CHAPTER NINETEENBud Lassiter
He hadn’t really thought he would find someone to talk with as long as he lived, but Bud found to his astonishment that now he had not one but two with whom he could discuss ideas and books and world affairs. The things that mattered to him had seemed never to interest those about him, which had caused him to shut his mind away inside his skull, safe from gossip about local people and talk of farming and fishing or the latest row in the church.
Even his mother had been inarticulate, too hard-pressed to think or talk by the stresses of getting food onto the table, clothing onto the backs of the children, and those same youngsters educated as much as she could manage. She was a bright woman worn out before her time. Bud had felt a warm communication with her th
