Dick, I wanted so much to tell you about George's actual homecoming, but it will have to wait. We are nearing the bridge. I'll try to get back to you,
but if I don't, I want you and George to help Mil and Jimmy settle my estate
when you get back to Dallas. I left a good Will. When you see Jay
and Justin, give each a great big hug and a dollar bill, and
tell them it's from Pop. They will cry, for they know I have gone away.
Above all, don't try to pass a car on a hill.
You better wake George now; the bridge is
just ahead.
Dick, aroused as from a trance, shook George by the shoulder.
"The bridge is just ahead," he said. "you know, I have the strangest feeling.
Things I had forgotten have been flashing through my mind, just like a notion picture, and mixed in with them,
have been scenes I know I never witnessed before."
"Well, the human mind sometimes goes beyond a logical explanation," George replied. "I have been dreaming so clearly that Jim is with us.
"Oh, if only he were," Dick answered
with tears in his voice. "Maybe he is trying to reach us.
Further conversation was cut short as the bridge was upon them. They pulled off the road to
the right, and stopped on a level strip very near the bridge. It was a view of incredible splendor. The water was
indigo that day, and so near you could almost touch it. They took pictures, and then drove on across the bridge,
and around sharp turns that boggled the mind, with the river generally to the right, and great green holes in the
earth on the left.
Finally, they came out of the river country and entered the flatwoods. They began looking for
Pop's farm on the right. His beautiful apple orchard -- that would be their clue! Soon they came upon a few gnarled
octogenarians leaning bare in the sun; surely these could not be his lovelies! Then they looked for a small tenant
house near the road. There was none. There was no large barn; there was no chestnut rail fence; there was no giant
oak standing sentinel in the field; Doc and Frank, the huge black mules, were nowhere to be seen, nor was their plow. In
short, Pop's farm had vanished.
It took a much shorter time to get to town than they remembered. Town had grown to the north,
for one thing, and for another, a car can go so much faster than weary legs, or weary mules after a day before
a plow. Soon they were passing a golf course on a road
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which shouldn't have been there. Then they were in the northern edge of the business section.
"What happened to the Hurricane Creek hill?" Dick wanted to know.
"I don't know," George replied,
equally puzzled. "You may recall, we had to rest the mules twice if we had a load; once about halfway up the
straight, and again at the sharp turn near the top."
They drove around the square and saw a hodge-podge of unfamiliar signs and names until they
saw F. Z. Webb and Sons; a name they knew which had survived
fires and moves and generations, and returned to its beginning.
They drove south between the former sites of the prestigious General Store Corporation and the
tiny telephone exchange, on up the hill, past the Jim Moore
place, all gleaming white, and stopped where the street dead ends into the old Webb homestead. It was dark green and lonely, and was showing its age. All those who grew up there were gone.
They couldn't get through the alley to the left, so they turned around and headed back toward
the square. Across the wide street from the Moore house was
a commercial building, where the pretty yellow cottage of Jim and Lillian and Virginia Hayes once stood.
Back to the square they went, and a right turn carried them by the old jail site, the original
Foster Brothers store and the two-story Wade House. They turned
right and found themselves on a strange highway running east and west; then, after a surprising turn back to the
north they came suddenly on the entrance to the cemetery.
They went inside, and in a few minutes found the stones of Mr. and Mrs. G. R. Smith, and many other kinfolk and friends.
They finished their visit, and started north toward East Main. They met a tall stranger walking to their left.
They spoke and he passed on.
"They have kept the old Goodson place
in fine condition," said George as they neared the corner.
"Wonder if Joe lives there?"
"I have no idea," Dick replied.
"Joe has had an outstanding career in
Washington," George continued. "He and Lyndon were good friends; the last time I visited with him, Lyndon told me that Joe had
made a good record over the years, and that he had done many fine things for his district."
"I never met Mr. Johnson," said
Dick. "What was he really like?"
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"He was a great Texan and a great American," George answered with typical Lone Star pride. "He had more drive and enthusiasm than any other man I have
known; and in his younger days, he was some kind of shirt-sleeve campaigner. I know where - of I speak - I have
been out with him!"
"Jim didn't share your exalted opinion
of him, did he?"
"What would he know!" George snorted.
"He was a banker, and, like your mother, a Republican at heart. The only time she ever voted was against F.D.R. in l936. An attendant helped her with her machine, and she was so convinced
her vote had been stolen, she would never vote again."
"What a pity she didn't vote again, and that a lot of us didn't listen to her," Dick mused, half to himself.
If George heard him, he let it pass, for
they had turned right on East Main, and were nearing their destination.