Pages of Promise (6 page)
“I don’t know anything about the motion picture business,” he said, “but I know the fella that gets in first has an advantage. I think you did the right thing.” He excused himself, saying, “I’ll be right back. I need to call the office and check in.”
Mona waited for him, thinking about the film, but she came to herself when she heard the name Stuart used by one of the men in the group. He evidently had just joined them, for she had not met him, but she heard him say, “Stephen Stuart is going to get into trouble. He’s cutting too many corners.”
Mona rose from her table at once, touched the man on the arm, and when he turned around she said, “Stephen Stuart is my brother. What did you mean by what you just said?”
“Your brother?” The man was short and pudgy but had direct gray eyes and a stubborn look around his lips. “I didn’t intend for you to hear it, but I don’t mind saying it again. I’ve said it to him.”
“What do you think he’s doing?” Mona demanded.
“He’s shorting quality on government contracts,” the man said, “and he’s going to get into trouble sooner or later with the government. And maybe there’s more.”
At that moment Stephen appeared and, taking one look at the man, said, “Hello, Ben. You still giving me a bad name?” Without waiting for an answer he said, “Come on, Sis. Let’s go.”
When they were in his car and headed back to Mona’s apartment, she said, “What did that man mean? He said you were cutting corners on government contracts.”
“He’s sore because he lost some business to me. His name’s Ben Morrow. He’s a whiner,” Stephen said carelessly.
“You’re not doing that, are you?”
“Look, I’m in business, Mona. I’ve got to make the best product I can for the least amount of money. If I can see a way to save two cents on a part that works just as well, then I’ll take it.” He leaned over and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Your big brother’s able to take care of himself.”
There was an assurance about him and success in every feature. When Mona got out of the car, she put the matter out of her mind, thinking,
Stephen’s smart, and he wouldn’t do
anything really wrong.
Then her mind was filled up again with thoughts of starring in a movie, and she hummed to herself as she went up the stairs to her apartment.
A
mos Stuart leaned back against the enormous walnut tree that shaded the white frame house from the blazing heat of the sun. He had come back to Arkansas to the home place, the house where he had been born. He looked across at his brother Logan, who sat on a cane-bottom chair, teetering perilously, whittling on a piece of cedar. Amos knew the knife would be a Barlow, for it was all Logan admitted to having the qualities that a knife ought to have. Long, curling shavings fell from the stick and formed a pile at Logan’s feet.
“If you had taken up wood carving, you’d be rich by now,” Amos remarked, brushing a fly away from his face. He was the oldest of the clan at the age of seventy-two. He had been five foot ten when he was young but knew that he had shrunk an inch, and he was considerably overweight. His ash-blonde hair was streaked with gray, but his dark blue eyes were still alive, and there was a youthful force in him that one finds in elderly people sometimes. He had become famous as a writer and as an editor for the Hearst newspapers, and for years he had carried on a weekly radio program that was immensely popular. He was a friend of presidents and, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt, had known them all. Now he sat back, sweat gathering under his white shirt and his gray trousers wrinkling at the knees from the heat of late spring.
“I’m glad you could come, Amos. I get a little bit lonesome for my folks. The Stuarts are scattered all over creation now.”
Logan, at sixty-six, still retained mostly auburn hair and had the Stuart dark blue eyes. He was thin and wiry and not tall, and he had been one of the best farmers in the Ozarks in his time. These days, however, his son Clinton and his son-in-law Dent did much of the work. As he shaved the paper-thin shavings from the cedar, he proceeded to bring Amos up to date on his host of descendants, some of them with the last name of Ballard, for Logan had married a widow with three children. His grandchildren were the pride and joy of his life.
“How’s the newspaper business, Amos?”
“Going to perdition in a bucket,” Amos snapped. “Most of the stuff that’s written is lies and poorly written lies at that!” He went on giving newspaper writers a hard time, and then he saw Logan grinning at him.
“You ought to give it all up and come back here on the farm. You never was much of a farmer, but I could teach you a few things.”
Amos smiled. “I’d never get Rosie to do that. She’s a city girl.” He looked over the house and out at the barn that was propped up on one side by thick saplings. “That old barn’s still standing,” he muttered. A grin came across him and he said, “I remember just before Lylah first went away to Bible school. Owen and I caught her out there smoking cigarettes.” “Boy, she set that Bible college on its ear, didn’t she, Amos?”
“She set lots of folks on their ears. She’s doing real well, but she’s missing Jesse like I never saw a woman miss a man.” Amos shook his head and said, “I reckon she’s about ready to go on and be with him, although she’s doing well with that motion picture business of hers. Adam’s doing a lot of it now.”
“What about this here war? What’s going to happen to it?” Logan asked.
“We’re gonna win it!”
“Why did President Truman yank MacArthur out of there?” Logan asked. His older brother was, in his mind, the smartest man who had ever lived.
“Well, it comes down to this. Russia is hooked up to the North Koreans, ever since the end of World War II . That means we’re really fighting Russia already—like Truman says, the Russians are fighting a war by proxy. So MacArthur wanted to cross over the thirty-eighth parallel that cuts Korea in half and just go all the way to China to stop the Chinese from coming into North Korea. Well, that would have brought direct confrontation with China and probably Russia too, and Truman is a smart enough man to know we don’t want to fight World War II. So he yanked MacArthur.”
“I always liked General Mac,” Logan observed easily. “He’s a fightin’ man.”
“He is; he’s a military man. He didn’t have to worry about the whole country like President Truman does.”
“I like Truman,” Logan nodded. “You always know where you stand.”
“He’s never been anything but a small town businessman. He’s not sharp and foxy like Roosevelt, but people like him because, as you say, Logan, he always means what he says.”
Logan reached into the bib pocket of his overalls and pulled forth a small package. “Want some gum?” he said.
“No. These store-bought teeth don’t take to gum.” Amos grinned. He watched as Logan undid the paper and pulled out a small card. “What’s that?” he inquired.
“Baseball pictures,” Logan said, handing it over. “This one’s Ty Cobb. Might be worth a little bit some of these days.”
“Yeah, baseball cards have been around as long as I can remember. I used to have a pretty good collection myself.”
“Well, that grandson of mine, Jeff, I think he knows every baseball player that’s ever lived. He’s always pestering me to buy more gum. I’ve chewed,” he said humorously, “until my jaws ache. He says I got to find one of Honus Wagner.”
“Why, I guess he
would
like that one. Wagner is probably the greatest ballplayer ever.”
“That’s what Jeff says. Well, anyhow, he claims that anyone could get a heap of money for a card with Honus Wagner on it—an old one, that is.”
Amos handed the card back and said, “I’ll send you my old collection. You can give ’em to Jeff for a Christmas present or a birthday maybe.”
“Well, now. Won’t that be fine?” Logan smiled broadly, and his eyes twinkled. “Now be sure you don’t go through there and take all them out that’s worth money.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that!” Amos protested.
“I don’t know. You Yankees from Chicago will do about anything, I reckon. Tell me what else is going on in the world.”
“Well, they keep testing atom bombs out around Las Vegas. The biggest one, the flash was seen 250 miles south of the Mexican border—500 miles from Las Vegas! Some reports said they’re ones designed to be carried by soldiers on the battlefield.”
“You don’t tell me!”
“I’m afraid so. And we have to keep on with developing all these weapons because we keep hearing about the Russians making atomic weapons. Like with these riots in Egypt against Britain and all this turmoil over the Suez Canal. If things get out of hand, we’ll need to be able to protect ourselves and our allies. And same thing with this war in Korea.”
“Yeah,” Logan said, “I heard one speech when President Truman said that the only true road to peace is to face up to them Russians with force—the defense of Europe is the defense of the U.S. is what he said.”
“And he wants taxes to be raised to do it. You won’t believe all the zeros in the amount of money it’s gonna cost you and me, Brother, us taxpayers,” said Amos. “Never mind about all that. Tell me what’s happening on the farm here.”
Logan spoke slowly in his flat Arkansas drawl, which had never changed. He gave a roll call of old friends who had died, marriages, births. Amos had forgotten most of them, but he enjoyed listening to Logan talk. Logan said, “I got one thing I really don’t understand. Over there in the bend of the river, that land that used to belong to the Cartwrights? Well, some young folks bought it. I don’t know who they are. I met ’em a few times. Seem pleasant enough, but they’re kind of odd.”
“What’s odd about ’em?”
“Well, all the men got beards, most of ’em anyway, and the women all wear long dresses, just like Ma used to wear. Looks like they’re trying to step back in time.”
“What are they doing over there?”
“Oh, they say they want to farm the land. They don’t know much about it though. Most of ’em are from big cities back East. One of ’em,” he said with a smirk, “planted some corn in the shade of the trees. Said it was too hot in the sun. Didn’t get much of a crop, that fella didn’t.”
Amos laughed and shook his head. “They’ll never get rich on that land.”
“They don’t intend to get rich. They just want to live their own way, I reckon. They dry a lot of their food, and they built ’em a bomb shelter in case the bomb drops on us here in Arkansas.” Logan chuckled at that idea. “Nice young folks, but their morals, I think, are a little bit lackin’. Some of ’em livin’ together without bein’ married, so the talk goes.”
“Well, if you get to where you can’t get along with Anne, I reckon you could leave and go join up with ’em.”
This idea, too, tickled Logan, who snapped his knife shut and slipped it into his overall pocket. “Come along,” he said. “Let’s go get some buttermilk. Maybe after a while I’ll drive you over there and you can write a story on them young folks—and give me half the money for it,” he added slyly.
Amos returned to Chicago on June 7 and the next morning was working at his desk when he looked up and saw his granddaughter Stephanie weaving her way through the newsroom. She saw him watching and flashed a charming smile at him. He was surprised and delighted to see her. Amos felt particularly flattered by the interest Stephanie had shown in the career that meant so much to him. She’d been telling him since she was about eight that she wanted to be a “newspaperman” just like him when she grew up. “Hello, Grandpa,” she said as she entered his office. “Are you busy?”
“Never too busy for a good-looking girl,” he said. He got up, went around, and took her hug. She kissed his smooth cheek, then took a seat. “That’s a man-catchin’ outfit you got on,” he said eyeing her dress. The dress was nutmeg brown and had a V neck and a short, pleated skirt. A short bolero jacket, trimmed in dark brown, with three-quarter-length sleeves, covered the top of the dress, and a wide V-shaped belt in dark brown cinched in the waist. Amos shook his head. “How old are you now? Fifteen?”
“Oh, Grandpa, you know better than that! You came to my high school graduation a year ago.”
“Well, I guess I forgot. How’s college?”
“I made straight A’s.”
“It’s a good thing you did. I’d have tanned your hide if you’d done anything else—after your daddy got through with you. How are your mom and dad?”
“Mom’s fretting because she’s got no kids to take care of, and we’re all a little bit worried now that Richard’s gone into the marines.”
“Well, he’s like some of the other Stuarts, I guess. If there’s a fight, he’s got to get into it.”
“Well, you know what’s happening over there. The marines have been in the thick of it.”
Amos nodded, and he knew she was exactly right. The First Marine Division had fallen into some of the hardest fighting in the war. They had advanced on the “punch bowl,” a volcanic crater lying about twenty-five miles north of Inchon. Fighting had congealed into a fierce slugging match, and the First had taken heavy losses. Amos was apprehensive about his grandson joining up so young, and he said as kindly as he could, “I’m sure God’ll take care of him. He’s got lots of prayers going up. I got a phone call from Lenora yesterday, and she said she’s fasting and praying for Richard even now while he’s in basic training.”
“Dear Aunt Lenora!” Lenora Stuart had been crippled in a riding accident in her youth, but from her wheelchair she practically ran the Salvation Army unit in Chicago. “I’ll go by and see her.”
Amos leaned back and said, “I know you didn’t come just to chat. What is it you want, Stephanie?”
“I want to go to work for you, Grandpa,” Stephanie said instantly. “I want to go to Korea as a war correspondent.”
Amos laughed, his face wrinkling and his belly quivering. After all, the Hearst organization was one of the largest in the business, and for an eighteen-year-old to walk in off the street—“Well, I’ll give this to you, you’ll never go wanting for lack of gall!”
“I’m serious, Grandpa. I don’t want to go through three more years of college. I want to go to work now. I want to be where the action is.” Her eyes sparkled, and she leaned forward, making a most attractive picture. For some time she argued, but her heart sank when her grandfather simply shook his head. Then Stephanie grew indignant. Standing to her feet she said, “All right! I’ll go across town and go to work for your competition!”