Read Online No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt - Free Book Online Page B

What month were you born?”
    It struck me as being strange that on a cold day in winter when half of the world was starving, this man would care about my birthday. It was none of my business, though, so I answered as if it were a perfectly natural question. “June—June twelfth.”
    He took off his hat and pushed a lock of black hair back from his forehead. “That’s pretty close,” he said. “My kid was born in April of that year. His name was David.”
    â€œHe died?” I asked, and then wished that I hadn’t.
    â€œYes. He died. Five years ago. He was about as tall as Joey—heavier, though, and brown as a little Indian. Looking at you makes me realize how big he would have been. Well”—he turned and opened the door of the cab—“we’d better get on down the road. We’ve got a lot of miles ahead of us.”
    The three of us were very quiet during the long afternoon. Joey slept quite a lot, but even when he woke, he sat with his hands clasped over the old banjo and said nothing. The man seemed to have something on his mind, and I, feeling rested and relaxed, gave myself up to a daydream of warm southern skies, of a job, of a place where life would be a little kinder.
    It began to snow hard in late afternoon. At dusk we drew up in front of a small cafe beside the road. The light from the windows barely showed through the swirling snowflakes outside.
    â€œWe’d better have something to eat,” the driver said as we stopped. He jumped down and held up his arms to help Joey down from the cab. He laughed a little as he tousled Joey’s hair, and there was a friendliness in his manner that made me feel I could trust him.
    I was worried, though, about the matter of eating. “A lady gave Joey and me a good breakfast this morning,” I told him. “We can get along on one meal a day.”
    â€œNo, come on in,” he said, starting up the path toward the door.
    â€œI don’t have a cent.” I thought maybe he had forgotten.
    â€œYou told me that. We’re not going to have steak. Just soup and hamburgers. Come on.”
    They knew him at the cafe. The waitress called him Lonnie, and the man who was frying hamburgers in the kitchen stuck his head around the corner and talked to him.
    â€œSee you got friends with you,” he said.
    â€œYes. Couple guys from the Windy City. Going down to Louisiana with me.”
    As we sat at the counter waiting for our food, he talked and joked, sometimes with us, sometimes with the cook and the waitress. When Joey addressed him as Mister, he told us to call him Lonnie. “That’s what my niece calls me,” he said. “I tell her she might show me a little respect and put ‘Uncle’ in front of my name, but she’s nearly fourteen and pretty set in her ways.”
    Then he asked Joey about the banjo, if he could play it and so on. Little by little we told him about Howie, about our plans to find a place where I could play piano and where maybe Joey could accompany me with the banjo when he learned to play better.
    Lonnie seemed interested. He kept looking at me while we talked as if he were thinking of something. When the waitress came to wipe off the counter in front of us, he said, “Bessie, is that old piano still in the next room?” He jerked his head toward an adjoining room that looked like a makeshift dining room.
    â€œSure,” the woman said. “You buyin’ up junk on this trip?”
    â€œThis kid says he can play. I want to hear him. All right if we go in while the hamburgers are cooking?”
    â€œCome on.” She motioned for me to follow her, and led the way into the next room. “This ain’t no Steinway, but you’re welcome to try it,” she said.
    The empty little dining room was cold, and the piano was pretty close to being the junk the waitress had called it. Some two months had passed since I had even seen a