"No, my home's back in Ohio," I said. "A friend of mine came from there. Name of Clymer."
He didn't know him, but he remembered that one of the town boys had gone on that second expedition to Mars.
"Yeah," I said. "That was Jim." He couldn't keep it in any longer. "What's it like out there, anyway?"
I said, "Dry. Terrible dry."
"Ill bet it is," he said. "To tell the truth, it's too dry here, this year, for good wheat weather. Last year it was fine. Last year.. "
Cuffington, Nebraska, was a wide street of stores, and other streets with trees and old houses, and yellow wheat fields all around as far as you could see. It was pretty hot, and I was glad to sit down iu the bus depot while I went through the thin little phone book.
There were three Graham families in the book, but the first one I called was the right oneMiss lla Graham. She talked fast and excited, and said she'd come right over, and I said I'd wait in front of thi-' bus depot.
I stood underneath the awning, looking down the quiet street and thinking that it sort of explained why Jim Cly- mer had always been such ~ quiet, slow-moving sort of guy. The place was sort of relaxed, like he'd been. A coupe pulled up, and Miss Graham opened the door. She was a brown-haired girl, not especially good-looking, but the kind you think of as a nice girl, a very nice girl. She said, "You look so tired that I feel guilty now about asking you to stop."
"1m all right," I said. "And it's no trouble stopping over a couple of places on my way back to Ohio."
As we drove across the little town, I asked her if Jim hadn't had any family of his own here.