A LOST BOY (Cont.)
Screen 2 of 3By now it was well past midnight and the bitter cold was taking its toll on both of us. Our hands and feet were almost numb and we were very tired and discouraged. At about the time I felt sure we would have to go back home and wait for Will Gooch there, Mother surprised me by announcing our next move. "We will go to the police station and seek help there. If the police have not seen your brother, they might have received some reports about him." This plan appealed to me. At least we could get warm at the police station.
So off we went. The small station in the basement of the City Hall must have been about half a mile from where we were, and we covered that short distance very quickly, in anticipation of help and warmth.
When we arrived, very cold and just about exhausted, we found two policemen, one asleep and the other listening to a radio. I later learned that these two made up one third of the entire Bowling Green police force. Of course, our arrival at such an odd hour in the midst of the heavy snowfall both surprised and puzzled them. But before we had time to explain our problem, the one listening to the radio greeted my mother by name, when she removed the scarf from her head.
"Why hello, Mrs. Travelstead. What on earth are you doing out at this time of night? Do you remember me? I'm Ed Ward. You used to teach me how to sing 'do, re, mi' up at Western."
"Well, Mr. Ward," Mother replied quickly, "I hope you have made some good use of that 'do, re, mi instruction. But we cannot discuss that matter now. We are here to ask for your help in finding my boy, Will Gooch. He is lost and we must find him."
By this time, the other policeman was barely awake but listening. They were both polite and willing to help, but neither one seemed to know what to do. "One of us must remain on duty here at the station," Mr. Ward declared almost pompously. But he then hesitated for a moment as he looked out at the falling snow and then added, "but I suppose I could go with you to look for Gooch." (Most people in Bowling Green knew my brother only as "Gooch" and called him that.)
"Of course, it won't do us much good to try walking now. The snow is too deep for that. But if we could just get our ole flivver started, we could use it." We all knew that the ole flivver was the only official vehicle owned by the police department. This old Model T Ford touring car was somewhat of a town joke, but that night we made no fun of it, since it seemed to be our only hope in what was turning out to be a very serious search.
"But it's pretty cold," Mr. Ward continued, "and hand cranking that Model T is not easy."
We did, however, get it started after many turns of the hand crank by Mr. Ward who carefully instructed me how to carry out the operation without breaking an arm. "You must not wrap your whole hand around the crank handle," he cautioned me just after I had tried it once to rest him. "You gotta tuck your thumb back next to the other fingers," he added, "or else that kickback of the crank will break your arm." I never forgot that advice, and it came in quite handy some years later when I was hand-cranking our own Model T Ford.
As we chugged slowly away from the station, I realized that in this old two-seated touring car without heater or side curtains we were no warmer than when we were walking earlier; but at least we were sitting down with a heavy cloth roof over our heads, and our feet were not in the snow.
With Mr. Ward driving, we cruised around slowly for about half an hour, looking for Will Gooch, but still we did not find him. I could tell Mr. Ward was becoming concerned, and it was obvious to me that Mother was then quite worried, even though she did not show it outwardly. She was always strong but quiet in such circumstances.
One edge of the paper route bordered on a small road known as the Glen Lilly Pike, and when we passed that point, my mother remembered that one of Will Gooch's school friends lived in that area. So she suggested to Mr. Ward that we drive down that pike for a short distance. "Perhaps Will Gooch stopped at his friend's house to get out of the snow," she offered as a possibility.
Mr. Ward agreed to drive farther, but somewhat reluctantly, because of his prediction that the "squad car" might run out of gas.
So down the Glen Lilly Pike we went, the snowfall by then not quite so heavy. After driving only a few hundred yards, we saw a small group of boys walking down the narrow road. Startled by our headlights, they moved over toward the ditch so we could pass. As we drew near, I spotted Will Gooch among the boys and exclaimed, "There he is!" "It couldn't be," Mother answered as she stuck her head to the side of the cracked wind-shield in order to see better. But in a moment when we stopped, all three of us saw my brother quite clearly as he squinted and grinned into the light.
"What in the world are you doing way out here, Will Gooch?" It was my mother taking charge, somewhat relieved of her anxiety about my brother's safety and unconsciously assuming a tone of irritation, if not downright anger.
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