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Show 149 The rest was easy. My occasional dates with Monroe boys for the school dances only whetted his jealousy, and pretty soon he was calling me his little queen, teaching me riding tricks and seeking me out at every opportunity. Mama and Papa soon saw the writing on the wall, so Papa sent him to Uintah for the summer, to look after the interests there. When he got back I was in love with another fellow, Tommy, the son of a millionaire from New Jersey. His last name was Thomas, Eugene Reynold. He had been a buddy of Clayton Parker, the bishop's son, in the war, and had admired him greatly. Tommy had been gassed and told he would not live, so he had simply walked away from the hospital and come to see Clayton. Although he had finished High School and was twenty-two, he went an extra year with Clayton. He quickly became the hub around which South Sevier co-eds turned. We all loved him, and felt loved in return. "The more I see of the lot of them, " he said, quoting Kipling. "The less I am settled to one. Tommy was everything Ershel was not: slender, cultured, and debonair. We couldn't understand him because of his Boston accent. He brought poetry into our lives, quoted the masters, Byron, Shelley, but mostly Kipling. He wore expensive clothes carelessly. Clayton said that when he and Tommy went on dates when he had visited on his way home from France, they were given the use of a liveried chauffer and a limousine by Tommy's father. They lived in the center of a large estate, with a gate house, gardeners, maids and acres of green lawn. |