The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sonny, by Rick Raphael

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Title: Sonny

Author: Rick Raphael

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release Date: December 29, 2009 [EBook #30798]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction April 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

SONNY

Of course, no one actually knows the power of a thought.
That is, the milli--or megawatts type of power ...

by RICK RAPHAEL

ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Private Jediah Cromwell was homesick for the first time since his
induction into the Army. If he had gotten homesick on any of at least
a dozen other occasions during his first two weeks in the service, he
might never have gotten beyond the induction center. But the wonders
and delights of his first venture beyond the almost inaccessible West
Virginia hills of his birth had kept him too awed and interested to
think about home.

When Cletus Miller headed up the trail to Bluebird Gulch, Ma felt him
coming around the bend below the waterfall a mile across the gorge.
She laid down her skinning knife and wiped her hands clean of the
blood of the rabbits Jed had brought in earlier in the morning.

"Sonny," she called to Jed, "trouble's acoming."

Jediah crossed the corn patch to her side. "What kinda trouble, Ma?"

"Cletus Miller's comin'," Ma Cromwell said. "He ain't been up here
since the week afore your Pa died. I don't know what it is but it's
bound to be trouble."

A few minutes later Miller hallooed from the bottom of the garden
patch, then trudged up to the cabin.

"Set and rest, Cletus," Ma said. "Sonny, fetch Cletus a coolin' dip."
Jed ambled down to the spring sluice an