Table of Contents
Introduction
1928 - Age Ten
1929 - Logan
1936 - Mickey
1939 - Panama
1940 - Boalsburg
February, 1942 - Luzon Island
April 1942 - Brisbane, Australia
1942 - Harrisburg
1942
1946 - The Pentagon
1948
1955 - Sabot
1958
1960
1961
1978
1988
About Roy Chandler
Books by Roy Chandler
Copyright © 1989 and 2013 by Katherine R. Chandler. All rights reserved.
Publication History
ebook: 2013
Katherine R. Chandler, Publisher
St. Mary's City, Maryland
First Printing: 1989
Bacon and Freeman
Origsburg, Pennsylvania
This is a work of fiction. None of the characters represent any persons living or dead.
All characters and incidents depicted were created by the author.
Introduction
In popular usage, cronies often refers to a group of old guys who hang out together. This book is more than that. It is about a lifetime friendship, one so close that it defies assault from without.
The reader will not be exposed to a massive reasoning that delves into the psychological whys of friendship. My characters do what they do—as we act or react—because we choose to. Genuine friendship can withstand the tribulations of success or failure. It can endure lengthy separation without weakening. Friends can exchange insults that from another would demand satisfaction.
True male friendship has, however, one irrevocable requirement. That is: one must NEVER fail the other's trust; no matter what the price, one must unflinchingly give support. A single betrayal, one breach of confidence, an uncertainty that the friend will be there, cracks the shell. Egg-like, the relationship can never be fully mended. Once doubt is established, complete trust, the kind this book is about, is never again possible.
This story is about a pair of buddies. It deals primarily with their relationships. Logan Dell and Mickey Weston are, of course, fictional. Those interested will find the geography accurate, and old timers will recall most of the conditions early in the yarn. Perhaps every Perry Countian will find a little of himself in this story. I would hope that to be true. I am in here and so are my Perry County cronies.
Rocky Chandler
Author
1928 - Age Ten
When he met the Rubys, Mickey Weston was in the road shoveling horse manure into his wheelbarrow. The manure had been dropped by passing teams. It stunk and drew flies. His father said to spread it on a field where it would do some good.
There were three Rubys. The biggest was no larger than Mickey, but the boys looked unfriendly and made him nervous. The girl was younger and seemed all eyes and hair. Mickey didn't give her too much attention.
The trio came close, the boys looking truculent. One spoke. "We're Rubys and that's our horse droppings you're collecting."
Mickey wasn't sure where he stood on the ownership of manure on a public road. He shifted uncertainly, and a fourth Ruby came swarming out of the brush. This one was bigger, and Mickey wished his pap would come out.
The big Ruby scared Mickey Weston. He stood half a head taller and had big, bony fists. His forehead lumped in two places and looked as though he was trying to grow horns. This Ruby's eyes were as angry as his brothers'. His words were even less comforting.
"What you doin', stranger-boy? Collectin' your supper?"
The brothers hee-hawed like donkeys but the girl appeared embarrassed and tugged on the eldest's shirt.
The brother pushed her away. "Don't haul on me, Sis." He didn't turn away from Mickey.
Off to the side a door creaked and the Rubys glanced that way. Mickey Weston felt his heart thud when a smaller boy said, "It's that damned Logan Dell."
When Logan came alongside he didn't seem at all worried by the Rubys' size or numbers. He planted himself beside Mickey Weston with the big Ruby hanging over both of them.
Ignoring the Ruby boys, Logan said, "Hi, Sis. You met Mickey yet? Mickey's moved in, and he'll be in our school come fall."
Sis nodded unhappily, shifting immense blue eyes to her new neighbor but plainly too nervous for comfort.
Logan wasn't through. He jerked a thumb toward the three Ruby boys and made introductions.
"These two are twins, though they don't look much alike. They're Cal and Daniel." The twins looked uncertain, and Mickey expected he did, too. Logan might be dragging things out, but the big one was still glowering away. Mickey figured the Ruby was looking for a fight and planned on the stranger being in it.
Logan shifted around a little so that he had to look almost across his left shoulder to see the big Ruby. Logan's next words made Mickey Weston's knees weak and his mouth turned dry.
"This here's Bart Ruby. Bart's older but he'll be in our school class because he's real dumb in book learning."
Bart Ruby's whole head turned red, and Sis Ruby's hands covered her mouth. When he spoke, Ruby's anger turned his voice squeaky.
"You're askin' for it, Dell." His big fists knotted, but Logan didn't seem to notice.
"Everybody knows you came to start a fight, Bart. You think we didn't see you hunchin' through the brush?
"Fact is, Ruby, nobody's scared of you." Logan scratched at an itchy right ear. "Just 'cause Mickey's new around here doesn't mean he can't lick the likes of you."
Mickey Weston hated Logan Dell. As sure as he stood there, the monster Ruby would pound on the new boy's head. Mickey wondered if he could make it to his porch before Bart Ruby caught him, but he was too scared to try.
Bart Ruby must have been as stunned as Mickey Weston. His big jaw worked and his eyes shifted between the two facing him. He settled on Logan Dell and his voice squeaked, "Damn you!" even as he hauled back a huge fist.
Logan Dell's punch was already moving. He rammed his right fist straight from his ear-scratching into Bart Ruby's nose. Standing sideways, he had all the momentum he could use.
Smack in front of him, Mickey Weston saw the fist connect with Bart Ruby's nose. He heard the dull, meaty thwack and observed the flattened spread of Ruby's nose as the impact took hold. It was an awesome punch, unexpected because it was hard to hit someone in the face, and Logan hadn't even sounded mad.
Bart Ruby's punch stalled and his hands rose instinctively to cover his abused member. Disbelief mixed with pain and bugged his eyes. Blood gushed between his fingers and he took his hands down to look at it.
Logan Dell hit him again, in the same place, and at least as hard.
It was too much. Shocked, stunned, and suddenly fearful. Bart Ruby twisted away, squalling aloud, cradling his smashed nose, all crouched over in pain. Ruby's eyes teared too much to see and his whole face felt crushed. He started for home, unmindful of his brothers and sister tagging behind and looking scared.
He called back, "I'll get you. Logan Dell." The twins shook their fists but they kept going. The road turned and Logan, Mickey and the manure barrow were alone.
Logan led to his porch and they sat on the steps, for the moment unspeaking. Mickey exhaled noisily. "I thought that Ruby would whip us both."
To Mickey's surprise, Logan's voice was shaky, and when he held out a hand, it too was quivery. "So did I. Old Bart's stronger than a bull. Doubt he knows how strong he is."
"Whew. I'd never have had the nerve to slug him. Logan."
"Wasn't sure I did."
A little embarrassed, Mickey added. "I don't know how you made yourself come out, Logan. I
'd have run to my pap for help."
Logan Dell thought about it for a minute.
"Well, I happened to see old Bart skulkin' around in the woods, so I had time to think about it. You know about Indian sign. Mickey?"
"You mean like talking with your hands?"
"Naw, this is something different. Way it works is you make a guy back down once and you've got him. He'll likely never try you again."
"Where'd you hear about it, Logan?"
"Read it somewhere. I reckon. Anyhow, it works. I've tried it a few times. Seemed to me that if your pap or mine had run Bart Ruby off he'd of had the sign on us and we'd be scared of him forever.
"My pap has always claimed that getting in the first punch in a fight is worth four or five later ones. Anybody who's been hit in the nose remembers how bad it hurts. Way I figured to do was to make old Bart Ruby hurt enough so's he'd avoid fighting us again."
Mickey understood, but he said, "I still couldn't have hit him like you did. Wow, right square in the nose."
Logan squirmed, enjoying his memory of the moment. "Boy, did that feel good." Then he sobered. "But you know, Mick, Bart still might have come at us. It was the second punch that finished him.
"I'm going to add another rule; it'll be to keep punchin' in a fight till the other guy hollers 'uncle.'"
"Think Ruby'll be layin' for us, Logan?"
"Likely he'll make mean noises, but if we act ready to fight him again, he'll back away."
"How did you learn all this. Logan?"
"Darned if I know."
Logan was tired of talking about it. "When you get done hauling manure, let's go swimming over at the first bridge. It ain't far and it's my favorite place."
"I've got to be back before milking."
"Same here. Main thing is to get out of sight before somebody thinks of something for us to do."
"I can get the last of the droppings on this load. You meet me up in the field and I'll just bring the barrow in later. No chance I'll get caught that way.
"But what if Bart Ruby's over there?"
"He won't be. Swimming's too much like bathing, and old Bart's not noted for cleaning up."
"Those Ruby's must be an awful family, Logan."
"Oh, they're all right. Their pap drinks too much and there's an awful bunch of 'em is all. Two older girls and three kids younger than Sis. Bart's the only trouble. He's dumber than an ox in school and just about as slow outside."
Logan looked a little worried. "We're delaying too long. I'm stealing out from behind the outhouse. You get done and I'll be waiting under the big beech, where we carve initials."
Both moved away, Logan whistling unnaturally loud. Mickey feared his own pap would hear it and come to find what was happening that shouldn't be.
+++
The Weston and Dell farms backed against Dix Hill and shared a common boundary. The property line was lost within a hundred-foot thick windbreak of hedge, trees, and rock piles. Since original clearing, owners had dumped the land's annual stone crop within the windbreak until the stones had their own piles and the earth was buried and useless. Snakes liked the cavey labyrinths, and small boys claimed the overgrown maze as their own.
The Dells had always owned their farm, but the Westons had come in from Juniata County, a long thirty or forty miles away. Being strangers, the Westons kept to themselves. It required time before neighbors could feel free to borrow tools or sit a spell on Paul and Marne Weston's porch.
Separated and almost hidden from one another by the overgrown windbreak, the two farmhouses were much alike. Each was a story and a half high with a broad front porch running the length of the home. The back porches were only half as long because part of each overhang had been closed into an additional room.
The houses were made of squared logs, long since covered by vertical shiplapped boards on the outside and plastered over, hickory withe within. Such houses were warmer in winter than either brick or stone buildings.
Logan Dell and Malcolm Weston, always call Mickey, were born within months of each other, just as the World War ground to a halt.
Most farm families were large, with stairstep children, occasionally into double digits. The Dells and Westons were unusual because each had only one child. Grownups practiced reserve and a cautious exposure of private lives, but ten year old boys marched fearlessly, and Mickey and Logan immediately became friends.
Mickey Weston and Logan Dell slept in a gable end of their upstairs and could see each other's window through the trees. When they became best friends, Logan climbed and cut away intruding branches while Mickey directed the operation from his window. Thereafter, they could signal each other with lantern or candle. Secret signs allowed them basic communications, though in summer, with windows opened, it was easier to yell across.
The Logan house boasted a tin roof, which never leaked but made a horrendous clatter during rain or under hailstones. Mickey's roof was split cedar shingles, so old and gnarled that tree frogs lived within the green and mossy growth covering them. Although daylight shone through the gaps beneath shingles, Mickey's part of the roof did not leak. In other places, Paul Weston had nailed tin roofing over weak spots, until enough cash came to hand for reroofing.
In winter, the boys' attic rooms seemed colder than outdoors. A quick dash from kitchen warmth into a multitude of downy quilts and a balled up sleeping position eventually conquered the cold. In summer, the roofs were protected from the sun by ancient oaks that spread shade and kept temperatures tolerable.
Both Logan and Mickey felt specially blessed in having their own rooms. In most families, children were tightly packed, and a place of one's own was improbable.
Throughout the year, the kitchen's great iron cookstove heated each home. The stoves burned wood and required regular feedings. In summer, the fires burned low because heat was hateful and in August, became almost intolerable. During winter, the stoves glowed red and turned the large kitchens into rooms where living went on. An open water tank on the stove-back heated daily wash ups, laundry water, and the required Saturday night bath. For bathing, the family took turns behind large screens in a kitchen corner. Heating water for three tub fillings was not always convenient, and bath water was often reused before being dumped.
Both families labored as long as the sun allowed, and did what else they could by lamplight. School lessons were studied at the kitchen table, unless mothers were baking or spreading their cooking about. The table was best because the ceiling lamp cast its soft glow. Paul Weston read many things and shared the lamplight with wife and son. John Dell rarely read anything. He and his wife retired earlier, leaving their son to choose his own time.
Farm life was a relentless routine with stock and crops demanding attention. Cows required two daily milkings, including Sunday. Seasons repeated with four-sided monotony, varied only by the weather's unpredictability.
Cash crops were small and money was scarce. John Dell was a deadly shot and supplemented potatoes, beans, pork, and chicken with groundhog, grouse, quail, squirrel, and an occasional turkey but whitetail deer were too scarce to provide more than a welcome surprise. Both boys fished Little Juniata Creek where they caught eels and snapping turtles. The Westons and Dells were never hungry but they were in little danger of growing fat.
On his first venture into the woodland bordering their new farm, Mickey Weston was startled almost into running. A boy his own size stepped from behind a tree and raised a hand, palm outward. Sober as a schoolmarm, the boy said, "How."
Logan Dell wore an Indian style breechclout made from a length of gunnysack. In his rope belt, a broken sickle blade with a wooden handle provided a knife. A rag headband bristled with turkey feathers, and wavy soot lines on each cheek proved he was an Indian.
Mickey thrilled with the imagination of it. The boy had pulled squares of sacking over his bare feet and tied the ends to his ankles with rope lashings. Moccasins! Mickey identified them instantly. Tentatively his own hand rose and he answered
, "How." The Indian appeared satisfied and came closer.
"You must be the new boy, just moved in."
"Yup, I'm Mickey."
The Indian nodded, confident as a chief, and immediately took charge.
"Well, I'm Logan Dell and this is my woods. See'n you're livin' here now, you can come in any time you're a'mind." Then Logan frowned and his lip stuck out. "But don't let no girls in or any of them Rubys from up the road."
Mickey wouldn't want girls around and he didn't know the Rubys. He was agreeable.
Logan's camp was in deeper and further from the road. To reach it they had to crawl through thickets of raspberry bushes. Near one rock pile Logan warned to watch out because copperheads liked the spot.
The camp was dry, but a forest of cane all around marked damper ground. They sat on a downed log close beside Logan's firepit. A lean-to floored with pine needles and roofed with barky slabs left from sawmilling made the camp comfortable. Mickey could hardly wait to stay out a night in it.
Logan Dell's treasures were many, and Mickey envied every one of them. The best was a heavy tomahawk club made from a genuine Indian stone. Logan pronounced it "genu-Wine," which made the word stand out.
Logan had found the stone after a rain in a newly plowed field. When they'd had a fresh cowhide, Logan had split the end of a green willow stick and forced the thinner center of the stone into the split. Then he had wrapped stick and stone tightly with strips of fresh hide. As the cowhide dried, it drew up and held the stone in place. Later Logan had carved his name in the handle and looped a wrist strap through a hole bored in the far end. Mickey resolved to make his own club, as soon as he could find a suitable stone.
Logan had matches in a bottle corked by a plug of corn cob. There were a lot of good snake skins, some still pinned onto boards for drying. While they talked, Logan rubbed wood ashes into the flesh side of a stretched skin. "Helped preserve it," he claimed, though you had to shift over to a good oil before the skin got too dry and wound up crackly.
Cronies (Perry County) Page 1
