Beyond the Black Stump Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyone to play with him. The men of his generation were dispersed, married, and working in jobs, and none of his generation of High School girls remained unmarried in the district. Chuck Sheraton was a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and likely to remain so; he had flown Sabres in Korea with a good combat record, but he was allergic to discipline and every time he rose a little in the estimation of the Air Force he got out of line, and got slammed down again. He was stationed at an Air Force base down in Texas now as an instructor, with Ruth and their four children; they were coming home on leave to Hazel in September, and Stanton looked forward to their coming. In the meantime fishing and riding in the mountains did not occupy him fully, and for the first time in his life he began to take an interest in his father’s business.
    He was no salesman, though he delighted in the glorious new motor cars. Laird Motors Inc., however, had developed a large tractor business in that agricultural community, and the adaptation of the tractors to various uses in the lumber industry had caused them to set up a considerable workshop for the manufacture of special parts and tools. Behind the automobile showroom and the service station was a busygeneral engineering shop, and this the geologist began to find absorbing in its interest. He had a good theoretical knowledge of metals and their properties but he had never before seen much of their manipulation. The conception, the design of a special forklift for a certain purpose in the Hronsky sawmill which should button on to an existing tractor interested him greatly; when it failed on test owing to a burnt weld he found that he could offer some constructive help in the selection of a better type of steel, based on his experiences at the drilling rigs. These minor engineering creations became of real interest to him in the weeks he was at home, and whenever he had nothing else to do he would find his way down to the shop and sit about watching the lathes and milling machines paring down the steel, and chatting to the men.
    It was the middle of August before the letter from Mr. Johnson arrived. The mail reached Hazel at noon, and he found it waiting for him when he returned after a day’s fishing. “There’s a letter from New York for you, Junior,” his mother said. “Maybe it’s the one that you’ve been waiting for.”
    “I guess it is,” he said. He went into the kitchen and unloaded five small trout and two rainbows on to the steel drainboard. His father came through. “That’s a good fish,” he said, pointing. “Want your letter now?”
    “I’ll wash my hands first, Dad,” he said. He did so, and slit the letter open with the patent opener that stood upon his father’s desk. He stood in fishing clothes reading it in silence, while his parents watched. Then he folded the letter and put it in his pocket.
    His mother asked, “Do they say where you’re going?”
    “Kind of difficult, Mom,” he said thoughtfully. “They’ve given me a choice—Paraguay or Australia. I’ll have to think it over.”
    Disappointed, his mother said, “There wouldn’t be a chance of a job here in the United States?”
    He had explained this to her before. “Not unless I get myself married, Mom.”
    She said nothing, and he went slowly to his room to park his fishing gear, unreel his line to dry, and change his clothes. Later in the evening, when they switched off after
I Love Lucy
, he said thoughtfully to his father, “You know what, Dad? I believe I’ll go to Australia.”
    His mother said, “Why, Junior? It’s much further away for coming home on leave.”
    “I like the sound of it better, Mom.” For half an hour he laid out the alternatives before them. In each case Topex were to function, in a sense, as exploration contractors working for a national company. In each case the assignment would be for approximately two years. In Paraguay the location would be jungle country, hot