"My father was a gentle man." "One of the small things I always remember about him was a little trick he had of spinning a half-dollar with one hand." "Usually, without even thinking about it." "One summer day, almost 40 years ago, he suddenly found he couldn't do it." "As it turned out, it was a traumatic day for both of us." " Dr. Porter." " Young man." "Young man, I don't know who you are." "Oh, I'm sorry, sir." "John Walton, Jr." "I'm a sophomore." "And what do you propose to do with your life, Mr. Walton?" " What's left of it." " I'm a writer, sir." "Well, I'm a writer myself, and I don't think you understand the question." "What do you mean to do to make a living?" " Write." " Good lord." "If you could do that, you would be the envy of Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton, and me and all the rest of us." "None of us could do that, you know." "I'm not planning to be a writer, sir." "I am a writer." " At any given time, Mr. Walton..." " Walton." "...the world is teeming with people who regard themselves as writers." "In this country today, possibly half a dozen can support themselves as writers only." " And the others?" " They teach." "They work on newspapers." "They pick cotton." "They sell second-hand automobiles." "Then, if there's time left over..." "What about Margaret Mitchell and Gone With the Wind?" "That sold almost half a million copies." "It's only been out four months." "Excellent." "Now if you can give me five others like that." "Edgar Allan Poe could write rings around all six of them, and he starved to death in Baltimore." "At this moment, there are 10,000 unemployed writers on the WPA getting $95 a month from the government." "And possibly another 10,000 who are not on the WPA." "Now, if it's good writing you are thinking about..." "Yes, sir." "I'm thinking about serious fiction." "Well, that's not a job." "It's a sideline." "If you want to be an author and eat two or three times every day, there's only one way to do it." "Marry money." " Hey, Mama." " John-Boy." " What do you want?" " Nothing." " What's the matter with him?" " I don't know." "He's been in a bad mood all day." " Can I help?" " Can't find the wrench." "Here." "Who are you mad at?" "Guess I'm mad at myself." "I'm all thumbs today." "I can't get anything done." "Today's not your best day." " It's not my best week, either." " So, you've had a bad week." "To tell you the truth, Liv, if the whole year was starting all over again," "I'm not sure I'd want to go through with it." " Daddy." " What's your bad news?" "I've been trying to do that trick of yours, with the coin." "Son, you're using a quarter." "You gotta use a half-dollar, I keep telling you." "Now watch." "No, no." " Jim-Bob." " Daddy, do you mind if I practice with this?" "Yeah, you practice, Son." " Hurt your hand?" " No, I didn't." "Well, yeah." "Thumb's been hurting a little." "Probably a touch of the rheumatism." "I don't have any rheumatism." "That's where it begins on you, in your thumbs." "Rheumatism is for old people." "Last time I saw Dr. Mclvers, he said young people can get arthritis, too." "And this is certainly the kind of weather for it." "Arthritis?" "I can't recollect hearing that one before." "People nowadays, you can't hardly turn around but they've got some new stylish ailment." "Just another way for you to spend your good hard-earned money." "It's just a new name for it, Grandma." "If your joints ache, it's arthritis." "If your shoulder aches, it's bursitis." "Well, then, why don't they say what they mean?" "They're talking about rheumatism, aren't they?" " Just plain old rheumatism." " It is nothing but gout." "I hear tell that all sorts of things like that are gonna happen to you when you begin to get old, which I may do one of these days." "Excuse me." "John Walton!" "John Walton!" "I saw you!" "Mrs. Walton, Mr. Walton, Livie, I have business with that man and I need you for witnesses." "How are you, Eula Mae?" "I have got a burden on my shoulders that was meant for a bigger person than me." "Johnny Walton, now you come out here right now." "Eula Mae, what are you doing out here in the country?" "Well, I'm just checking up on my friends that are too poor to have a telephone and too trifling to answer their mail." " Wish I could help you." " I wrote you a letter and you didn't even extend me the courtesy of a penny postcard reply." "Now, why is that?" "Well, I've been meaning to answer you, Eula Mae, but it just keeps slipping my mind." "The 25th anniversary class reunion of the Rockfish High School class of 1911." "Now how can something like that slip your mind?" "To tell you the truth, Eula Mae, I'm not sure I want to go to that reunion." "To tell you the truth, Johnny Walton, you're going." " Tell him, Livie." "Tell him he's going." " That's for him to decide, Eula Mae." "Well, now there's 16 people that are left out of that class and eight of them coming home for the reunion." "I mean, some as far away as Manchester, Tennessee." "They're bringing their wives and their children, and who knows what all." "Now you're not thinking of sticking me with all that mess." "Now, Eula Mae, there are other classmates around here." "Now, you get some of them to help you." "Well, there are." "There are two besides John and me." "And I don't think that's much of a "them."" "I mean especially when one of them is Martin Renshaw and the other is Zack Roswell up the road here." "I mean, it's getting towards lean picking." "Fine boys, both of them." "Yes." "Well, Martin is going to lend us that big old house of his and his mama's and he's gonna give us some money if we don't ask him to participate." " But he's awful bashful, you know." " Nothing bashful about Zack Roswell." "You don't expect me to drive my good car 6 miles up that muddy old road." "And that man is countrier than you are." "Eula Mae, I wish I could help you, but I think I got a touch of rheumatism here." "What it boils down to, John, is I'm the chairman of the class reunion and you are the committee." "Now, if that don't suit you, well, you'll just have to sit on the blister." "Sit on the blister, huh?" "Class of 1911!" "I didn't know they had schools around here in 1911." "Well, they hadn't invented the wheel yet, but they had a few schools." "Who needs a wheel?" "Yeah, we're still going to school." "I know they had schools around the time of President Ulysses S. Grant because I was in one of them." "I made it out of the fourth grade and my teacher had made it out of the fifth." "Old man, now you've had a good education." "Stop teasing the children like that." "Who is teasing?" "Grandma, did you go to school?" "I've been learning every day of my life." "Who's gonna be at the reunion, Daddy?" "Everybody who didn't die in the war or the flu epidemic." "Anyone important going to be there, Daddy?" "G.C. Cathcart from Washington, D.C., ought to be there, won't he, John?" " I guess he will." " Who's G.C. Cathcart?" "Honey, you haven't even touched those vegetables." "Now, come on." "Eat up a little." "G. Cleveland Cathcart." "We called him Grover for short." "He was always running neck and neck with John about anything that went on in school." "He's in the Federal Trade Commission, isn't he?" "What was he like when you all were young, Daddy?" "Young." "Let's see, Miss Cathcart liked to be along with him." "Yeah." "Well, if they're still together." "What was that woman's name?" "Willie, huh?" " Winnie." " You know, the snap beans are better this season than they've ever been." "Yeah." "Tomato's been good, too." "Must have been all the rain we've been having." "That was her maiden name, Winnie Tatum." "You recollect Winnie Tatum, don't you, Livie?" "In fact, the vegetables this year are better than they've ever been." "I don't even care if we have any meat on the table." "You know, there's a fellow down at Boatwright who doesn't eat any meat?" "All he eats is vegetables." "I remember Winnie Tatum very well, Grandpa." "She was what we used to call a decided blonde." " Why?" " Why what?" " Why did you call her a..." " Would you please eat?" "A decided blonde?" "Because that's the color of hair she decided to be." "You know, Jason." "Zack, now there's a man that's instrumental." "He likes music." "He plays the fiddle just like you do, you know." "She was sure stuck on your daddy." "Well, he's still got that violin." "I've seen him play it upside down behind his back." "That's right." "He claims he can play it standing on his head." " Who was stuck on Daddy?" " Winnie Tatum." " Thanks anyway, John-Boy." " Was Daddy stuck on her?" "Kind of hard to remember, I was so young then." "But it seems to me he never could make up his mind which one he was stuck on." "The peroxide blonde or the one with the bangs." " What was her name, John?" " Oh, come on, Liv." "I can't remember all that nonsense." "Maybe there were others." "Bangs." "Rachel Stubblefield." "That was the name of the one with the bangs." "She was pretty as a spotted dog on a red wagon." "She married well, too." "Was it two?" "I thought it was three." "Grandpa's right." "It was definitely three for Rachel." " John?" " Yes, Liv." "Sorry about teasing you at supper tonight." "I feel kind of bad about it." "You sure you were just teasing?" "I'm not jealous of those old flames of yours." "Well, not as jealous as I might have sounded, anyway." "It's all right, Liv." "I don't mind." "Where are you going?" "I guess I'll go kick me some weeds." "You've been sort of on edge today, haven't you?" "You're a fine one to talk." "You've been on edge yourself, haven't you?" "Yeah." "It's just been one of those things." "Any one thing in particular?" "Yeah, the other day at the university." "Yesterday, I ran into old Dr. Porter, you know, the former president?" "He gave me a free lecture on writing, not as a career." "According to him, every writer in the world has had to make his living doing something else." "And that's not what you had in mind, huh?" "Certainly not the way I had it planned." "Son, I guess if you had to do something else, you'd find a way to do it." "Yeah." "Well, from the way he sounded, no matter which way I work it, I'm not in much danger of getting rich." "Let me tell you something." "If you ever get it into your head to get rich, there's two kinds of people that you ought to stay away from if you want advice on how to do it." "Really?" "One is one-horse sawmill tenders like me." "The other is professors like this Dr. Porter." "I'll keep that in mind." "In fact, this Dr. Porter sounds a little bit like me." " Guess you get that way." " How's that?" "You know, a man can go for a long time without taking the time to stop and look around." "And when he does, he's apt to find out he's nowhere." "Just treading water and getting short of breath." " What's got you down?" " I don't know." "Maybe it's this reunion." "25 years is a long time." "You stand to see a lot of old friends, don't you?" "I guess you can't avoid that." "What's the matter?" "Don't you want to see them?" "You know, Son, they're just not like me." "One of them is always getting his picture taken with FDR." "And the other's getting rich selling insurance to people who can't afford it." "There's even a gal who owns a real-estate office up in New York City." "Really?" "I guess 25 years is a long time." "Especially when it hits you all at once." "I've spent many a long hard day on this place." "And nothing to show for it but what I track home on my shoes." " Isn't it Zack Roswell?" " It sounds like him." "Would have to be." "It's their car." "He must be in it." "He's the only one on earth fool enough to drive it." " Zachary." " Hey, Zack." " John." "John-Boy." " Hey, Zack." "How's everything up your way?" "Well, if things get any better, John," "I'm gonna be tempted to break down and cry." "We haven't had a tidal wave up there, a volcano erupting, or a yellow fever epidemic in almost three weeks now." "Zachary, I hope you're eating well and putting plenty of money in the bank." "What we haven't frivoled away on side-meat and mortgage payments, sir." "We've been subsisting right well, Zeb, these last couple of years on skim milk and wild onions." "I'm proud that you appear to be doing so well." "According to some of the papers that I read, hard times are going around." "I heard about that it seems like, on the radio." "A depression, I believe that's what they call it." "It would be a pitiful thing, Zachary, for you to wake up some morning and find out that you missed out on the depression altogether." "Well, I try to be patient and not complain, Mr. Walton, but that's the way the world treats me." "See, no matter what's going around," "I don't get my share till everybody else has been served." "You might learn to like it." "As for me, I've been living on the rim-edge of poverty for so long," "I wouldn't know how to get along in any other neighborhood." "Things may not be much around here, but it is home sweet home." "Assist me." "Esther, Esther!" "Water, girl." "Water." "They treating you well around here, John-Boy?" "They're treating me fine, Zack." " Well, don't let them know about it." " Okay, I won't." "Anything special on your mind, Zack?" "I've been getting some mail from some old people down in Rockfish." "Something about a school reunion." "If I were you, I'd answer some of that mail, Zack." "If Eula Mae has to come looking for you, she's gonna put you on the work gang just like she did me." "I don't rightly know what to say to her, John." "Only one thing to say, "Eula Mae, I will be there."" "I don't want to go to the blamed thing!" "It's just a reunion, Zack." "A chance to catch up on your old childhood buddies." "There's no need to go through all that again." "I'd rather be in perdition with my back broke." "Well, I'll tell you, it's just about the only way you're gonna get out of it." "John, I wouldn't feel sociable." "I'd feel kind of tacky alongside some of those people." "Yeah." "I'll tell you what, you stand next to me and we'll brazen it out." "Yeah." "Can't go in bib overalls, brogan shoes." "No." " How about that old black suit of yours?" " That's threadbare." "The cuffs are all frazzled, the whole suit's turned a wrong shade of green." "Maybe I ought to go out and buy myself a new suit." "Where you gonna get the money for a new suit, Zack?" "Well, I'll ask my family." "They're all sitting around up there, looking at each other wondering which one we're gonna eat first." "Henry David Thoreau says to beware of all enterprises requiring new clothes." "Oh, he said that, huh?" "What else did Henry David Thoreau say?" "Oh, yeah." "He said the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." "John." "If we'd had a David Henry in high school," "I might have tried a year or two of college." "Yeah, Henry David and the price of car fare to get there, Zack." "John?" "Yes?" "It's Cleveland Cathcart." "Grover Cathcart." "How are you?" "It's been a long time, John." " Well, how've you been, Grover?" " Fine, just fine, John." " World treating you all right?" " I eat three meals a day, sleep well." "Well, that's the main thing." "Plenty of work to do." "If I ever forget that, I just look outside, and there it is beckoning to me." "Well, I think that's just wonderful." "I really do." "Livie." "Livie." "Yeah, Grandma?" "Isn't that the biggest Cathcart boy out there?" "McKinley or whatever his name was?" "Cleveland?" "Well, the one that left home to join the New Deal." "What's he doing here?" "He's doing the same thing your husband's doing there." "Out there, smiling at each other and pawing the ground at the same time." "I tell you, Livie, it's just..." "Liv?" "Oh, that girl." "I've been reading about you in the papers, Grover." "You're doing real well." "Well, I don't have to tell you that Washington, D.C., is not like a Sunday afternoon in Rockfish." "On the go all the time, moving around in circles, very thankless job." "Well, it's a pity Winnie couldn't come with you." " How is Winnie?" " Winifred's not here yet." "She stopped in Richmond to visit her mother for a couple of nights." "She's not been feeling very well lately." "Livie, did I ever tell you about the time those..." "John." "Why didn't you tell us we had company?" "Grovie, you don't look a day older." "No, Olivia, that's a lie and you know it." "I wish we'd known you were coming." "I could have at least powdered my nose." " Grover, how about a cup of coffee?" " That'd be just fine, John." "Olivia, you're as beautiful as when you were in school." "I'm surprised you'd even remember me." "By Monday, it'll have come and gone and you can get back to what you were doing." "Yeah. "Leading lives of quiet desperation."" " What does that mean?" " I don't know." "It's a quotation your oldest son taught to me." "I'd better talk to him, too." "I feel obliged to say, Olivia, you're looking uncommonly pretty these days." "Well, you'll just have to get used to that, too, until the reunion's over." " Well, I'll never get used to it." " Good." "John-Boy?" "Daddy had to go in to Rockfish, something about his high school reunion." "Do you knock usually before you come slamming into a room or what?" "I knocked about 112 times." "Something wrong, or you've just got your brain turned off?" " Well, I happen to be thinking." " Well, if I'd known all that was going on." "I mean, I'm just a mere girl, and we don't do things like thinking." "But it must be hard to get it all started up again once it stalls." "What are you writing about, anyhow?" "I'm making a list." "I'm trying to think up writers who spent their whole life just writing, and they make lots of money doing it." "Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind." "Well, of course her." "I've got her, that's obvious." "There's H.L. Mencken, but he's an editor, so I don't know about that." "And Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald, work in Hollywood, so I don't know if that counts." "Maybe Thomas Wolfe." "And, of course, Sinclair Lewis, naturally, with Main Street and Babbitt and Elmer Gantry all in a row." "I'll tell you who makes a lot of money!" "Dorothy Dix!" "Dorothy Dix!" "Advice to the lovelorn?" "And Mary Roberts Rinehart!" "Oh, be serious." "I'm not talking about people who write murder mysteries." "We're talking about writers making money, and lots of it." "Mary Roberts Rinehart." "There you are, Helen." "Thank you." "See you next week." "Say hello to Tom." " Hey, old-timer." " Hello, Martin." "John!" "Olivia!" " How are you?" " Can't complain if they don't pin us down." "I just dropped in to say hello, Martin." "I've got some chores to do." "Where do you want me to pick you up, John?" "I'll be at Eula Mae's, probably." "If he's not, nobody's ever got lost in Rockfish yet." " Bye-bye." " Bye, honey." "Johnny Walton, am I glad to see you." "What's the matter?" "Something wrong with your mother?" "No, she hasn't had a drop since Decoration Day weekend." "Glad to hear that." "She's out now." "Probably foreclosing her mortgages all over town." "This place used to be Renshaw and Son when papa was alive." "Now it's Renshaw and Mother." "Don't let it get you down, Martin." "Just think, you could be out foreclosing those mortgages." "That's not it." "It's all this other stuff that's got me all tied up in knots." "All this class of 1911 stuff." "Eula Mae been picking on you, too?" "The whole thing is just too much for me to cope with." "I wouldn't even have gone to high school if I'd known something like this was going to happen!" "Martin, don't worry about it." "Everything is cut, stacked, and dried." "There is nothing to worry about." "That's well enough for you to say." "Eula Mae's gonna keep everybody in line until after your mother's dinner, and then you and me can sit back and relax another 25 years." "You've got to help me, Johnny." "All right." "What do you want me to do?" "If you can." "It's..." "Well, it's about the class dinner, Sunday." "Eula Mae says it's my house, and I'm the host." "I have got to get up from the table, and stand there in front of all those people and ask the blessing." "All right, I'll tell you what." "I'll make sure you don't say grace, even if I have to say it myself, all right?" "From the first grade on, not once have you ever let me down." "All right, Martin." "Eula Mae..." "You know, you're a handsome devil!" "Always were." "Rachel Stubblefield?" "Come on in." "Honey, in New York City, in East Side real estate, a girl would have to be awfully chic to get away with a name like Rachel Stubblefield." "Is that so?" "Up there it's Rae." "Rae Stubblefield Wingfield Galitzinoff Chester." "Sit down here where I can look at you." "All those names mean you've been married that many times, Rachel?" "That middle one was a Russian prince." " I'm paying alimony in four directions." " For three husbands?" "Two husbands and two wives." "My son Charles has been married twice so far." "But he's only 22." "You got any others?" "A daughter in school in Switzerland, and we won't go into that." "A son at Stone Mountain Military Academy, if he hasn't escaped since last Sunday." "Oh, well." " Where's Eula?" " She'll be down, if she ever gets off the phone." "What have you been up to, since Taft was president?" "I've just been trying to make a living running a little back-country sawmill." "Most it does is keep me out of mischief." "Sooner or later something had to, John." "You weren't so bashful around girls in those days." "Well, now, Rachel..." "I don't know what you're talking about." "I was never, what you call, forward." "Listen to him, Lord!" "It's a miracle we ever got engaged." "That's right, we did, didn't we?" "All through seventh grade and all through first year high." "One-woman man." "Except, the girls kept changing." " Oh, stop blushing." " Blushing..." "You married that little girl, the timid one, with the long braids and the Italian name." " Right, Olivia." "Yeah, I sure did." " Kids?" "Four boys and three girls." "Well!" " I guess that takes care of her." " Sure does." "She's busy, that's a fact." "It's been one thing after another all day long." "Well, why don't you just leave the phone off the hook?" "Then things really would start happening." "Thank goodness you're here, John Walton." "Just tell me what you want done, Eula Mae." "Well, now..." "Eula Mae?" "You home?" "Sounds like my wife." "Honey, guess what?" "Rachel Stubblefield is here!" "Well, isn't that nice." "B.C. Graddy from Danville, Virginia." "Anything you care to know about insurance, I write more of it than anybody else in Pennsylvania county, I don't care who!" "Graddy's the name, insurance is my game." " My wife, Viola." " John Walton, Jr." "I reckon you're here for the reunion." "What do you think I drove all the way from Danville for?" "Melvin!" "Do you want a whopping?" "Me and your daddy have been buddies since we was both knee-high to the bottom doorstep." "I expect you've heard him speak of old B.C.?" "Viola!" "Do something with them children!" "They don't listen to me!" "You're their daddy!" "I'm so aggravated" "I could stomp all of them through the bottom of the floorboard." "B.C., let's light somewhere!" "A hotel, a boarder port, anywhere!" "Hey!" "B.C. Junior!" "You aiming to kill that poor thing?" "B.C. Junior!" "Now, cut that out!" "Melvin, you and Ernestine!" "Viola, I'm talking to you." "Do something!" "Melvin, you want to end up in the state pen?" "I'm trying!" "But they don't pay me no never you mind!" "I can't hear myself thinking!" "I'm gonna take off my belt and flay the living fire out of all of you." "Now what line were you figuring on getting into, son?" "Writing." " Writing?" " Yes." "You know, things for people to read." "Well, I expect that beats farming." "I met a man one time who was in the paper clip business." "Really?" "Listen, I'll tell my daddy you came by looking for him, all right?" " Much obliged." " My pleasure." "No more shoving out..." " Get them kids in the car." "Get in there!" " Get in the car!" "I'm tired of fooling with you all." "You're all a bunch of apes!" " Melvin!" "Get in that car!" " Get down!" "I'm tired of this." "Be quiet!" "Melvin!" "From Boatwright University." " Must be important." " Not this time of the year." "Ten thousand what?" "I said, 10,000 what?" "Ten thousand unemployed writers in this country today." "Well, that's silly." "What's silly about 10,000 unemployed writers?" "Just because you're 19 years old doesn't mean everybody else is dumb." "I never said you were dumb." "The way you tell it, a writer's supposed to be somebody who thinks things up and puts them on paper." "What's that got to do with anything?" "Somebody like that is working for himself, isn't he?" "Of course he's working for himself." "He has to work for himself." "If he's working for himself how can he be out of a job?" "Come on, Blue." " Right on time." " Give me a hand, John?" "Yeah." "You gonna have to tell me what I can do." "I just don't know what to do." " Whatever am I gonna do?" " Eula Mae, what's happened?" "You're acting like it's the end of the world!" "I'll tell you, that would help." "Now, Eula Mae, we can't lose you till the day after tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" "You're gonna have to just cancel tomorrow." "I mean, it's Martin Renshaw's mother." "She's gone and had another one of her spells." "One of her usual spells?" "Two days inebriated and a week drying out?" "Oh, no, Mr. Walton, it's much worse than that this time." "She's gone broke her hip." "They can't get that lady up the stairs, even." "She's bedded down in the parlor with a doctor and two nurses, and hollering obscenities that I wouldn't even repeat to my dearest friends." "Her cussing would sure put a damper on the dinner, wouldn't it?" "She's peculiar even when she's sober." "Mean, you might say." " How's Martin taking all of this?" " You'd have been proud of him." "I mean, he really told her." "He said he hoped that the next time she crawled into a liquor bottle, she'd fall and break..." "It's supposed to be a pretty day tomorrow." "And us just standing here." "I mean, what are we gonna do, John?" "There's still plenty of time." " Well, me?" "Why me, Eula Mae?" " Because I can't cope." "And Martin Renshaw never could cope, and you're the one that people turn to" " when things go wrong." " We could do it." "Don't you think we could do it, Grandma?" "How do you feel about it?" "Well, I don't mind telling you, I'd feel better if we could've gotten started this morning, but..." " I suppose..." " Now what're you two talking about?" "Eula Mae, we'd be proud to have his graduating class come here for dinner tomorrow." "Olivia, stop and think, please." "John, hush." "Eula Mae, you go home." "We got some things to do." " Now, wait a minute." " I'll escort you." "Now wait and listen to me." "Olivia!" " Cocktails, gentlemen?" " Cocktails?" "Gee." "This punch is pitiful mild, John-boy." "Mama says to tell you it better stay that way, too." "Yeah." "That's why they call us running-water Baptists." "Cocktails?" "No thanks, Son." "Go ahead, Zack." " Thank you, John-Boy." " Welcome." "Smile." "Don't you think you ought to mingle?" "I have told you and told you to look after them young ones." "I've been looking!" " What's the matter, B.C.?" " I'm kind of worried." "I just wonder what the kids are up to." "Usually, when they're this quiet, it ain't good." "I think grandpa's got them buffaloed somewhere over there." "I get the whole dasher, now?" "I don't have to share with anybody?" " Not unless you break the spell." " I wanna go look at the party." "Well, don't let my grandpa see you." "He might still be hungry." "I don't believe your granddaddy eats kids at all." "Well, I didn't say he eats all of them." "Just the wild ones, B.C. Junior." "And the ones that makes a lot of noise." " Boy!" "He was looking straight at me." " That old man don't scare me." "I'm one of them quiet ones." "I gotta hand it to you, Johnny." "This party is the highlight of the whole reunion." "Olivia will be happy to hear that." "If you want to get rid of the sweet taste, Grover," "Zack knows where the jug is buried." "Don't let Olivia know where that jug is buried." "Cleve, I'm so sorry Winnie couldn't make it." "Well, you know how it is, Rachel." "She hasn't been in the best of health." "Still, she shouldn't let a good-looking thing like you go wandering around the world alone." "Rachel, what's wrong with Winnie?" "Honey, she's got an incurable disease called hypochondria." "Enjoys poor health wherever she can find it." "Seems to take her mind off other things." " That's terrible." " It is." "Besides, she's missing the best party of the whole season." " Pass the butter." " Pass the punch." " You got little..." " It's really good." "Look how perfect it is." " Not that I just can't..." " You need some butter?" "Erin, what about Jason and the musicians?" "When are they expecting to eat?" "I don't know, Grandma, I called them three times." "Jason will stay out there and play as long as people will listen to him." "Yeah, well, he gets that from his grandpa." "Look at that." "Children." "Yes?" " Everything all right?" " Sure, fine." "Why did you leave the party?" "I didn't think anybody would miss me." "You enjoying it?" "Some." "All those people." "All those years." " Makes you wonder." " You don't sound too happy about it." "What you got there?" "It's a letter from old Dr. Porter down at Boatwright." " I didn't have a chance to read it before." " No bad news, I hope." "No, no." "It's a very nice little note, sort of easing back on that conversation that I had with him a couple of days ago, about poor writers, you know, including himself, he says here." "Anyway, he enclosed this interview with Sinclair Lewis." "You know Sinclair Lewis?" "He's a very fierce American writer with a lot of integrity." "He's the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize." " I heard of him." " Anyway, he's in this interview." "He says that he was determined from the age of 11 years old to be a writer." "And he says he even worked on a small hometown newspaper for no money at all when he was a little fellow." "There's a part here." "I'd..." "Can I read it to you?" "Sure." "Now, he's talking about writing." "He says, "It's a good job, and not for gold" ""would I recommend it as a career to anyone who cared a hoot for the rewards," ""for the praise, for the prizes," ""for the embarrassment of being recognized in the restaurants," ""or for anything at all, save the secret pleasure" ""of sitting in a frowsy dressing gown before a typewriter," ""exulting in the small number of hours when the words come invigoratingly out" ""and the telephone doesn't ring, and lunch may go to the devil."" "Well, I don't know much about frowsy bathrobes or words coming out." "I think I know what that fellow's getting at." "I kind of thought you would." " Let's get back to the party." " All right." "You know, being able to look across the lawn and seeing a writer sitting over there, may make some sense out of these 25 years of living." "Honestly, I wish somebody could find a copy of the class yearbook." " Did we even have one?" " Of course we did." "I remember writing the class history." "That's right and John Walton had to read it for you at commencement, 'cause you was too bashful." "The yearbook was a limited edition of 25 copies, I think it was." "I ran it off myself on the Edison mimeograph machine." "I remember on graduation day I kept saying to myself," ""You've gotta be happy, girl, this is the beginning of everything."" "And then another part of me kept saying, "Oh, boy, you've had it." ""It's downhill from now on."" "I laughed and cried that whole day long." "It all turns out, no matter what you do." "Yeah, it all turns out all right, but not always the way that you planned it." "Hey, who was class prophet?" "Would anybody remember?" " Hermine Willebrant." " Right." " Yeah." " And you remember" " the senior superlatives?" " Not really." "No, I don't." "I remember that the biggest bull shooter was Zack Roswell." "Time sure does change people, don't it, huh?" " No!" " No, it doesn't." "And I remember the most original girl was Ethel Barnsdale." "And the most original boy, Grover Cathcart." " The prettiest girl, Winnie Tatum." " Yeah." "Biggest heartbreaker, Rachel Stubblefield." "Who was the biggest heartbreaker boy?" "That was me." "Rachel, I remember, that you were also voted the girl most likely to succeed." "At what?" "Eula Mae, don't answer that." "The boy most likely to succeed, who was that?" "Who was that?" "The boy most likely to succeed was John Walton." " I would've sworn it was Grover Cathcart." " No, it was John." "If anybody would remember that, it's me." " Why, Grover?" " Well, that's the way it always was." "Six years in grade school, five years in high school, everything I ever ran for," "I was always running against the same Johnny Walton." " Isn't that right?" " If you say so, Grover." "Boy, the greatest day of my life was when I beat John Walton out for senior class president." "I don't think he ever lost any sleep over it." "Now, I'm an ambitious man, some would say successful, and probably it's all John's fault." "I was always running, and he was always going past me at a walk." "And here it is 25 years later, here I am, and there is John." "Then look at me, and some of you, still running." "Still wearing ourselves to a frazzle for all sorts of things that John Walton has accumulated while he was out walking." "A warm, happy home." "Fine wife and children." "We're sitting here well-fed at John's table, and I'm still boy enough to be graveled at the sight of him." "Maybe if you saw as much of him as we do, Grover." "We've gotten used to him." "John, the boy most likely to succeed." "Well, he's the boy that did." "Hell's bells." "Things sure are going to the dogs when a man can't sit down to a free meal without longwinded speeches." "Now, I don't have a mind to badmouth John Walton, but fair's fair." " John married lucky." " Now come on, it wasn't luck." " I picked her out myself, didn't I?" " That's the luck part." "Everybody at this here table knows that you weren't smart enough to pick one like that." "Success is often measured in terms of how much money or fame one accumulates in a lifetime." "My father knew little of either, yet, he was the most successful man I have ever known." "He lived each day with zest, a sense of adventure, and a twinkle in his eye." "He loved his family well and we miss him." " Mama?" " Yes, Elizabeth?" "I never did get it figured out today." "Which one was stuck on Daddy?" "It looked to me like they were all kind of stuck on him." "I've always heard tell it's them quiet ones you've got to watch." "John?" "I'll be along, Liv." "English"