The Waltons 2 - Trouble on the Mountain (2 page)

John-Boy always liked the smell of leather and pickles and oil and sawdust inside the store. And the cool temperature was a pleasant change from the blazing sun outside.

“Hey, John-Boy,” Ike said, “how you getting along?”

John-Boy had expected Ike and Ep Bridges to be playing pool in the back. But apparently they were just shooting the breeze; Ike behind the counter and Ep Bridges leaning on a display of pocketknives.

John-Boy smiled. “Ike. Sheriff.”

“Glad to see I got a customer,” Ike smiled. “Business’s been pretty slow today. What can I do for you?”

John-Boy shoved his hands in his back pockets and shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m not really a customer, Ike. Just thought I’d drop by and see if there’s any mail.”

Sheriff Bridges smiled. “You know what you ought to do, Ike, is make people buy something before you check their mail.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. But I reckon Uncle Sam wouldn’t go for it much.” Ike made no move toward the caged room that represented the post office. “Sure you don’t want to buy something, John-Boy? I just got some nice flowery dress material in from Raleigh. Your mother might like that.”

“No thanks, Ike.”

Ike nodded and moved slowly away from the cash register. “Well, I guess it’s my bounden duty as postmaster to take a look here.” He brought out a packet of letters and went slowly through them. “Well now, here’s a letter for Jake Cruikshank from the Fidelity Accident and Insurance Company up in Philadelphia. I don’t guess you’ll be going past Jake’s house on your way home, will you, John-Boy?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Well, let’s see here.” He held another letter up and squinted at the address. “No, that’s not for you. Looks like Eunice Brooks’ cousin’s handwriting.” He thumbed through the rest of the letters. “Nope . . . nope . . . nope, none of them is addressed to you, John-Boy.”

John-Boy nodded and watched him return the packet to the cage. “Well, thanks, Ike.”

“That’s all right, John-Boy. I’m sorry, but that’s all the regular-sized letters I got in today.”

John-Boy started to turn away but then turned sharply back. “Regular-sized letters?” Both Ike and Ep Bridges were grinning from ear to ear as if they had just pulled off the biggest practical joke of the year. John-Boy’s heart leaped with sudden hope. “It came, didn’t it, Ike!”

“What came?”

“My letter! Come on, Ike!”

“Well, now, John-Boy, let’s see here. I did get something that might be for you. But I don’t know as I’d exactly call it a letter. It’s in this big brown envelope.” He reached under the counter and brought it out.

“Give me it, Ike!”

Ike stepped back. “Now, wait just a minute, John-Boy. I’m postmaster here, and it’s my solemn duty to be sure everything is delivered to the right and proper person.”

“Aw, come on, Ike.” John-Boy tried to look angry, but his heart was pounding wildly, and inside he was too happy and excited to be convincing.

“Now here in the corner,” Ike said, holding up the envelope, “it says Col-ee-yers Magazine. Now from that it’s hard to tell what’s inside, ain’t it? Most likely a magazine, I reckon.”

“That’d be my guess,” Ep Bridges nodded.

“And it’s addressed to Mr. John Walton, Jr., care of Rural Delivery, Walton’s Mountain, Virginia. Now, John-Boy, have you got any identification to prove you’re John Walton, Jr.?”

“Ike, I swear I’m going to jump across this counter in a minute.”

Ike held up a hand. “Now, there’s no need for that, John-Boy. Sheriff, do you know for sure if this young fella is John Walton, Jr.?”

John-Boy knew there was no point in fighting it. They would carry on with the game until it got boring. But he ached to get his hands on that envelope. It had come! It had honest to God come!

“Well,” Ep said, “he certainly looks like John Walton, Jr. But, of course, I’ve found that all them famous writers look pretty much alike.”

“Shall we give it to him?” Ike asked.

Ep smiled. “Well, Ike, I think maybe we’d better. Otherwise I kind of suspect I’m going to be arresting John-Boy here for homicide in a minute.”

Ike grinned and handed it over. “There you are, John-Boy. Come in about eleven this morning.”

John-Boy just held it for a minute, feeling it, looking from the printed return address to his name typed across the middle, and then back to the return address. Whatever was inside was thick and bulky. Contracts maybe? Miss Hunter said that before they sent a check all kinds of contracts had to be signed.

“Well,” Ike smiled, “ain’t you going to open it?”

John-Boy was tempted. More than anything else in the world he wanted to know what was inside that envelope. But Jason and Jim-Bob and Mary Ellen and Erin and Ben and Elizabeth had all come with him to mail the story off. And he suspected his mother and father and Grandpa and Grandma would have come too if they hadn’t felt silly doing it.

John-Boy shook his head. “No, I think I’ll take it home.”

Their smiles faded, but Ike quickly recovered. “Well, John-Boy, I reckon you’re right. Your family ought to be the first to hear the good news.”

“John-Boy,” Ep smiled, following him to the door. “You be sure to let us know. We got a famous writer here in Walton’s Mountain, we got a right to know about it.”

Jim-Bob and Elizabeth were the first to see John-Boy coming. From the porch they saw him round the bend. And then, suddenly, he was grinning, waving the big envelope in the air as he broke into a run. Within half a minute they had spread the news, and from the sawmill, the kitchen and the upstairs bedrooms there were squeals and shouts, and everybody was converging on the front porch.

“What’s it say, John-Boy?!”

“Did they send a check?!”

“Let’s see it!”

John-Boy held the envelope over his head and made his way through the crowd. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Open it, John-Boy, open it!”

“Hurry!”

“Okay,” John-Boy’s father shouted over the chaos. “Let’s all go into the living room and sit down!”

It took several minutes for everyone to get settled. Olivia and Grandma and the three girls crowded onto the sofa. The others found chairs or flopped on the floor close to John-Boy. When there was finally silence, his father surveyed the crowd and grinned. “Okay, John-Boy.”

“When did it come, John-Boy?” Erin asked.

“About eleven o’clock this morning, Ike said.”

Erin gave Jason a triumphant smile. “See, I told you!”

“Let him open it!” Mary Ellen cried impatiently.

John-Boy grinned. It was a nervous, unaccountable grin that came from confused emotions. But his heart was pounding steadily faster. It was a moment he guessed he had been waiting for most of his life.

John-Boy turned the envelope over. He slipped his thumb under the corner of the flap and carefully worked it under, tearing the sealed end loose. There would probably be a letter inside—comments about the story, or maybe instructions on what to do with the contracts. John-Boy got a firm grip on the bundle of papers and slowly drew them out. Then his heart stopped.

There had been an instant, while he was carrying the envelope home, when he considered the possibility of his story being flatly rejected—that the envelope might contain a short letter saying it was not good enough. But on the strength of Miss Hunter’s enthusiasm and his own firm belief in the quality of the story, he had quickly dismissed the idea. Now, that brief moment of fear returned and came crashing down on him like an avalanche.

The bundle of papers was his own manuscript—and nothing more.

“What’s the matter, John-Boy?”

“What is it?”

John-Boy shook his head, barely able to speak. “There’s nothing here. It’s just my story.” He looked at the last page and then back at the front. “They sent it back.”

“Sent it back! What do you mean they sent it back?” Grandpa grabbed the manuscript.

“Why would they send it back?” John asked.

Jason searched through the envelope John-Boy had dropped on the floor. “Here’s something. A little piece of paper.”

John-Boy took it, his hopes lifting for an instant. But they were quickly dashed. “ ‘We are very sorry,’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘but we cannot consider handwritten manuscripts.’ ”

“For heaven’s sakes!” Grandma said with disgust.

“You mean they sent it back without even reading it?” Jason said.

John-Boy shook his head. “I reckon so.” He read the message again, feeling his heart sink even deeper. After waiting almost three weeks, and imagining dozens of editors reading the story, and expecting at least a comment, or some kind of criticism, this seemed like the worst possible thing that could have happened. He felt silly—embarrassed—foolish—stupid. How could he have been so dumb—so naive?

“That’s crazy,” Mary Ellen was saying. “How in the world do they expect something to be written?”

John had taken the slip and passed it on to Olivia. “I reckon they expect it be be written on a typewriter.”

“But John-Boy’s handwriting is so clear,” Olivia protested.

John-Boy looked at her, feeling grateful for all their anger and indignation. But he guessed he could understand the magazine’s position. At least he could partially understand it. He shook his head. “I guess clear handwriting isn’t good enough, Mama.”

“Huh!” Grandma said, “Spend all that schooling teaching young ’uns to write, and it ain’t good enough for them folks in New York. You’d think they’d at least have the courtesy to read something you went to all that trouble writing out. I guess they just never heard of good manners up there.”

“It’s just not fair,” Erin said.

Olivia shook her head. “I’m so sorry, John-Boy.”

“Well, I guess it could be worse, Mama. At least it isn’t a rejection. I mean, they didn’t say the story’s no good.” John-Boy really didn’t believe it. At least if they had read it and turned it down it would be all over with. This way, he was right back where he started three weeks ago.

“Well, how will they ever know if it’s any good if they don’t read it?” Jason muttered. “It’s probably the best story anybody ever wrote for their dumb magazine. And they’re so dumb they don’t even know it. If I were you, John-Boy, I wouldn’t even let ’em have it if you get it typed.”

“If they don’t take handwritten stories,” John said, “I don’t reckon any of the magazines do.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” Ben said.

It probably was stupid, but John’s statement had a sobering effect on all of them.

“Do you know how to write on a typewriting machine, John-Boy?” Jim-Bob asked.

John-Boy shrugged. “I reckon I could learn. But I don’t expect there’s any typewriters in Jefferson County.”

“I’ll bet we could find one over in Charlottesville.”

John shook his head. “Finding one is one thing but buying one is something else again, Jason. John-Boy, I know it’s a big disappointment to you. I reckon we all got our hopes up a little too high.”

“I’ll bet if it was typed they would have bought it right away,” Mary Ellen said.

“And it would be the best story they ever printed,” Ben added.

John-Boy smiled, appreciating their efforts to cheer him up. But his father was probably right—he particularly had gotten his hopes too high. “Well, I reckon if I’d sold my first story to a magazine that big it would have been some kind of a miracle anyway.”

Grandpa gave him a stern look. “Just don’t you go giving up, John-Boy. You got lots of good writing ahead of you. And there ain’t no Walton ever born that let a little setback like this get him down.”

“Come on, all you children,” Grandma said, pulling herself up. “We got to wash up them berries you picked if you expect ’em for dessert tonight.”

Olivia gazed quietly at John-Boy after the others had filed out. In the long run she knew he would recover, and some day he would sell all the stories he could write. But her confidence and certainty were no help for the pain she knew he was feeling right now. She smiled warmly at him, and in a soft voice quoted from the Book of James. “ ‘Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it.’ ”

John-Boy smiled. “Mama, I’m just happy you’ve all got long patience with
me.”

“Well, I reckon the sun’ll come up again tomorrow, and probably a lot of times after that. But I’m not so sure that kitchen stove’s going to stay hot without some more firewood.”

John-Boy laughed. “Coming right up.”

John-Boy didn’t know if it was deliberate or not, but at the supper table there was no more talk about his misfortune with
Collier’s Magazine.
After Grandma said grace and the food was passed, Mary Ellen glanced at her mother and made a casual request.

“Mama, would it be all right with you if I didn’t do any dishwashing anymore? I mean if I traded with someone and wiped the dishes twice as often?”

Olivia blinked at her for a minute, then shrugged. “It’s all right with me—if you can get someone to trade. What do you have against washing dishes?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired of it.”

“Me too,” Grandpa agreed. “Can’t think of anything worse than slimy dishwater all over my hands.”

Grandma snorted. “The last time you washed any dishes William McKinley was President of the United States.”

“That’s right, old woman. And you saw what happened to him. He got shot to death. So I ain’t taking any risks like that anymore.”

They all laughed, and then Jason gave Mary Ellen a sly smile. “That ain’t the reason Mary Ellen don’t want to wash dishes.”

“All right,” Mary Ellen said, “if you’re so smart, what’s the real reason?”

“You really want me to tell?”

“Don’t be silly,” Olivia said. “If Mary Ellen wants to trade chores with someone, she doesn’t have to give a reason.”

“It’s because of her Super Deluxe Beauty Kit,” Jason blurted out.

“It is not!”

“What in the world is a Super Deluxe Beauty Kit?” Grandpa asked.

“Ask her,” Jason smiled. “She bought it.”

Mary Ellen’s face reddened and she quickly picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes and banged more onto her plate. “I didn’t buy it. I just gave Ike a deposit.”

“Same thing. And it costs two dollars and ninety-five cents.”