There was a scuffle as Tyson reached down to pick up the boy, who sat upon the grass, playing with a twig. There was a hand that took up a rock. There was a rock that was smashed into the side of a man’s head. And there was sudden stillness from that man. Then there was a sheriff who came and took the baby boy into his own custody and delivered him into the arms of his wife, and then delivered Tyson to a Dewey County jailhouse cell.
There was a trial. The father and mother, abetted by the compassion of a jury of hungry, impoverished fellow sharecroppers—“there but for the grace of God” hardscrabble folk — were acquitted, but were forced to give up custody of their little boy Wink.
There was another trial. This one sent Wink’s seventeen-year-old brother not to reformatory school, but to jail — specifically to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, from which he would not be released until the year 1928.
1928 would be a very good year for Broderain Tyson, known as Tyson to his friends and fellow prisoners, Tie to his family, Honeybunches to his newlywed wife, and Brother to his youngest brother Wink, with whom he would be happily reunited. This year saw another reunion as well, between two former prison cellmates, who over time had become the best of friends.Wink would never be told how his life had been saved. Even if it had been carefully explained to him, he wouldn’t have fully understood. And yet there was something in his regard for his brother — a look of intense esteem and affection — that gave Gordie to wonder if perhaps there was a sense there — a feeling that Wink somehow knew that Tyson had once done a very good thing for him, a thing for which he should be forever grateful.
Or perhaps it was merely the affection that one brother will feel for another when all impediments to allegiance and devotion have been removed — something that Gordie Ames fully understood. For it worked the same way with friendship.
Yes, it worked the very same way.
1917 PRINCIPLED IN MASSACHUSETTS
When the magazine was first published in 1831 it was called A Boy’s Companion. It offered articles and stories of interest to young male readers. In 1857, the magazine began to cater to a readership of both boys and girls. Its name changed to The Young People’s Companion. In 1892, the magazine reinvented itself yet again and became The Family Companion, with pages devoted to every member of the family. There was even a section, titled “Remember When,” that revisited the halcyon days of America’s innocent youth (while deliberately avoiding mention of slavery, child labor, female indentureship by marital contract, and institutional discrimination against immigrants).
Dennis Bailey had written for The Family Companion for the last ten years. His office was on the fifth floor — the editorial floor — of the Family Companion Building, perhaps the most striking sandstone structure in all of Boston. The building was a commanding Romanesque edifice of arched doorways and windows, and elaborate oak woodwork that made Dennis, himself nearing the venerable age of forty, feel as if he were some titan of Boston finance rather than a mere scribbler of short stories.
Because it was a family magazine, the incredibly popular periodical had an editorial policy encouraging its writers to avoid pieces of an overtly political nature. Its editor-in-chief, Douglas McCalley, had agreed with his friend, former president Theodore Roosevelt, that there was far too much muckraking going on among the nation’s periodicals. “Best to leave political commentary to other, far less family-friendly magazines.”
However, this policy changed in dramatic fashion on April 6, when President Woodrow Wilson, scarcely a month into his second term in the White House — swept into office in large part through application of the chest-thumping isolationist slogan, “He kept us out of war”—asked Congress to declare war against Germany. On that day, America — and The Family Companion—committed itself hook, line, and sinker to the Franco-Anglo cause.
Dennis Bailey wasn’t happy. Several weeks later, after having read the Memorial Day editorial that McCalley planned to run in Thursday’s pre-Memorial Day issue of the magazine, Dennis called down to McCalley’s office and asked for five minutes of his employer’s time.
“For you, Bailey,” came McCalley’s jaunty response, “I’d be willing to give up nine, maybe even ten minutes of that precious commodity.”
McCalley was a jovial man who tried to see the humor in things. America’s sober involvement in the Great War—“The war to end all wars,” as President Wilson, a man given to meaty aphorisms, had called it — required that McCalley be a bit more sober himself. It was a behavioral change the sixty-one-year-old editor struggled daily to achieve.
The two men shook hands with the strong grip that bespoke their ten years of manful friendship. McCalley slapped his most popular writer of muscular fiction upon his sinewy back. “Been a while since our paths have crossed in this brick beehive of ours. Let me see your nose — not whittled down too much from application to that literary grindstone.” McCalley laughed and tried to coax a smile from his favorite staffer.
There was a glimmer of something agreeable in Dennis’s solemn countenance. But it quickly faded.
“Have a seat, Bailey. I enjoyed very much your story about the rescue of that lad from the ore conveyer. It was a ripping yarn — terribly good. You have a knack for writing just what our male readers, young and old, wish to read.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And I’m sure that you have something even more exciting in store for next week’s issue.” Dennis wrote for alternate issues of the weekly magazine. Some of his stories, like “Ore Bucket of Death,” were relatively short. Others, like the nautical tale “Shipwreck of the Sophronia Bordeen,” which had been published in the March 1 issue, ran over five thousand words and was greedily snatched up by the Famous Players-Lasky film company for immediate motion-picture adaptation.
“I just finished a first draft of a story about a young man compelled to enlist in the American Expeditionary Force.”
“Excellent. And will we see him upon the field of battle? Put some years and a thick moustache on him and we’ll call him Teddy Roosevelt. TR wants in this fight, you know. He’s going to petition the president to reassemble the Rough Riders.”
“Not a lot of room for cavalry horses in those trenches, sir.”
“True, true. I’m not quite sure just what it is that the colonel has in mind, but you can be certain it will be heroic. So the young man in your story, he goes off to war and what happens? Are you sending him over with the first infantry regiment?”
Dennis shook his head. “In actuality, Mr. McCalley, I’m not sending him over at all. His wife pleads for him to stay home with her and their newborn baby, and in the end he accedes to her wishes and exercises his exemption.”
“Oh. Well, we certainly can’t have that.”
“Why?”
“It sends the wrong message to our readers. The Family Companion is going to be behind this war one hundred percent. That means the stories we publish must also come out in support of the thousands of men who will be fighting under the American flag.”