| Herb ’n’ Lorna (A Love Story) | by Eric Kraft, as Peter Leroy |
| Chapter 13: | |
| In Which Coarse Goods Buy Herb and Lorna a Home of Their Own |
 |
 N
TIME, prosperity, at least relative prosperity, returned. The new
management at Studebaker strengthened the company by eliminating weaknesses.
They gave up on their unprofitable line of small, economical cars named
for Knute Rockne, the football coach at Notre Dame, and sold the Peirce-Arrow
company, which Studebaker had owned since 1928. By 1935, Studebakers
were selling well again, and the company was turning a profit. The Babbington
dealership was sold to out-of-towners who paid its debts, and Herb was
able to smile and pretend that he agreed with Lorna when she told him that
events had proved that he hadn’t done a foolish Piper thing after all.
The new owners built a modern showroom down the street from the original
site, and at the grand opening Garth gave a good imitation of his old charm
and verve.
Studebaker then took a step the importance of which can’t be exaggerated. The company hired Raymond Loewy, the gifted visionary, as its chief designer. Loewy’s arrival ushered in a period of daring, distinctive design that set Studebakers emphatically apart from other makes. In 1950 he and the team he directed would produce the famous bullet-nosed models and, a few years later, the beautiful Starliner coupes, but in the opinion of more than one Studebaker historian, the Loewy designs would lead, ultimately, to the demise of the company. Ina Schildkraut, for example, writing in Those Fabulous Studes, says of Loewy’s impact on the fortunes of the company: Loewy’s was a classic case—the case of the artist (an artist whose medium was the sheet-metal skins of automobiles) with ideas too avant-garde for mass taste. From the very first, Loewy’s designs disturbed the hidebound Yahoos who, sad to say, bought most of the cars produced in this country. Their reaction was the familiar one of half-wits everywhere when confronted with something they don’t understand. They shielded themselves with ridicule, mockery. Philistines from coast to coast found that Loewy’s designs inspired them to commit humor. Typical: the gas jockey’s exaggerated puzzlement over which end of the car was supposed to receive the gas. Droll, no? Add any number of variations on, “Say, Bub, how can you tell if you’re comin’ or goin’ in that thing?” Loewy’s designs for Studebaker were among the most exciting in the history of the automobile, but (sad to say, oh, sad to say) hiring him and giving him his head may well have been the worst business decisions in the history of the company.The ultimate failure of Studebaker was still a long way off, however, and for the time being Lorna and Herb were enjoying the feeling that they had made it through difficult times. They were doing all right again, and they felt that they needed, and deserved, a reward. The reward that occurred to both of them was a home of their own. A coolness, a distance, had developed between May and Garth that made life at May’s less than pleasant. Lorna and Herb were always, awkwardly, in the middle, listening to the confidences of one or the other, trying to offer the right advice, trying to bring back the happiness that had been in the house not so long ago. They couldn’t keep it up, and so Lorna and Herb decided, in the flush of optimism that their returning prosperity brought with it, to buy themselves a house. To provide a down payment, each of them, in secret, got from the appropriate uncle an advance on future coarse-goods work. One night, when Herb had his money in hand, he burst through the door wearing one of those ear-to-ear grins. “Lorna,” he said, “I’ve got great news.” “Why, I have, too, Herb,” said Lorna. “Me first,” said Herb. “Mine’s too good to keep. You don’t mind, do you?” “No. I don’t mind at all. You go ahead.” “I—no, you go. I can see you want to. Go ahead.” “It’s all right, Herb, really. You go.” “No, you, Lorna. It wasn’t fair of me to—” “Herrrb!” “All right. Look at this!” He took a wad of bills from his pocket and fanned them in front of Lorna. “Herb!” said Lorna. “Where did you—?” “From the Studebaker company!” “The Studebaker company?” “That’s right. I never said anything to you, because I didn’t want to worry you, but they held back part of my pay during the bad times. I never thought I’d see a penny of it, and then all of a sudden, today, Garth called me into his office and handed me this.” “In cash?” “Sure, in—well, no. No, not in cash. Of course not. A bank draft, but I cashed it. I cashed it right away because—because—I guess it was because I must have been worried that they’d go out of business before I could cash it. That must have been it.” “Well, wait till you see this,” said Lorna. She produced a similar wad of bills. “Where’d you get that?” asked Herb. “From Mr. Joseph. The jeweler.” “What for?” “Why, the same as you. I hadn’t told you either. Mr. Joseph held back some of my pay, when he wasn’t able to pay me, sometimes.” “He did?” “Isn’t that a coincidence?” “It’s practically unbelievable,” said Herb. “It is, isn’t it?” said Lorna. “He paid you cash?” asked Herb. “Yes,” said Lorna. “Yes, he did. Cash. This cash. Just like this.” “Hm,” said Herb. “What luck,” said Lorna. “You know, I think we have enough to look for a house.” “Oh, I’m sure of it,” said Herb. In the western part of Babbington, the part they had first entered on that rainy night when they arrived from Chacallit, they found a house that suited them. It was on an unnamed street off Bay Way, the road that led from Main Street to the bay. At the corner of this unnamed street was a sign, erected by the Babbington Department of Public Works, a sign with a temporary look, not the job of a practiced sign painter. It said CAUTION NO BRIDGE. The little street ended, abruptly, as the dozen or so little streets parallel to it ended, at a canal that reached inland from the bay, providing access to the water for an area that would otherwise have been landlocked. For years after the canal was dug, no one considered building a bridge over it, since nothing was available on one side that wasn’t available on the other. In the twenties, however, Fred and Shirley Mintz bought a piece of land along the bay front and created Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club, a nice spot with a smooth beach, a lifeguard, an outdoor shower, a small lunch counter, and a pleasant pavilion where one could relax at a table in the shade. The Mintzes reasoned that their enterprise would better prosper if families on the other side of the canal could get to it more easily, so they began agitating for a bridge across the canal. At that time both the mayor of Babbington, Andy Whitley, and the head of the Babbington Department of Public Works, Walt Whitley, lived on the Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club side of the canal. Both Andy and Walt enjoyed complimentary family memberships in the club, which they had won, Fred and Shirley assured them, in a random drawing. Andy and Walt didn’t want to upset the Mintzes and lose their complimentary family memberships, so, in their capacities as Mayor and head of the BDPW respectively, they decided that the Mintzes should get their bridge as soon as possible. On the other hand, neither Andy nor Walt wanted the quiet streets in that part of town to become congested with Fred and Shirley’s Shore Club traffic, and neither wanted the club to become crowded with people from the other side of the canal, so they decided to take “as soon as possible” to mean “never.” Walt had the BDPW conduct a study to determine the best location for a bridge; they chose the narrow, unpaved street, and Walt launched a flurry of activity designed to keep the Mintzes happy. He had the street surveyed, widened, and paved, and then he and Andy set the project adrift in studies and committee meetings and budget hearings, where it has languished, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, to this day. The sign—CAUTION NO BRIDGE—was erected to suggest to the Mintzes that though there was no bridge yet, there would be one soon, and the street came to be called, by everyone who lived nearby, No Bridge Road. On No Bridge Road, on the north side, about midway between Bay Way and the canal, was a pretty little stucco house that struck Lorna and Herb as just right. It had a tile roof and a large, solid front door with a rounded top. The door opened into the living room, a long room with a fireplace. To the right was a dining room, and beyond the dining room, toward the rear of the house, was the kitchen. Two steps up at the rear of the living room was a hallway. Off this hallway, on the right, was the bathroom. Across from it was a small bedroom for Ella. At the end of the hall was a large bedroom for Herb and Lorna. The house was owned by a Mrs. Stolz, who had been living in it alone for a year and a half, since the death of her husband. She had finally decided that she could no longer support it. “A house needs a man to keep it up,” she said, while she was showing Lorna and Herb through it. “Things have to be fixed, and I can’t do it. I don’t know how. I never knew how.” “Can’t you find someone to keep it up for you?” asked Lorna. “A handyman, a carpenter?” “Oh, I can’t afford that,” said Mrs. Stolz. “And it isn’t the same. A man doesn’t keep up a place the same if it isn’t his. You can’t blame him, really. His heart isn’t in it. He’s only working for money.” “Where will you go?” asked Lorna. “Do you have children to live with?” “Oh, I wouldn’t bother them,” said Mrs. Stolz. “Your welcome doesn’t last very long if you’re planning to stay forever, if you know what I mean. I’m going to get a room at the River Sound Hotel. It will suit me just fine, I think.” That night Lorna and Herb lay awake in the dark, each thinking about the house, trying to remember it precisely, imagining life there, and trying to be still about it, in order not to wake the other, but neither was breathing like a person asleep, and finally the thought of crocuses coming up in the little lawn in the spring became so vivid in Lorna’s mind’s eye that she giggled from the pleasure of it. She tried to stifle the giggle, and she did muffle the sound, but still she made the bed tremble with the rhythm of a giggle. “You’re awake too,” said Herb. “Mm,” said Lorna. “What do you think of it?” asked Herb. Lorna snuggled up to him and kissed his ear. “I think it’s just right,” she said. “That’s what I think,” said Herb. “It’s just right.” “The little bedroom could be very pretty with some new wallpaper and ruffled curtains,” said Lorna. “We can build a garage on the east side of the house, with a grease pit and space for some tools, welding equipment, and stuff like that,” said Herb. “Do you think we could paint the dining room green?” “We could put a screened porch between the garage and the house, with movable blinds, so that we can have sun or shade, whichever we want.” “Could you build a corner cupboard for the dining room, for that corner in the front, away from the living room?” “Sure. I could build a workshop in the cellar too.” “I want to plant flowers everywhere. Crocuses in the lawn, roses beside the steps, morning glories along the fences.” “And we could build a den in that ell between the kitchen and our bedroom, with a door off the hall, a secret door, set into the paneling, with a hidden latch, or maybe a door hidden behind a bookshelf,” said Herb. “Oh, Herb,” said Lorna. She was laughing. “That’s a dumb idea, isn’t it, a hidden door?” “Oh, no, Herb. It’s not a dumb idea. It’s not a dumb idea at all. I’m not laughing at what you want to do. I’m laughing because I’m happy.” The weeks before they moved were busy ones for Herb. He and Lorna had little furniture of their own, since the apartments they’d rented had been furnished. Herb had made Lorna’s work table and a crib for Ella. Now he made a bed for him and Lorna and a smaller copy of it for Ella, who was seven now, dressers for all of them, and a dining-room table. They bought several other items from Mrs. Stolz, who was pleased not to have to move them or find out how little they interested her children. Among these items was an upright piano that stood at the far end of the living room. Herb visited Mrs. Stolz one day without Lorna’s knowing and arranged to buy it and make weekly payments. May gave them a sofa and a pair of wing chairs from the guest house, and she lent them four dining room chairs. On the evening of their moving in, after the furniture was all in place, after they had eaten the cold dinner that May had her cook pack for them, after Ella was tucked into bed, with the kitten that was her current love curled up at her feet, Herb built a fire and Lorna sat at the piano and picked out “Lake Serenity Serenade.” If you’d been standing outside, with your nose pressed to the window, you would have said that what you saw was a perfect scene of domestic peace. Herb stood behind Lorna with his hands on her shoulders. The tune and the firelight gave the room the erotic buoyancy of a rowboat on Lake Serenity. Herb touched Lorna’s cheek. It was wet with tears. “Lorna!” said Herb. “What’s the matter?” “I can’t help thinking of poor Mrs. Stolz! We’ve taken her house from her! Here we are in her living room, in front of her fire, and I’m playing her piano—” “We didn’t take it from her, Lorna, we—” “Oh, I know we didn’t really take it from her, but didn’t we take advantage of her, wasn’t her loss our gain?” “Well, no, not really, I—no—at least I don’t think so—” “Oh, Herb, just imagine her living the rest of her life in that miserable hotel!” “It’s not so miserable. We liked it when—” “Herb,” cried Lorna, “we can’t let her stay there!” She leaped to her feet, and in a moment she was at the door, in her coat, with Ella beside her, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for Herb to warm up the car. Mrs. Stolz was settled in her favorite chair, wrapped snugly in her old robe, eating, in small, luxurious bites, a chocolate cream from a box on the table beside her. A copy of Life was open in her lap, but she had stopped reading to watch the raindrops run down the window pane, and she was thinking how pleasant it was to be in such cozy quarters, in a place as snug as her old robe, a place that gave her so much comfort but asked so little of her, when Lorna and Herb knocked at her door. “Oh, my,” she said, when she saw them dripping in the hallway, “what’s wrong?” “Mrs. Stolz,” said Lorna, tears streaming down her face, “we’ve come to take you home.” “If you want to come home,” said Herb. “Of course, you may be happy right here—” “Herb,” said Lorna. She stepped into the room and took Mrs. Stolz’s hands in hers. “We know how much you must miss the house,” she said, “and we don’t feel right about it. We feel as if we’ve taken your home from you.” “You want me to take it back?” asked Mrs. Stolz. Fear made her suddenly so cold that she began wringing her hands. She had the chocolate cream in one of them. “We were hoping you would come to live with us,” said Lorna. “Live with you?” said Mrs. Stolz. The idea sounded preposterous to her. She wondered what could have brought them to such a strange desire. She stared at the sticky goop on her hands. She couldn’t quite imagine what it was. “Yes,” said Lorna. She fought to control herself. Why hadn’t she seen how far gone the poor woman was? Here she was rubbing chocolate on her hands. She needed watching. “We want you to be back in your own home again,” said Lorna. They must need money, thought Mrs. Stolz. “Do you need money?” she asked. She looked around the room for something to wipe the chocolate from her hands. “Oh, no,” said Lorna. “We wouldn’t charge you anything. We just want you to be happy.” She handed Mrs. Stolz her handkerchief. From behind Lorna’s back, Herb winked at Mrs. Stolz. He intended his wink to mean that it was perfectly easy for him to imagine her preferring to stay at the River Sound. He put his arm around Lorna’s shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze. He winked at Mrs. Stolz again, and he meant her to understand that he had come along to humor Lorna in her conviction that Mrs. Stolz would want to return, but that Mrs. Stolz should feel free to disburden her of this misperception, taking into account the tenderness of her feelings and the generosity of her motives. Mrs. Stolz thought that he was telling her that Lorna was insane. “Oh!” said Mrs. Stolz. She brought her hand, with Lorna’s handkerchief, to her mouth. She was startled and saddened. Compassion swelled in her breast; tears welled in her eyes; dabs of chocolate spotted her chin. She gripped Lorna’s hands. “Of course, my dear,” she said, nearly sobbing, “of course. If it’s what you want, I’ll come home.” Lorna, smiling tenderly, squeezing Mrs. Stolz’s sticky hands, said, “It’s what we want.” Ella threw her arms around Mrs. Stolz and hugged her with granddaughterly affection. Herb said nothing. |
YOU CAN READ IT HERE, ONLINE, ONSCREEN, OR YOU CAN PRINT IT AND READ IT IN BED, OR, FOR MAXIMUM PORTABILITY AND CONVENIENCE WHEN READING ON THE BEACH OR IN THE TUB, YOU CAN BUY THE PICADOR USA PAPERBACK EDITION AT AMAZON.COM OR BARNES&NOBLE.COM. |
 ERB
BEGAN work on the new room at once. He persisted in referring to
it as “the den,” in the hope—which he never expressed in any other way,
not through any dropping of hints, not through any irony or the slightest
ambiguity in his tone of voice—that before he had actually finished the
new room Mrs. Stolz would have decided that she’d really rather return
to the River Sound Hotel, and the room would in fact become his den.
For the time being, Mrs. Stolz slept in the room that had been intended
for Ella, and Ella slept in the living room, on the rose-colored sofa.
As the odd arrangement developed, it seemed likely to make everyone but Herb quite happy. Ella loved Mrs. Stolz with the comfortable old-shoe, familiar-sweater, cuddles-and-hugs kind of love that a child comes to feel for a grandparent if the child and grandparent are fortunate enough to be able to spend a lot of time together from day to day. She had developed her own explanation for Mrs. Stolz’s presence in her family: Mrs. Stolz had come with the house, like a fixture, the fence or the oven, and this was the way such things ordinarily happened. (The little girl who formed that notion was the one that Ella most liked to recall from her years in the stucco house on No Bridge Road, and when, five years after her marriage, she had a house of her own, the girl in her was disappointed that it was new, with no previous owner lingering on.) Mrs. Stolz adored Ella, and she was pleased to find that she showed a respect for Mrs. Stolz’s opinions that Mrs. Stolz had never seen in her own children or grandchildren, who seemed to regard her as hopelessly out of touch, a relic of another time. Mrs. Stolz was astonished to realize how much she enjoyed the feeling that in this household she was needed, desperately needed. To her great relief, Lorna had, apparently, lapsed into a period of rational calm. Certainly, there were odd things about her, though—the way she slipped off to the cellar to work at her table for hours every day, for one thing. Mrs. Stolz knew, from snooping, what she worked on. One afternoon, about a year after Mrs. Stolz had come to live with them, a telephone call from Ella’s school had sent Lorna rushing off to bring Ella, who’d been sick in the lunchroom, home. Mrs. Stolz had, after a couple of minutes’ battle with her scruples, convinced herself that in order to be better able to help Lorna she really needed to know what was in the locked work table, and why Lorna insisted that she not be disturbed while she was at work, wouldn’t even permit Mrs. Stolz to come down the cellar stairs when she was working. Mrs. Stolz accepted in general Lorna’s explanation, that she worked on jewelry—she had seen the jewelry, after all, and she admired Lorna’s work and marveled at the way God sometimes bestows a compensating asset on those He’s burdened with pitiable liabilities—but she felt a need to know Lorna’s work in all its particulars. She felt a need to know what she hadn’t been permitted to know. Mrs. Stolz descended to the cellar and found Lorna’s work just as she had left it. In the center of her work table was a large magnifying glass, mounted on a swivel, that Herb had rigged up for Lorna, to make her jewelry work easier on her eyes, which were beginning to show the strain. Mrs. Stolz bent over the glass and looked through it. She saw two beautiful, though unfinished, figures, engaged in an activity that made her gasp. “Oh, my goodness,” she said aloud. The sound of her voice frightened her. She rushed back to the foot of the stairs. She held her breath and listened. When she was sure she was still alone in the house, she returned to the worktable and studied the little ivory couple through the glass. She became so absorbed in her study that she almost failed to hear the door. She was out of breath and perspiring when she greeted Lorna and Ella in the kitchen, and she was so flabbergasted by what she had seen that she forgot why Lorna had brought Ella home, offered her no comfort, didn’t even notice how pale and tremulous she was. In bed that night, Mrs. Stolz said to herself, “The poor child,” meaning Lorna. “I suppose she needs that sort of thing somehow. It’s crazy work, but at least she keeps it out of sight.” She vowed to carry the burden of her discovery alone, since Herb—poor soul—had enough to worry about already. She fell asleep wondering whether there really were any men with tongues as long and agile as the one she’d seen the little ivory man employing in so fascinating a manner. Except for Lorna’s work in the cellar, Mrs. Stolz found that Lorna behaved as if she were as normal as anyone else. Mrs. Stolz considered this a miracle. Every night since her return, she had fallen to her knees beside her bed and prayed for Lorna’s sanity, and it seemed to her that her prayers had been answered—at least there were no screaming fits or mad scenes. Mrs. Stolz tried not to give herself credit for Lorna’s relative sanity, but she had to admit to herself that it was, most likely, her calming presence, her maturity, her regular habits and set ways, that kept Lorna on an even keel. Lorna was pleased just to see how pleased Mrs. Stolz was, and her pleasure lasted as the years went by. Every morning, when Lorna came into the kitchen and found Mrs. Stolz bustling around, fixing breakfast and listening to Ella gush about her teachers, for each of whom she developed a heartfelt crush, Lorna was sure that she and Herb had done the right thing, that Mrs. Stolz had missed her home horribly, still considered herself the mistress of it, and was so grateful to Lorna and Herb for bringing her back that she felt she had to bustle about, cooking and cleaning, to show her gratitude and earn her keep. As more time passed, Mrs. Stolz began to think of herself as a saint, a small and insignificant saint, perhaps, but a saintly woman just the same. She acquired a serenity from the conviction that she was filling each day, each passing year, with good works, that the dusting and cleaning she had always done, the dishes she had always washed, the meals she had always cooked, now had a point, a value, beyond merely keeping a home tidy and a family fed. She was working for someone who, she assumed, could not work for herself, and it was an elevating experience. She became so serene and self-satisfied that her old friends couldn’t stand her anymore and saw less and less of her. That suited Mrs. Stolz. She had more and more to do at home, she found. Keeping everything just right, making the home as perfect and as smooth running as could be was, she became certain, the key to Lorna’s keeping a grip on herself, confining her madness to the cellar. It was critically important, Mrs. Stolz thought, for her to listen to Ella’s descriptions of the boys with whom she fell in love in junior high school and high school, to discuss with her every possible interpretation of every smile, frown, nod, note, whisper, and argument. Knowing what she did about Lorna’s secret work in the cellar, Mrs. Stolz felt that Lorna couldn’t be trusted to take the proper attitude toward Ella’s fervent infatuations. That burden was, like other Piper family burdens, entirely on her shoulders, but it was, she felt, absolutely crucial that she not show the strain but continue to bustle with undiminished energy, whistle a happy tune, wear a smile. Lorna began to think that Mrs. Stolz was lapsing into senility. She seemed to go at the most tedious household task with the unblinking good humor of the feeble-minded. She bustled about the house as if there were twice as many dusty corners as there were, and she developed rigid ideas about where every furnishing should be placed and how it should be aligned. She straightened the antimacassars several times a day. Lorna thanked goodness that she’d had the intuition to recognize that Mrs. Stolz needed her home, that she needed a home, and Lorna was enormously grateful to Herb for going along with her and providing it. After a while, not even Herb really had any objection to Mrs. Stolz’s living with them. The ménage was a happy one, and he wouldn’t have done anything to disturb it. Within the first year, he had the den in habitable shape; Mrs. Stolz moved in, and Ella was able to sleep in the room that Herb and Lorna had intended for her. It took Herb another eight years to finish the den completely, but finally he did finish it, and it made a comfortable sitting room and bedroom for Mrs. Stolz. His last piece of work was the hidden entrance. In the hallway, between the door to the bathroom and the door to Herb and Lorna’s bedroom, he built a set of bookcases, recessed into the wall. Among the books on the shelves was a leather-bound edition of The Thousand and One Nights. “How do you suppose you get into the room?” asked Herb. He had assembled the household for a viewing of the completed room, but he had kept many of the details and special features secret, none more carefully kept than the method of opening the secret entrance. “How do you suppose you open your door, Mrs. Stolz?” he asked. “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sure I don’t know at all.” “I don’t see any door,” said Ella. She was fourteen. For everything but romance, she had a literal mind. Herb chuckled. “Oh, yes you do,” he said. “You just don’t recognize it. Things aren’t always what they seem, you know. The truth is, you’re looking right at the door.” “I am?” said Ella. “Where?” “This bookcase is a door,” said Herb. “Watch.” He removed The Thousand and One Nights. In doing so, he released a hidden latch. He opened the book as if he were going to read from it. He flipped a few pages until he apparently found what he wanted. “Open, Sesame!” he boomed, and he replaced the volume on the shelf, thereby activating a hidden spring. Slowly, one section of the bookcase swung open. “Gosh!” said Ella. She was wonderfully impressed, not so much by the door as by her father’s ability. She applauded. Lorna, charmed by Ella’s reaction as much as by the door, reacted just as Ella had. “Oh, Herb,” she said, “it’s magic!” She clapped her hands together like a girl and hugged Herb. Over Lorna’s shoulder, Herb winked at Mrs. Stolz, and Mrs. Stolz, convinced that Lorna, batty as she was, really believed Herb had made magic, reacted as Lorna had, the better to keep the illusion alive, or to strengthen it. She clapped her hands like a girl. She was really applauding Herb’s compassion. Her heart went out once again to this wonderful man, this saintly man, who put so much effort into building a crazy world for his crazy wife, a world that seemed to have magic in it, a world where doors were hidden in bookcases and drawers lifted their contents when they were opened, a world with nonsense built into it so that his wife would feel at home in it, a world with unlikelinesses to match her irrationality, a world where she could feel sane. From then on, whenever Mrs. Stolz went to her room, she would open the door by removing the leather volume, flipping through it as if she had forgotten the command and had to find it again, come at last to “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” and, apparently reading from the book, command the bookcase, “Open, Sesame!” replace the volume, and seem to marvel again at the magic she worked. Lorna, whenever she saw Mrs. Stolz go through her rigmarole at the bookcase, would swallow hard at the poignancy of it, and think to herself, The poor old woman has really lost her marbles. |
 |
|
Hi! I'm Candi Lee Manning, Eric Kraft's
bubbly publicist, and I just bet that you're wondering how you can support
this work!
|
Herb ’n’Lorna is published in paperback by Picador, a division of St. Martin's Press, at $13.00. You should be able to find Herb ’n’ Lornaat your local bookstore, but you can also order it by phone from: Bookbound at 1-800-959-7323You can order it on the Web from
Libros en Español: Herb ’n’Lorna is also available in Spanish from Ediciones Destino. |
LITTLE
FOLLIES
|
||||
|
Herb ’n’Lorna copyright © 1988 by Eric Kraft Herb ’n’Lorna is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published by Crown Publishers, Inc., 201 East 50th Street, New York, New York 10022. Member of the Crown Publishing Group. Now available in paperback from Picador USA, a division of St. Martin’s Press. The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile. Photo of the “Rigid Rockne” reprinted from The Studebaker Century,
copyright
© 1983 by Dragonwick Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Used
by permission of Asa E. Hall and Richard M. Langworth. Photo from the collection
of Asa E. Hall.
|
|
