and the fishing creeks and swimming holes.
That night Okemah watched Cromwell crackle and roar and dance in the
wind and fall into a flat bed of red-hot cinders.
Fire is a funny thing. It helps you and it hurts you. It builds a town
up and it eats it down.
What could be left of those little old lumber houses with all of the
boards as dry as powder and running full of rosin?
What could be left of a family caught asleep and choked down in the
smoke? What could be left of a man that lost his family there?
I forgot all about the cold dew and went to sleep on the top rim of the
hill just thinking about it.
Chapter VII
CAIN'T NO GANG WHIP US NOW
A new tribe of boomchasers hit town every day, families with kids, kids
looking for work and play. The gang-house kids made a law that new kids
coming in couldn't have any say-so in how the gang was run, so the new kids
got mad and moved a little farther on down the hill. I was sore at the old
gang and went and hooked up with the new one. And trouble had got so hot
between the two gangs that it looked awful dark.
"Woody, did you write that war letter, like we said last night?" The
captain of our new gang was saluting and nodding to several kids as they
come out for the day's playing.
I read out:
To the Members of the Old Gang:
Dear Captain and Leaders and Members:
We told you why we are fighting this war. It is because of your leaders
mostly. Most of us kids is new here in town and we ain't got no other place
except at your gang house, You made us work but you didn't let us vote or
nothing like that when it was time.
The only way out is to let all of us kids own the gang house together.
We was always fighting the other way. One gang against the other one. It
will always be this a-way unless we change it, and you don't want us to
change it, but we aim to anyhow. Both gangs has got to join up together and
be one gang.
We will come to see you at eight o'clock, and if you still try to keep
us split up, we will start a war.
It will not be a play war. It will take place with sling shots and
flint rocks. It will be a real war and it will last till one side or the
other wins out on top.
The Boom Town Kids,
Thug Warner, Chief.
Woody Guthrie, Messenger.
"Sounds okay."
"Purty fair letter."
"It'll do." Our captain pulled a big dollar watch out of his
overalls pocket. "Fifteen minnits, then war's on!" Then he said, "Okay,
go on, read 'em th' letter."
"Yessir." I touched the bill of my corduroy hunting cap I always wore
in a hard fight. I put a white handkerchief on my arm and went to the old
gang house.
"Git back thar, trater!" I heard a couple of highway flints zoom past
my ears.
"Quit shootin'! I'm a mess'nger! Ya c'n see this white rag on my arm!"
The door opened up and Colonel and Rex stepped out into the open.
Colonel had his early morning chew of scrap tobacco pretty well limbered up,
and spit three or four long squirts while he gritted his teeth and read the
letter.
Rex read over Colonel's shoulder, "A real war ... till one side or the
other wins out on top." He flipped his lip with his fingers and looked up
across the hill. "What chance you fools think you got 'ginst our gang house
shootin' with flint-rock Sling shots?"
"You'll see." I turned my corduroy hat around so the bill protected the
back of my head and neck. "You guys has seen me wear this cap backwards
before, haven't ya? Ya know that means fight, don't ya? I don't feel funny
fightin' on th' new kids' side, 'cause, ya see, men, I jes' happen ta
believe they're right an' you're wrong."
"You an' yore letter, an' yore pack of mangy curs! Boom town rats!"
Colonel tore the war letter up into a hundred little pieces and slung them
into my face like a quick snow.
Rex shut the door and latched it. "Okay, fellas," I heard him tell his
fighters inside, "it's war! Everybody ready? Rocks easy to reach? Keep out
of shootin' range of these open windows!" Then he stuck his head out the
window that had been the jail and yelled at me, "You yeller-bellied quitter!
Git movin'!"
I expected a rock to whack me in the back any time as I run back up the
hill, but nothing hit me. "I guess you seen what happened ta our letter!" I
told the captain.
"Three minnits, boys. Then she's war!" Thug turned to me and winked and
said, "Round up th' men. Bring all of 'em right here in th' alley."
I whistled through my teeth and waved my hand in the air as a signal
for all of the kids on our side to follow me. Everybody stood in the alley
above the trash pile at the top of the hill.
"You four go with Slew." Thug pointed out the squads. "You four foller
Woody through the trash pile. You three fight here in the middle with me.
Git to yer places!"
"Fire away, boys!" some kid yelled out.
"Hold yer fire!" Thug bawled him out. "If we shoot one second ahead of
eight o'clock, they'll go aroun' lyin' that we sneaked up on 'em, an' didn't
give 'em a chance!"
"How long, Thug?"
" 'Bout ten secinds!"
"Places ever'bodyyyy! Gitt reaeeeedyyy!"
We ripped and tore and yelled on our way to our places. Three kids
pulled homemade coaster wagons loaded to the hub with good shaped
sling-shots rocks. The gang house was built on a flat place dug out of the
hill. A patch of weeds about three foot high run along the upper part where
we stood and was the only thing that would hide us from the rock fire of the
fighters in the house. Kids eyed one another, patted the old trusty stocks
and rubbers of their sling shots. Then all eyes centered on Thug.
He looked at his big dollar watch and hollered, "Chaaarrge!"
"Down on yer bellies!" Slew yelled out to the whole line. He was as
good a fighting captain any old day as Thug. "Crawl inta these weeds! Save
your rocks! Keep crawlin' down th' hill! Let's put that guy in th' lockout
tower out of order first!"
Thug was standing on the north end of our line. He drawed back his
rubbers so tight they sung a bugle call in the bard wind, and whizzed a rock
through the jail-house window. Inside some kid with the first punk knot of
the war, hollered, "Ooohhhh!"
Trick doors the size of a cigar box slid open, first here, then there,
all over the front side of the house. Hands of a dozen kids stuck from
underneath and around the edges of the windows, rubbers stretched, and rocks
howled through the air.
"Hot rocks! Red hot! Feel that!" Claude was cussing next to me,
touching the end of his finger to an agate-looking flint that had dug the
grass roots a couple of inches from his head. "Heatin' 'em on that dam stove
they got inside!"
I bit my bottom lip and pasted one into the lookout nest that
splintered a sliding trap door to shavings. A red-hot rock flew back out of
the tower and glanced off of my shoulder blade, leaving a burnt red welt,
about six inches long. Claude heard the thump and felt me roll over against
him moaning.
"Looky here!" Claude pointed to the rock laying between us in the
grass. "Simmerin'. Scorchin' th' grass!" He tried to pick it up and load it
into his sling, but jerked his fingers back saying, "Wowie! Boy! Howdy!
Hotter'n a bitch!"
I put my hand up to my mouth and ducked low and yelled back at our
bunch, "Hot rocks! Watch out! Hot rocks!"
I seen Thug crawling through the weeds toward me, wearing a flop felt
hat a couple of sizes too big, folded full of newspapers, for a helmet. He
jumped to his feet and run through the weeds, pointing at a couple of kids
in charge of our ammunition wagons. "Hey! You two! Git plenty of good
firewood! Them birds'll be awful sorry they ever started this hot-rock
fightin'!"
Before many minutes a new fire was crackling on the side of the hill
behind our lines. The two kids lifted tin buckets from a wagon, each bucket
piled brim full of round flints, and set on a two-foot sheet of corrugated
roofing tin. Papers, sticks, and weed stalks blazed underneath. The fire got
hotter and, before long, there was a tin bucket of the hot rocks within easy
reach of every kid on our side.
"How'dya take a-holt of 'em ta shoot, without blistering yer hands?" I
asked a kid when he set a bucket down between Claude and me. I could feel
the heat from the bucket of rocks striking my skin from two feet away.
"Red-hot mommers!"
The ammunition boy grinned at me and said, "Gotta par o' gloves on ya?"
"I ain't got none here." I dodged a foot to one side and seen a rock
knock a hole the size of a horseshoe track. It buried itself a good inch in
the grass roots and shot sizzling hot steam from the damp ground under the
dead grass. "Kill a man if it'd hit 'im jest right,"
"We got two pairs o' gloves fer our whole bunch. Thirteen of us. So,
here, here's a left-handed glove. Ya gotta load an' shoot real quick, so's
ya don't git burnt." He dropped a glove between me and Claude.
I pulled on the glove, fished a nice juicy roasted rock out of the
bucket, slipped it into the leather of my sling shot, stretched the rubbers
as far as they would go, and felt the heat of the rock burning the tips of
my fingers when I let go. The shot knicked a handful of splinters off of the
side of the house. "Trouble is, ya don't shoot as straight with a glove on."
"Clumsy. Yeah." He finished digging his little hole. "Think we might
oughtta switch back to just plain rocks, an' shoot straighter? More of 'em?"
"We gotta use 'em hot. See, them guys in th' house knows that we cain't
crawl around on our bellies if they lay a lot of heated rocks all over this
weed patch. One of these here rocks'll stay hot fifteen 'er twenty minnits.
Step on 'er, lay down on one, or come down on one with your knee, boy, it'd
dam near it put ya outta commish'n!"
"Halfa our kids is goin' barefooted, too." Claude squinted his eyes up
and said, "See that little window up yonder in that there lookout tower?
Watch it."
"Got 'er kivvered." I heard Claude's rubbers sing like a big airplane
motor. "Like a bat goin' home ta roost," I laughed when the rock clattered
inside the crow's-nest window.
Zuuumm. Another kid from the weeds 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 оl' 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 оl' 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 оl' 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 уоur 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
That night Okemah watched Cromwell crackle and roar and dance in the
wind and fall into a flat bed of red-hot cinders.
Fire is a funny thing. It helps you and it hurts you. It builds a town
up and it eats it down.
What could be left of those little old lumber houses with all of the
boards as dry as powder and running full of rosin?
What could be left of a family caught asleep and choked down in the
smoke? What could be left of a man that lost his family there?
I forgot all about the cold dew and went to sleep on the top rim of the
hill just thinking about it.
Chapter VII
CAIN'T NO GANG WHIP US NOW
A new tribe of boomchasers hit town every day, families with kids, kids
looking for work and play. The gang-house kids made a law that new kids
coming in couldn't have any say-so in how the gang was run, so the new kids
got mad and moved a little farther on down the hill. I was sore at the old
gang and went and hooked up with the new one. And trouble had got so hot
between the two gangs that it looked awful dark.
"Woody, did you write that war letter, like we said last night?" The
captain of our new gang was saluting and nodding to several kids as they
come out for the day's playing.
I read out:
To the Members of the Old Gang:
Dear Captain and Leaders and Members:
We told you why we are fighting this war. It is because of your leaders
mostly. Most of us kids is new here in town and we ain't got no other place
except at your gang house, You made us work but you didn't let us vote or
nothing like that when it was time.
The only way out is to let all of us kids own the gang house together.
We was always fighting the other way. One gang against the other one. It
will always be this a-way unless we change it, and you don't want us to
change it, but we aim to anyhow. Both gangs has got to join up together and
be one gang.
We will come to see you at eight o'clock, and if you still try to keep
us split up, we will start a war.
It will not be a play war. It will take place with sling shots and
flint rocks. It will be a real war and it will last till one side or the
other wins out on top.
The Boom Town Kids,
Thug Warner, Chief.
Woody Guthrie, Messenger.
"Sounds okay."
"Purty fair letter."
"It'll do." Our captain pulled a big dollar watch out of his
overalls pocket. "Fifteen minnits, then war's on!" Then he said, "Okay,
go on, read 'em th' letter."
"Yessir." I touched the bill of my corduroy hunting cap I always wore
in a hard fight. I put a white handkerchief on my arm and went to the old
gang house.
"Git back thar, trater!" I heard a couple of highway flints zoom past
my ears.
"Quit shootin'! I'm a mess'nger! Ya c'n see this white rag on my arm!"
The door opened up and Colonel and Rex stepped out into the open.
Colonel had his early morning chew of scrap tobacco pretty well limbered up,
and spit three or four long squirts while he gritted his teeth and read the
letter.
Rex read over Colonel's shoulder, "A real war ... till one side or the
other wins out on top." He flipped his lip with his fingers and looked up
across the hill. "What chance you fools think you got 'ginst our gang house
shootin' with flint-rock Sling shots?"
"You'll see." I turned my corduroy hat around so the bill protected the
back of my head and neck. "You guys has seen me wear this cap backwards
before, haven't ya? Ya know that means fight, don't ya? I don't feel funny
fightin' on th' new kids' side, 'cause, ya see, men, I jes' happen ta
believe they're right an' you're wrong."
"You an' yore letter, an' yore pack of mangy curs! Boom town rats!"
Colonel tore the war letter up into a hundred little pieces and slung them
into my face like a quick snow.
Rex shut the door and latched it. "Okay, fellas," I heard him tell his
fighters inside, "it's war! Everybody ready? Rocks easy to reach? Keep out
of shootin' range of these open windows!" Then he stuck his head out the
window that had been the jail and yelled at me, "You yeller-bellied quitter!
Git movin'!"
I expected a rock to whack me in the back any time as I run back up the
hill, but nothing hit me. "I guess you seen what happened ta our letter!" I
told the captain.
"Three minnits, boys. Then she's war!" Thug turned to me and winked and
said, "Round up th' men. Bring all of 'em right here in th' alley."
I whistled through my teeth and waved my hand in the air as a signal
for all of the kids on our side to follow me. Everybody stood in the alley
above the trash pile at the top of the hill.
"You four go with Slew." Thug pointed out the squads. "You four foller
Woody through the trash pile. You three fight here in the middle with me.
Git to yer places!"
"Fire away, boys!" some kid yelled out.
"Hold yer fire!" Thug bawled him out. "If we shoot one second ahead of
eight o'clock, they'll go aroun' lyin' that we sneaked up on 'em, an' didn't
give 'em a chance!"
"How long, Thug?"
" 'Bout ten secinds!"
"Places ever'bodyyyy! Gitt reaeeeedyyy!"
We ripped and tore and yelled on our way to our places. Three kids
pulled homemade coaster wagons loaded to the hub with good shaped
sling-shots rocks. The gang house was built on a flat place dug out of the
hill. A patch of weeds about three foot high run along the upper part where
we stood and was the only thing that would hide us from the rock fire of the
fighters in the house. Kids eyed one another, patted the old trusty stocks
and rubbers of their sling shots. Then all eyes centered on Thug.
He looked at his big dollar watch and hollered, "Chaaarrge!"
"Down on yer bellies!" Slew yelled out to the whole line. He was as
good a fighting captain any old day as Thug. "Crawl inta these weeds! Save
your rocks! Keep crawlin' down th' hill! Let's put that guy in th' lockout
tower out of order first!"
Thug was standing on the north end of our line. He drawed back his
rubbers so tight they sung a bugle call in the bard wind, and whizzed a rock
through the jail-house window. Inside some kid with the first punk knot of
the war, hollered, "Ooohhhh!"
Trick doors the size of a cigar box slid open, first here, then there,
all over the front side of the house. Hands of a dozen kids stuck from
underneath and around the edges of the windows, rubbers stretched, and rocks
howled through the air.
"Hot rocks! Red hot! Feel that!" Claude was cussing next to me,
touching the end of his finger to an agate-looking flint that had dug the
grass roots a couple of inches from his head. "Heatin' 'em on that dam stove
they got inside!"
I bit my bottom lip and pasted one into the lookout nest that
splintered a sliding trap door to shavings. A red-hot rock flew back out of
the tower and glanced off of my shoulder blade, leaving a burnt red welt,
about six inches long. Claude heard the thump and felt me roll over against
him moaning.
"Looky here!" Claude pointed to the rock laying between us in the
grass. "Simmerin'. Scorchin' th' grass!" He tried to pick it up and load it
into his sling, but jerked his fingers back saying, "Wowie! Boy! Howdy!
Hotter'n a bitch!"
I put my hand up to my mouth and ducked low and yelled back at our
bunch, "Hot rocks! Watch out! Hot rocks!"
I seen Thug crawling through the weeds toward me, wearing a flop felt
hat a couple of sizes too big, folded full of newspapers, for a helmet. He
jumped to his feet and run through the weeds, pointing at a couple of kids
in charge of our ammunition wagons. "Hey! You two! Git plenty of good
firewood! Them birds'll be awful sorry they ever started this hot-rock
fightin'!"
Before many minutes a new fire was crackling on the side of the hill
behind our lines. The two kids lifted tin buckets from a wagon, each bucket
piled brim full of round flints, and set on a two-foot sheet of corrugated
roofing tin. Papers, sticks, and weed stalks blazed underneath. The fire got
hotter and, before long, there was a tin bucket of the hot rocks within easy
reach of every kid on our side.
"How'dya take a-holt of 'em ta shoot, without blistering yer hands?" I
asked a kid when he set a bucket down between Claude and me. I could feel
the heat from the bucket of rocks striking my skin from two feet away.
"Red-hot mommers!"
The ammunition boy grinned at me and said, "Gotta par o' gloves on ya?"
"I ain't got none here." I dodged a foot to one side and seen a rock
knock a hole the size of a horseshoe track. It buried itself a good inch in
the grass roots and shot sizzling hot steam from the damp ground under the
dead grass. "Kill a man if it'd hit 'im jest right,"
"We got two pairs o' gloves fer our whole bunch. Thirteen of us. So,
here, here's a left-handed glove. Ya gotta load an' shoot real quick, so's
ya don't git burnt." He dropped a glove between me and Claude.
I pulled on the glove, fished a nice juicy roasted rock out of the
bucket, slipped it into the leather of my sling shot, stretched the rubbers
as far as they would go, and felt the heat of the rock burning the tips of
my fingers when I let go. The shot knicked a handful of splinters off of the
side of the house. "Trouble is, ya don't shoot as straight with a glove on."
"Clumsy. Yeah." He finished digging his little hole. "Think we might
oughtta switch back to just plain rocks, an' shoot straighter? More of 'em?"
"We gotta use 'em hot. See, them guys in th' house knows that we cain't
crawl around on our bellies if they lay a lot of heated rocks all over this
weed patch. One of these here rocks'll stay hot fifteen 'er twenty minnits.
Step on 'er, lay down on one, or come down on one with your knee, boy, it'd
dam near it put ya outta commish'n!"
"Halfa our kids is goin' barefooted, too." Claude squinted his eyes up
and said, "See that little window up yonder in that there lookout tower?
Watch it."
"Got 'er kivvered." I heard Claude's rubbers sing like a big airplane
motor. "Like a bat goin' home ta roost," I laughed when the rock clattered
inside the crow's-nest window.
Zuuumm. Another kid from the weeds 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 оl' 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 оl' 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 оl' 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 уоur 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