Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/277

 made him feel a bit uncomfortable when he was with him, and yet, he had never felt so free. He had talked about things that he had never talked to anyone else about; had confessed things about himself he wouldn't dream of confessing to anyone. "Why should he feel strange around Gaylord Le Claire," he asked himself. "You're too ignorant," he answered himself … "Too darn ignorant … you've never been around."

That was so right. He had never been anywhere. Had never seen anything worth while or met people who had. All he knew was horses, cattle and farming. Instinct again rather than reason told him that he had been shut off from the world by a barbed wire fence. Certain things which had to be done were always cropping up successively and it was up to him to do them. There had been no time or money for travel or deep subjective reading. In all his years, there was no time to think of himself or do things to improve his mind, no time to analyze his feelings about the world outside.

But since he had met Gaylord, after he had been with him, all the things he had missed came over him in dark, disorderly waves, and sometimes those moods were hard to control … He was like someone who stood on the stern of a ship, watching a vanishing shore line.

Gaylord must like him or he would not pick him up mornings or take him out to lunch. He raised his legs, bending his knees … Nervously, he brought them together and then apart. Oh, I wish I could have gone to New Orleans with Gay, he thought. Someday I'm going … with Gay, I hope …

He watched his vibrating limbs, remembering how angry he had been at his father when he had refused to let him go. Remembered taking out all his disappointment on the cattle with each jab of the needle.

"God damn it, be a little more careful there, Glenn," his father had yelled at him when he had kicked a small calf after shooting it with serum.

"To hell with you," he had muttered under his breath. "I hope these shots don't do any good."

"What are you muttering about?" his father had shot back at him. 267