🎧 356: Lorna was enjoying ...

     Lorna was enjoying herself, seated at the center of a group of calculating women, working on a soap carving — it depicted the woman who had requested it in the passionate embrace of Gary Cooper — when Herb’s call came through. She and Herb decided that she should arrange to return home at once and that Herb should wake Ella and tell her the awful news.
     Herb stood in Ella’s doorway for a while, just watching her sleep and listening to her deep, untroubled breathing. He sighed and stepped to the side of her bed. He sat on the edge and put his hand on her shoulder.
     “Ella,” he whispered. “Ella.”
     She stirred, but she didn’t wake up.
     “Ella,” he said, so softly that Ella would have had difficulty hearing him if she’d been awake, “something awful has happened, and I have to tell you about it.” Ella stirred, stretched, and turned her head slightly, so that she almost seemed to be responding to him, but still she didn’t wake up. “Buster is dead, Ella,” Herb said, so quietly that Ella didn’t stir at the sound of his voice. “It’s terrible, terrible. I called your mother in Maryland. She’ll come home right away. She should be here tomorrow night, so we only have to get through tonight and tomorrow without her. Then she’ll be here, and she’ll — ”
     Ella stirred again. She turned onto her back, and she rolled her head away from Herb toward the window. Herb held his breath. He could feel his heart pounding, and in the quiet of the room he seemed to be able to hear it. He waited. Ella didn’t open her eyes.
     “She’ll know what to say, what to tell you. She’ll know what to do.” He put his hand on Ella’s cheek. “You can’t let this get the best of you, Ella,” he said. “You can’t let it — destroy you. You have a way of taking everything too hard. This isn’t the end of the world. You still have Bert.” He sighed. Oh, God, he thought. I hope I can come up with something better than that when she’s awake.
     The telephone rang. It startled him. He stood suddenly. Ella cried out and sat up in her bed.
     “It’s all right. It’s all right,” he assured her. He reached out to her, held her shoulders. “It’s all right, Ella. It’s only me.”
    “What’s the matter, Daddy?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
     “I — ”
     “The phone’s ringing.”
     “Yes. It’s — ”
     “Is it our ring?”
     “I don’t know. I — I didn’t pay attention.”
     “It is. It’s our ring. You’d better get it. It must be important.”
     “It’s probably your mother, Ella. I have to — I’ll be right back.” Herb backed out of the room, and he dashed down the hall to get the phone.

Have you missed an episode or two or several?

• You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archiveor consulting the index to the Topical Guide.

• You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.

• You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)

• At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” “Call Me Larry,” and “The Young Tars,” the nine novellas in Little Follies, and Little Follies itself, which will give you all the novellas in one handy package.

• You’ll find overviews of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.

The serialization of The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy is supported by its readers. I sometimes earn affiliate fees when you click through the affiliate links in a post. EK

The illustration in the banner that opens each episode is from an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions.

www.erickraft.com

www.babbingtonpress.com