweet it was to consort with the famous, elbow el-bow to elbow, no looking up and no looking down. And it was not long before we were in Paris. Wonderful Paris! That was the way I had always seen it described and that was the way it was always mentioned by re-turnifl'g re-turnifl'g friends. But I had to see it through my own eyes. It was disappointing. dis-appointing. It was odd and strange and it was interesting, but certainly not wonderful. Nothing seemed to be logical, and to me the people seemed to be slightly on the demented de-mented side.1 I looked at the French through what were, I supposed, cornfield eyes, but I was making up my mind as to what I saw and felt. They seemed aloof and artificial, some- The old gentleman was in the north room, In the house south of the water tower, in the walnut bed he had brought in from the farm. Hi knotted, misshapen hands were on the outside of the covers. He beld his hand out to me and said in a faint voice, "I'm glad to see you, ion. I guess you got in on the 8:10." At the foot of the bed, next to the aouth wall, was the old tin, camel-back camel-back trunk I had taken to the university. uni-versity. It was now covered with a horse blanket, and I sat down on it. His face was drawn, but his eyes were as blue as ever. The same spirit of mutual understanding we had always when we got together, after being separated, leaped up. All the questions were about me. "How is your wife. Homer?" "What kind of weather have you been hav-in' hav-in' back East?" It was not long before he began to talk about the farm. "Homer, you've got a good farm there." The poignancy touched me. He was releasing re-leasing his hold on the farm. "Some ' of them laughed at me when I got it because there wasn't any timber on it, but it worked out pretty well!" A gleam in his eyes there, for now he had the best farm in the neighborhood. neighbor-hood. "Your mother was always Often I thought how I would like to take one of them to my farm and show him the long straight stone-less stone-less rows, three horses abreast swinging down a black loam field, a whole hill covered with steers, a feed lot alive with shoats. How he would blink. Yet these French farmers knew tricks I didn't If our Missouri Mis-souri farmers had to clop around in wooden shoes and plow with a four-inch four-inch moldboard . . . would we have done any better? In the spring we went back to Paris. The day after we arrived, as Homer, Junior, was riding his tricycle tri-cycle around the hotel grounds he put his hand on his back and said in his childish voice that his back hurt. By morning he was worse. We got the doctors at the American Hospital, Hos-pital, and they also brought in the best professeurs in Paris to help our little boy. How far from home we seemed! But it wasn't really so far, after all, for five Americans came to our hotel to ask if there was anything they could do. But sometimes some-times no one can help. He died in that lonely Paris hotel. But in the next room were three Americans we had never seen before be-fore who had come, as they said, "in case we needed them." When our little boy was buried from the American Church, there must have been a dozen Americans there we had never seen before and who came up and offered their sympathy. sym-pathy. A kind-faced man I had neT-er neT-er seen before and have never seeu since, put his arm around my shoulder shoul-der and said: "The rest of them, asked me to say they know how you1 must feel when this happens so far from home." It made America seem very close. When the coffin, covered with an American flag, was taken through the streets, the Frenchmen lifted their hats. That helped, too. It all helped and yet, at such a time, nothing helps, for when the big crises come we enter them alone. But some way or other we do stand them, we do go on living, we laugh again. After twenty-two months in Europe Eu-rope we returned to 10 Standish Road. (Item: fourteen windowpanes in our little house were broken.) It had been a lovely fling, but all of our money was gone. One day a real estate neighbor "dropped" in to see me. (On what small incidents does the door of life swing.) I had known him for soma time, and had seen his cars grow bigger and rakier. Now what was I going to do? he asked. Well, I was going to plug along as best I could. Then he asked me about how much I expected to make without quite asking ask-ing it. And when I told him without quite telling him, he looked distressed. dis-tressed. It was a shame to see a person work so hard and get so little. lit-tle. He began to tell about "deals" he had pulled off. He wasn't the only one doing that; everybody was making money in real estate. All a person had to do was tp get "control" "con-trol" of a piece of property, hang on a while, then sell at a whacking price. My tongue was soon hanging out. He mentioned two or three men who, as he said, were playing the game. I began to think of myself my-self as playing the game. There was a piece of property coming onto the market by forced sale; it was an easy way for somebody some-body to pick up some easy money. I had never picked up any easy money mon-ey in my life and now under his hypnotic hyp-notic powers it seemed about time. If I could raise some money and make a down payment, he could buy that corner lot for me. The way property was jumping, I could sell it in no time at a neat profit. Why, I could make five thousand dollars! "That's nothing in comparison to what some of the boys are making!" he said. When I told him it seemed big to me, he smiled pityingly. I'd just never waded around in real estate. Then he told of another man, who, as he phrased it, had hit the jack pot. He came several times and several sev-eral times I walked across the corner cor-ner lot that was bound to skyrocket. He was a bit shocked when I confessed con-fessed how little money I had. Well, writers were simply not businessmen. business-men. Bit by bit it got around to putting a mortgage on our house. I would not put one on the farm. I stood out against that. Should we, or should we not? It would be only for a brief time, then we'd clean up (as my friend said), wipe off the mortgage mort-gage and have a neat sum in the bank. The more he talked, the more plainly I could see he was right. But there was a catch. I would have to pay $210 a month interest and taxes, a staggering sum. But It would be, he explained, only for a short time. Then there would be that neat sum. After days of swinging between confidence and hesitation, we marched down and put a mortgage on the little house with the lovely rounded doorway, and became the owners of a comer lot. There it was, when we walked across it, ours! Every inch of it; well, at least, every ev-ery other inch. Now I would really have to work No doubt of that. (TO BE CONTINUED) awful fond of you." He was not one to pay compliments himself, and I realized that he was also saying this for himself. He spoke of events of years ago as if they had just happened. Once a dashy-dressed drummer for a nursery nur-sery had come to our house, driving a high-stepping livery team, and asked me to drive around with him and Introduce him to the farmers. For which he would pay my father five dollars a day a fortune. And now my father spoke of it. "I'm glad I didn't take it," He had to rest and I crept out of the room for a while. When I looked in again his blue eyes were still open. "I wish you'd pare my fingernails." finger-nails." And now I realized something that touched me. He had never been a man to show open marks of affection, affec-tion, such as putting his arm around me, as I have seen so many fathers do to their children. But now ... In these last hours ... he wanted the feel of his son. I had sense enough , to make the paring of the nails last as long as I could. "I've got my G. A. R. suit hangin' In the closet I've always been proud of it." His eyes closed; after a- while they opened. "Do you remember the time I bought the buffalo robe for Christmas for your mother?" I nodded, choked with feeling. He wanted to do something for me, as if It was some final fatherly touch. "Phebe and I have a good feather bed upstairs we're not usin'. How would you like to have it?" I explained as gently as I could that people in New York did not use feather beds. "I suppose not," he said with a aigh. It was not long before he was back to the farm. "It's all free and clear. It's been my ambition to leave it to you that way and that's what I'm doing. Don't ever put a mortgage on it. They eat like a canoer." The time came when I must go back, and I went in and sat on the camel-backed trunk for the last time. Finally when the moment came, I shook his gnarled hand. "Take care of yourself, Homer." It was the last thing he ever said to me. After I had been back about a week, I got word that the end had come. I could not go to the funeral . . , only in my thoughts The crooked narrow streets, the yard-wide sidewalks. times on the verge of childishness. Now that I look back, this may have been because I met only the French who came in contact with the public. I did not get into a home where I could meet "the real French," as my wiser and more experienced friends called them; and I could not parley their language. lan-guage. So I had to judge by what I saw. And that was what I have done all my life. I realize much of it has been wrong, but still it was my own point of view. We went to the Riviera and took rooms at the Grand Hotel in Sainte Maxime and I went to work on an idea for the novel that was to follow fol-low "West of the Water Tower." The guidebook said Sainte Maxime was one of the lovely spots on the Mediterranean, and the two or three Americans we met said it was delightful. de-lightful. To me it was just plain cockeyed. The crooked narrow streets, the yard'-wide sidewalks, the nonsensical two-wheeled carts, the mailman carrying his letters in a tin box suspended from his shoulders. shoul-ders. The people eternally sitting in cafes swigging beer or tiny drinks. Such a place was interesting to see, like a pumpkin show, but certainly not the place where I wanted to live. Or the kind of life I wanted to live. Dale Carnegie, who was born on a farm a few miles from where I was, came to see me. He had seen much more of Europe than I had; in fact, had lived there. But when we got down to cases, he felt about it much as I did. I suppose you can't ever get ' a farm out of a person. For that matter. I don't know that I want to. The part I liked best was to see how the French farmed. Of course I couldn't talk to them, but I walked across their land and watched them working. I must have watched sympathetically, sym-pathetically, for none chased me off. I was fascinated by their market days and, no matter how hard I was supposed to be working, I managed to be there. Taking pigs to market in basketsl Carrying sheep with their feet lashed over a pole! It was play farming. Having a manure pile just outside the house. It was disgusting. But when I looked a little deeper and saw the handicaps the farmers farm-ers had to overcome, and their poor soil and primitive machinery, my respect went up. It was toy farming, farm-ing, but, everything considered, they turned in a good job |