"I sent you a book of mine, about, oh, six weeks ago." "It's called Walton's Mountain, and I haven't heard anything at all." "Ma'am, I spent five years of my life working on this book." "I've come all the way from Virginia just to check up on the manuscript." "For all I know, it might even be lost." "Make an outline right around his hoof." "Grandpa, what you up to?" "I'm doing detective work, and I am not "Grandpa."" "Please address me as "My dear Watson,"" "beloved assistant to Jessica, Girl Spy." "It came as a coincidence that, just as I finally completed my first novel," "Elizabeth, for the first time, became enthralled with a book." "I wondered if what I had written would ever be published and read half so avidly." " Ike?" " I don't have anything for you." "But you know, I could set my watch by you." "No more than this pouch shows up and presto, there you are." "Don't make any jokes." "You know I'm waiting to hear about the book." "What happens if they don't like it?" "I don't want to think about that." "Are you sure there's nothing here for me?" "I said there's nothing for you." "Stop messing around with it." "This is United States Government property, and I'm the only one authorized to touch it." "Not even Corabeth." "Well, at least they haven't sent it back yet." "What's the matter with Elizabeth?" "She hasn't said a word since she come in here." "She's not likely to, unless it's "The jig's up," or something like that." "She's been reading that Jessica, Girl Spy book over and over again." "I think I recognize one of these men." " Which one?" " That one." "Ike, her imagination's racing again." "Come on, honey." "Oh." "It's just kids' stuff." "Jessica, Girl Spy is not just kids' stuff." "Well, if you wanted to turn him in, who would you turn him in to?" "Ep Bridges?" "J. Edgar Hoover." "Still reading that dumb book?" "I think it's wonderful, Jim-Bob." "It's the first time she's ever been caught up in a book." "Yeah, but who ever heard of a girl spy?" "Now, you just stop teasing your sister." "When did you last read a book?" "We, by Charles A. Lindbergh." "And how many times did you read it?" "A few hundred." "Well, at least my book was real." "I saved some supper for you." "Mama, I don't want to eat." "I'm not hungry." " No word yet?" " Nope." "Nothing." " John-Boy?" " What?" "How would you write a letter to a person like Edith Catherine Herbert?" "Uh, well, you'd probably send it to her publisher." "Here." "Right there." "See?" "There's the publisher and there's the address." "You send it to them." "It says, "Edith Catherine Herbert lives in New York with her mother."" "Think it'd be all right?" " Sure." "Why not?" " I think I will." "I'll look it over for you, if you like." "Nobody's gonna see my letter to the best writer in the whole world." "John-Boy?" "Maybe someday someone will write you a letter." "Sorry, John-Boy." "You must be getting nervous, eh?" "Me?" "No." "I'm not in the least bit nervous." "I wasn't even gonna ask if there was anything for me." "I just came down here to mail this letter for Elizabeth, that's all." "Well..." "Sure hope this doesn't get lost, like your book probably did." "What?" "Lost?" "I mean, do you think it could have been lost?" "Oh, my God!" "I should have delivered it in person!" "How could it be lost?" "I mean, after all, it's been quite a while." "It might be in the dead-letter office or something." "And I hold myself responsible, because, after all, I work for the post office, and I feel responsible, just like a letter carrier." "You know, through the rain and the..." "Erin?" "Erin, I want you to place a long-distance call to Miss Belle Becker, at Hastings House in New York City." "New York?" "I've never called New York before." "Well, you do it, just like you do any other call." "You call Information and you get the number." "Okay?" "And charge it to Ike's store." " Hey, wait!" " I'll pay on this end." "I can only wait so long, Ike." "This came special delivery for you, Miss Maddocks." " Thank you, Tommy." " You're welcome." "Would you hold, please?" "I have another call." "Reception, Miss Maddocks." "Hello, my name is John Walton, Jr." "I sent Belle Becker a manuscript of my novel, and I haven't heard anything yet." "When did you mail your manuscript to us, Mr. Walton?" "At least six weeks ago." "Well, sometimes manuscripts have to wait for three to four months for a reading." "Well, that's barbaric!" "I'm sure you'll be notified in due time." "All I can ask is that you be patient." "Who is it?" "May I come in?" "Come on in, son." "I gotta go to New York." "I gotta go find out about my book." "I mean, I feel like my whole life is hanging in the balance." "I don't know where it is!" "It could be lying out there in the rain somewhere." "For all I know, it never even got to the publishers, and it's driving me crazy!" "Everything is all set here." "All Ben has to do is run the newspaper off, and..." "I've made all the arrangements." "The bus leaves Rockfish at 8:00 in the morning." "Am I making any sense?" "Are writers supposed to make sense?" "Well, we're supposed to try." "You better get some rest." " I'll see you in the morning." " All right, son." " Here's something to eat on the bus." " Thank you." " Hey, John-Boy, you look great!" " Look at him!" "Good luck!" "Jim-Bob!" "Come over here and say goodbye to your brother!" "Thank you, Ben." "Okay, Daddy." " John-Boy!" " Yeah?" "Remember to find out if Edith Catherine Herbert has any new books out," " all right?" " All right." "John-Boy, my car ought to be fixed by the time you get back." " And if she does, where I can get them." " I'll look into it, Elizabeth." " John-Boy, did you hear me about my car?" " Yeah, good going, Jim-Bob!" "It's Jim." "Where did we go wrong naming our children?" "Don't worry about the papers." "I'll take care of them, okay?" "And don't forget to call us on the telephone." " I'll call, I'll call." " Don't take any wooden nickels!" "All right, Grandpa." "Don't buy the Brooklyn Bridge!" "All right, everybody, stand back." "Good-bye." "Bye, Mama!" "Good-bye!" "Have fun, y'all!" "Bye!" "You know," "I'll bet every one of those criminals on Ike's poster are in New York, right now, waiting for some innocent person to come along." "I know Mr. Sanford wants to talk to you, but he's been in meetings all day long." "I'm sorry, Mr. Benchley, but this is not a good time to interrupt him." "You know how Fridays are." "Everyone wants to get out of the city." "You are welcome, Mr. Benchley." "Yes?" "Was that Robert Benchley?" "May I help you?" "Yes, ma'am." "My name is John Walton, Jr., and I called from Virginia the other day, and I spoke to somebody here about my manuscript." "It's called Walton's Mountain?" "I'm the somebody you talked to." "And if I'm not mistaken, I advised you to wait a while." "Yes, well, maybe I'd better speak with Miss Becker herself." "After all, I did mail it directly to her." "That's not quite the way it's done." "It was unsolicited?" "In which case, it was probably sent to an assistant editor for a preliminary reading." "Well, if I could just be sure it wasn't lost, ma'am, I..." " Even that has been known to happen." " I don't know why it should happen." "I mean, I mailed it to Miss Becker." " I don't see why she shouldn't get it..." " Mr. Walton..." "Did I hear my name mentioned?" " Miss Becker, John Walton, Jr." " Am I glad to see you." "Ma'am, I've come here to find out about the manuscript" "I sent to you six weeks ago." "It's called Walton's Mountain, and I haven't heard anything at all." "I've explained we get hundreds of submissions like this." "Ma'am, I spent five years of my life working on this book." "I've come all the way from Virginia just to check up on the manuscript." "For all I know, it might even be lost." "Well, I had planned to be out of the city before the rush, but..." " Come with me." " Thank you." "Just a moment." "Thank you." "Over there is a slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts, which will someday be read." "See why it takes so long?" "Slush pile, huh?" "May I?" "Sure." "I don't see it." "Wait a minute." "That's it." "That's it, right there." "What do I do with it now?" "Would you like to sit down and tell me about it?" "Yes, ma'am, I would." "Thank you." "Most of what's in here is the truth." "I mean, I fictionalized parts of it, but most of it really happened." "It's about my family and me." "Start with you." "Well, I've always wanted to write." "I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else." "As far back as I can remember, I always kept a journal, with my thoughts and feelings about things, and..." "But because I felt that no one would understand that," "I always kept it a secret." "And then one Christmas Eve, my mother found out." "I don't understand you." "Hiding things under a mattress." "Is it something you're ashamed of?" "What's in that tablet, Mama?" "All my secret thoughts, how I feel, and what I think about." "About what it's like, late at night, to hear a whippoorwill call and hear its mate call back, or just watching the water go by in the creek, and knowing someday it'll reach the ocean." "Wondering if I'll ever see an ocean, and what a wonder that would be." "You know, Mama, sometimes I hike on over to the highway, and I just sit and watch the buses go by and the people in them, and I'm wondering what they're like, and what they say to each other," "and where they're bound for." "Things stay in my mind, Mama." "I can't forget anything." "And it all gets bottled up in here, and sometimes I feel like a crazy man." "I can't rest or sleep or anything, till I just rush off up here and write it down in that tablet." "Sometimes I think I really am crazy." "I do vow." "If things had been different, Mama, reckon I could've done something with my life." "You will, John-Boy." "You have a promising future." "See, in families like mine, as soon as he's able to, the oldest boy is supposed to go to work, as soon as he can, to help support the rest of the family." "Now, I fully intended to do that, and I thought that my father expected that of me." "But on that same Christmas Eve," "I found out that my father knew all along about my writing." "He'd been working in Waynesboro that year, and he had a hard time getting home that night." "But when he finally did, there were presents for everybody." "Open yours, son." "Okay." "I don't know how it got way up to the North Pole you wanted to be a writer." "Well, I guess he must be a right smart man." "I don't know much about the writing trade, son, but if that's what you want to take up, give it all you got." "Yes, sir, Daddy." "After that, I wrote whenever I could make the time." "Short stories, poems, scenes, but I was foundering, I didn't have any direction." "And then, one day," "I showed one of my short stories to someone for the first time." "Aside from the grammar part, though, what do you think?" "I find it very moving." "It's a wonderful story." " You really believed it?" " Every word." "Well, what do you know about that?" "And the characters of the mother and father are..." "Especially fine." "Well, I guess you know where I got my inspiration for them." "What are you going to do with your story now?" "I don't know." "What do you think I ought to do with it?" "I think you ought to try to submit it to a magazine." "Try to get it published." "Just like a real writer." "You're a real writer." "Young and inexperienced, but the talent is there." "The gift is there." "Something totally your own." "Something to guard, to treasure, and to use." "Thank you." " I sure appreciate you reading it for me." " Thank you!" "One of my best influences was my teacher, Rosemary Hunter." "And one of the most unexpected, my own grandmother." "My family were storytellers, and long before we had luxuries, like electric light and radio and all this modernisms, why, we used to sit around the fireplace at night, and each one of us would take turns at telling stories." "Ghost stories, witch stories, long-ago stories of Indians and wars, and things that happened in the history of our family." "And I've kept them." "And now, they're mellow in my mind and ready to tell again." "You know, Miss Hunter told me that the talent of being a writer was a gift." "Now I know where that gift comes from." "Now, all those stories I remember," "I'll tell them to you, John-Boy, and that will be my inheritance to you." "Grandma, I cherish you." "And I you, boy." " Good night." " Good night." "By chance, a professional writer came to the mountain." "A. J. Covington." "Moral stories are out of style, John-Boy, but then so am I." "But my story has a moral." "Don't waste your life searching for the one big story you were born to write." "Write the little stories." "Who knows, the sum total of them may be the big one." "Write about Walton's Mountain." "Your feelings about your family and this place." "Just the way you've been doing." "Write about how it is to be young and confused and poor." "Groping, but supported by a strong father and a loving mother, surrounded by brothers and sisters that pester you and irritate you, but care about you." "Try to capture that in words, John-Boy." "It's as big a challenge as the Klondike or the white whale, or flying the Atlantic Ocean alone." "It was too big for me, but I think you just might be up to it." "Reading these should keep me out of trouble over the weekend." "When I get to yours, I'll write you." "Ma'am, do you think that if I stayed over till Monday, you might be able to read it?" " I'll give you an answer Monday." " Thank you very much." "How's it coming along, Jim-Bob?" " I'm almost finished." " Looks great!" "Stand still." "Hold your horses, you old mule." "Come on, go ahead, there." "Make an outline right around his hoof." "There you go." "What're you doing, Elizabeth?" "Jessica." "Can't you ever remember?" "Oh, I can remember it, when I want to." " Grandpa, what y'all doing?" " Detective work, and I am not "Grandpa."" "Please address me as "My dear Watson,"" "beloved assistant to Jessica, Girl Spy." "Okay, Watson and Girl Spy, what are you all doing?" " Taking Blue's hoofprints." " Hoofprints?" "You were just doing everyone's fingerprints." "Now you're doing hoofprints?" "Don't you care if Blue gets stolen?" "Well, of course I care!" "But who's going to steal an old mule?" "Jessica, Girl Spy will know and will track down those mule thieves." "And that's why we're taking Blue's hoofprints, Chance's, and Myrtle's." " Elizabeth, you're crazy!" " Hey!" "Jessica!" ""Jessica."" ""My dear Watson."" "Ike said he hasn't heard a word from John-Boy." "John-Boy promised he'd call the moment he arrived." "Oh, don't worry, Ben, New York's a big place." "Take a while for him to get settled down." "There must be telephones all around." "I know what happened to John-Boy." "He's been kidnapped!" "Erin?" "Yeah." "Get John-Boy on the line." "You know, when John-Boy called, he reversed the charges." "He's probably run out of money." "I hope he bought a round-trip ticket." "I wouldn't want him to get stuck up there." "She's ringing!" " Daddy, can I stay on the line?" " Yeah, honey." " Hello." " Hi, John-Boy." "Have you walked the Great White Way?" "And are the buildings as tall as people say?" "Uh, honey?" "Erin?" "Here's Daddy." "Hello, son, how are you?" "Listen, I'm sorry about calling collect, but I'm going to have to stay through Monday, and I'm running kind of short on money." "New York's kind of a rough place without money." "I want to talk to him." "I don't care how much it costs!" "Speak up, son, your mother's on the line." " John-Boy, you all right?" " I'm fine, Mama." "Did you find your novel?" "Yeah, well, that's just it." "See, I found it, but the lady editor hasn't read it yet." "She's promised to read it over the weekend, so I really can't leave town till I hear word from her, one way or the other." "You sound kind of down, son." "Well, I'm not going to like the idea of waiting." "Especially all weekend." "You've worked too long and too hard on that novel for them to turn you down." "I hope you're right." "Now, remember, son, if they don't publish it, you always got the newspaper back here." "Well, say hello to everybody." "I don't want to run the bill up any more." "We love you, John-Boy." "Good luck!" "I love you all." "Bye, John-Boy, got to go." "My board's all lighted up." "Bye-bye, Erin." "Listen, son, I could send you a few dollars, but I don't think the mail would reach you in time." "Oh, that's all right, don't worry about it." "I'm just gonna have to watch my budget, that's all." "What are you gonna do in New York without any money?" "Well, I'll just see the city, I guess." "I've got enough money for subways and ferries." "I thought maybe I'd try to look up Daisy." "Remember Daisy Garner?" "She was the girl I danced with in that marathon in Scottsville?" "Yeah, I remember." "Well, she wrote to me once." "She sent me her address." "Well, take care of yourself, son." "I will." "Bye, now." "Love from all of us." "All right." "Love to everybody there." "Bye-bye." "Boy, it sure would be fun to spend a few days in New York." "New York's a tough town when you're a stranger." "Surely they have churches there." "He could find somebody in a church." "They got everything in New York." "Taxi!" "Taxi!" "Ma'am, do you know if Daisy Garner is here?" "I was told she works here." "Daisy?" "She's around here somewhere." "That's Daisy, dancing with the tall, gray-haired man." "Oh, yeah." "Thank you." "Mister?" "You buy your tickets here." "But I..." "All right, I'll have one." "Thank you." "Daisy?" "You been in any marathons lately?" "John Walton." "It's you!" "How are you?" "Not as bad as it looks." "You know I had a feeling you would turn up in New York one of these days." " Really?" " Are you still a writer?" "Oh, yeah." "Well, that's why I'm here." "I'm waiting to hear if they're going to publish my book or not." "You finished it!" "I finished it!" "I'm waiting to hear from Hastings House, if they're going to publish it or not." "Daisy, I've been just walking and walking around, and you're the first familiar face I've seen out of six million." "You have this dance." "Oh, how nice." "Is this familiar?" "Yeah." "I can't tell you how good it is to see you." "You, too!" "Is this your first time in New York?" "The very first time." "Oh, well, welcome to the magic city." "This is where everything happens, John." "It's where you really, really, really begin to live." "Well, don't look at this place!" "This is where I earn my living." "And I can take off when I want to, which is important because I'm a dancer." "No, I'm a real, real dancer." "I've been in two musicals so far." " Oh!" " Yes." "And tomorrow..." "Tomorrow I'm in the final auditions for a wonderful, wonderful new show." "A speaking part this time." " Speaking part, huh?" " Yes." "Well, I'll tell you, if enthusiasm gets it done, then you got a good chance." "I hope so!" "It's all here, John." "It's a city just boiling over with life." "Have you seen it?" "Have you really, really seen it?" " Truth?" " Yeah." "I've been too busy, thinking about myself and my book." "No, I haven't seen it." "I haven't seen any of it." "Well, if you're the same John Walton I knew, with your imagination, with your dreams, you're gonna love New York." "At what time do you get off?" "Around 11:00." "Will I see you?" "Well, I'd dance with you all night, but I don't have enough dimes." "So I'll be downstairs." "All right, I'll be waiting for you." "Dear Lord, we ask thy blessing on this house and on this food, and we especially ask that you watch over John-Boy in New York City." "Amen." " Amen." " Ah, women." "Mama, is kissing at the table good manners?" "I don't think anybody minds." "Well, I wish they wouldn't do it in public." "Sorry, Jim-Bob." "Your hair looks nice, Mary Ellen." "Thanks, Mama." "Mary Ellen, you sure have changed since you got married." "Seems like only yesterday she was running around the school yard playing baseball, catching bullfrogs and fighting." "Now she just gets into fights at home." "Do you two really fight?" "Once a week." "John, you were there." "What do you think John-Boy's doing now?" "I don't know." "Things have changed up there." "I know!" "I know!" "You know." "You know." "You know what?" "Uh-oh, Jessica, Girl Spy strikes again!" "Daddy, is it dark in New York?" "It's dark right about now, yeah." "I can see John-Boy walking along a dark river." "That's right." "I can hear them tug boats now, down by the river." "And he just happens to see this big black car pull up and stop." "And then these men in black hats and black overcoats get out." "They take out a cement coffin with a body in it." "Where does this child learn such things?" "On the radio, and it's just getting good!" "And then they dump it in the river." "John-Boy sees them." "They see John-Boy." "They corner John-Boy with guns!" "He jumps in the river!" "They shoot at him." "They jump in the river after him!" "Either that just happened, or..." "Jessica, how about some more goulash?" "Oh, yes, thank you." "It's very good." "Another disastrous thing that could be happening to John-Boy, this very moment..." "Come on, now, have some milk, honey, that's enough." "Well, here it is." "Someday people are going to be paying money to see you in there." "Oh, I can't believe it." "How do you feel?" "I am so nervous!" "No, you're going to be just fine." "You're going to do just great." "Knees, knocking together!" "How do you think I feel?" "This is it." "I hope you get the part." "I really do." "Good luck to you, too, John." "Thank you." "I don't really feel like we're saying good-bye." "You'll be back." "I'll see you." "Here goes." "Are you reading, Miss Becker?" "I sure hope you are." "New York City." "Good Lord!" "I wonder what you felt, Daddy." "Home from France, and Uncle Ben left back there in an unmarked grave." "Was it Mama you were thinking of?" "Or me, a baby?" "I wonder if you could have known then that you'd come back to Walton's Mountain to chop wood." "Well, I'm here, Daddy, and you were here, and time has passed, and I'm a man now, and I'm going on a journey of my own." "Yes?" "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm looking for Edith Catherine Herbert." " Were you a friend?" " Not really." "I'm Edith's mother." "She died nearly two months ago." "Oh, my goodness." "I'm sorry." " Why were you looking for her?" " Oh, well..." "I was just on an errand for my sister Elizabeth." "Oh?" "And who might you be, brother of Elizabeth?" "My name is John Walton, Jr., ma'am." "I'm from Virginia." "You see, my sister is all wrapped up in that book that your daughter wrote." "She practically lives the life of Jessica, Girl Spy." " Won't you come in?" " Thank you." "My sister asked me to check in the bookstores for anything else that your daughter had written, but I couldn't find anything in print." "Oh, well..." "This is the book my daughter was working on when she died." "My sister also wrote your daughter a letter." "I'm wondering if you ever received it." "Oh, wait." "Wait." "That's her handwriting." ""I never liked books." ""Mostly I like being up in the mountains with my grandfather." ""Once we fell in a beaver pond and swam with the beavers, and they were wild." ""Then I read your book, Jessica, Girl Spy." ""When I go to bed at night, I dream I am Jessica." ""And when I wake up in the morning," ""I am Jessica."" "Won't even answer to her right name anymore." ""My brother is a writer, too." ""But he writes about us, not about real people like you." ""He is a bigshot and writes a newspaper," ""but he's all right, and listens when he isn't too busy." ""Your book has changed my life, and I hope you will" ""never stop." ""Thank you for reading my letter." ""Love, Jessica Elizabeth Walton, Walton's Mountain, Virginia," ""not far from Rockfish."" "She's 12 years old, and she's small for her age." "She's got beautiful, beautiful red hair, and a kind of impish face." "She's full of surprises." "A wonderful girl." "Well, I should like to do something special for Elizabeth." "Here's a copy of Jessica, Girl Spy, autographed by Edith." "Oh, she'll treasure that." "And here's a page in Edith's own handwriting, from her unfinished manuscript." "Oh!" "Oh, no, that's too kind, ma'am." "I..." "For Elizabeth." "I miss the company of writers." "Tell me what you're working on now." "Well, it's my first novel." "Actually, I've finished, finished the novel, and I'm in New York, waiting to hear whether Hastings House is gonna publish it." "Hastings House?" "You could almost say it's my second novel, because I finished it over a year ago, but I had to rewrite every page because the manuscript was burned up when our house caught on fire." "I'm coming!" "It's useless." "I've tried and tried to rewrite the first page of my novel, the first paragraph, the first sentence." "It always comes out the same." "Flat, empty." "I feel as if there was a band of steel, twisted, tied inside me, shutting off the flow of words and feelings." "Somehow I have to find an answer for that feeling." "When something's wrong, I want to turn my back on it and walk away." "That's just how I feel about my book." "But I found out what was wrong." "I was trying to rebuild this house exactly like it was before." "Well, you can't do it." "You just can't get back that same excitement." "No, I'm not the same man that built this." "I can't get the same materials." "I just got to get a roof over our heads." "That's true." "Point is, there's a job to be done." "You're a better man than I am." "I was on the point of giving up, but I knew that if I was ever gonna write again," "I had to do it right then and there, so..." "I took a tablet, and I walked out in the middle of the woods and I sat down, and sure enough..." "I don't know how, but the words just started to come back." ""The dull and heat-laden days of August vanished in a rainstorm," ""and September dawned, bright and sparkling and sunny." ""The foliage began to turn," ""lemon-yellow, watermelon-red, russet and gold and bronze." ""The woods were afire with color," ""but clean and chilled by an autumn wind."" "And so, I'm in New York City, just waiting to hear." "Oh, my dear boy, I'm so glad you came by." "I do wish you well." "Thank you." "Tommy, take these to Editorial," " and this to the mailroom." " Yes, ma'am." " Miss Maddocks?" " Well, good morning, Mr. Walton." "Good morning." "Miss Becker is in, isn't she?" "She is in." "Belle, Mr. Walton is here." " Won't you have a seat?" " Thank you." "Good morning, Hastings House." "Yes, I'll ring him, Mr. Adams." "Franklin P. Adams?" "Franklin P. Adams." "Ma'am." "Won't you come in, Mr. Walton?" "Thank you, ma'am." "Jim-Bob!" "Jim-Bob!" "I can't believe you got this old wreck to running!" "It's not an old wreck if it runs, is it?" "No, I guess not." "Oh, you gotta see, Daddy got me some license plates." "Look at that." "Well!" "How about that?" "Jim-Bob got his own car." " What do you think?" " I think it's great." "Now, you choke and I'll crank." "All right." "I'll choke and you crank." " All right, you ready?" " Nope." "Just a second." "All right." "Jim-Bob, that's great!" "Okay." "Can I honk the horn?" "All right, let's do this." "They're gonna publish my book!" "They're gonna publish it!" " Congratulations!" " Thank you." "They love it!" "They loved it!" " They think it's great." " Aw, that's great." "They think Walton's Mountain is a great title." "And guess what?" "They gave me an advance on royalties of $150." "They want me to write another book." "Can you write two books?" "I can write 100 books if they want me to." "When are we gonna get to read this one?" "Well, they're gonna send me a copy of it." "You could read the copy I've got." "But you don't want to read it with the spelling mistakes and everything." "I want to read it just the way you wrote it." "Well, Mama, you know, I wrote you out to be kind of a Baptist in it." "That's fine with me!" "And, Daddy, you appear to be a bit of a heathen from time to time." "Where'd you ever get an idea like that?" "You must be hungry." "I bet you haven't had a solid meal since you left home." "Well, a home-cooked meal'd be just great." "Okay, I'm gonna get my bags, all right?" "I'll be right in." "Did you talk to Edith Catherine Herbert?" "I got something for you, Elizabeth." "Here you go." "But this is Jessica, Girl Spy." "I have this one." "I wanted her new one." "Well, this isn't exactly the same as the one you have." "See, this one is personally autographed by Edith Catherine Herbert." "Did you see her write it?" "No, honey, I didn't." "Elizabeth, she died a while back." "But I did get to see her mama, who got your letter, and she gave me this autographed copy to give to you." "So there won't be any more books by her?" "No." "But I got something else for you." "This is a page from the manuscript of the book she was working on when she died." "It's in her own handwriting." "And her mama wanted you to have it." "John-Boy, I don't wanna cry, but I feel like I've lost something that was real close to me." "Are you all right?" "I think I'll always miss her." "I'm sure you will." "Maybe I'll like your book." "I hope you do." "I really hope you do." "I don't know how they get it to work." "I don't know how they send enough food in there to feed all those people." "And I don't know how they get enough water in there to keep everybody clean." "I did a lot of things." "I went down to the Statue of Liberty, like you did, and I went to Times Square, and..." "The greatest thing of all, of course, was walking out of Hastings House with a contract and a copy of my book under my arm." "Felt like I was carrying my own baby." "Well, it's not quite the same thing, but I think I know how you feel." "Mama?" "Daddy?" "Everybody?" "I'm pregnant." "Mary Ellen!" "We're gonna be uncles!" "Mary Ellen, you're pregnant!" "Congratulations!" "We're gonna be uncles!" "I declare!" "This is unbelievable!" "You're gonna be a great-grandpa!" "Sometimes it pays to be an old heathen." "Isn't that right, Grandma?" "Are you gonna call him Zebulon, Jr.?" "Uh, excuse me, excuse..." "Who's the father of this child, anyway?" " Congratulations!" " Congratulations!" "It's getting chilly." "Winter is a-coming on." "Wild geese'll be flying south, any day now." "John-Boy, you're awful quiet tonight." "I got a lot on my mind." "Nothing's ever stirred me up in my whole life like seeing that city for the first time." "I reckon, if you were born there, you might take it for granted." "But being a country boy, it's a love affair right from the start." "Just being on that island gave me such a feeling of promise and adventure," "like the wildest things I ever dreamed in my whole life could happen." "There's a hotel called The Algonquin, and that's where a lot of real great writers get together." "I stood across the street from it for a long time." "And I'm not sure, but I think I saw Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley come out and get into a taxicab." "It's the same sky looking down on Times Square, but it seems like a whole different world to me." "Well, now." "How do you young folks feel about your first-born flying the coop?" "I don't think we'd get him to stay, Pa, even if we tried." "I've been meaning to..." "There's no need to, son." "Guess I'd better get busy darning your socks." "I don't think there's a one of them that doesn't have a hole in it." "Well, don't forget your way home, son." "I never will." "I did leave Walton's Mountain to live and work in New York City." "I wrote more novels and raised a family of my own." "Today, we live in California, but no matter where I am, the call of a night bird, the rumble of a train crossing a trestle, the scent of crabapple, the lowing of a sleepy cow," "can call me home again." "In memory, I stand before that small white house, and I can still hear those sweet voices." "Goodnight, Mama." "Good night, Ben." "Good night, Jim-Bob." "Good night, Mama." "Good night, Erin." "Good night, Jim-Bob." "Good night, Grandpa." "Good night, Erin." "Good night, Jason." "Good night, Grandpa." "Good night, Daddy." "Good night, Jason." "Good night, Elizabeth." "Good night, Daddy." "Goodnight, John-Boy." "Good night, everybody." "I love you." "English"