“Never mind them now. We will see about them later. We are going away, going to Kansas City. I have been promoted after all these years.”

“But I will lose my job,” I demurred.

“I’ll get you another job. Don’t worry. Do you want a regular job, working all day, or would you like to go to school some more?”

I decided to have an all-day job, and let the school go.

“All right,” he said, “we’ll see about it.”

My father made no fuss about leaving the small town where he had spent ten years of his life. He had no close friends or cronies. After my mother died, he seldom spoke to anyone but me, and I think he was glad to go away. He was a cold, hard, silent Scotch-Irishman. He took no part in social doings, never went to church, belonged to no clubs; nor was he enough interested in politics to become a citizen and exercise the high privilege of voting on election day.