"John D. Fitzgerald - The Great Brain At the AcademyUC - 4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitzgerald John D)

laughed at him, including his own family. We all thought
he was trying to play some kind of a kid's joke on us. But
after he had used his great brain to swindle all the kids in
town and make fools of a lot of grownups nobody laughed
at my brother anymore.

I think that was why just about everybody in town
except his own family was glad to see Tom leave Adenville
on September 1, 1897. And I couldn't help thinking that
Papa must have felt kind of relieved too, although he
didn't show it. Papa was editor and publisher of the Aden-

ville Weekly Advocate and was considered one of the
smartest men in town. But some of the shenanigans Tom
had pulled with his great brain were enough to make Papa
feel like a blooming idiot. Now he wouldn't have to worry
about men dropping into his office to complain that Tom
had swindled their sons. Mamma cried a lot at the depot
but she also must have felt at least a little relief. She
wouldn't have to worry for the next nine months about
mothers telephoning her to complain about Tom. The
truth of the matter, though, was that although Tom had
been a junior-grade confidence man since he was eight
years old, he had never realty cheated anybody. With his
great brain he simply devised schemes that made people
swindle themselves.

Tom and my eldest brother Sweyn were bound for the
Catholic Academy for Boys in Salt Lake City. We only
had a one-room schoolhouse in Adenville, where Mr.
Standish taught the first through the sixth grades. Any
parents wanting their kids to get a higher education had to
send them to Salt Lake City. Tom was only eleven going
on twelve but so smart that Mr. Standish had let him skip
the fifth grade. Sweyn was two years older and going back
to the academy for his second year. A stranger who saw us
three brothers together would never have guessed we were
related. Sweyn looked like our Danish-American mother,
with blond hair and a light complexion. I had dark unruly
hair and dark eyes, just like Papa- Tom didn't look like
either Mamma or Papa unless you sort of put them to-
gether, and he was the only one in the family who had
freckles.

Tom promised to write to me every week. The first
letter I received told me how he had spotted a card shark

on the train. I didn't find out all the details, though, until
my brothers came home for Christmas vacation. Then I got
Sweyn to tell me what had happened and later Tom told