Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/178

. I haven't been any place. Just around here all my life. New Orleans … It's on the Mississippi, isn't it?"

A strange madness akin to joy ran through Gaylord Le Claire. He gave Rogers a tremendous slap on the thigh. "That's it; why don't you come along; we've plenty of room and we could have so much fun together."

Rogers' eyes beamed with excitement. "Gosh," he said, "if I only could. But your mother and dad …"

"Dad asked me if I had a friend I'd like to take, and you're it. Oh, Glenn … we can have such a good time."

"I know we could, Gay, but my dad would never let me go."

"Why not?"

"We're supposed to go out to the farm tomorrow and vaccinate."

"Hell, what difference would a couple of days make? He'll let you go."

"The hell he will. You don't know my dad," Rogers said seriously.

"He can sure be a mean old bastard at times … Hardheaded as hell too. I get so mad sometimes at him …"

"It won't hurt to ask him."

"It won't do any good. You don't know how bullheaded he is at times. I can just hear him … ‘No, Glenn. You know we're vaccinating tomorrow. You can't go running all over the country. Cost money to travel …' Money; damn him; old tightwad."

Glenn Rogers remembered how his dad had raved when his mother received a magazine through the mail. She had subscribed for the cheap little magazine from a neighbor's child. God, how his father had shouted about her spending money foolishly when he had found it in the mail-box. It was all right for him to subscribe to the Country Journal and the numerous cattle magazines that crowded the mailbox the first of every month. Yes, that was all right, but for his mother … that was different. His mother had cried after he had left, mumbling curse words to himself, and at that moment he had hated his father. Any thing that wasn't used in farming was useless. He had even raised hell the time Glenn had ordered himself a fountain pen. ‘Didn't need a new one. What's wrong with the old one?' The old one … leaky old thing he had carried so long. And his mother had to wash their clothes by hand … couldn't afford one of 168