The Boar Read Free Page B

expected Papa to give me a talk on practicality, but he surprised me. “Well, son, if that’s what you want to do, I think you ought to start learning how it’s done. Guess you need more schooling than you’re getting, seeing how you’ve missed a heap.”
    He wasn’t just jawing there. I had missed a lot of school. Living where we did, not having a car, and Papa needing me to help at home, there just wasn’t much chance for me to get into town for schooling. Sometimes, when cropping was done, or things were slow, I’d take the mule and ride in to get as many hours as I could. By the end of the year, though, it didn’t amount to much.
    “I don’t know how we can manage that, Papa. You and Mama need me here.”
    He didn’t answer me. “And don’t you need one of them writing machines that puts the words on paper?”
    This hadn’t occurred to me. “Yes sir. I reckon I do.”
    “You’d need to learn how to use it, providing you had one, wouldn’t you?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Course you got to have paper and stuff for the writing machine.”
    “Yes sir,” I said.
    “You’ll need to know where to try and sell what you write.”
    “Yes sir, I reckon I will.” I was beginning to think Papa was pointing out the potholes in my plan, trying to bring me down to earth, but what he said next made me realize he wasn’t.
    “Now that I think about it, bet you could get the addresses of where to send stories off the magazines you read. Course, you got to keep in mind they may not buy stories from folks down here in Texas. Maybe all that stuff is written by Yankees, heaven forbid.”
    “Like in New York?” I asked.
    “Reckon so.”
    We both just sort of stood there in dumb fascination for a moment. Thinking about New York, I guess. I knew that if I had to be a Yankee to write stories I was in trouble. New York might as well have been Egypt. I had about as much chance of going to either. Farthest I’d been from home was town, and that was only five miles away.
    “Naw,” Papa said, “I don’t reckon they’d buy just from Yankees. That would be un-American.”
    I could see the wisdom in that, and I nodded.
    “Now, if you want to do that… write them stories, then it’s going to be up to you to do it. But I’m going to give you your chance, somehow. You hear?”
    “Yes sir.”
    Pausing, he moved his lips from side to side and looked off toward the bottoms. When he looked back at me there was a slight smile on his face. “Tell you what I’m thinking now, but this is just between us, hear?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Not a word to anyone. Not Mama. Not Ike.”
    “Not a word,” I promised.
    “Well, son, I’m thinking that if the crop comes in good this year, or if I do real good at that wrestling match, I’m going to buy a car. We get that car and you can get into school quicker and easier, get on back to the house in time to help me and Ike with the rest of the chores.”
    The idea of me driving a car to and from town really appealed to me, and the idea of schooling appealed to me even more. “That sounds like a real good idea, Papa.”
    “Yes it does,” Papa had to admit, and he sort of nodded agreement with himself.
    After a moment of looking out toward the bottoms again, he spoke, but didn’t quite look at me. “I don’t want you to end up scraping a living like I’ve done. Ain’t nothing wrong with farming if that’s what you want to be. But I didn’t never want to be no farmer. Make something out of yourself, son. I don’t care what, but something. If this writer thing is what you want, I’m going to help you get there. Hear me, now?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Ike’s going to get his chance too, but there’s some time before he has to start worrying about that kind of thing. It’s more than high time you put a mind to it. I don’t know nothing but hard work, but you boys are going to have your chance if I have to put a hammerlock on Old Scratch himself.”
    Finally he looked at me. His face