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Words: 69813 in 34 pages
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THE GOOD WORK
BY THEODORE L. THOMAS
Tall and rawboned was Jeremiah Winthrop. Narrow of shoulder and shallow of chest he was, but no matter. There was a dignity to the man that showed itself in every movement. Here was one who still called himself a man, one whose traditions sprang from the rocky New England soil that had nourished his forebears. The mold that produces such a man is not easily bent or broken, not even in a world of three hundred and fifty billion people, not even in a world where the rocky New England soil lies buried and forgotten beneath the foundations of monstrous buildings.
Jeremiah Winthrop rode the spiral escalator up, up to the two-part cubicle he called home on the one hundred and forty-eighth floor. He stood swaying slightly as the escalator wound its serpentine way upwards. Others rode with him, tight people, tense people, pushed together, staring straight as they rode the spiral escalator up. And now and then at a turn or a bend a man would elbow his way out. He'd leave the upflowing river of people and step onto a landing as his floor came by. But the escalator was still crowded as it passed the one hundred and forty-eighth floor and Winthrop stepped off. He was not one of the lucky ones who lived high near the roof where it was at least possible to think about the air and the light and the sun.
Winthrop boarded a moving belt that carried him over to his own corridor. He walked down the corridor for ten minutes. It was easy walking, for there were far fewer people now. Finally he came to his own door. He inserted his thumb in the thumbhole, slid the door open and walked in. A tousle-headed youngster sat on the floor playing with a plastic box. The boy looked up as Winthrop entered.
"Daddy!" he shouted. He flung himself to his feet, dashed across the room and grabbed his father around the legs.
"Hello, Davy," said Winthrop, ruffling the curly brown hair. "How's the little man?"
"Fine, Daddy. And Mommy says we can go up on the roof in another month. Will you come with us? This time? You never go with us, Daddy. Will you come up with us in a month from now?"
Winthrop looked over the boy's head at his wife, Ann. The smile faded from his face. He said, "A month? I thought it was our turn again in a week. What happened?"
Ann shook her head and pressed the back of a hand against her forehead. "I don't know. They have had to re-schedule everybody. Another eighteen hundred babies born in the building this week. They all have to get a little sun. I don't know."
Winthrop pushed Davy gently to one side and held the boy to him as he walked over to Ann. He put a hand in the small of her back and held her against his chest. She rested her head against the upper part of his arm and leaned against him.
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