played a nice little tune in the
wind. Then Zinnng. Sswwiiissshh. Rocks flew like geese headed south in the
winter, lined up in good order, spaced well apart, each man sending his shot
when it come his time, and not one second before. Hot flints in the wind as
heavy as .45 bullets. Thug trotted wide around our lines telling everybody,
"Take yer time, boys. Don't git excited. Shoot when yer time comes." Just
then his head jerked back and his hand flew up to his forehead. He dropped
his sling shot to the ground and staggered across the hill.
"Thug! They cracked 'im!" I could hear one kid yelling.
"Thug, Watch out where you're goin' there! You're gettin' too close to
th' fort!" Ray was Claude's little runt of a brother, the cussingest and
runningest kid in our outfit. He darted from his hideout in the weeds and
made a bee line for Thug. "Thug! Open yore eyes! Watch out!"
Several secret shooting doors slid open on the south side of the house,
and Thug was walking blind within twenty-five foot of them. He made a face
when a rock caught him on the backbone. He stood up and stiffened his
muscles all over as another one glanced off the side of his neck. Blood
splashed on his jaw and he covered his face and eyes with both hands.
"Take my hand!" little runty Ray was telling him. Thug ducked his head
in the palms of his hands and shook the blood all over his shirt. "C'mon!
Back this a-way!" Ray pulled Thug by the arms and pushed him along the
ground. Ray got hit all over his body trying to get Thug back behind our
lines. "Okay!" he told Thug when they'd moved out of range. "Set down over
here out of th' way. I'll run over th' hill an' git a bucket o' water an'
wet a rag!"
"Thug! Need some help?" I yelled up over the weeds.
"Yeah. Best kinda help you c'n gimme is ta keep on puttin' th' hot
pepper inta that lookout!"
"Gotcha, Cap!" I rolled back over in the weeds and laughed at Claude
and raised up on my knees long enough to lay a nice one right in through the
middle of the window. "Bull's-eye!" I yelled at the rest of the kids.
I heard a loud mouth blurt out from up in the piano-box lookout.
"Here's yore answer!" The ground about an inch from my nose popped open and
the damp dirt sizzed against the sides of a slick one. I heard another whine
in the air and felt my ankle crack and sting just above my shoe top. I tried
to wiggle my foot, but it wouldn't work. A cutting pain felt like it was
burning all the way up my leg to my hip bone. "Mmmooohhhh!" I grunted and
rolled through the grass, grabbing my ankle and rubbing it as hard as I
could.
"Gitcha ag'in'?" Claude looked over at me. "Better stay laid down, boy,
low! Leave your head stickin' up above th' weeds like that, an' them boys'll
chop you down just like you was a weed!"
Little Ray trotted down the path by the chicken house, and carried the
water over to where Thug was humped up holding his head in his hands. He
puffed and blowed and pulled out a rag. "Here. Good `n' wet. Hold still!"
Thug grabbed the rag away from Ray and told him, "I'll wipe off my own
blood. You skat back ta yer own place an' keep sailin' 'em."
Ray didn't argue with the captain. He tore out across the hill toward
his fighting partner hid in the grass and yelled what Thug had told him,
"Keep 'em sailin'! Boys! Hot rocks hailin'! Give that buncha gang house
crooks a good, good frailin'!"
A big heavy one whirled through the wind humming and knocked little
Ray's feet up into the air, laying him flat on his back. He didn't say a
word or make a sound.
"Ray went down!" Claude punched me in the ribs. "See?"
"Keep down!" I held Claude by the arms. I happened to be watching the
smoke rolling out of the gang house stove pipe, "Boy, they're really
throwin' th' wood ta that baby, ain't they?"
"You know, a feller could go up there and stick a hat or a gunny sack
or something down in th' end of that stove pipe an' really smoke them birds
outta there!"
"Make their eyes so watery they couldn't see ta shoot straight!" I told
him. "But that lookout ... them kids up there'd drill ten holes in yer skull
while ya was stuffin' th' pipe."
"Hey! Look!" Claude nudged me with his elbow. "What in th' dem livin'
hell is that?"
"Hey, men!" I yelled back to the kids in our line. "Front door! Look!"
That front door was coming open. "Okay! Men! Charge!" The gang ho'ise
captain bawled out from inside.
A big wooden barrel with a hole sawed out in front with a square piece
of heavy-duty screen wire tacked over a peek hole, lumbered out through the
door. Our boys peppered more sizzlers into the open door.
"That's good, men!" Thug was yelling at us, wiping the cut places on
his face and neck. "Shoot inside th' house! Not at th' barrel!" So thirteen
more rocks clattered in at the door.
Inside there was cussing, sniffing, squawling as the hot rocks bounced
against kids and kids stepped on the scorching floor, "Lay 'em in! Keep 'em
sailin'!" Thug was trotting around back of us, wiping his face with his wet
rag. "Pour it on 'em! That war tank they've invented, hell with it, we can
take care of that later! Blast away! Right on through th' door!"
"Charge!" The gang house captain yelled again. A second double-size
barrel waddled out into the yard with a kid walking under it. Thirteen more
cooked rocks flew to roost through the door, and thirteen more cuss words,
both imported and homemade, roared back at us.
"Charge! Tanks!" The captain of the shack yelled the third time, and
the third barrel tank waddled out onto the battlefield.
Already the first tank had come to a bad end. The barefooted kid humped
under it had stepped down on a rock hot
enough to cook hot cakes on, and had squealed like a pig with his head
caught in a slop bucket, turned his barrel over upside down against the
house, and run like a wild man across the hill.
Tank number two had shoes on. Pretty tough. His screen-wire peek hole
was fixed so he could shoot his sling shot and a pair of springs pulled his
screen shield shut before we had a chance to put a rock inside. We bounced
all kinds of rocks off of it, but he kept coming. He come to a standstill
just about five or six feet from where Claude and me was bellied down. A
rock sung out from the barrel and stung Claude on the shoulder. Another one
caught him on the back of the leg. I got hit in the back of the hand. We
jumped up and beat it back through the weeds.
"What's a feller gonna do up aginst a dam reg'ler war tank?" Claude was
rubbing his stings and blowing through his nose.
Tank number three had shoes on, too. He oozed up to the two guys next
in our line. Three or four hot shots spit out from the barrel. Two more of
our men jumped up out of the weeds and come limping into the alley. Tank
number two went to work on our next two men, and they crippled away through
the weeds.
"Run fer th' alley, fellers!" Thug was ordering the men facing the
tanks. "No use ta git shot 'less ya c'n make it pay!'"
The gang house roared and cheered. The whole little house shook with
cries and yelps of victory. Dancing jarred the whole side of the bill. A
chant floated through the walls of the fort:
Hooray fer th' tanks!
Hooray fer th' tanks!
That'll teach a lesson
To th' boom town rats!
"Whattaya wanta do? What's best?" Thug was holding the wet cloth to the
back of his neck to make the blood quit dripping. "Whattaya say?"
"I say fight!"
"Fight!"
"Charge 'em!''
"Okay, boys! Here she comes! Git 'em! By God, charge!'' He led the way,
running fast and jumping through the weeds. "Knock hell outta them tanks,
boys, no matter if ya hafta do it with yer head!"
"Ain't no tank hard as my head!" I was laughing and trying to keep up
with Thug.
"I'll tear that barrel apart, stave from stave!" Claude was running
faster on his club foot than any of the rest of us. He passed me up, and
then went past Thug. "Clear outta my way!"
"Yyyaaaayyyyy-hoooo!"
"Circle 'em, men!"
"Knock 'em out!"
"Hit 'em with yer shoulder!''
About ten or twelve feet before he got to the tank, Claude took good
aim. The last five feet he cleared in one long kick, swatting the side of
the barrel with the triple sole of his crippled foot. There was a cuss from
Claude and a squawl from the barrel. Then the barrel, kid, rocks, sling
shot, and the whole works rolled away, and we all pointed down the hill and
laughed at the kid's feet turning around and around in the open end of the
rolling barrel. It busted in a hundred staves against a rock.
We charged tank number three, and in a few seconds it had got the same
dose as the one before. We joked and laughed, "I'd hate ta be that tank
driver!" "Boys, look at his feet fiyin' around! Look like an airplane
perpeller in th' end of that barrel a rollin'!"
Tank number one got straighted up again. It scooted in after us as we
hid around at our old places in the weeds, and a kid in the barrel yelled
out, "This is ou'rn now! We captur'd it! Don't shoot! Jist gimme a bucket of
them hot rocks, boys, an' I'll roll up an' bounce 'em in at that window so
fast they'll think it's snowin' hot rocks! Ha! Yo!" He got his rocks. The
barrel moved up within five feet of the window and settled down to a spell
of fast, steady shooting.
"Armored soldiers, charge!" We all heard the captain holler in the
house. Out of the door pushed three kids with heavy overcoats and mackinaws
on, thick gloves, and a broom handle apiece. We spotted all of our shots on
the open door again and heard our rocks bouncing from wall to wall. Inside
kids raved and foamed. The first armored man was loaded heavy and wrapped
pretty good, a mackinaw coat on backwards, and the big sheep-skin collar
turned up to hide his face. This made him a dangerous man. He could just
walk up and push our tank over and frail the knob of the driver. Our rocks
rained all around him, hitting his thick coat and he laughed because they
couldn't hurt him. He took just one step toward our tank. But, right off the
bat, the armored man had trouble. A good stingeree bounced and fell down
inside the collar of the thick mackinaw and come to rest against the skin of
his neck. Other kids had buttoned him into the coat, We last seen him airing
it out down the hill, slinging a glove here, and one yonder, slinging cuss
words and tears at the whole human race.
The second armored man walked within five foot of us, and our rocks
bounced off of his overcoat padded with a couple of flannel blankets
underneath. He was out to rush the tank, push it over, beat the driver up
with a broom handle, and capture the whole shebang. As long as he was
walking, he was mean and dangerous. He sneaked up out of range of the tank
and stopped. The tank turned toward him. He moved around. The tank turned
toward him. He moved a step or two in a circle. It looked like a bird
fighting a rattlesnake. The kid in the barrel was sweating. His breathing,
even ten or fifteen feet away, sounded like a steam engine. He shot a rock
out with enough power to down a Jersey bull. It cracked the armored kid on
the shin, and he hopped down the hill rubbing and cussing, his broom handle
laying where he'd been standing. Slew chased out, tackled him while he was
hopping on one foot, and marched the prisoner back of our lines.
In a jiffy or two Slew was strutting up and down, wearing the blankets,
overcoat, a fur hunting cap on backwards with the earflaps down all the way
around, laughing and joking with the kids in the house, and following their
third armored man around and around the house. They went out of sight. Then
armored unit number three backed into plain sight again around the corner
with both hands up in the air. He was wrapped about six times around with
gunny sacking tied around his chest, neck, belly and legs with cotton rope.
Slew ordered the prisoner to keep backing up. When they got to our lines,
the knots in the rope was untied, gunny sacking rolled off, and rolled back
onto another one of our men.
"Hold'er down a few minnits," I told Claude next to me. "Gonna see if I
know them two kids."
I run a wide bend back of our men and come to the place where little
Ray had went down in the weeds a few minutes ago. Ronald Horton, who was the
best whittler in that whole end of town, had stuck right in the weeds with
Ray even when the rest of us had retreated from the tanks. "How's Ray?" I
ducked down in the weeds close to Ronald. "Hurt bad?"
"He bats his eyes a little," Ron told me. "But then he ain't plumb woke
up yet.'' Ron held his hand out and I looked down and seen a steel
ball-bearing the size of the end of your ringer.
"You ain't aimin' ta shoot that!" I grabbed his wrist and took the
steely.
"Somebody in that shack plugged Little Ray with it!" Ron got down more
on his belly. "Better'd duck low, boy, might be more steel balls where
that'n come from."
"I'm go in' over here ta see if I know who these two strange kids is."
I was walking away, hunched down like a monkey dragging his arms in the
dirt. "I'm wonderin' where so many strange kids is comin' from outta that
house."
"Bring me back that bucket of water, if Thug's done with it. We need a
Red Cross gal aroun' here." Ron rolled to one side to dodge a rock. "I wanta
wet a rag an' put it on Little Ray's face."
"Okay." And then I circled through the weeds till I got to where Slew
and his four men was strung out.
I asked one of the prisoners, "You ain't no member of th' gang here at
th' house, are ya?"
"Hell, no." The kid wasn't very scared of us. "I ain't been livin' in
this town but three days. Folks follers th' oil field work."
"How come ya fightin' us kids?''
"Gimme two bits. Cap'n uv that gang house."
"Two bits? You jest a soldier that goes aroun' hirin' out ta fight fer
money, huh?" I looked his old dirty clothes over.
"They said they wuz th' oldist gang in this town. Best fighters." He
rested back on his hands. Wasn't afraid of nobody.
"I'll tell ya one thing, stranger, whoever ya are, th' oldist bunch
ain't always th' best fighters!"
"Which bunch is you guys?" he asked us.
"Most of us is new here in town," Slew spoke up.
"Who's them ginks in th' shack?" he kept asking.
"Home-town kids, biggest part," I told him. "Like me. Born an' raised
here."
"How come you fightin' on th' new side then?" The prisoner give me a
good looking over, with a wise tough look on his face.
"I didn't like th' old laws. Newcomers didn't have no say-so in how th'
joint wuz run." I heard a couple of dozen rocks humming around over the
hill. "Old bunch booted me out. So I went in with the new kids."
"Maybe ya got somethin' there, fellas." He stood back up on his feet
and stuck out his hand. "Here. Put 'er there. Could you sorter count me in
on yore new side?"
"Honist? Fight?" Slew doubted him a little.
He smiled at both of us. Then he looked back over our shoulders at the
gang house. "I won't charge you guys no two bits."
"Did they pay ya yer two bits already?" I asked him.
"Nawww. They c'n keep their îl' two bits." He didn't take his eyes off
of the gang house. He whistled the first note of a little tune and went on
saying, "Well take th' whole works."
I shook hands with the prisoner and said, "I think this man'll make us
a good captain one of these days."
"Janiter by trade." The kid shook my hand and told us.
"I'm runnin' fer scavenger nex' lection." Slew stuck out his hand. They
shook on the deal. "Gonna clean out this place from th' bottom up."
I reached inside my shirt and offered the kid a sling shot.
"Nawww. That's too sissy fer me. You guys wanta win this war in a
hurry?"
"How?"
"See that îl' stumpy tree up yonder?"
"With th' few old limbs. That 'un?"
"Well, now, boys, if you was ta run home an' git a handsaw, an' if you
was ta saw off that first limb stickin' up, an' that lower limb stickin'
acrost, what would ya have left?"
"It'd be a stump shaped like a V!"
"A V with a handle on it makes what?" he went on.
"A big sling-shot stock!"
"Cannon!"
"Take a whole inner tube! We can git that in two minnits!"
"Some bailin' wire aroun' th' tops!"
"Just take yer pockitknife an' split yore inner tube, see? Rope th'
ends onto th' forks of th' stump. Blim. Blam. Blooey!"
Slew's face lit up like the rising sun. "Rocks this big! We can shoot
rocks as big as yer head!" He started backing away saying, "See you birds in
about two minnits flat!"
He struck across the hill, jumped a deep clay ditch, and was almost out
of sight before I could ask the new kid, "What's your name? Mine's Woody."
"My name's Andy."
"Okay, Andy. Yonder's our captain. Thug. Le's go tell `im about th'
cannon."
Thug met us, saying, "You fellers look awful friendly fer one of ya ta
be a pris'ner."
"Andy's on our side now," I told Thug.
"Yeah. I changed uniforms," Andy laughed.
"Andy jus' now told us how ta saw th' extry forks off of that there old
peach tree stump up yonder. Make a cannon."
"Ya figgered that up, Andy?" Thug started smiling.
''I want th' new side ta come winner on top!" Andy had a look in his
eyes like a trained bulldog itching for a fight.
"Slew's comin' yonder with th' saw an' inner tube! Come on, Andy," I
said. "We'll fix this cannon in about forty-four flat, an' about three good
solid licks will settle this war once and fer all!"
"Pour it on their îl' sore backs! After we win, Andy, maybe you'll be
capt'in in my place!" Thug went away waving his hands in the air, making all
kinds of motions at our boys fighting. "Double yer fire, men! Shovel them
rocks onta that house! Pepper it on 'em! Don't give 'em a chance ta breathe!
Shoot th' buckets at 'em if ya run shorta rocks! Wow! Wow!" He was bending
and grunting through the weeds, counting slow like a string of jail birds
chopping on a logging gang. "One! Two! Wow! Wow! Fire! Load! Aim! Fire!"
The dribble of rocks doubled and got twice as loud against the house.
I'd been inside that little old house through a lot of wars and a lot of
hailstorms. I know how it sounded inside now. It was loud, and as mean, only
a hell of a lot hotter than three years of rough weather all added up.
"Tied all right?" I asked Slew and Andy.
"My end's hot an' ready ta ramble!" Slew jerked the last knot in his
rope.
"My fork's sizzlin'!"
"Gonna take two guys!" I couldn't stretch the big inner tube much by
myself. I dug my heels into the hill and throwed my weight against it,
heaving backwards, but it was too tough. "Go gitta couple of kids outta our
lines. Put 'em ta packin' rocks."
Claude come over bringing four or five rocks about the size of brick
bats.
"Keep 'em hailin'!" I was yelling back along our string of kids. I
turned back to Claude and said, "Go take a look at yer bruther Ray, that's
him they're pourin' water yonder in them weeds. Didn't no ice-cream cone
knock 'im out, either! Hell, no! A steely ball!" I turned away from Claude
and said to Andy, "Load 'er up!"
"She's loaded fer war!" Andy hollered. "Let's pull 'er back!"
Andy and me pulled the rock back in the 100-gauge sling shot. It was
all we could do to stretch it back. "One! Two! Three! Fire!" We both turned
loose.
The new hum of the big rock in the air brought a big loud whoop and
holler from up and down our string of kids. "Loooky! Cannon! Hooray fer th'
cannon!"
Everybody watched the big rock.
A low shot. It hit the ground about fifteen feet this side of the fort.
It plowed a bucketful of loose rock and dirt when it hit, and went rolling
into the side of the house. A board screaked and split and the gang house
got as still as a feather floating.
"What th' hell wuz that?" their captain yelled at us.
"It wasn't no steel ball!" Claude hollered from over where they was
pouring water on Little Ray. "It was a cannon!"
"Cannon?" Their captain sounded a little shaky in the throat.
"Yes, cannon! Here she comes ag'in!" I hollered out.
"What kinda cannon?" another kid hollered out from in the house.
"Cannon cannon!" Andy put in.
"No fair usin' cannons!" a kid barked from the house.
"No fair usin' a dam fort! Ha!" one of ours laughed back.
I waited a second or two, then asked, "Like ta give up?"
"Hell, no!"
"Okay, Andy! Load 'er up ag'in! Let's pull 'er back! One! Two! Three!
Fire!"
A zoom in the air like a covey of quails, or like the wind whistling
through an airplane's wings. A bigger board split into forty-nine little
shavers and three or four flew in every direction. We could see the kids'
feet and legs through the hole in the house. Hunkered on boxes, beer cases,
rolls of gunny sacks, and old rags, fidgeting and traipsing the floor, and
standing then as still as a deer.
"Surrender?" our captain yelled again.
"Hell, no!" the gang-house boss howled at us. "What's more, I'll shoot
th' first man in this house that surrenders! I'll shoot you in th' back of
th' head! You hired out to fight `til this war is over! I'm th' boss till
it's over! See!"
Claude caught all of the kids inside looking in the direction of the
cannon. He sneaked up under the eaves of the house and took off his padded
hat and jammed it into the end of the stove pipe.
"Sneak!" The man in the lookout tower drew aim and shot square down on
top of Claude's head. We seen him stumble over against the side of the
house, then slip to the ground, "That'll teach ya ta sneak!" the lookout man
laughed back at all of us.
"Load 'er up, Andy! Pull 'er back! One! Two! Three! Fire!" I watched
the rock leave the sling. We had pulled it back a little harder this time,
and learned how to aim it better.
The lookout tower swayed in the middle, screeched like pulling a
hundred rusty nails, and boards shattered apart, sailing in every direction
and leaving a hole several feet around tore out of one side of the piano
box.
"No more! Don't! God! Surren'er! Stop!" The lookout man jumped down off
of the roof and started walking toward our men with his hands in the air,
snubbing and crying, jerking his head and squawling, "I'm done! I'm done!"
He keeled over to the ground with a little groan.
"You dam right you're done!" The captain of the shack was looking out
the window, putting a new rock into his sling shot. "Well!" He ducked inside
and cussed at all of his kids, "Whattaya standin' there gawkin' at me for?
You cowardly dam snakes! I got lots more rocks where that'n come from!"
"You kids inside! Surren'er?" I asked them again.
No sound. Only the captain sniffing and crying and breathing hard. The
smoke was filling the whole house full of red-eyed, snorting and hissing
kids. Claude's old hat was still in the stove pipe. Two kids took him out
into the weeds where they had just woke his brother up with a bucket of
water. Ray blinked when he seen them carry Claude in. "Had his hat off.
Nicked 'im in th' toppa th' head," they told him.
"Load 'er up!"
Little Ray looked over our way and asked the boys, "Load what up?"
"Cannon."
''Hahhh! Funny's hell! I wuz jis' dreamin' somp'in' 'bout a cannon!"
"Run gitta bucket a water fresh fer Claude's head."
"That ain't no dream, though!" Little Ray's eyes smiled as he trotted
up the hill past the cannon. "Knock 'em plumb offa th' hill! I'll be right
back with Claude's water!"
"Andy! Got 'er loaded?''
"She's jam up!"
Smoke rolled out of the house. Sneezing. Coughing. Snorting of noses.
Mad, fist-slinging kids. The house was darker than night inside. Cusses.
Insults. Bad names. Poking. Everybody cutting back at everybody else. The
captain stood on a chair inside and kept his sling shot drawed on the whole
pack.
"Pull 'er back! Andy, boy!"
"She's back, bruther cap'n!"
"One! Two! Three!"
Then I said, "Wait! Listen!"
The house roared and pitched. Howls and cries of all kinds flew through
the windows and cannon holes. The grumbling, scraping of lots of feet,
grunting and straining, heads and tail ends whamming against the board
walls. House quivering. Fists and feet thumping against kids' heads.
Dragging sounds and the breaking of sticks, old boards, clubs, and clothing
zipped and ripped open. A loud wrestling and clattering at the door. A heavy
board cracked. All got quiet and still. The door came open.
"Don't shoot us!" The first kid stepped out with his hands in the air,
waving a bloody hunk of white cloth.
"We surren'er!"
"I didn' wanta fight you guys in th' first place.''
"Whatcha gon'ta do ta us?"
The kids walked out, one by one. Then every gang-house fighter was
searched. They wiped their faces and pinched their toes where the hot rocks
had blistered them. One by one, our captain sent them over to set down on
the ground.
"What'll we do now, Thug? I don't mean about th' men. I mean about th'
house here," I was saying at his shoulder.
"House? We'll fix it back better'n th' dam thing ever was. We'll have a
votin' match to see who's captain."
Thug looked around at everybody. He thought a minute and then said,
"Well, men. Alla my men. Stand around. What're we gonna do ta these here
guys?"
"Take over!"
"No use ta hurt 'em!"
"Give 'em all a job!"
"Let ever'body have a vote. Say-so."
Thug laughed at the ground covered with rocks still cooling.
"Naw. We ain't gonna beat nobody up." He kept talking along the ground.
"You men wanta be in on th' new gang? If ya don't, why, git up, an' beat it
ta hell offa this hill, an' stay off."
The captain of the gang house got up, rubbing dirty tears back across
his face and walked up over the rim of the hill.
"Anybody else wanta leave?" Thug took a seat on the ground and leaned
back up against the side of the house, putting his sling shot in his hip
pocket. Every little ear and every little dirty eye and every little skint
face was soaking in what Thug was saying. "Well, ain't much use ta make a
big speech. Both gangs is one now. That was what we was fightin' for."
He grinned up into space and wind blew dirt across the blood drying on
his face when he said, "Cain't no gang whip us now."
Chapter VII
FIRE EXTINGUISHERS
One day about three in the afternoon when I was playing out on
Grandma's farm, I heard a long, lonesome whistle blow. It was the fire
whistle. I'd heard it before. It always made me feel funny, wondering where
fire had struck this time, whose new house it was turning into ashes. In
about an hour a car pulled in off the main road in a big fog of dust, and
rolled on up to the house. It was my brother, Roy, looking for me. He was
with another man or two. They said it was our house.
But first they said, "... it's Clara."
"She's burnt awful bad ... might not live ... doctor come ... said for
everybody to get ready...."
They throwed me into the car like a shepherd dog, and I stood up all
the way home, stretching my neck in that direction. I wanted to see if I
could see any sign of the fire away down the road and up on the hills. We
got home and I saw a big crowd around the house. We went in. Everybody was
crying and sobbing. The house smelled full of smoke. It had caught fire and
the fire wagon had come. It was wet here and there, but not much.
Clara had caught fire. She had been ironing that day on an old kerosene
stove, and it had blowed up. She'd filled it with coal oil and cleaned
it--it was on her apron. Then it got to smoking, wouldn't bum, so she opened
the wick to look in, and when the air hit the chamber full of thick oily
smoke, it caught fire, blowed up all over her. She flamed up to the ceiling,
and run through the house screaming, out into the yard and around the house
twice, before she thought to roll in the tall green grass at the side of the
house and smother her clothing out. A boy from the next house saw her and
chased her down. He helped to smother the flying blaze. He carried her into
the house and laid her on her bed. She was laying there when I walked in
through the big crowd of crying friends and kinfolks.
Papa was setting in the front room with his head in his hands, not
saying very much, just once in a while, "Poor little Clara," and his face
was wet and red from crying.
The men and women standing around would tell good things about her.
"She cleaned my house better than I could have...."
"Smart in her books, too."
''She made my little boy a shirt.''
"She caught the measles by going to bed with my daughter."
Her school teacher was there. Clara had stayed out of school to do the
ironing. Mama and her had quarreled a little about it. Mama felt sick. Clara
wanted to get ready for her exams. The school teacher tried to cheer Mama up
by telling her how Clara led the class.
I went in and looked over where Clara was on the bed. She was the
happiest one in the bunch. She called me over to her bed and said, "Hello
there, old Mister Woodly." She always called me that when she wanted to make
me smile.
I said, "Hello."
"Everybody's cryin', Woodly. Papa's in there with his head down
crying...."
"Uhh huhh."
"Mama's in the dining room, crying her eyes out''
"I know."
"Old Roy even cried, and he's just a big old tough boy.''
''I seen `im."
"Woodly, don't you cry. Promise me that you won't ever cry. It don't
help, it just makes everybody feel bad, Woodly. . . ."
"I ain't a-cryin'."
"Don't do it--don't do it. I'm not bad off, Woodly; I'm gonna be up
playing some more in a day or two; just burnt a little; shucks, lots of
folks get hurt a little, and they don't like for everybody to go around
crying about it. I'll feel good, Woodly, if you just promise that you won't
cry."
"I ain't a-cryin', Sis." And I wasn't. And I didn't.
I set there on the side of her bed for a minute or two looking at her
burnt, charred skin hanging in twisted, red, blistered hunks around over her
body, and her face wrinkled and charred, and I felt something go away from
me. But I'd told Sis I wouldn't bawl about it, so I patted her on the hand,
and smiled at her, and got up and said, "You'll be all right, Sis; don't pay
no 'tention to 'em. They don't know. You'll be all right."
I got up and walked out real easy, and went out on the porch. Papa got
up and walked out behind me. He followed me over to a big rocking chair that
was out there, and he set down and called me over to him. He took me up in
his lap and told me over and over how good all of us kids was, and how mean
he had treated us, and that he was going to be good to all of us. This
wasn't true. He had always been good to his kids.
I was out in the yard a few minutes later and cut my hand pretty bad
with an old rusty knife. It bled a lot. Scared me a little. Papa grabbed me
and doctored me all up. He poured it full of iodine. That burnt. I squinched
my face around. Wished he hadn't put it on there. But I'd told Clara I
wouldn't ever cry no more. She laughed when the school teacher told her
about it.
I walked back into the bedroom after a while with my hand all done up
in a big white rag, and we talked a little more. Then Clara turned over to
her school teacher and sort of smiled, and said, "I missed class today,
didn't I, Mrs. Johnston?"
The teacher tried to smile and said, "Yes, but you still get the prize
for being the most regular pupil. Never late, never tardy and never absent."
"But I know my lesson awful good," Clara said.
"You always know your lessons," Mrs. Johnston answered.
"Do you--think--I'll--pass?" And Clara's eyes shut like she was half
asleep, dreaming about everything good. She breathed two or three long, deep
breaths of air, and I saw her whole body get limber and her head fall a
little to one side on her pillow.
The school teacher touched the tips of her fingers to Clara's eyes,
held them closed for a minute, and said, "Yes, you'll pass."
For a while it looked like trouble had made us closer friends with
everybody, had drawn our whole family together and made us know each other
better. But before long it was plainer than ever that it had been the
breaking point for my mother. She got worse, and lost control of the muscles
in her body; and two or three times a day she would have bad spells of
epileptics, first getting angry at things in the house, then arguing at
every stick of furniture in every room until she would be talking so loud
that all of the neighbors heard and wondered about it. I noticed that every
day she would spend a minute or two staring at a lump of melted glass
crystals, a door stop about as big as your two fists, and she told me,
"Before our new six-room house burned down, this was a twenty-dollar
cut-glass casserole. It was a present, and it was as pretty as I used to be.
But now look how it looks, all crazy, all out of shape. It don't reflect
pretty colors any more like it used to--it's all twisted, like everything
pretty gets twisted, like my whole life is twisted. God, I want to die! I
want to die! Now! Now! Now! Now!"
And she broke furniture and dishes to pieces.
She had always been one of the prettiest women in our part of the
country: long black wavy hair that she combed and brushed for several
minutes twice or three times a day medium weight, round and healthy face and
big dark eyes, She rode a one-hundred-dollar sidesaddle on a fast-stepping
black horse; and Papa would ride along beside her on a light-foot pacing
white mare. People said, "In them days óîur pa and ma made a mighty pretty
picture," but there was a look in people's eyes like they was just talking
about a pretty movie that come through town.
Mama had things on her mind. Troubles. She thought about them too much,
or didn't fight back. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she had faith in
something that you can't see, something that would cause it all to come
back, the house, the lands, the good furniture, the part-time maid, and the
car to drive around the country. She concentrated on her worries until it
got the best of her. The doctor said it would. He said for her to get up and
run away, for us to take her to a place, a land somewhere where there
wouldn't be any worries. She got to where she would shriek at the top of her
voice and talk for hours on end about things that had went wrong. She didn't
know where to put the blame. She turned on Papa. She thought he was to
blame.
The whole town knew about her. She got careless with her appearance.
She let herself run down. She walked around over the town, looking and
thinking and crying. The doctor called it insanity and let it go at that.
She lost control of the muscles of her face. Us kids would stand around in
the house lost in silence, not saying a word for hours, and ashamed"
somehow, to go out down the street and play with the kids, and wanting to
stay there and see how long her spell would last, and if we could help her.
She couldn't control her arms, nor her legs, nor the muscles in her body,
and she would go into spasms and fall on the floor, and wallow around
through the house, and ruin her clothes, and yell till people blocks up the
street could hear her.
She would be all right for a while and treat us kids as good as any
mother, and all at once it would start in--something bad and
awful--something would start coming over her, and it come by slow degrees.
Her face would twitch and her lips would snarl and her teeth would show.
Spit would run out of her mouth and she would start out in a low grumbling
voice and gradually get to talking as loud as her throat could stand it; and
her arms would draw up at her sides, then behind her back, and swing in all
kinds of curves. Her stomach would draw up into a hard ball, and she would
double over into a terrible-looking hunch--and turn into another person, it
looked like, standing right there before Roy and me.
I used to go to sleep at night and have dreams; it seemed like I
dreamed the whole thing out. I dreamed that my mama was just like anybody
else's. I saw her talking, smiling, and working just like other kids' mamas.
But when I woke up it would still be all wrong, all twisted out of shape,
helter-skelter, let go, the house not kept, the cooking skipped, the dishes
not washed. Oh, Roy and me tried, I guess. We would take spells of working
the house over, but I was only about nine years old, Roy about fifteen.
Other things, things that kids of that age do, games they play, places they
go, swimming holes, playing, running, laughing--we drifted into those things
just to try to forget for a minute that a cyclone had hit our home, and how
it was ripping and tearing away our family, and scattering it in the wind.
I hate a hundred times more to describe my own mother in any such words
as these. You hate to read about a mother described in any such words as
these. I know, I understand you. I hope you can understand me, for it must
be broke down and said.
We had to move out of the house. Papa didn't have no money, so he
couldn't pay the rent. He went down fighting, but he went right on down. He
was a lost man in a lost world. Lost everything. Lost every cent. Owed ten
times more than he could ever pay. Never could get caught up again, and get
strung out down the road to success. He didn't know that. He still believed
that he could start out on a peanut hull and fight his way back into the
ten-thousand-dollar oil deals, the farms, and ranchlands, the royalties, and
the leases, changing hands every day. I'll cut it short by saying that he
fought back, but he didn't make the grade. He was down and out. No good to
them. The big boys. They wouldn't back him. He went down and he stayed down.
We didn't want to send Mama away. It would be better some other place.
We'd go off and start all over. So in 1923 we packed up and moved away to
Oklahoma City. We moved in an old ’ Model truck. Didn't take much stuff
along. Just wanted to get away somewhere--where we didn't know anybody, and
see if that wouldn't make her better. She was better when we got home. When
we moved into an old house out there on Twenty-eighth Street, she felt
better. She cooked. It tasted good. She talked. It sure sounded good. She
would go for days and days and not have one of her spells. That looked like
the front door of heaven to all of us. We didn't care about our selfs so
much--it was her that we wanted to see get better. She swept the old house
and put out washings, and she even stuck a few little flower seeds down in
the ground and she watched them grow. She tied twine string up to the window
screens, and the sweet peas come up and looked at her in through the window.
Papa got some fire extinguishers and tried to sell them around at the
big buildings. But people thought they had enough stuff to keep them from
burning down, so he didn't sell many. They was one of the best 'kind on the
market. He had to pay for the ones that he used as samples. He sold about
one a month and made about six dollars off of every sale. He walked his self
to a frazzle. We didn't have but one or two sticks of furniture in the
house. An old monkey heater with room for two small pots, one beans, one
coffee; and we fried corn-meal mush and lived mostly on that when we could
get it. Papa gave up the fire-putter-outters because he wasn't a good enough
salesman, didn't look so pretty