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whiz along. So, buddy, what I want you to do for me—this is very important to me,
     Jerry—is to go to Miss Mackay at the Little Wolf library at seven tomorrow and take the test—sign my name.”
    Jerry was, for a moment, taken aback. He wound a curl from his red hair around his index finger, steering the car with his
     left hand. He understood about going late in life to school—he would be going to the University of Illinois as a freshman
     at the advanced age of twenty-two. What the hell. Yes. He’d drive to Little Wolf in his car,Joe’s old car—“I’ll drive with you,” Joe said. “I’ll sit in the car while you take the exam and say a rosary that you do well!”
    Miss Mackay was not surprised that it was a young man, not a child, who asked for the sealed envelope. She handed it to him
     and pointed to an empty desk. “Good luck, McCarthy.” She corrected herself. “Good luck, Joe.”
    Joe’s confidence in himself was well placed. He sat down in September with thirty-nine boys and girls aged fourteen; nine
     months later he was ready to graduate alongside forty seniors whose ages averaged eighteen. Prudence Hawthorne, who administered
     progressive exams to Joe what seemed every few weeks as he skidded upward to ninth, tenth, eleventh, and now twelfth grade,
     was deliriously proud of his record, but not happy at the prospect of his leaving, because she loved it when Joe was at school.
     He was always playing with the younger children, offering to do odd jobs that needed doing, and unintrusively flirting with
     the younger teachers, and with some not so young. He seemed utterly untroubled by a schedule that had had him working at the
     Cash-Way from three until eleven and all day on Saturday. But now only graduation lay ahead.
    Joe told Miss Hawthorne, passing by her office on Tuesday morning of the big week, that he wanted to have a “date” with her
     after the school graduation lunch.
    “Doing what?” she asked sharply.
    “Never mind. Do you promise?”
    She promised. And when the time came, after he had kissed his mother and shaken hands with four siblings, Joe guided her to
     his new car, telling her to hush up.
    Twenty minutes later, Prudence Hawthorne was being coaxed into a little Piper biplane. Joe’s graduation present to her would
     be a flight in an airplane—her first. Joe had never himself been up, but promised himself he’d do it soon, after saving money
     to hire “High-Fly Jim” for a second ride. Meanwhile, he would just watch Miss Hawthorne.
    She looked pale when she stepped onto the boarding ladder and into the tiny cockpit. She had no reason to suspect what was
     in storefor her: Joe had arranged with Jim to take her up—and then to do a loop-the-loop.
    The whole trip took only five minutes, but when she was helped out of the plane by High-Fly Jim, Prudence Hawthorne was a
     pale and very irate lady. She said to Joe that she would never speak to him again and would certainly not recommend him to
     any college. The tirade gave out just about the time Joe’s car pulled up at her little cottage. She let Joe take her by the
     arm to the front door. He took her door key from her, put it in the keyhole, and turned the lock.
    “You are a
scoundrel,
Joe.”
    Suddenly she turned, pecked him on his cheek, closed the door, and rushed to the telephone to call all her friends, one after
     another, into the early hours of the evening, to tell them about her incredible afternoon, just like Lindbergh.

5

McCarthy goes to Marquette
    It didn’t surprise the family and friends of Joe McCarthy that the momentum he had built up would take him on, past high school.
     In the fall of 1930 he matriculated at Marquette, the large and busy Jesuit-run university in Milwaukee, celebrating, the
     year Joe entered, its fiftieth anniversary.
    He lost no time entering into college life, though his primary concern was the money needed to see him through. His boardinghouse,
     shared with a dozen other