Chapter 3 In the morning after breakfast Clara asked Tom if he had any dress clothes. Tom did not want to take the extra time to change into other clothing. “Not anything better than this,” he said, indicating the clothes he wore. “Why?” Clara shrugged. “If that’s all you got to wear, I guess next post there’s nothing we can do about it.” “Why? What’s going on?” “Well, we got to go to Ed’s mom’s funeral,” Clara said.

Chapter 2 Miss Maryanne Whittaker stopped her automobile at the curb in the answer front of a large, one story, white house, that stood about twenty feet from the street. It was late in the afternoon, and the lawn, which was overgrown with grass, was in the shade. “This will be your new home until we can find better facilities,” Miss Whittaker said. “I’m sorry we can’t take you to your aunt’s funeral.

I was advised and encouraged to add to the website some part of the novel, WARD OF THE STATE, and after some careful consideration, I concluded that the best thing to do is to present you with the beginning of the story. This then is Chapter 1 of WARD OF THE STATE.  Chapter 1 The afternoon sun shown brightly as twelve year old Tom Packard descended the front steps of the public library in Roundup, Montana.