Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1950)

for those we love, much as we'd like to. Saving them from getting hurt is one of the things. Sometimes we can make it easier, but most of the time they've just got to learn in their own way." She sighed, and I sat down again, knowing she was right. What could I have done anyway — gone over like an old bear and broken up Joseph's talking with this girl? And then what? "And anyway," Ma added, "a little flirtation might be just the thing for Joseph right now. He's been sort of unhappy lately, just drifting ... A little flirtation never hurt anybody, Shuffle." Somebody laughed behind us, and I turned to see Alfred Sinclair standing there. "Those are wonderful words, Mrs. Perkins," he said. "It is Mrs. Perkins, isn't it? Something tells me I ought to have a long talk with you. You say the kind of things that I like to hear." Ma said calmly, "I'd be glad to talk with you, Mr. Sinclair, any time." Mr. Sinclair was looking at her closely, as if he was trying to find out something by just looking, without asking any questions. Finally he said, "I don't mean to be impertinent, but I wonder . . . have you lived here a long time, Mrs. Perkins I mean — do you know the town well?" "The town, Mr. Sinclair?" Ma smiled, friendly, and he smiled back. "You don't mean do I know the names of the streets and so on, I guess. You want to know if I know the people? I think I do. I've been friends with many of them for so very long now . . . and I've been fond of many of them." "Yes," Mr. Sinclair said. "I believe you do know and love the whole town. I want to talk to you very much. I want to learn something about this town from you, if I may — " Suddenly, listening, I remembered what I'd lost sight of completely in all the excitement about Mr. Sinclair and Miss Morrison — the reason they were in Rushville Center at all. We had won a title, I reminded myself. America's typical town — the town that tells America's story. They were after us, trying to find out what makes us tick. It wasn't likely, as Ma had said, that a man like Mr. Sinclair would be fooled into thinking that this house and this party were real Rushville Center. Not on your life. He knew too much. He'd been around too much, anybody could see that. He must have seen in a minute how Mathilda Pendleton was putting it on for show, and how underneath this was a place for plain and simple folks. For the first time that night I began to really relax. "I want to see the way people here really live," Mr. Sinclair was saying. "The only way I can do the job I was sent down to do is by getting to be a part of Rushville Center." "Come and see us, Mr. Sinclair," Ma said graciously. "Come tomorrow night if you can, and have dinner with us — me and my family, and Shuffle here. And maybe Joseph will come too. That'd be a good way to start." "Perfect. Just the—" "Ah, Mr. Sinclair." Like a school of sharks, Mayor Ross with the Pendletons behind him surrounded us. Mathilda was trying hard to look' sweet, but you could see she really wanted to glare at us. I guess because her guest of honor was sitting there beside us as if he liked it. "We were just wondering about tomorrow night," Mayor Ross went on. He coughed apologetically. "Unfortunately, culture is . . . well, we can't offer much in the way of culture. Pictures you know, and music, and . . ." He stopped, his mouth open. "Ballet," Augustus put in helpfully. "Can't take you to a ballet, say — " Mayor Ross had figured out what else to say. "But there are certain things we feel you should see. The old church out on the back road, for example. They dug up some Indian tools there once. Arrowheads. Flints." Mr. Sinclair smiled. "Please don't go to any trouble," he said. "As a matter of fact Mrs. Perkins has been kind enough to ask me to have dinner with her family tomorrow night, so I — " "But you — that is, we planned . . ." Mayor Ross paused again. He seemed to having a hard time talking to Mr. Sinclair, who just looked at him patiently and waited for him to finish. The Mayor fiddled with his watch chain. "You have found a true gold mine of information in Mrs. Perkins," he said. Never have I wanted to take a poke at a fellow much as I did right then, but in another way I was enjoying myself too much. A gold mine, indeed! "She can tell you a great deal about . . . about people, and so on, who live here. However we'd like you not to miss our — " he gave something between a laugh and another cough — "our few points of real interest. The old church, now. And the Grange Hall. And there's a big new bottle factory going up — " Mr. Sinclair kind of unfolded himself. He was very tall, very solemn as he stood looking down at Mayor Ross. His voice was real gentle, like talking to a child. "These things about Rushville Center are probably extremely interesting," he 96 Listen To: Bill Stern's 'SPORTS NEWSREEL" Every Friday NBC 10:30 p.m. EST Read BILL STERN'S "SPORT SURPRISE" feature in the current issue of SPORT magazine now on newsstands said in that quiet way. "But I believe I'll wait for a while before I see them. You see ... I have an idea that it's more important, far more, for me to learn about the Rushville Center that Mrs. Perkins knows." He turned slightly and smiled down at Ma somehow as though they understood each other. "You see," he went on, "I have a feeling that Mrs. Perkins is Rushville Center." Mayor Ross got red as a beet. Mathilda gasped out "Well!" Augustus, he didn't do anything, and right then I felt he was the smartest of them. What was there he could do, when you got right down to it? I don't know as Mathilda ever got over what happened after that. Mr. Sinclair just concentrated on Ma like nobody else mattered in the whole room — I don't mean he showed bad manners or anything, but it was pretty plain he found her real interesting to talk to. Not just that evening, but all the rest of the time he was in town. Matter of fact they got to be real good friends after a while. Mr. Sinclair spent most of his days just sitting and talking with Ma, and I noticed that he never turned down any of her wonderful meals, either. Said he hadn't tasted that kind of cooking in so long, he'd almost forgotten it existed. Ma's apple cake and chicken pies and potato pancakes impressed Mr. Sinclair so much I thought he'd begin writing a recipe book instead. Ma was very happy when, just before they left Rushville Center when their work here was done, Mr. Sinclair and Anne Morrison decided to be married. Turned out Mr. Sinclair himself was from a town jusi like Rushville Center ... so what can you tell by just looking at a feller, I'd like to know? I guess maybe that was why he had sense enough to see that Ma — like he said — is Rushville Center. You'd have to understand a town like ours to see how a simple, plain person like Ma could be the heart and soul of it — -the one that folks come running to with their good news and bad, the one who's the most trusted friend of every living soul in the place. Ma doesn't need three maids and diamonds in the chandeliers to make her impression — not on the .right kind of people, those who know the real from the put-on. Which brings me back to what I was saying about inferiority complexes and how unnecessary they are. There I was, thinking Mr. Sinclair, being from the big city, would come round maybe poking fun at the things I'm fondest of — the quiet, ordinary, plain things that make Rushville Center the good place it is to live. Working hard, and sitting around a family dinner-table, and going downstreet to see a friend, and maybe walking up Main Street on a summer night. Things like that. But need I have bothered myself? Not on your life. If Mr. Sinclair himself had been a false front kind of a feller, with no real brains, then maybe he'd have sneered at our small-town ways. But if he'd been that kind it wouldn't have mattered a darn what he did! As it was, being he was a real worthwhile person, he understood. He turned to Ma, didn't he, like he'd known her always? And don't I turn to Ma, and haven't I from the first day I knew her I'm not counting how many years ago? So there you are. Mr. Sinclair and me, we look different, we think different, we live different. But down deep, where it matters, there's a lot goes on in both of us that's just the same. Come to think of it, I guess you can count on that being true with most decent, honest human beings.