"Derned if I didn't have to hold my hair on," wrote Dad. "I don't think we
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hit the ground but twice all the way to town. Dern near overshot the gate whenwe finally tore up the hill to their house. Thaddeus was playing out front andwe dang near ran him down. Smashed his trike to flinders. I saw the handlebars sticking out from under the front wheel when I followed Bert in. Then Igot to thinking that he'd get a flat parking on all that metal so I went outto move the car. Lucky I did. Bert musta forgot to set the brakes. Derned ifthat car wasn't headed straight for Thaddeus. He was walking right in front ofit. Even had his hand on the bumper and the dern thing rolling right afterhim. I yelled and hit out for the car. But by the time I got there, it hadstopped and Thaddeus was squatting by his wrecked trike. What do you supposethe little cuss said? 'Old car broke my trike. I made him get off.'
"Can you beat it? Kids get the dernedest ideas. Lucky it wasn't much downhill, though. He'd have been hurt sure."
I lay with the letter on my chest and felt cold. Dad had forgotten thatthey "tore up the hill" and that the car must have rolled up the slope to getoff Thaddeus' trike.
That night I woke up the ward yelling, "Come on, Wagon!"
It was some months later when I saw Thaddeus again. He and half a dozenother nephews—and the one persistent niece—were in a tearing hurry to besomewhere else and nearly mobbed Dad and me on the front porch as they boiledout of the house with mouths and hands full of cookies. They all stopped longenough to give me the once-over and fire a machine gun volley with mycrutches, then they disappeared down the land on their bikes, heads low, rearends high, and every one of them being bombers at the tops of their voices.
I only had time enough to notice that Thaddeus had lanked out and was justone of the kids as he grinned engagingly at me with the two-tooth gap in hisfront teeth.
"Did you ever notice anything odd about Thaddeus?" I pulled out themakin's.
"Thaddeus?" Dad glanced up at me from firing up his battered old corncobpipe. "Not particularly. Why?"
"Oh, nothing." I ran my tongue along the paper and rolled the cigaretteshut. "He just always seemed kinda
different."
"Well, he's always been kinda slow about some things. Not that he's dumb.Once he catches on, he's as smart as anyone, but he's sure pulled some funnyones."
"Give me a fer-instance," I said, wondering if he'd remember the trikedeal.
"Well, coupla years ago at a wienie roast he was toting something aroundwrapped in a paper napkin. Jean saw him put it in his pocket and she thoughtit was probably a dead frog or a beetle or something like that, so she madehim fork it over. She unfolded the napkin and derned if there wasn't a biglive coal in it. Dern thing flamed right up in her hand. Thaddeus belleredlike a bull calf. Said he wanted to take it home cause it was pretty. How heever carried it around that long without setting himself afire is what gotme." "That's Thaddeus," I said, "odd." "Yeah." Dad was firing his pipe again,flicking the burned match down, to join the dozen or so others by the porchrailing. "I guess you might call him odd. But he'll outgrow it. He hasn'tpulled anything like that in a long time."
"They do outgrow it," I said. "Thank God." And I think it was a realprayer. I don't like kids. "By the way, Where's Clyde?"
"Down in the East Pasture, plowing. Say, that tractor I got that lastChristmas you were here is a bear cat. It's lasted me all this time and I'venever had to do a lick of work on it. Clyde's using it today."
"When you get a good tractor you got a good one," I said. "Guess I'll godown and see the old son-of-a-gun—Clyde, I mean. Haven't seen him in a coon'sage." I gathered up my crutches.
Dad scrambled to his feet "Better let me run you down in the pickup. I've
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gotta go over to Jesperson's anyway."
"Okay," I said. "Won't be long till I can throw these things away." So we
piled in the pickup and headed for the East Pasture.
We were ambushed at the pump corner by the kids and were killed variously
by P-38s, atomic bombs, ack-ack, and the Lone Ranger's six-guns. Then we
lowered our hands which had been raised all this time and Dad reached out and
collared the nearest nephew.
"Come along, Punkin-Yaller. That blasted Holstein has busted out again. You
get her out of the alfalfa and see if you can find where she got through this
time."
"Aw, gee whiz!" The kid—and of course it was Thaddeus—climbed into the back
of the pickup. "That dern cow."
We started up with a jerk and I turned half around in the seat to look back
at Thaddeus.
"Remember your little red wagon?" I yelled over the clatter.
"Red wagon?" Thaddeus yelled back. His face lighted. "Red wagon?"
I could tell he had remembered and then, as plainly as the drawing of a
shade, his eyes went shadowy and he yelled, "Yeah, kinda." And turned around
to wave violently at the unnoticing kids behind us.
So, I thought, he is outgrowing it. Then spent the rest of the short drive
trying to figure just what it was he was outgrowing.
Dad dumped Thaddeus out at the alfalfa field and took me on across the
canal and let me out by the pasture gate.
"I'll be back in about an hour if you want to wait. Might as well ride
home."
"I might start back afoot," I said, "It'd feel good to stretch my legs
again."
"I'll keep a look out for you on my way back." And he rattled away in the
ever present cloud of dust.
I had trouble managing the gate. It's one of those wire affairs that open
by slipping a loop off the end post and lifting the bottom of it out of
another loop. This one was taut and hard to handle. I just got it opened when
Clyde turned the far corner and started back toward me, the plow behind the
tractor curling up red-brown ribbons in its wake. It was the last go-round to
complete the field.
I yelled, "Hi!" and waved a crutch at him.
He yelled, "Hi!" back at me. What came next was too fast and too far away
for me to be sure what actually happened. All I remember was a snort and roar
and the tractor bucked and bowed. There was a short yell from Clyde and the
shriek of wires pulling loose from a fence post followed by a choking
smothering silence.
Next thing I knew, I was panting halfway to the tractor, my crutches
sinking exasperatingly into the soft plowed earth. A nightmare year later I
knelt by the stalled tractor and called, "Hey, Clyde!"
Clyde looked up at me, a half grin, half grimace on his muddy face.
"Hi. Get this thing off me, will you. I need that leg." Then his eyes
turned up white and he passed out.
The tractor had toppled him from the seat and then run over top of him,
turning into the fence and coming to rest with one huge wheel half burying his
leg in the soft dirt and pinning him against a fence post. The far wheel was
on the edge of the irrigation ditch that bordered the field just beyond the
fence. The huge bulk of the machine was balanced on the raw edge of nothing
and it looked like a breath would send it on over— then God have mercy on
Clyde. It didn't help much to notice that the red-brown dirt was steadily
becoming redder around the imprisoned leg.
I knelt there paralyzed with panic. There was nothing I could do. I didn't
dare to try to start the tractor. If I touched it, it might go over. Dad was
gone for an hour. I couldn't make it by foot to the house in time.
&nb
sp; Then all at once out of nowhere I heard a startled "Gee whiz!" and there
was Thaddeus standing goggle-eyed on the ditch bank.
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Something exploded with a flash of light inside my head and I whispered tomyself, Now take it easy. Don't scare the kid, don't startle him.
"Gee whiz!" said Thaddeus again. "What happened?"
I took a deep breath. "Old Tractor ran over Uncle Clyde. Make it get off."
Thaddeus didn't seem to hear me. He was intent on taking in the wholeshebang.
"Thaddeus," I said, "make Tractor get off." Thaddeus looked at me with thatblind, unseeing stare he used to have. I prayed silently, Don't let him be tooold. O God, don't let him be too old. And Thaddeus jumped across the ditch. Heclimbed gingerly through the barbwire fence and squatted down by the tractor,his hands caught between his chest and knees. He bent his head forward and Istared urgently at the soft vulnerable nape of his neck. Then he turned hisblind eyes to me again.
"Tractor doesn't want to."
I felt a yell ball up in my throat, but I caught it in time. Don't scarethe kid, I thought. Don't scare him.
"Make Tractor get off anyway," I said as matter-of-factly as I couldmanage. "He's hurting Uncle Clyde."
Thaddeus turned and looked at Clyde.
"He isn't hollering."
"He can't. He's unconscious." Sweat was making my palms slippery.
"Oh." Thaddeus examined Clyde's quiet face curiously. "I never saw anybodyunconscious before."
"Thaddeus." My voice was sharp. "Make—Tractor—get —off."
Maybe I talked too loud. Maybe I used the wrong words, but Thaddeus lookedup at me and I saw the shutters close in his eyes. They looked up at me, blueand shallow and bright.
"You mean start the tractor?" His voice was brisk as he stood up. "Geewhiz! Grampa told us kids to leave the tractor alone. It's dangerous for kids.I don't know whether I know how—"
"That's not what I meant," I snapped, my voice whetted on the edge of mydespair. "Make it get off Uncle Clyde. He's dying."
"But I can't! You can't just make a tractor do something. You gotta runit." His face was twisting with approaching tears.
"You could if you wanted to," I argued, knowing how useless it was. "UncleClyde will die if you don't."
"But I can't! I don't know how! Honest I don't." Thaddeus scrubbed one bare foot in the plowed dirt, sniffing miserably.
I knelt beside Clyde and slipped my hand inside his dirt-smeared shirt. Ipulled my hand out and rubbed the stained palm against my thigh. "Never mind,"I said bluntly, "it doesn't matter now. He's dead."
Thaddeus started to bawl, not from grief but bewilderment. He knew I wasput out with him and he didn't know why. He crooked his arm over his eyes andleaned against a fence post, sobbing noisily. I shifted myself over in thedark furrow until my shadow sheltered Clyde's quiet face from the hotafternoon sun. I clasped my hands palm to palm between my knees and waited forDad.
I knew as well as anything that once Thaddeus could have helped—Whycouldn't he then, when the need was so urgent? Well, maybe he really hadoutgrown his strangeness. Or it might be that he actually couldn't do anythingjust because Clyde and I were grownups. Maybe if it had been another kid—
Sometimes my mind gets cold trying to figure it out. Especially when I getthe answer that kids and grownups live in two worlds so alien and separatethat the gap can't be bridged even to save a life. Whatever the answer is—Istill don't like kids.
Walking Aunt Daid
I looked up in surprise and so did Ma. And so did Pa. Aunt Daid was moving.
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Her hands were coming together and moving upward till the light from the
fireplace had a rest from flickering on that cracked, wrinkled wreck that was
her face. But the hands didn't stay long. They dropped back to her saggy lap
like two dead bats, and the sunken old mouth that had fallen in on its lips
years before I was born puckered and worked and let Aunt Daid's tongue out a
little ways before it pulled it back in again. I swallowed hard. There was
something alive about that tongue and alive wasn't a word I'd associate with
Aunt Daid.
Ma let out a sigh that was almost a snort and took up her fancy work again.
"Guess it's about time," she said over a sudden thrum of rain against the
darkening parlor windows.
"Naw," said Pa. "Too soon. Years yet."
"Don't know ‘bout that," said Ma. "Paul here's going on twenty. Count back
to the last time. Remember that, Dev?"
"Aw!" Pa squirmed in his chair. Then he rattled the Weekly Wadrow open and
snapped it back to the state news. "Better watch out," he warned, his eyes
answering hers. "I might learn more this time and decide I need some other
woman."
"Can't scare me," said Ma over the strand of embroidery thread she was
holding between her teeth to separate it into strands. " ’T'won't be your
place this time anyhow. Once for each generation, hasn't it been? It's Paul
this time."
"He's too young," protested Pa. "Some things younguns should be sheltered
from." He was stern.
"Paul's oldern'n you were at his age," said Ma. "Schooling does that to
you, I guess."
"Sheltered from what?" I asked. "What about last time? What's all this just
'cause Aunt Daid moved without anyone telling her to?"
"You'll find out," said Ma, and she shivered a little. "We make jokes about
it—but only in the family," she warned. "This is strictly family business. But
it isn't any joking matter. I wish the good Lord would take Aunt Daid. It's
creepy. It's not healthy."
"Aw, simmer down, Mayleen," said Pa. "It's not all that bad. Every family's
got its problems. Ours just happens to be Aunt Daid. It could be worse. At
least she's quiet and clean and biddable and that's more than you can say for
some other people's old folks."
"Old folks is right," said Ma. "We hit the jackpot there."
"How old is Aunt Daid?" I asked, wondering just how many years it had taken
to suck so much sap out of her that you wondered that the husk of her didn't
rustle when she walked.
"No one rightly knows," said Ma, folding away her fancy work. She went over
to Aunt Daid and put her hand on the sagging shoulder.
"Bedtime, Aunt Daid," she called, loud and clear. "Time for bed."
I counted to myself. ". . . three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten," and Aunt Daid was on her feet, her bent old knees wavering to hold her
scanty weight.
I shook my head wonderingly and half grinned. Never failed. Up at the count
of ten, which was pretty good, seeing as she never started stirring until the
count of five. It took that long for Ma's words to sink in.
I watched Aunt Daid follow Ma out. You couldn't push her to go anywhere,
but she followed real good. Then I said to Pa, "What's Aunt Daid's whole name?
How's she kin to us?"
"Don't rightly know," said Pa. "I could maybe figger it out—how she's kin
to us, I mean—if I took the time— a lot of it. Great-great-grampa started
calling her Aunt Daid. Other folks thought it was kinda disrespectful but it
stuck to her." He stood up and stretched and yawned. "Morning comes early," he
said. "Better hit the hay." He pitched the paper at the woodbox and went off
toward the kitchen for his bed snack.
"What'd he call her Aunt Daid for?" I hollered after him.
"Well," yelled Pa, his voic
e muffled, most likely from coming out of the
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icebox. "He said she shoulda been 'daid’ a long time ago, so he called herAunt Daid."
I figured on the edge of the Hog Breeder's Gazette. "Let's see. Aroundthirty years to a generation. Me, Pa, Grampa, great-grampa,great-great-grampa—and let's see for me that'd be another great That makes sixgenerations. That's 180 years—" I chewed on the end of my pencil, a funnyflutter inside me.
'"Course, that's just guessing," I told myself. "Maybe Pa just piled it onfor devilment. Minus a generation— that's 150." I put my pencil down realcareful. Shoulda been dead a long time ago. How old was Aunt Daid that theysaid that about her a century and a half ago?
Next morning the whole world was fresh and clean. Last night's spell ofrain had washed the trees and the skies and settled the dust, I stretched inthe early morning cool and felt like life was a pretty good thing. Vacationbefore me and nothing much to be done on the farm for a while.
Ma called breakfast and I followed my nose to the buttermilk pancakes andsausages and coffee and outate Pa by a stack and a half of pancakes.
"Well, son, looks like you're finally a man," said Pa. "When you can outeatyour pa—"
Ma scurried in from the other room. "Aunt Daid's sitting on the edge of herbed," she said anxiously. "And I didn't get her up."
"Um," said Pa. "Begins to look that way doesn't it?"
"Think I'll go up to Honan's Lake," I said, tilting my chair back, onlyhalf hearing what they were saying. "Feel like a coupla days fishing."
"Better hang around, son," said Pa. "We might be needing you in a day orso."
"Oh?" I said, a little put out. "I had my mouth all set for Honan's Lake."
"Well, unset it for a spell," said Pa. "There's a whole summer ahead."
"But what for?" I asked. "What's cooking?"
Pa and Ma looked at each other and Ma crumpled the corner of her apron inher hand. "We're going to need you," she said.
"How come?" I asked.
'To walk Aunt Daid," said Ma.
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