🎧 283: When Andrew Proctor ...

WHEN ANDREW PROCTOR returned to Chacallit, more than two thousand people were waiting on the platform at the railroad station to greet him. He was Chacallit’s hero. He had, single-handedly, taken a hill, saved his captain, and captured a German officer, but his exploits were already being exaggerated, so that in the conversation of Chacallit, he had, single-handedly, taken a hill, a ridge, a bridge, and the bank of a river, saved his captain, a trio of buddies, and a nurse, captured a German officer, a patrol, a regiment. No one in Chacallit would have dared correct the exaggerations. Nor would anyone have cared to correct them. Chacallit was proud to have a hero, and the more heroic he was, the better. Andrew was carried from the train on the shoulders of two stout men, and within an hour a dozen men were claiming to have been one of them. The men set Andrew down at the side of the mayor, who recounted the version of Andrew’s deeds that he favored. No one was in any mood to quibble about the accuracy of this version — certainly not Andrew, who was so overwhelmed by the admiration of his townsfolk that he couldn’t trust himself to speak and was happy just to smile and wave. Standing directly in front of Andrew was Lorna. When Andrew looked at her, he caught her in one of her moments. Lorna struck him as so beautiful a young woman that he stepped away from the mayor, put his arm around her, and kissed her. It was an extraordinary thing to do, but this was an extraordinary occasion, and Andrew was being honored because he had done extraordinary things. It seemed, once he had done it, like exactly the right thing for an extraordinary young fellow to do. No one minded, not even Lorna, who blushed but considered this a kiss inspired by nothing more than exuberance. Andrew had hardly noticed Lorna before he left Chacallit, but at just that moment he decided that he was in love.
     Andrew was an immediate success with Richard and Lena Huber, and Lorna was quite taken with him herself. He wasn’t bad looking, after all, and he was the talk of the town.
     Almost at once, Andrew and Lorna were considered a couple. Andrew’s father was pleased by his son’s choice. Mr. Proctor was wary of girls who were too pretty, since they were likely to be as attractive to other men as to their husbands. Lorna seemed just right to him. He considered her looks ordinary — pretty enough, but ordinary. (True, he admitted to himself, every now and then she struck him as positively dazzling, but that, he thought, was probably the effect of certain desires of his own that ought to be suppressed.) Mr. Proctor was a successful man, and his success enabled Andrew to employ the courting arsenal of a successful man. He was able to give gifts and arrange outings, surprises, and treats. Lorna enjoyed being courted so lavishly, enjoyed being part of Chacallit’s favorite couple, and enjoyed being the envy of the other girls in town, and she began to think that she was in love with Andrew.

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