Modern Screen (Dec 1942 - May 1943)

from the papers. He said he thought he'd come home. She said, "Do, son." When he got there, he didn't talk much, didn't explain. "I don't know," he said. "I don't understand myself how the thing happened." Not being the kind to probe, she left him alone. "He was always one to carry his own load." In Hollywood she saw Anne, but Anne doesn't talk, either. One thing she's sure of — there was no other man or woman in the picture. For the rest, "I don't know," she sighs, echoing John. "I still can't understand it — "He was always one to carry his own load." If her story of John has a theme, that's it. From babyhood almost, he went his own way, quieter, more self-sufficient than the other boys. His feeling for music showed itself early. Before he could talk, he'd lift an eager head to listen when his mother played or sang. Later he took lessons, but only for a year or two. "I can't learn that way," said the twelve-year-old individualist. "I've got to find things out for myself." That was all right with her. She believes in letting people follow their own bent and, unlike some, considers her children people. They moved from Roanoke to their beautiful home on a fifty-acre farm at Ft. Lewis — a dream of John's father come true. The boys rode as naturally as they walked, had their own chickens to look after, learned to milk cows. Each boy had his own dressing-room and a big sleeping porch. George was five years older than John, Ralph, five years younger — too far apart to be playmates in their early days. They called George, Bill, to distinguish him from his father, and Ralph was called Pete for no particular reason. John was never anything but John. The other two tagged around with a bunch of kids, John went off by himself. Not that he was unsocial. If there were people around, he enjoyed them. But they weren't essential to him, and he didn't seek them out. He could always have a good time on his own, swimming, hiking through the woods, building model airplanes. He'd spend hours in the big ballroom oil the third floor — which wasn't used for balls — building planes that would fly two or three miles. The epic battle of those years was brought on by his failure to turn a sheet into a parachute. "Yah!" yelled the other kid, "it doesn't work." So John lit into him. His fights were his own business, but this time he got home so gory that Mrs. Payne couldn't smother an exclamation. " 'S'all right, Mom. I won." As soon as she dared, she followed him to the ballroom where, still blood and dirt-caked, he was trying to make the parachute work. He was headstrong, but not hard to handle. There's a difference, his mother maintains. Once set on a thing, he'd move mountains. Tell him he couldn-'t or he mustn't, and he wouldn't hear you. But he had a logical mind, and if you took the time and trouble to reason with him — as she did — you could make him see the light. Except on one point. There were certain vegetables he wouldn't eat. When sweet reasoning failed, Mrs. Payne turned in desperation to more Spartan measures. "We'll sit here," she said, "till you've eaten them, if it takes all night," They sat till his head drooped, and she had to pick him up and carry him off to bed. "After all," she protests, as if to some invisible accuser, "you can't force food into a sleeping child's mouth." So she gave him his vegetables in Brunswick stew, a Southern tidbit he dotes on. Traditionally, it's made with squirrel. Mrs. Payne didn't fancy that. Being one of your creative cooks, she fooled around till she got the right effect with a streak of lean and a streak of fat. Where food was concerned, John presented no other problems. He'd drink his daily half gallon of milk-=still does — and consume a pound of bacon at breakfast if he could get it. Balked by paternal veto, he'd stroll out to the kitchen and snitch a few strips from the cook. One year he grew seven inches, so where the other kids had two and three suits, he was rationed to one at a time and would barely get it settled over his frame before the frame started cracking the seams. John wasn't exactly awkward, says his loyal mother, but you couldn't be sure, when he was around, whether a pitcher would stay on the table or hit the floor. His dad split no hairs on the subject. "Put a bucket of water in a ten-acre field," he'd say, "and John will land in the bucket." It was an idyllic kind of boyhood. Their place was the happy hunting ground for the crowd. They always brought their dates home, and why not. You couldn't have a better time anywhere (Continued on page 83) Out of the post — 18-year-old Anne and husband John as they used, to be. Music had a special spot in their hearts, then. 28 MODERN SCREE*