IN SPITE of the proverb, a lucky prophet is sometimes honored in his home town, Jimmie thought. The train rounded down a grade; shredded steam blew back from the locomotive. The scenery became minute by minute more cogent, and at last, altogether familiar. Too familiar for Jimmie in a way. His eyes stung and the sensation astonished him. He had thought he was past all that, young to be past it—twenty-eight—but past it, nonetheless. As far past as if he were ninety and the very ducts that carry tears had dried up. He grinned, sniffed in a breath, and yanked the back of his hand across the upper part of his face. Six years in England—and in two more minutes, home.
The train clanged out on the high iron bridge over the Muskogewan. He could see the skating house—white snow and ice, fast water, brightly dressed kids whizzing among the grownups—and that was gone; the Dairymeade barns flashed past—the fields, rolling, black, white, lithographic; home—after all these years! The red brick station was swinging into view around the curve. A warm flush pervaded him, as if he had stepped in front of a fireplace.
Jimmie grappled with the heaviest of his leather suitcases, the one most battered, deepest scratched, most raggedly shingled with European hotel labels. There was a big “V” pasted on its side. He was on the platform when the train slowed. There was his father-six years older, not looking it; his mother—red-cheeked, gray-haired, handsome; and there was his brother, Biff—he’d be twenty-one, now—Jimmie had already made the adjustment in his mind. He looked for his sister. Sarah had been twelve when he’d gone away on the Rhodes Scholarship. At first, he glanced past the pretty woman. He realized, while his eyes were in a nether focus, that the pretty woman was Sarah. The whole fam dambley. It was wonderful!
He hopped down while the train was still slowing and slid in the snow a little way and kissed his mother and his sister and shook hands twice, each, with his father and his brother. There were other people waiting to greet Jimmie, but those people let his family have the first crack; they simply stood around, grinning and happy.
Jimmie’s eyes were taking in the changes of six years and he was pleased with what he saw. Sarah, especially, was like a miracle. But the others weren’t quite pleased.
Their expressions showed it, inch-meal. Perhaps he had more of an accent than he’d thought.
“You’ve changed, son!” His father seemed truculent about it.
Jimmie chuckled. “A kid went to Oxford. This is what’s coming back.”
“Terribly thin,” his mother said. “It’s the rations, no doubt.”
Jimmie still laughed. “Oh, I got plenty to eat. Lord! Sarah! Hollywood’ll send for you if you show that face around much!”