George C. Henkins is the president of the Jenkinsville
(Arkansas) Rotary Club in Bette Green's teen novel Summer of My German
Soldier. Henkins is a minor character in the novel, making only several
appearances in all. Henkins is first seen in the opening pages waiting for the train
carrying the German POWs to their new imprisonment in Jenkinsville. He shows his
patriotic pride in a later section following the news that German saboteurs had been
caught on the beaches of New York and Florida.
"... they caught all them saboteurs and that's
the important thing to
remember."
Following the news
that Patty's hidden German soldier, Reiker, had escaped from the camp, Henkins agrees
with Patty's father, who claims that the Americans had been "coddling those Nazis."
Henkins tells him that
"... this country is too Christian. The Bible
admonishes usto turn the other cheek, but we forget that it also tells us to take a
tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an
eye."
Henkins then joins in
the laughter when Patty's father suggests that Americans shouldn't take German
prisoners--"Not live ones anyway."
No comments:
Post a Comment