Clay-Boy thought of his father ruefully. Clay Spencer was a hard man to measure up to. Like all the Spencer men he was a crack shot, a good provider for his family, an honest “look-’em-in-the-eye” man, an enthusiastic drinker, a prodigious dancer, a fixer of things, a builder, a singer of note, a teller of bawdy stories, a kissing, hugging, loving man whose laughter would shake the house, and who was not ashamed to cry. He seemed to his son an outsized man, bigger than life. It was with a sense of wonder that the boy observed his own body’s growth and found his head reaching, it seemed to him
...more
