"John D. Fitzgerald - The Great Brain ReformsUC - 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitzgerald John D)

Reforms

CHAPTER ONE

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f { The Return Home ' < 1

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y ╗' MY BROTHER TOM and eldest brother Sweyn ar-
rived home for summer vacation on Sunday, June 5, 1898.
I remember the date very well because, just two weeks
later, the entire town of Park City was 4estro"yed by the
worst fire in the history of Utah. My brothers had been
attending 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. I had just finished the fourth, grade and wouldn't
be going away to the academy for two years.

Tom kept looking around when he got off the train at
the depot, as if he expected Mayor Whitlock with a wel-

coming committee and the town band to meet him. But
for my money he was lucky the mayor wasn't there with
an unwelcoming committee. And, if the town band had
been there, they would have been playing a funeral march
and not "Hail The Conquering Hero."

I know this sounds like a cruel thing to say about my
own brother. But Tom was different "from any other kid in
town because he had a great brain and a money-loving
heart. And, when you put them together, you get the
youngest confidence man who ever lived. Tom was so
smart, that he'd skipped the fifth grade, so he was only
twelve when he came home from the academy. But he had
begun his career as a swindler at the age of eight. There
wasn't a kid in town he hadn't swindled, including me. I
guess that was why the only kids at the depot to meet him
were me and our five-year-old foster brother, Frankie.
Tom. had also made fools out of a lot of adults in town with
his great brain. I think that is why the only grownups to
meet him were Papa, Mamma, my Uncle Mark, and Aunt
Cathie. Aunt Bertha had remained at home to start pre-
paring supper. She really wasn't our aunt. She had come