The Hills Remember by James Still

Author:James Still [Still, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813136233
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2012-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

MR. THOMAS LANCE MAGGERS*

“That’s me,” he beamed. He hummed enviously. “If I could work a trick like that I’d write a sight of letters—I’d write letters to the nation. Bet you’ve blacked many a page.” Yet when I urged him to write his own name he shook his head. “Ah, no,” he said, “I might sprain the box.” He questioned, “Ever do a job of writing for other people?” And he lifted his fist, holding up the money I had paid him. “I’ve got a dollar’s worth of letters I want wrote.”

“This will make us square and even on the well-cleaning,” I said. “You keep the dollar.”

He pocketed the bill. His face sobered and his eyes cut back against the wall. He said, “I want letters writ to the head policeman of every city of north United States.”

I typed his message to the police chief of New York City, he dictating at my elbow: “I want to know if my boy, Jasper Maggers, is in your jailhouse, and if he is I want to know. I don’t aim to try bailing him out, for I wouldn’t bail him out of hell if his shirttail was on fire. I just want to know where he is, and I’ll be mightily obliged if you’ll write to me and say if you’ve got him. I’m his daddy, asking.” I made copies of the message and directed them to the chiefs-of-police of Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

His voice had husked as he spoke. Tears welled in his eyes and beaded his cheeks. He dabbed at them angrily. “The plagued hay fever,” he said. “I’m hay suffering.”

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