Free Best Friends by Ann M. Martin Page A

But, Flora, do you really think he wanted to be a driver all his life?”
    â€œNo,” said Flora, who, in truth, could think of lots of jobs she wouldn’t want, certainly not for her entire life.
    â€œAnd it wasn’t just that driving was boring and a dead end. It was much more than that. There was something my father wanted desperately.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLook around the living room. Can you guess?” asked Mr. Pennington.
    Flora looked at Jacques, at the tables holding the familiar framed family photographs, at the shelves and shelves of books, at the case she knew contained Mr. Pennington’s trumpet.
    â€œA nice life and a nice house?” she guessed, fairly certain that this wasn’t the answer Mr. Pennington was leading her toward.
    â€œThat might have been part of it, I suppose,” said Mr. Pennington kindly, “but what he really wanted, Flora, almost more than anything except his wife and children, was an education.”
    â€œOh,” said Flora, and then, “ oh .”
    â€œDo you understand?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen the Fitzpatricks let my father go, he suddenly saw that he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted.”
    â€œBut he was free already, wasn’t he?”
    â€œWell, yes, technically he was a free man. But his job had been holding him back because it was comfortable. Now, my father thought, as long as he had to reshape his life, he might as well take the opportunity to find a way to do what he’d always dreamed of — to get an education. So he packed us up and we moved in with his parents, who lived a few miles outside of Camden Falls. Imagine seven people crowded into a house that was small to begin with, but my grandparents were very kind, and they supported my father’s decision. Dad spent the next few years in school, while my mother and my grandparents worked at whatever jobs they could find.
    â€œEventually,” Mr. Pennington continued, “my father graduated from college. He was the first person in his family to do so, and we had a big celebration. Oh, I remember that day. I don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone more proud than my grandparents, my mother, my brothers and I, and, of course, my father.
    â€œLater, Dad became a college professor himself. When I grew up, I went to college in Pennsylvania, but I wanted to come back to this area. I moved to Boston first, and then after I got married, my wife and I moved here. That was when I began teaching at your school, Flora.”
    â€œAnd then later you became the principal of the central school, right?”
    â€œExactly right.”
    How different, thought Flora, were the Depression years for Mr. Pennington and his family than for Min and her family, for the Fitzpatricks, or for Mary Woolsey and her family.
    â€œMr. Pennington,” she said, “do you know of any other people who were affected by Min’s father? I mean, by losing their money or getting fired or something?”
    Jacques rolled over on his back and Mr. Pennington rubbed his belly. “Well, let me see. There was the gardener at the Fitzpatricks’. I recall that after he lost his job he led a rather exciting life. He hit the road, doing a little work here, a little work there, to earn pocket money, catching free rides on trains whenever he felt like moving on.”
    â€œYou mean he became a hobo ?” exclaimed Flora.
    â€œI suppose so. Not a life I would have liked, but he did get to see the country. Then there was a man, Johnny something, who was part-time help at the Fitzpatricks’ and who was a friend of my father’s. I remember my dad saying one night after we had moved in with my grandparents that Johnny still hadn’t found another job, and I don’t think he ever did. A year or so later his wife left him and finally he just dropped out of sight.
    â€œOh, and I can think of someone else you might be interested in hearing