The army doctor eyed my leg bones and tapped along my spine. “Asthma?” he asked. “Tuberculosis? Hoof-and-mouth?” He laughed. “Just kidding, son. You look healthy enough to me, and for your reward, you get a round of inoculations, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Join the line in the next room.”

Not everybody got the shots. The kid with the cough—he got a return ticket home instead.

When I finally emerged from the infirmary, both of my arms ached and I’d learned a joke I suspected I’d be hearing again: The CCC’s just like the army, all hurry up and wait.

I’d also learned our enrollments weren’t a sure thing after all. The CCC could send you home quick as it had taken you in.

And the long day still wasn’t anywhere near over.

Sergeant Mackey had us stow our belongings in a barracks building that was filled with bare, narrow metal cots, each with a mattress rolled up on top. “Leave your gear and line up outside. That bugle you hear is calling you to formation.”

We gathered at the flag in the middle of a big parade ground. While it was being lowered, soldiers saluted and ranks of CCC’ers further along in the program stood straight. Us first-day guys squared our shoulders and shuffled into a less ragged line, so’s to make ourselves not stand out as newbies.

But of course everybody could see from our clothes we were, and, anyway, an officer walked out front next and welcomed us to Fort Missoula.

“You’ll only be here for a couple of weeks before leaving for a work camp,” he said, “but in that time you’ll grow stronger from regular exercise and work. You’ll learn what the CCC expects of you, and the CCC will have a chance to learn what you know and look you over. Make sure that what we see is good.”

He studied us. “Some of you won’t make it through these two weeks. Whether you will or won’t is up to you.”

Then he nodded to an enlisted soldier who hollered, “Dismissed!”

Most who’d been on post awhile streamed away toward what had to be a dining room, judging from the good smells coming from it. My group, uncertain if we were free to join them, stayed put.

Nate said, “The CCC’s not getting rid of me, not now I’ve let ’em shoot me full of vaccines. Didn’t you wonder what they were all for?”

“Typhoid, paratyphoid, and smallpox,” answered the guy on Nate’s other side. He was the one who’d brought the tennis racket. He was tall as me, but blond while I was towheaded. And with a different bearing. Like he was somebody.

“I inquired of one of the doctors,” he said, as though he felt he had to explain knowing. He put out his hand. “I’m Sam Whitney.”