Boys Life

lights?”
    “Need to study that a little more, Inez. Get to it first thing in the mornin’.”
    “Yes sir. I’ll be goin’ on, then.” She retreated from the mayor’s domain and closed the door and said to me, “He’ll be with you in two minutes.” As I waited, Mrs. Axford locked her desk, got her sturdy brown purse, and straightened the photographs on her desk. She wedged her purse up under her arm, took a long look around the office to make sure everything was in its proper place, and then she walked out the door into the hallway without saying boot, shoot, or scoot to me.
    I waited. Thunder boomed overhead and rolled through the courthouse. I heard the rain start-slowly at first, then building up to a hammering.
    The door to the mayor’s office opened, and Mayor Swope emerged. The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up, his initials in white on the breast pocket, his suspenders striped with red. “Cory!” he said, smiling. “Come in and let’s have us a talk!”
    I didn’t know what to make of this. I knew who Mayor Swope was and all, but I’d never spoken to him. And here he was, smiling and motioning me into his office! The guys would believe this about as much as they believed I’d stuck a broomstick down Old Moses’s throat!
    “Come in, come in!” the mayor urged.
    I walked into his office. Everything was fashioned of dark, glistening wood. The air smelled of sweet pipe tobacco. There was a desk in the office that seemed as big as the deck of an aircraft carrier. Shelves were full of thick, leatherbound books. They looked to me as if they had never been touched, because none had bookmarks in them. Two burly black leather chairs faced the desk over an expanse of Persian carpet. Windows afforded a view of Merchants Street, but right now the rain was streaming down them.
    Mayor Swope, his gray hair combed back from a widow’s peak and his eyes dark blue and friendly, closed the door. He said, “Have a seat, Cory.” I hesitated. “Doesn’t matter which one.” I took the one on his left. The leather pooted when I sat down in it. Mayor Swope settled himself in his own chair, which had scrolled armrests. On his flattop of a desk was a telephone, a leather-covered jar full of pens, a can of Field and Stream tobacco, and a pipe rack cradling four pipes. One of the pipes was white, and had a man’s bearded face carved into it.
    “Gettin’ some rain out there, aren’t we?” he asked, his fingers lacing together. He smiled again, and this close I saw his teeth were discolored.
    “Yes sir.”
    “Well, the farmers need it. Just so we don’t have another flood, huh?”
    “Yes sir.”
    Mayor Swope cleared his throat. His fingers tapped. “Are your folks waitin’ for you?” he asked.
    “No sir. I came on my bike.”
    “Oh. Gosh, you’re gonna have a wet ride home.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “Wouldn’t be good,” he said, “if you had an accident on the way. You know, with that rain comin’ down so hard, a car could hit you, you could go down in a ditch and…” His smile had slipped. Now it crept back. “Well, it wouldn’t be good.”
    “No sir.”
    “I suppose you’re wonderin’ why I wanted to see you?”
    I nodded.
    “You know I was on the panel that judged the writin’ contest? I enjoyed your story. Yessir, it deserved a prize.” He picked up a briar pipe and popped open the can of tobacco. “It surely did. You’re the youngest person ever to win a plaque in the contest.” I watched his fingers as he began to fill the pipe’s bowl with bits of tobacco. “I checked the records. You’re the youngest by far. That ought to make you and your folks very proud.”
    “I guess so.”
    “Oh, you don’t have to be so modest, Cory! I sure couldn’t write like that when I was your age! Nosir! I was good at math, but English wasn’t my subject.” He produced a pack of matches from his pocket, struck one, and touched it to the tobacco in his pipe. Blue smoke bloomed around his mouth. His eyes were on me. “You’ve got a keen imagination,” he said. “That part in your story about seein’ somebody standin’ in the woods across the road. I liked that part. How’d you happen to come up with that?”
    “It really-” Happened, I was going to say. But before I could, somebody knocked at the door. Mrs. Axford looked in. “Mayor Swope?” she said. “Lord, it’s pourin’ cats and dogs! I couldn’t even get to my car, and I just had my hair fixed yesterday! Do