Six Old Crows - Softcover

Martin, J P

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1466972580 ISBN 13: 9781466972582

Verlag: Trafford, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Lasting friendships are sometimes formed in unusual ways. The following story shows how this can happen. Buses and trains take us places, but they sometimes bring us together. And once we are together . . . Well, you'll see. Ordinary people do brave things during the most trying times. And acts of kindness, even during the most distressing of situations, are well remembered.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

He simply tells a story in a way that you're saying to yourself, Those characters are people I've met. He has a fun way of weaving fact and fiction so they live happily together. He makes us laugh at ourselves.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Six Old Crows

By J. P. Martin

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2013 J. P. Martin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-7258-2

Chapter One

April 20, 1940

I guess you could say this story begins in the Greyhound bus station in Omaha, Nebraska.

A lovely spring day greeted those people getting off the bus.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" asked the young man, pointing to an empty seat next to the fellow sitting near the back of the bus.

"No, I think the guy who was sitting there got off here ... in ... what is this, Omaha?" said the fellow seated.

"Yeah, this is my hometown," said the young man, as he sat down. "My name is Hank Tyson, and you are?"

"I'm Tommy Fulton, but my friends back home call me 'Scratch.' I'm from Texas. Where are you headed?" he asked.

"New York City," said Tyson. "I want to try and get a job at one of the Broadway theaters there, and maybe get my career going."

"So, you're an actor or something?" Tommy asked.

"An actor, and a song and dance man, too," said Hank. "It would be swell if I could break into musicals or something. That's my goal. Where are you headed?" he asked.

"Anywhere far away from here," said Tommy. "My ma died last year, and my dad's off in the navy somewhere. I haven't seen or heard from him in years."

"That's a shame," Hank said.

"Yeah, well, what are you gonna do; things just happen!"

"You could probably find work in New York City, too," said Tyson.

As the two young men were talking, other people were finding seats on the bus. A couple of soldiers moved past them to find seats. Other buses were pulling in to the terminal, and people waiting for arriving passengers waved as they climbed off the buses.

"Okay everyone!" ordered the driver of the bus the two young men were on. "Have your tickets ready for me to punch."

A young mother with a little girl fished around in her purse to get out their tickets.

"Well, here goes, Gail; we're finally on the way to see your gram and gramps," she said, as the bus driver punched her two tickets.

"Des Moines is only about seven hours' bus ride from here," said the driver, as he handed her back the tickets.

Everyone finally was settled in, and their tickets punched by the bus driver, when one final passenger came clambering onto the bus. He had just made the connection from one of the other buses that had recently pulled in.

"Here's my ticket," said the fellow to the bus driver. "The guys are loading my bags now."

"Five more minutes and we would have been gone," the driver said as he punched the ticket and gave it back to him.

"Okay, everyone, settle in; here we go," said the driver, and they pulled out of the station headed toward Iowa.

Folks were taking off coats and jackets and stowing them in the overhead shelves. A woman seated behind the driver was telling him about the fun she and her cousins had had at the County Spring Expo Fair.

"It was nice to see them for something other than a wedding or funeral," she said. "My, but how some of them farmers' wives can bake," she added. "I must have tasted twenty different pies."

"My husband, Elmo, and I both had to drink down bicarbonate of soda, and he belched all the way home," she tattled.

The bus driver chuckled at this and turned on his windshield wipers as they came upon a small rain shower. "I love going to our county fair," said the bus driver. "My Harriet makes the best darn dill pickles in Iowa."

"Don't ever say that to my cousin Mary; she's sitting about seven rows back," said the woman. "Mary thinks she could represent Iowa in a national championship."

"That's okay," said the driver, "as long as she lets my Harriet have her little piece of Iowa." And they both laughed.

Folks settled in even more and began to doze on the bus. Girls took out their paper dolls and started playing the make-believe games of childhood. One young boy, about ten, asked his mom and dad again why he couldn't bring his dog, Charlie, along.

"Because, what if Charlie needs to doodle?" the mom asked. "The bus driver can't just stop the bus for that."

"Yeah, but he stops the bus for us," said the child.

"That's because we're human beings."

"Charlie's just as good as us," said the little boy, not quite convinced of the difference between Charlie and the folks on the bus.

Hours later, as the family was getting off the bus, the child said to no one in particular, "I still think that Charlie could have made the trip with us humans."

People got on and off. The woman with the pickling cousin finally convinced the bus driver to, maybe, have his wife send them some of her prized pickles after they had given him a sample of her cousin's pickles. The bus driver thought it odd that they had pickles with them until he remembered that they had just been to a county fair event.

He wondered if the woman had brought them to her Nebraska cousin's just to enter them in the contest under an assumed name. He wondered if all of this would open up a can of worms.

But then he said to himself with a chuckle, No, they'll just be opening up a couple of jars of pickles.

Chapter Two

Most folks got off the bus in Des Moines for the night. A sign in the bus depot said young men were welcome to stay at the YMCA for a nominal fee. Hank Tyson and Tommy Fulton walked down to the YMCA to try and find a room. The fellow who had gotten on the bus last in Omaha was also there trying to find a bed for the night.

"Let's see now, the folks at the bus station said the YMCA was down here. Oh, there it is!" said Tommy. There it was, half a block down, on the other side of the street.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name" Hank said to the fellow who was walking with them.

"Jerry Martin, that's me," he said, holding out a hand to shake theirs.

"Let's see if they'll give us a deal, seeing as how there are three of us," Tommy said. This would become Tommy's signature phrase. His family must have been horse traders or something way back when; his deal-making would get them into more crazy situations than they cared to remember. He never did tell them where he got the nickname 'Scratch.'

"Where are you from and where are you headed?" Hank asked Jerry.

"Well, I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and I thought I'd give the east coast a try," he said.

"My granddad came over from Ireland back in 1885, and my father says Granddad talked about living in New York City for awhile, till he moved west," continued Jerry. "So I thought I'd retrace his steps, so to speak. Maybe I'll work for someone like the New York Yankees."

"How funny that you're going to New York City!" said Hank." At least I'll know two people when I get there. You and Scratch."

"Okay, fellas, here's the deal," Tommy said to the two of them. "We'll pretend we're stranded here and just need a room for the night. Maybe they'll let us stay for free." What a wheeler-dealer.

"Can I help you fellows?" asked the man at the registration desk in the YMCA.

"Uh, yeah," said Tommy. "We're kind of low on funds, and we were hoping we might be able to work a deal where we could have a room?"

"I see," the man smiled. "Well, I can probably help you out," said the man. "Come on in and take a load off." That was easy enough. They should have seen it coming.

"How long were you planning on staying?" asked the man at the desk.

"Oh, maybe just one day, I guess," said Tommy. "Do you think you could help us?"

"Well, maybe; I just don't know," he said, absentmindedly scratching his head. "How soon do you need to go on that bus?"

"Well, tomorrow I guess," Tommy...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Trafford
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1466972580
• ISBN 13: 9781466972582
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland