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Authors: Hampton Stone
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said.
The fingerprint man went to the kitchenette and came back with a saucer.
“Not an ash tray anywhere in the place,” he said. “I’ve been using this.”
The three of us lit cigarettes and used the saucer. Bannerman was wearing that little sad-eyed smile again. He was being real big, forgiving us for having made the mistake of thinking his sister might have had an ash tray around the place.
Then Gibby was back to working at him with the questions and he answered readily, as though it might have been some sort of relief for him to talk, particularly a relief to turn backward to areas where he felt he knew all the answers, where there were no terrible uncertainties to clutch at his heart.
There had been only the two of them, his sister Ellie and himself, ever since he had been fifteen and she ten. Their parents had been killed in a bus accident and they had had no other relatives. There had been insurance, not much of it but enough to carry them along for two years while he finished high school and kept them going with after-school and vacation jobs. He had wanted to go on to college but that was out. He had left school at seventeen and taken on the full-time job of supporting himself and his twelve-year-old sister.
He was modest in his telling of it, but the picture emerged. It was a picture of a hard-working youngster who had taken on a man’s job and not done badly with it. He had earned their way, had kept kid sister in school, and had been both father and mother to her. He had a feeling of accomplishment and it came through the cover of his modesty. It was evident that not the least of his pride was that he had been able to guide his sister through those difficult years from ten to seventeen and to keep her from the pitfalls of temptation.
She had just finished high school and she had her first job, typist-stenographer in a real estate office, when the deferments on his army service ran out.
“I didn’t get called up when I was eighteen like other people,” he explained. “I had to support Ellie and they deferred me for that, but when Ellie was out of school and she had a job, they couldn’t defer me any more. I had to go then. I didn’t feel good about it—not that I wanted to dodge serving or anything like that—but Ellie was only seventeen and nobody to look after her, nobody even to tell her about things. The night before I left, I had to tell her myself. You know, about men and babies and all that Mom would have taken care of.”
He didn’t labor it. In fact, it seemed to me that he was happy enough to touch on it lightly and sheer away from the thought of the worries he had had for her when she had been only seventeen.
The way he told it, he had certainly been a level-headed kid. He had foreseen this moment when he would have to go, and so far as he had been able to manage it, he had prepared for it. He had put by all the savings he could and he was able to leave his sister so that with her earnings, the allotment out of his army pay, and a monthly pittance he sent her out of these savings, she would be having no financial difficulties. Then the Korean trouble had come and he had known he would be shipping overseas. At that point he had sent her all that remained of his savings along with careful instructions for banking it and drawing on it only as she needed it.
He had shipped and there had been that unavoidable space of time during which no letters could reach him. The first letter he had had in Korea had been a shocker. Ellie had rented their house, given up her job, and moved to New York.
“She wasn’t eighteen yet and she’d never been anywhere but River Forks all her life and alone in New York,” he said. “I thought I’d go crazy.”
“River Forks?” Gibby asked. “Where’s that?”
“Ohio. River Forks, Ohio. That’s our home. It was bad enough leaving her alone that way in River Forks but we’d lived there all our lives. People knew us. We knew people. She
The fingerprint man went to the kitchenette and came back with a saucer.
“Not an ash tray anywhere in the place,” he said. “I’ve been using this.”
The three of us lit cigarettes and used the saucer. Bannerman was wearing that little sad-eyed smile again. He was being real big, forgiving us for having made the mistake of thinking his sister might have had an ash tray around the place.
Then Gibby was back to working at him with the questions and he answered readily, as though it might have been some sort of relief for him to talk, particularly a relief to turn backward to areas where he felt he knew all the answers, where there were no terrible uncertainties to clutch at his heart.
There had been only the two of them, his sister Ellie and himself, ever since he had been fifteen and she ten. Their parents had been killed in a bus accident and they had had no other relatives. There had been insurance, not much of it but enough to carry them along for two years while he finished high school and kept them going with after-school and vacation jobs. He had wanted to go on to college but that was out. He had left school at seventeen and taken on the full-time job of supporting himself and his twelve-year-old sister.
He was modest in his telling of it, but the picture emerged. It was a picture of a hard-working youngster who had taken on a man’s job and not done badly with it. He had earned their way, had kept kid sister in school, and had been both father and mother to her. He had a feeling of accomplishment and it came through the cover of his modesty. It was evident that not the least of his pride was that he had been able to guide his sister through those difficult years from ten to seventeen and to keep her from the pitfalls of temptation.
She had just finished high school and she had her first job, typist-stenographer in a real estate office, when the deferments on his army service ran out.
“I didn’t get called up when I was eighteen like other people,” he explained. “I had to support Ellie and they deferred me for that, but when Ellie was out of school and she had a job, they couldn’t defer me any more. I had to go then. I didn’t feel good about it—not that I wanted to dodge serving or anything like that—but Ellie was only seventeen and nobody to look after her, nobody even to tell her about things. The night before I left, I had to tell her myself. You know, about men and babies and all that Mom would have taken care of.”
He didn’t labor it. In fact, it seemed to me that he was happy enough to touch on it lightly and sheer away from the thought of the worries he had had for her when she had been only seventeen.
The way he told it, he had certainly been a level-headed kid. He had foreseen this moment when he would have to go, and so far as he had been able to manage it, he had prepared for it. He had put by all the savings he could and he was able to leave his sister so that with her earnings, the allotment out of his army pay, and a monthly pittance he sent her out of these savings, she would be having no financial difficulties. Then the Korean trouble had come and he had known he would be shipping overseas. At that point he had sent her all that remained of his savings along with careful instructions for banking it and drawing on it only as she needed it.
He had shipped and there had been that unavoidable space of time during which no letters could reach him. The first letter he had had in Korea had been a shocker. Ellie had rented their house, given up her job, and moved to New York.
“She wasn’t eighteen yet and she’d never been anywhere but River Forks all her life and alone in New York,” he said. “I thought I’d go crazy.”
“River Forks?” Gibby asked. “Where’s that?”
“Ohio. River Forks, Ohio. That’s our home. It was bad enough leaving her alone that way in River Forks but we’d lived there all our lives. People knew us. We knew people. She
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