No Promises in the Wind Read Free Page A

country had a good-paying job; every supper table in the country had enough on it to satisfy the hunger of the children gathered around it. Nature might even have carelessly supposed that the hunger of the children was an indifferent kind of hunger, sharp enough from work or play, but nothing to be scared about. The jab of hunger pangs was nothing to panic over when the smell of a good supper at twilight was as much expected and as little considered as twilight itself, or the light of morning. That is the way it had been with me once—wonderful, ravenous, indifferent hunger. It was no longer like that for a great many of us.
    I was suddenly angered that Nature could be so carefree, so oblivious to the dreariness that my music only brightened for minutes. I struck a few chords on the yellow keys, full of a helpless kind of resentment, but Howie brought me out of my mood in seconds.
    â€œWhat’s itchin’ at you, Joshaway?” he asked, laughing at me. “Come on, let’s get goin’. This banjo’s got a deep, low yearnin’ for something with a Dixieland beat.” His fingers skittered over the strings as he spoke.
    I grinned at him and brought my hands down on the keyboard, ready for the opening bars of our number. All the months of playing together had made Howie and me like one boy when we swung into our music. He could sense the moment when I’d go into a change of tempo; he knew when my mood called for laughter and clowning, or when it began to sink low, low down into the blues of men who cowered around the wire trash baskets on street corners and warmed themselves with burning newspapers. Howie and I vibrated with music that neither of us could have talked about in musical terms.
    Miss Crowne must have been bone-tired that afternoon. Her face looked faintly gray and drawn, but she came into the room and stood there watching us, swaying a little with our rhythm, smiling and brushing tears out of her eyes at the same time. When we were through, she walked over and stood beside the piano.
    Howie was a ham—there was no doubt about that. He laid his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. “Lord, wasn’t that sweet! Josh, you’re terrific, and I’m mighty near as good as you.”
    Miss Crowne laughed then; she often laughed at Howie. “You two all but make me forget the bread lines for a few minutes.” She nodded at me. “It’s good, Josh, real good. You’re making it come alive, and Howie is giving it a beat that’s going to make the assembly sit up and listen next week.”
    When Miss Crowne praised us, we felt clouds under our feet. Although she made a gesture of brushing us outside the door when we lingered over our thanks for the use of her room, we were confident that she liked us, that she was proud of what we were doing.
    â€œGet on home now, you two,” she told us. “You have home-work, and I have an hour’s ride on the streetcar. Get going, gentlemen.”
    We had to go, although we hated leaving her. We wanted to stay and hear again how much she liked our music. Mostly, I guess, we wanted to put off the hour when we had to go back to our families.
    Outside I said good-bye to Howie and told him that maybe I could get out that evening in which case I’d meet him at the usual place by the corner drugstore. I didn’t say that I’d get out if Dad was in a mood to ignore me. I didn’t have to explain; Howie knew how things were.
    He said, “Bring Joey along. I snitched a jigsaw puzzle the other day from someone who’ll never miss it. I want to give it to Joey.”
    I shrugged. “He has to go to bed early,” I said. I didn’t care to have a younger brother tagging after me. Howie didn’t mind. He had no brothers of his own, and he had a special kind of affection for Joey.
    Joey was, of course, the protected and best-loved one of us at home. He had grown stronger with