Pioneer, Go Home!

by Richard Powell

  They started running toward their place and I run after them to help put out the fire, and you never seen two fellers move faster than they done. Their car was parked in front of their place, and the first thing they done was jump in the car and start getting it out of the way which was a smart thing to do. But then they didn't stop. They swung the car toward the mainland and kept going. I guessed they had lost their heads like fellers sometimes do when they get excited, and I let off a burst from the gun to try to get their attention but they just went faster.

  Well, we had us a real fire on our hands. The Jenkinses and Browns and Pop and Holly and me had to work hard to save our places, which we done by getting buckets of water and wetting down the walls and roofs. We couldn't do nothing to save Little Nick's and Blackie's, and it ended up not much use for anything unless you had a need for charcoal.

  We never seen Little Nick or Blackie or any of them fellers afterward. I done a lot of thinking about that jug of kerosene and the package, and finally I worked it all out. Pop told me nobody had asked to borrow kerosene off us, so Carmine must have come to our place and swiped it. Little Nick and Blackie hadn't really wanted to fish. They had just wanted to get all of us away so we wouldn't know what was happening. And the package didn't have no lantern in it. It was a time bomb, and that fire warn't no accident at all. What they had planned to do was burn down their own place for the insurance!

  But of course I come along at the wrong time and seen what was going on, and that spoiled everything. All in all, we was well rid of them. I hate to say it, but Little Nick and Blackie warn't honest.

  16

  For the next week things went real good for all of us. It was getting on to the end of October, and tourists was starting to come from up north. They begun buying shell jewelry off the Jenkinses, and rag rugs off Mrs. Brown and bird houses and things off Mr. Brown. Some of them liked to fish, too, and along with our steady fishermen from Gulf City we done pretty fair. There was a hurricane working itself into a swivvet, out in the Gulf somewheres, and it must have stirred up them fish because they took to smashing rods and lines like they was getting paid by the tackle stores.

  If things had stayed that way we would all have got fat and sassy, but we started having more trouble about law and order. This time it warn't a matter of not having enough. It was a matter of getting more law and order than we knowed what to do with.

  Late one afternoon a car drove up in front of our place, and a feller poked his head out and yelled, "Is Mr. Kwimper there?"

  I come up and asked did he mean me and he said no, he wanted Mr. Elias Kwimper. So I called Pop, and he poked his head out the door and asked the feller in, but

  the feller said he had a bad ankle and couldn't do much walking and did Pop mind coming out to the car. While that was going on, I took notice there was a woman beside the driver. It was Miss Claypoole, who hadn't been around since she got mad over the Browns leaving Sunset Gardens to live at our bridge. I didn't have time to say nothing to her before Pop come up beside the driver.

  "You're Elias Kwimper?" the feller asked.

  Pop said, "I reckon I am if I stop to think about it."

  "All right, Mr. Kwimper," the feller said. "Here's something for you." He handed over a paper, and as soon as Pop took it, the feller turned to Miss Claypoole and said, "You're my witness that service took place legally and on State land."

  "You handled it very well," Miss Claypoole said. "It might have been awkward if he had stayed on land that doesn't seem to belong either to the State or the county."

  Pop was studying the paper, and kind of brightening when he come across words he could be sure of like t-h-e and y-o-u, which I could see he was spelling out to himself. He said, "It's nice of you to go to all this trouble, and I'll get around to reading what is on this paper when I get a little help."

  "You better not waste time," the feller said. "What you just got is a summons."

  Pop said, "Up to now I never heard of nobody getting a summons except folks that is about to die getting one from the Almighty. But since I'm feeling pretty good I reckon this is a different kind."

  "Well," the feller said, "Judge Robert Lee Waterman is kind of almighty in his way but he don't rate quite that high. Miss Claypoole, maybe you better explain that summons to him."

  Pop leaned down and looked in the car and said, "Why, hello, Miss Claypoole. Nice of you to come see us."

  "This was a real pleasure trip for me," Miss Claypoole said. "That summons orders you to attend a hearing tomorrow afternoon at 2 P.M. in the chambers of Judge Robert Lee Waterman in County Courthouse in Gulf City. As County Welfare Supervisor, I am asking for a court order placing twins named Edward and Theodore Kwimper, aged seven, under the control and guardianship of the Department of Public Welfare."

  "I ain't too sure what that means," Pop said.

  "It means we don't think you're fit people to raise those children," Miss Claypoole said. "We're going to take them away from you if the judge agrees with us."

  Pop started swelling up like a turkey gobbler getting a mad on. "I just want to see somebody try that," he said. "I just want to take a good look at them over the sights of a shotgun and—"

  "Make a note of that," Miss Claypoole said to the driver. "This man is threatening us."

  The driver said, "I'd just as soon get out of here without making a lot of notes." He started putting the car in gear.

  "Hang on a minute," I said. "What brung all this up, Miss Claypoole?"

  "A great many things," she said. "But what forces me to act is the way those children have been behaving in school."

  I said, "If them twins has done wrong, they will get their hides tanned."

  "Make a note of that," Miss Claypoole said to the driver. "Cruelty to children."

  I said, "If I get pushed far enough I could work up a little cruelty to a grown-up around here."

  "Don't look at me," the driver said. "I'm just a process server. Goodby, friends." He made a real brisk turn and got out of there.

  Pop and me looked at each other, and I said, "I hate to say it, Pop, but it looks like that Department of Public Welfare has been laying for us, along with the Department of Public Improvements and maybe a few bureaus here and there."

  "You still got that burp gun, Toby?" Pop asked.

  "Now Pop, we are not going to get far shooting it out with the government. What we got to do is out-think the government. Because where the government is weak is in thinking, and you have proved it lots of times."

  "You're right, Toby. And now I see what's back of this. Miss Claypoole don't look for us to show up tomorrow. She looks for us to grab the twins and take off for Jersey. I bet she hasn't got no case at all."

  "She is a woman, though, Pop. And women can make up a case right fast when they have a mind to."

  "Well," Pop said, "maybe we better round up Holly and them twins, and find out have they been burning down the school or just scarring it up a little."

  We got Holly and the twins, and Pop give the summons to Holly to read and told her what had happened. "Oh, I don't understand it!" she said. "I've been driving

  them to the school bus stop every morning and meeting them every afternoon, and everything seemed to be going fine. Boys, what have you been doing in school?"

  They was both standing there with their hands folded in front of them and their eyes rolled up like they was ready to bust into a hymn. "We have been doing fine in school," Eddy said.

  "We get our work done better than any of those other clucks," Teddy said.

  "We are real fast reading stories off the blackboard," Eddy said.

  "The one we had today went like this," Teddy said. "Oh. Oh. Come. Come. See the car. It is a red car. Come see the red car. Come, Jane. Come, Jack. See the red car."

  "Stinks, don't it?" Eddy said.

  "Oh. Oh. Stinks. Stinks," Teddy said.

  "I guess they're not very bright the way they give us stuff like that," Eddy said.

  "But we
have been going along with them to keep them happy," Teddy said.

  Holly said, "But what have you been doing to cause trouble?"

  "Oh, that," Eddy said.

  "It's nothing to worry about," Teddy said.

  "And anyway it wasn't us who caused the trouble but that teacher," Eddy said.

  Holly said, "What did the teacher do?"

  "Well, right at the start of school," Teddy said, "she told us we had to be in different rooms, and said I would stay in her room and Eddy would have to be in another room." "We were not having any of that," Eddy said. "If Teddy got in another room, he'd start letting on that he knew more than me."

  "I got to keep my eye on him," Teddy said.

  "The teacher sent me to another room," Eddy said, "but she got mixed up and sent Teddy instead."

  "So since she didn't really mean me to go to the other room," Teddy said, "I didn't go. I just went outside and played where they couldn't see me. But then I saw it wasn't fair for Eddy to get the schooling and me to get none."

  "And it wasn't fair for him to get to play all the time," Eddy said.

  "So we worked out a deal," Teddy said. "He would go to the class one period and I'd go the next period. And we would get together and tell each other what we had learned. The teacher didn't know the difference."

  Eddy said, "The teacher in the other room didn't know I was supposed to be in her room, so it didn't matter that she couldn't tell us apart."

  "But one of the kids squealed on us yesterday and we got caught," Teddy said.

  "We're going to fix that kid good," Eddy said.

  "We're not going to gang up on him both at once because that isn't fair," Teddy said. "But we're going to take turns hitting him and he'll get real worn out."

  "So that's all there is to it," Eddy said.

  "Oh dear me," Holly said.

  "What it comes down to," Pop said, "is that you two have been skipping school."

  "You two know good and well it was wrong," I said.

  Teddy said, "Well, no, we didn't know it was wrong, because we hadn't been to school before."

  Eddy said, "It isn't any more wrong than putting us in different rooms."

  "It's a lot more wrong," Pop said, "and they're blaming us for it. They're calling us into court and going to try to to take you two away from us."

  Teddy said, "We'd run away from them if they did that."

  "We'd run away one at a time," Eddy said. "They wouldn't know which of us was gone so they wouldn't know who to look for."

  "But we would just as soon not get in trouble like that," Teddy said. "So if it will help things for us to be in different rooms, we'll let them do that to us."

  Pop told them to run along while the rest of us talked things over, and after they had gone, we hashed everything out. Pop and Holly was sure Miss Claypoole didn't have no case and was just trying to scare us into heading back to Jersey. I warn't too sure about that. From what I seen of Miss Claypoole she was a real bobcat, and you do not want to make the mistake of thinking that when a bobcat moans at you it has got nothing to back up the moan. But Holly said she didn't see any way Miss Claypoole could take the twins off us just because they had been taking turns skipping class. She said the worst they could do was fine us ten dollars or so.

  Well, anyway, we was all together in saying nobody was going to run us off our land when there was only three days before we could put in a legal claim for it.

  So we reckoned we would all go to that hearing the next day and see what was what.

  The next morning we spent a lot of time hauling up our rowboats and shutting up our place good, because that hurricane had come nearer out in the Gulf, and we was starting to get gusts of wind and rain. The Jenkinses and Browns had radios, though, and the radio said the hurricane might go by out in the Gulf without hitting us. The Jenkinses and Browns said they would look after our place that afternoon while we was gone.

  So at two o'clock that afternoon Pop and Holly and the twins and me got to the County Courthouse. Miss Claypoole was there, and one of the teachers from school, and that Mr. King we had all the trouble with about the land. Judge Waterman was a feller that had done a little fishing off our bridge, and I hoped he knowed more about the law than about fishing or this case might get away from him. He asked if we had a lawyer and Pop said no, we really didn't need nobody to do our fighting for us.

  The judge said, "Well, suit yourself. This is a hearing on a request by the Department of Public Welfare for a court order giving the Department control and guardianship of these two children I see here. If I do grant an order, I'll set the effective date a week from now. That will give you time to get a lawyer and petition for a stay of the order. So let's keep this simple and informal, and see what we have. Miss Claypoole, why don't you start off?"

  Miss Claypoole begun by allowing that the Department of Public Welfare had a warm spot in its heart for everybody but most of all for children. The Department had been worrying about Edward and Theodore Kwimper for a long time, on account of them not being brung up right, but it couldn't do nothing while they spent all their time on land that wasn't part of the county. But now they was at school on county land, and the Department had to step in ruther than just setting there worrying. Miss Claypoole said there was a teacher in the room who would tell the judge what had been happening in school.

  The teacher told the judge that the school didn't believe in letting twins stay in the same room, so Edward Kwimper had been sent to another room and she had kept Theodore. But Edward hadn't reported to the other room. He and his brother had taken turns attending class in her room, while the other one played truant, and they hadn't been caught at it until the day before yesterday.

  That was all the teacher had to say, and Miss Claypoole got up again and said, "It is a clear case, Your Honor, of a split personality, aggravated by a bad home environment."

  The judge rubbed his chin and said, "I thought a split personality was one person having two personalities."

  "This is even worse," Miss Claypoole said. "This is two people having only one personality between them."

  "You say that's pretty bad?" the judge asked.

  "Extremely serious," Miss Claypoole said. "The best psychiatric care is needed to enable these children to make a successful life adjustment."

  "Let's have these two boys up here," the judge said.

  I nudged Eddy and Teddy, and they got up and edged toward the judge, each giving the other little pushes to try to make him go first.

  The judge said, "Which one of you is Edward, who was told to report to another room in the school?"

  "He is," one of them said, pointing at the other.

  "He is," the other said, pointing at the first one.

  "Which one is which?" the judge said, looking at the teacher.

  She frowned and said, "I think the one on the right is Theodore. Or ... or is it the one on the left?"

  "Miss Claypoole?" the judge said.

  "Oh, I can't tell them apart," she said.

  One of them twins looked up at the judge with big wide eyes and said, "I could have been in that schoolroom all along doing my work and being a good boy. You want to hear the reading lesson we had yesterday? Oh. Oh. Come. Come. See the car. It—"

  "Oh shut up," the other twin said. "I could have been the one in that schoolroom all along. I know that reading lesson too. See the car. It is a red car. Come, Jane. Come, Jack. See the red car."

  The judge looked at Miss Claypoole and said, "Somebody had better do some identifying here pretty soon, or I don't know what happens to your case."

  "But Your Honor," Miss Claypoole said, "how can anyone tell them apart?"

  The judge said, "You're accusing both of them of being truants. But one of them could have been attending school properly. I don't say he did. I say he could. If you can't tell which is which, you can't prove any truancy."

  I seen the twins grinning a bit and I warn't going to let them get away with it. "Judge," I said, "t
hem twins know perfectly well which of them is which. So if you don't mind I will just ask them." I pointed at one of them and said, "Come on, now, which one are you?"

  "Aw, Toby," he said. "Do I have to?"

  "You quit this game and tell the judge."

  "Well," he said, "I'm Eddy."

  The other hung Iris head and allowed as how he was Teddy.

  "That's good," I said. "Now tell the judge just what you done in school."

  They scuffled around a bit but finally come across with the story of how they took turns in class and told each other what had been happening.

  "There now, Judge," I said. "That fixes things, don't it?"

  The judge said, "Young man, you need a lawyer."

  "Whatever for, Judge?"

  "You just gave the Department back its case. Now I guess we have to go on. All right, Miss Claypoole, you have a pair of truants. So far, all I'd be inclined to do is warn the family not to let this happen again."

  Miss Claypoole opened up a big envelope and took out a stack of papers. "Your Honor," she said, "the truancy is just one tiny angle. I began with it merely to show that the Department has a right to step in." She poked through her papers like a bobcat making up its mind where to begin on a flock of chickens, and said, "I would like to ask Mr. H. Arthur King, District Director of Public Improvements, to report his dealings with the Kwimpers.

  This will be part of our proof that the Kwimpers are unfit to raise these children."

  Mr. King got up and told how the Department of Public Improvements had built a fine new road to help traffic, to give folks a look at unspoiled nature, and to open up islands where the Department had a mind to put in a model farm and a model housing facility. By a tiny little mistake the Department forgot to claim land that it had filled in on a causeway leading to Bridge Number Four. The Kwimpers had come along and squatted on that land, in spite of the Department begging and coaxing them to quit spoiling the view. There was some old law that kept the Department from throwing them out on their ears.

  Not only had those Kwimpers flouted the public interest, but on top of that they had thumbed their noses at the Governor himself when he drove by on an inspection trip. Then to make things worse, the Kwimpers had what you might call stolen five loads of shell that the Department had sent to Bridge Number Four. They had done it by tricking the drivers into dumping the shell on the land they were squatting on, and using it to widen their beach.