ways remembered because he was in it, was the American Civil War. The War, he called it, like that, with capital letters. It was the only war he ever thought about. Whenever I would be telling my boys of my experiences over in France in 1918, grandpop would always pretend that he wasn't listening. And if I ever put it up to him direct he'd shrug his shoulders and stroke his beard and say just as though it wasn't nothing at all: "Yes, I heard something about you boys being in a little fracas over there in Europe. What did it amount to—much?"
I kind of suspect, thinking of it now that he's gone, that he was just having his little joke on me, but he never let on. I never did pretend to know, anyway, just what went on in his head, bald like a pumpkin it was, though he made up for it with that white beard of his which was longer than Moses.'
But before I get on to grandpop's favorite story about The War perhaps I ought to say something about our family. We're roamers, you know; always have been, though now we're sort of settled down because there's no need for moving about, what with railroads everywhere and fast ships and airplanes. But grandpop was always on the move; he floated barges down the Ohio and the Mississippi after The War; and his dad before him went out to California in forty-nine. My dad's been everywhere, too, and he dragged the whole lot of us every place.
I talked to a professor out at Notre Dame once and I didn't have to tell him that I was a roamer as he figured it right off from my talk. "Judging from your speech," says he, "I'd say you were born in South Carolina of New England parentage, got your education in California, and then went to live in New York."
Well, that professor wasn't so far wrong at that. Seems like our family never come from any place and never stayed any place long. By the way, did I tell you that our family name is Smith? That's a regular name and we're just regular folk. We're the Jed Smiths; likely as not you've heard of us. The oldest boy in our families has always been named Jed; grandpop's name was Jed, so's my dad's, and it's the same with me; we're the Jed Smiths. No matter where you live, it wouldn't be surprising if you'd run across one of us. Like I explained, we're from all over.
Grandpop, dad tells me, was a spry one in his day and while he always could see the funny side of life, there was one thing that riled him. You know how when you come to a new town folks usually greets you friendly like by saying: "Where you from, stranger?" Well, that used to get under grandpop's skin. He'd stare down at the townsman from his barge or a Conestoga wagon—whichever it was—and say with a flicker of a smile in his eye: "I'm from the United States. What the heck place is this?"
But dad, who's a more mild-mannered man, taught me to put it different. We were sailing off the east coast of Florida when I was a kid and dad and me took the jolly-boat one day to do a little fishing. But we was caught in some bad weather and got whipped about till I thought we'd sure seen our last day. The jolly-boat went over and we hung to it till the sun come out again. Then dad climbed up and straddled the keel and dragged me after him. It wasn't till nearly sun-
