"Of all the people who visited Walton's Mountain during my growing-to-manhood years," "I remember one especially." "Come on, Elizabeth." "He was a man who brought new ideas to an old way of life." "For a brief time, his presence stirred the Walton household and threatened the time-honored traditions of our quiet community." " Do you want a ride?" " Sure." "Let's go to Ike's store!" "Let's go to Charlottesville." "Come on, Erin." " John-Boy, you're giving us a ride home?" " That's exactly where we're going, home." "John-Boy, I don't want to go home." "Now you can start your chores faster." " I'll see you later, John-Boy." " All right." "Come on, Elizabeth." "There you go." "Reckless!" "We're not getting out until you take us for a ride." " This is a sit-down strike." " Come on, Reckless." " Come on." "Get out of the car, children." " Not till you make us." "Reckless!" "All right, fine." "Watch out!" "Watch out, Ben!" "Hurry up!" "Hurry up!" "Come on!" "Hurry up, hurry up!" " There you are." " Thanks." "Grandma, can I do my chores later?" "I wanna sell some fish that I caught before school this morning." "You can do that after you do your chores." "I gotta get into town." "Come on!" "Stop playing around with me." "Mary Ellen, you're absolutely crazy!" "I gotta get into town." "What are you up to?" "Would you please tell Ben to do my chores?" "I gotta do a job for Professor Parks, so I gotta get into town." "I gotta get cleaned up." "Catch me!" "Hey, Elizabeth." "There's Mr. Bingly." "Zeb, you got that drain fixed?" "Abel Bingly's here." "We'd have had an electric ice box years ago if he hadn't been an old beau of yours." "Yeah, well, you notice we get larger chunks, don't you?" " Hi, Mr. Bingly." " Hi." "Where'd you learn how to do that?" "Well, I used to travel with Admiral Byrd." "I had to pick the ice off the South Pole so he could discover it." "Mr. Bingly, can I have some chips?" "I have some fish I wanna keep fresh while I do my chores." "Well, you gonna take it in your pockets, or are you gonna get a bucket?" "Thank you." "I'll be home in a couple of hours, Grandma." "John-Boy, aren't you going to tell us about your job?" "Well, I'll tell you who's coming to town, Porter Sims." "He's a reporter, and a few years ago, he covered the Scopes trial down in Dayton, Tennessee." "You mean that trial when they tried to prove that we come from monkeys?" "Well, now, what kind of trouble is this man coming up here..." "Oh, no, no." "No trouble." "He's gonna write a book." "You see, he's a friend of Professor Parks', and I'm gonna be showing him around the area." "Where's he gonna stay?" "Not here, I hope." "Oh, no, no." "I got him a room at Mrs. Brimmer's." "Good." "Grandma, do you think maybe it'd be all right if he came for supper?" " I don't think he'd like our plain cooking." " Oh, he'd love it." "He'd love it." "John-Boy, what kind of book is he gonna write?" "Well, it's a guide book to the State of Virginia." " And where is he from?" " New York." "Well, what's a writer from New York know about Virginia?" "Well, he's with the Federal Writers' Project." "Sounds like government to me." "Well, it is." "It's Works Progress Administration." "I'll see you in a few hours." "Bye-bye." "That's the WPA!" "John-Boy!" "He knows how I feel about those government shenanigans!" "If you had your way, Herbert Hoover would still be president." "A measurer, get a measurer." "That's it, it's his game." "Come on." "Throw them again." " Cheater." " Whatever." " That's great." " Come on, mister." "Excuse me." "Excuse me, son." "Let me finish this game here." " Too bad, huh?" " Excuse me, sir." "You're that young writer fellow that Professor Parks sent over to pick me up, huh?" " Porter Sims." " You're John Walton?" "Well, I was expecting you on a later bus, sir." "Well, I thought I'd take an early one and just look the town over." " Oh, well, fine." "My car's right over here." " I'm gonna play one more game and be right with you." " Sure." " Let's go." "All right, here I go." "Come on, Jeff." "You can beat that stranger." "So you figuring on putting us on the map the way you did with Dayton, Tennessee?" "What do you know about that?" "You couldn't have been more than nine or 10." "Well, truth be told, I'm not just a student." "I'm a stringer on the Jefferson County Times." "When I learned you were gonna be coming out here, well, I went into some of the back issues, and I read those articles you'd put out on the Scopes trial." "They were really something." "Yeah, we stirred things up down there in Tennessee." "Made a few people mad, too." "Oh, but that's good." "I like the way you've dug into those characters." "That picture you painted of Bryan was really something." "I had no idea he was that kind of a man." "You really think he just took that case to get back in the public eye, huh?" "Yeah, I do." " That's something." " Son, as a writer, you should know better than to take everything at face value." "A writer's gotta look behind what people say." "I can see that." "Every town's got something people don't want to talk about." "While you're here, I'm planning to be with you most of the time." "Of course, I hope you understand if there's times when I have to go to class." "Oh, I manage very well on my own, thank you." "I think I should be with you most of the time." "The people around here are friendly and all, but, well, you never can tell." "There's a lot of people who won't appreciate a stranger asking them all sorts of different questions." "Xenophobia." "Huh?" "Fear or mistrust of strangers." "Well, yeah, you might run into a little bit of that xenophobia here, and I think I ought to tell you about my grandma before we go to supper at the house." "She..." "Well, she doesn't exactly see eye-to-eye with President Roosevelt on his WPA deal." "She sort of feels it's a waste of the taxpayers' money." " I'll bet you've heard that before." " Yeah, I have." "See, the trouble is there's just not enough work to go around, you see." "I've been all over this country." "I've heard every argument there is against Mr. Roosevelt's programs, and I'll tell you, this Federal Writers' Project is one government program we can all be proud of." "See, trouble is that this country has lived with falsehood for so long that some people just don't want to hear the truth." "Now, if I have my way, this state guide is gonna tell the truth." "Oh, good." " Mrs. Brimmer." " Hi, John-Boy." "I'd like you to meet Mr. Porter Sims here." "This is the gentleman that I reserved the room for." " Mr. Sims." " How do you do, Mrs. Brimmer?" "And this is my younger brother Jim-Bob here." "Well, hello, Jim-Bob." "What..." "Oh, that's a nice mess of fish you got there, Jim-Bob." " Wish other folks thought so." " What's the matter, nobody buying today?" "Well, when I have fresh-caught fish nobody wants them." "When I don't, they do." " That's the old law of supply and demand." " What's that?" "Supply and demand, that's..." "That's when people want something at the exact moment you've got it to sell." "Well, it doesn't work very well with fish." " Come earlier next time, Jim-Bob." " Okay." "See you at supper time." "Mr. Sims, I have a nice room at the end of the hall, right next to the bathroom." "Would you like to see it?" "Your home comes highly recommended, Mrs. Brimmer." "I don't think I have to see it." "Well, good, then I'll get your bag out of the car." "Elizabeth, why don't you change out of your school clothes?" "Mama won't like it if you get muddy." "You should've, too." "What are you doing?" " This is my ocean." " An ocean has salt in it." "Okay, this is my pond, like Drucilla's Pond except it's a little one." "Elizabeth's Pond." "What good is it?" "It doesn't have any fish." "I wish it did have fish." "Hey, Elizabeth, I think I got an idea." "Are you crazy or something?" "Come on, you have to help me get these rocks up, dam it up." "Well, last time I sat around a table like this," "I was no bigger than Jim-Bob there." " Well, Jim-Bob's a big businessman now." " Yeah, only it's a fishy business." "Well, at least it's an honest venture, not nearly as fishy as some I could name." "All right, we have watermelon for dessert." "Let's have it outside." " All right." " I'd love one." "Mrs. Walton, if you're referring to my business here, you're certainly entitled to your own opinion." "Well, it seems to me the WPA is just a giveaway program for people that don't wanna work." "Trouble is there's just not enough work, honest or not, to go around these days." "What kind of historical spots you gonna show him, John-Boy?" "Well, I thought tomorrow we might take a walk down to the cemetery" " and the old bridge, the schoolhouse..." " I'll take a look at your landmarks, but it's the people I really wanna get to know." "I wanna talk to them, get a feel of their lives." "Thank you." "Well, that's a good idea, John-Boy." "Why don't you introduce Mr. Sims to some of the local folks?" "Sure." "We got some interesting people around here." "In fact, if you like, there's a couple of real interesting old ladies you ought to meet." "I wouldn't poke my nose in too many closets." "Skeletons might come falling out." "I think he ought to meet the Baldwin sisters." "Couple of old sisters live down the way in a big, beautiful mansion." "No, I think a far better idea would be for me to take you up the..." "Farther up the mountain, the site of our old homestead before it burned down." "The one your father built." "Without help from anyone, Mr. Sims." "Who are these Baldwin sisters you mentioned?" "Couple of old ladies, come from a real old Virginia family." "No, all the way up the side of the mountain, there are trailing arbutus, and up above it, the white dogwood." "And I can show you where the white-tailed deer come down at moonlight." "That sounds interesting, Mr. Walton, but about these sisters." "Anyway, their daddy was a judge, Judge Baldwin." "John-Boy will be far too busy to conduct you personally." "It's a far better idea if I were to be the leader in these expeditions." " Pa, we got work to do around here." " This place don't run itself, Zeb." "This is old dominion stuff for us old folks." "I'll meet you at Mrs. Brimmer's at noon, right during our lunch hour." "Zeb, I would think twice before I got mixed up in this boondoggle." " Did I hear boondoggle?" " What's a boondoggle?" "I'll tell you about that." "A boondoggle is when your daddy gives you five cents to do an hour's work cleaning up the henhouse, and you only work 20 minutes." "You mean like the time Ben rewrote that old book report of John-Boy's and turned it in without reading the book?" "Exactly." "How about when Erin gets a headache when it's time to do the dishes?" "Or how about when you borrow my sweater without asking me?" "Boondoggle!" "Boondoggle!" "Boondoggle!" " Boondoggle." "Boom-bah!" " All right." " Boondoggle!" "Boondoggle!" "Rah!" "Rah!" "Rah!" " All right, easy." "Easy!" "All right!" "All right!" " All right, all right!" " Boondoggle!" "Boondoggle!" " Look what you started." " Easy, everyone!" "I'm gonna take Mr. Sims back to the boarding house." "I was just gonna offer you another piece of melon." "John-Boy's right." "We've got work to do tomorrow," " but it was a lovely dinner." " Come on, Jason!" "I'll meet you at Mrs. Brimmer's at noon." " Good luck in your work, Mr. Sims." " Thank you." "I declare, this is the most exciting thing to happen in a month of Sundays." "This Recipe, one of our most treasured possessions, was left to us by our dear father." "Thank you." "What a lovely home." "I feel history in every brick." " John-Boy?" " Oh, a wee bit, yes." "Thank you." " To the success of your venture, Mr. Sims." " Thank you." "Hear, hear." "Ladies, that is superb." "You are a man of taste, Mr. Sims." " Won't you sit down?" " Oh, thank you." "It has always been our good fortune to know only the finest gentlemen." "There was once a young university student..." "Your appreciation of the Recipe merely confirms our first impression." "His name was Ashley..." "How do you like Walton's Mountain, Mr. Sims?" "...Longworth." "John-Boy has been a first-rate guide, but I must say that I have seen nothing that impresses me more than what I see right here." "Until this moment, Mr. Sims, I thought gallantry had gone out of this world." " Yes, with Ashley Longworth." " Sister." "He was a suitor of mine some years ago." "He took liberties, don't you know, and Papa told him to leave and never to come back." "Your father sounds like a wonderful man." "I would like to have known him." " Oh, but you can, Mr. Sims." " He can?" "Sister, see if Mr. Sims would like a little more of the Recipe." " John-Boy, would you help me?" " Of course." " Mr. Sims?" " Thank you." "Are you comfortable at the boarding house, Mr. Sims?" "Well, it's not the Ritz, but then I'm not John D. Rockefeller." "Oh, you." "Sister, what are you doing with Papa's portmanteau?" "Mr. Sims, we've never allowed anyone to examine Papa's portmanteau." "It contains all his letters and his journal." "In fact, we haven't read all of them ourselves." "And his most private papers." "We feel that we know a gentleman when we see one." "And since you were brought to us by John-Boy," " if my sister agrees..." " Well, I don't know, Mamie." "I we would like you to do us the honor of going through them for your book." "You will treat them with great care?" "And perhaps you'd like to see Papa's room and the desk where he did most of his writing?" "Oh, well, I certainly would." "That sounds marvelous." "The only problem is that I have classes, and if I don't leave now, I'll be late, so..." "John, why don't you go right ahead?" "I've got just enough time for this little tour before I have to meet with your grandfather." "Well, can you find your way back to Mrs. Brimmer's all right?" " Oh, no problem at all." " Well, good." " Thank you for coming by, John-Boy." " Oh, thank you for the sip." " Goodbye." " Bye." "And we can even show you the citation that General Lee himself gave to Papa." " But first, another drop of the Recipe?" " Oh, yes." "Here's a bite for you, Little Mermaid." "Get away, Gilbert." "You've had your share." "There's room for you, Kitty." "Yes!" "I think I got one." "That about does it." " Does a hook hurt, I wonder." " Let's see." "Three perch." "Jim-Bob, does a hook hurt, I said." "Why don't you ask the fish, seeing as how you can talk to them?" "Well, they don't talk back too good." "Well, you're not supposed to get friendly with the inventory." " The what?" " The inventory." "You know, like Ike's store." "Everything he has to sell is inventory." "It's all right here for anybody who wants to place an order." "After we sell them are they "outventory"?" "Come on, we gotta go find some customers." "Bye." " How was your tour of the mountain?" " Wasn't any tour." " Why not?" " Sims never showed up." "Watch it, Pa." "I sat around Flossie Brimmer's all during my lunch hour" " and he never came around." " Well, I don't understand that." "When I left him at the Baldwin sisters', he said he was planning to meet you." "You went ahead and took him over to the Baldwin sisters, left him there snooping around, asking questions?" "Grandpa, I told you I was gonna take him over to the Baldwin sisters." "He's a reporter." "He's doing his job." "Well, there's a difference between writing a guide book on the State of Virginia and snooping around into people's personal lives like he did in the Scopes trial." "I don't understand why you're so suspicious of the man." "What, are you afraid he's gonna write an exposé on the Recipe or something?" "No, I'm not talking about the Recipe." "In any old house around here, there is a lot of history, and most of it shouldn't see the light of day." "Well, I can tell you one thing." "Porter Sims is a man with a great deal of integrity, and I'm gonna find out what's going on." "Integrity." "I just don't see how you can sell fish, Jim-Bob, when you don't seem to have any with you." "Well, I'm keeping them in a holding pond so they'll be fresh when you want them." " This is my inventory." " Well, that seems like a right smart idea." "I could use some of those perch, if you have any, for my Saturday supper." "Although the way things are going lately, I never do know how many boarders I'm gonna be feeding." "Okay, Mrs. Brimmer, four perch for Saturday." "Do you want a down payment, Jim-Bob?" "I don't reckon so, Mrs. Brimmer." "Thanks a lot." " Hi, John-Boy." "Business is booming." " Well, I'm glad to hear that." "Mrs. Brimmer, have you seen Porter Sims?" "About an hour ago, when he moved out bag and baggage." " Moved out?" " To the Baldwins', that's where." " As if they needed a boarder and I don't." " Oh, I'm sorry about that, ma'am." "I guess I better go over there and see what's going on." "All that fancy gent wants is free board and a bed next to the Baldwins' Recipe room!" "John-Boy." "Come in." "I'm glad you've come." "We have a most pleasant surprise." "Oh, I know all about that, ma'am." "Nothing stays a surprise for too long around here." "John, these good and lovely ladies have insisted that I move into their guest room." "It seemed only fitting since Papa will undoubtedly emerge as a central historical figure in Mr. Sims' book." "We've made some exciting plans." "We're going to have a picnic at the spring and a genuine fish fry..." "And a musicale around the phonograph." "That is, if Sister can remember where she put Mr. Caruso's records." "Would you care to join us for supper, John-Boy?" "We're going to eat by the French doors so we can look out and watch the sun go down." " That was Papa's favorite view." " Well, thank you very much, ladies, but I think my mom is expecting me for dinner." "Oh, John, look, please, tell your grandfather how sorry I am to have missed him." "Well, we were having such a wonderful time," "I completely forgot our appointment." "It won't happen again." "Well, he was a little upset about it." "Oh, dear." "I do feel responsible." "Perhaps he would accept a jar of the Recipe as a token of our regret." "Well, I'm sure he'd accept it." "I'm just not too sure Grandma would let him keep it for long." "I'll see you here in the morning, then, right?" "Fine, John." "Fine, fine." " Here?" " Oh, right here." " Good." "Good night." " Good night." "John-Boy, I don't know if you've noticed, but Sister's quite taken with Mr. Sims." " We'll see you in the morning." " All right." "Good night, now, John-Boy." "Elizabeth, get the dishes on the table." "When I add up all the orders I took today, almost all my inventory is spoken for." "Zeb, will you get your finger out of the mashed potatoes?" " Just tasting." " Well, aren't you going to wash up?" "I said, almost all my inventory is spoken for." "Oh, that's real good, Jim-Bob." "Did you sell Gilbert?" "Is he spoken for?" "You know, Gilbert, he practically comes up into my hand when I feed him." "Well, I told you not to give them names, Elizabeth." " Oh, and Kitty, she has babies." " They're not babies." "They're just minnows that swam through the chicken wire." "Okay, then she adopted them." "I don't care." "Oh, is Kitty spoken for?" "Well, you knew we couldn't keep them when we put them in there." "Who'd you sell them to, Jim-Bob?" "Mrs. Brimmer, Corabeth, the Baldwin sisters." "The Baldwin sisters ordered the most." "Mr. Sims moved in with them, and they're planning a fish fry." " What?" " Mr. Sims?" "I thought he was staying at the boarding house." "Not anymore." "How did he get over there?" " Everybody." " John-Boy." "Grandpa, I spoke with Porter Sims today, and he said to tell you that he's sincerely sorry about missing your tour stuff, but he got involved in some very important research" " over at the Baldwin house." " Yeah." "Researching the Recipe, you can count on that." "What is this about him moving in with the Baldwin ladies?" "Well, they're gonna let him use some of the family's historical papers and manuscripts, and so he's gonna be staying over there while he does his work." "Well, don't be surprised if his work stretches out for quite a spell while he's there." "Grandma, honest to goodness," "I don't understand why you're acting this way." "I brought the man over here for dinner as a guest to the house the other night, and you all were so rude to him I was embarrassed." "Furthermore, he stood me up." "Well, I can't say as I blame him for it." "Jim-Bob, go tell the children to wash up for supper." "Truth is, son, not many of us know this Porter Sims very well." " I know him, and I trust him." " He makes a good impression, all right." "The Baldwins, those sweet, innocent ladies, should be left to their sitting, sipping and rocking." "We just don't want to see them hurt, John-Boy." "I just don't understand why everybody's looking for trouble, that's all." "Because a man who will live off the government wouldn't have any objections to living off a couple of maiden ladies." "Okay, look, Grandma, I'll take the responsibility for whatever happens, all right?" "Okay, I'll just be responsible for whatever happens." "I'm sorry what I said before about the standing up." "It's just that when they were here..." "You know perfectly well that they should not be at that house." "How can I become a great writer if I don't even know how to spell?" ""Xenophobia."" "It took me quite a while to find the word in the dictionary since I never expected it to start with an "X."" "It's also taking me a while to get used to the idea that Grandma has a low opinion of someone I respect very much." "Even Grandpa seemed reluctant for Mr. Sims to explore the Baldwin history." "I believe, like Porter Sims, that we must probe deeply into life and write honestly about what we discover there." "John-Boy, will you have some coffee?" "A little toast?" "No, thank you very much." "I had breakfast at home." "Is Mr. Sims about ready to go?" "He should be." "Sister took him a coddled egg." "I insisted." "He never eats breakfast, he says." "Well, that's just because he's never had anyone to look after him." "What plans do you have for Mr. Sims today?" "Well, I thought maybe we'd go down the creek to the old battlefield, and..." " Well, good morning." " Morning, John." " Did you sleep well, Mr. Sims?" " Oh, like a baby." " It must be the mountain air." " And the Recipe." "Yes, quite possibly, Miss Emily." "Hey, John, you know, I've been going over Judge Baldwin's papers here." "This house has more interesting history than I first realized." " Told you." " Sister, do you hear?" "There's one here that shows that during the War Between the States, this house sheltered..." " General Lee." " President Davis." "...Union soldiers." " What?" " See, that's a find, John." "This is what I want in that guide book." "Facts that hadn't been prettied up for history books." "Oh, Sister." "This is a conjecture that you arrived at from the..." "No, no, no." "There it is, documented right there, you see?" "What?" "Papa would never have allowed such a thing!" "Oh, well, if he hadn't allowed it, there wouldn't have been treason charges brought against him." " Treason charges?" " Against Papa?" " Mr. Sims..." " Surely, Mr. Sims, you must be mistaken." "No, it's spelled out right there, but then you knew about that." " You said you'd read his papers." " Well, not all of them, Mr. Sims." "Oh, Sister, surely there's been a mistake." "Well, surely you've reached the wrong conclusion." "I mean, don't you think you might have made a mistake, Mr. Sims?" "Yes, quite possibly." "Here, let me have the paper back, Miss Mamie." "Papa's papers are very old." "You've misread them." "Oh, dear me!" ""For harboring Yankee soldiers..." ""Charges against..." Oh, my!" ""Captain Matthew Baldwin," ""charged with treason against the Confederacy."" " Can it be true, Sister?" " Now, now." "Don't you jump to any conclusions like that, Miss Mamie." " You just take it easy." " Yankee soldiers?" "Yankee soldiers in this house!" "Oh, Sister!" "I am wounded to the very core of my being." "John-Boy, in the Pembroke table, the smelling salts." "Oh, yes, yes." "Is there anything I can do, Miss Mamie?" "You can tell Sister it was all a joke, Mr. Sims, a cruel Yankee joke." "I wish I could, Miss Emily." " Here." " Oh, Sister." "There, there." "That's better." " I'd like to go to my room." " Yes." "Sister." "Just to think that Papa would be accused of such doings..." "You're not well, Sister." "Come lie down." "Thank you, John-Boy." "They gave me their father's papers." "I thought surely they knew about this." "They gave you their father's papers 'cause they thought the state guide was gonna make him a hero." "Well, it can, John-Boy, a most colorful historical figure." "Mr. Sims, this is Virginia." "What you have told those ladies puts a blemish on their daddy's memory forever." "They idolize their daddy." "He brought them up to have a sense of family pride and family honor, and you've told them that he violated the very things that he taught them to believe in." "John!" "Now, you said you admired my writing." "Would you still admire it if I falsify the story?" "I don't know." "I don't know." "I admire your writing, and I've admired reading the things that you've written about other people and other skeletons you've rattled, but these are two ladies that I love very much." "I don't know if I agree with you about this." " Then what do you propose?" " Well, I don't know what to propose." "I just know that you can't just publish an accusation like that about a man who has no chance to defend himself or anything." "I mean, how do you know how the trial turned out?" "All right, John, let's go find out how the trial turned out." "Throw that awful thing away." "Of course, dear." "No doubt, it's a forgery." "No doubt." "Still, I wonder why Papa would've kept it." "Would you close the draperies, please?" "The light makes my head throb." "John-Boy's car is still here." "I wonder, should we have him take Mr. Sims back to Mrs. Brimmer's?" "No!" "Indeed, we don't want him to talk with any of our neighbors." "If the rumor gets out, Sister, we're in extreme disgrace." "You're right as usual, Mamie." "Is this all there is?" "Well, it's everything except his personal letters." "There's not one scrap of paper here that says whether he was convicted or acquitted." "The answer is that the war ended before they had a trial." "Oh, that's great." "So the accusation stands." "I'm looking for the headache powders." "Sister always kept some down here so she wouldn't have to climb the stairs." "Can I help you look?" "Odd." "Sister always could put her hands right on them whenever I took a spell." "How is she, ma'am?" "I fear she's in a decline, John-Boy." "She says it hurts right here, and her head pounds so she can scarcely stand her own breathing." "I think I better go get Doctor Mclvers in, all right?" "Oh, no, John-Boy." "No." "Sister and I have agreed." "Not a soul must ever know what Mr. Sims found in Papa's portmanteau." " You must promise me." " If that's what you think." "Since the headache powders seem to have taken wings and flown away," "I believe I'll make Sister a little hot tea and put some Recipe in it." "Why don't you let me do that, Miss Emily?" "I seem to be responsible for what's happened." "Well, perhaps." "After all, she was fond of you." "It may comfort her to know that you're being helpful." "I'm feeling rather poorly myself." "Would you mind fixing me a little, too?" "Certainly not." "Well, this seems to be the end of the road here." "Well, those papers aren't gonna tell us what we need to know, but I can think of someone who might be able to." "I'm gonna get on back to the house." "I'll be back here first thing in the morning." "If you need me before then, you come get me, all right?" "Okay." "Grandpa, what are you up to?" "Oh, Esther claims there's worms in the cabbage." " Can I talk to you about something?" " What's up?" "Well," "I think I have a pretty good idea why you didn't want Sims to do too much research over at the Baldwin house." "Dug up something, huh?" "What do you think?" "Oh, I told you there's all kinds of secrets in old houses." "Well, he's sort of been going through Judge Baldwin's old papers." " Found out." " What do you think he found out?" "Treason." "That's it." "Oh, Methuselah!" "Knowing him, he'll be letting the whole world know about it." "You see, the thing about it is that the papers that we went through don't say anything about how the trial turned out." "So I thought maybe you'd know." "I mean, was he convicted?" "Did they let him off?" "What happened?" "Oh, so far away and long ago, the war ended." "The military kept it a secret." " I don't think it ever did come to trial." " Oh, great." "Yes, but I do know if it ever gets to be common knowledge, those dear ladies won't be able to live with it." "I know." "You keep your eyes on that Sims." "If I went over there, I wouldn't trust what might happen to him." "Well, I'm going over there first thing in the morning." "Listen, you're not gonna say anything about this to anyone, are you?" "Oh, no, no." "Miss Emily?" "Miss Emily?" "Yes?" "It's me, John-Boy." "May I come in?" "I'm sorry, John-Boy, but Sister and I aren't receiving." "Neither of us slept a wink last night." " Is Mr. Sims here?" " Perhaps he's in his room." "I haven't seen him, and I don't care to since he brought disgrace to our family." "Sister says perhaps it would be best if we'd close our doors and never come out again, like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations." "Never come out, John-Boy." "Miss Emily." "Miss Emily, I'm gonna go get my mama and my grandma." "I've implored Sister to take some nourishment, but even the Recipe has lost its flavor for her." "Good." "My chicken broth will be a sight better for her than that Recipe." "Let's cheer up this place and open those curtains." "No, no, no." "Please, Mrs. Walton." "I vowed never again to see the light of day." "Now, Miss Mamie, you don't mean that." "You gotta hurry up and get well." "Jim-Bob told me you're gonna have a fish fry for Mr. Sims." "I'm afraid Sister will never get well if you talk about Mr. Porter Sims." "Livie, let her rest." " How are they, Mama?" " They are not good." "Something's going on around here, and I'd like to know what it is." "I think it has to do with that Mr. Sims." "He's been drinking that Recipe, hasn't he?" "Come in." "Come in." "John." "John." "Boy, I was really passed out." "Yeah, looks to me like you'd have good reason to be." "Recipe, huh?" "No, no, I had a nightcap about 5:00 this morning." "Mr. Sims, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave here." "John, not long ago, some reporter was trying to describe a WPA project that didn't make much sense to him, so he called it a boondoggle." "You know what that really means?" "It's just an expression that the pioneers used." "It simply means anything that's made up out of leftover scraps." "Mr. Sims, what you're doing here may or may not be a boondoggle, but I've known Miss Mamie and Miss Emily Baldwin ever since I was a little boy, and they've been very kind to me." "Now, their lives may not seem to you to be as real as yours and mine, and they may be made up of scraps of memories and some Recipe and a little bit of fantasy," "but their feelings are real." "And when they feel hurt, and when they feel shame, that's real." "You still don't want me to write about their father." " This isn't the Scopes trial, Mr. Sims." " I know that, John." "And I also know that I'm not the hard-nose reporter I was back then." "I've grown quite fond of those ladies." "Then what value could you possibly attach to this one scrap of information" " about Judge Baldwin?" " The value of honesty." "Even if being honest means that you're gonna hurt these two people?" "Look, John, from here, I go to another community." "I look into more of this glorious past of Virginia." "Now, what would you have me do, John?" "Falsify every bit of information I get just to protect the vanity of the people involved?" "Is that how you'd like this..." "This panorama of history painted for Virginia?" "What would you do, John?" "I'll pick you up in the morning and take you to the bus depot." "Okay, John." "John." "I'm sorry it turned out this way, for both of us and certainly for them." "So am I, Mr. Sims." "Bye, Little Mermaid." "Bye, Gilbert." "Bye, Kitty, take care of the little ones." "Elizabeth, what are you doing?" " What'd you do that for?" " I couldn't let you sell my friends." "Well, you knew we were gonna do that in the beginning." "Yeah, well, that was before Kitty adopted those little fishes that came through the fence." "Fish don't adopt fish." "Well, Kitty did." "And I got to thinking about Mama and us kids." "What would we do if someone took Mama away from Walton's Mountain?" "Well, the least you could do is help me tell the customers." "You're gonna get it when we get back." "Come on, Reckless." "Come on." "You sure look mad." "What's the matter with you?" "You look like the bottom fell out of the fish business." "Got no fish to sell." "Elizabeth let our stock loose." "Oh, I see." "Well, she'll probably make somebody a wonderful mama someday, so..." "I guess." "Problem is we haven't been able to tell all our customers." "Nobody's home." "Mrs. Brimmer, the Baldwins." "Wait a minute!" "What do you mean, the Baldwins aren't home?" "Wasn't anybody there?" "Wasn't Porter Sims there?" "I'm supposed to pick him up in half an hour." "We knocked on the door, but nobody answered." "Door was open, though." "It was really strange." "Well, thank you." "Daddy!" "Grandpa!" "I think something's wrong over at the Baldwin place." "Let's get over there." "Miss Mamie, Miss Emily?" "John Walton." "Hello?" "Miss Mamie?" "Miss Emily?" "It's John Walton." "Is everything all right?" "John Walton, I'm so glad it's you." "I was afraid it was that Mr. Sims again." "He's been trying to tell us more lies about Papa." " May I come in?" " Of course." "But you must forgive Sister." "She's had a terrible shock." "Where is this Sims fellow?" "Wouldn't put it past him..." "Hiding out somewhere." "He's gone." "Probably down in the Recipe room, swilling away." " He left me a note." " What?" " He's going to the Rockfish bus depot." " Where?" "The bus depot." "Well, that's good riddance." "I'll go tell the ladies." "Wait a minute." "Ladies, there's something I think you ought to know about." "I guess Grandpa told you Porter Sims is gone." "Well, he worked all night on this thing, and he went through some of your daddy's old letters, and he found something pretty important." "He wrote what he thinks ought to go into the state guide." "Oh, dear." "John-Boy, I think the ladies have heard quite enough about Porter Sims." "Grandpa, I think they ought to hear this." "Mamie." " Well, if you say so, John-Boy." " Good." ""In the battle of Rockfish Creek during the War Between the States," ""a gallant young Confederate officer, Captain Matthew Baldwin," ""later a distinguished Virginia judge," ""performed a most heroic and unselfish deed" ""that nearly brought him disgrace." ""Recuperating at home from his own serious battle wounds," ""Captain Baldwin made his way" ""to the nearby battlefield to help the wounded." ""He brought back to his house the injured of both Confederate and Union forces." ""Having been seen helping Union soldiers," ""the Captain was later mistakenly charged with treason." ""However, many of the survivors from both the North and the South" ""wrote letters to thank him for what he had done." ""These letters were to have been used as evidence in his behalf," ""but the war ended and the trial," ""which undoubtedly would have exonerated him," ""was never held." ""Perhaps Captain Baldwin's humanitarian act" ""symbolized the healing of the deeper wounds" ""that the nation had suffered." ""His stately house and proud daughters" ""hold honored positions in the community."" "Sister, I do believe your color is coming back." "Well, I'd like to see that." "You are indeed yourself again." "A great burden has been lifted from my heart, and I have you to thank for that." "Porter Sims, too." "Oh, most assuredly." "I fancy that had we met in a shower of swirling autumn leaves..." " But you didn't." " Quite true." "Mr. Porter Sims." "Rather a fine name, isn't it?" "Oh, Sister." "All right, ladies, well, I'll be seeing you after school tomorrow." "Mamie, congratulations." "Thank you, Mr. Walton." "Goodbye." "Their family honor restored, the Baldwin ladies returned to their happy yesterday world, cherishing the memory of another gallant gentleman caller." "The guide books for all the states have become valued historical references, and when Walton's Mountain was mentioned in the volume for Virginia," "Grandma never again referred to it as a boondoggle." "John-Boy, who would want to read a book about Virginia?" "Well, a lot of folks would, Elizabeth." "People who are coming to visit here and anybody who wants to know more about the state." "And, of course, we'd all like to have Santa Claus read the Virginia State guide, now, wouldn't we?" "All right, Grandpa, why would we like to have him read it?" "Well, that way we could say," ""Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia!"" "Night, everybody." "English"