by Whit Burnett
I began to understand why the neighbors called the bizarre
fellow queer, but as long as we kept traveling south I had no
complaint. The man looked harmless anyway. His skinny
brown hands were busy just keeping the car in the road.
"We're mighty nigh home," he said. "Better stop and have· a
bite."
· The old bird was apparently crazy as a coot, and I hesitated.
His long white hair gave him a saintly, angelic look that was
anything but dangerous, and I was hungry; so I said, "O.K."
He turned off soon into a road even rougher than the one we
had been on.
"It's just a long mile from here," he said, as though he
Foot of the Giant
91
•
sensed my disgust at turning off the main road. "And I've got
proof there, too."
"Proof of this man twenty feet tall?" I felt a tingling at the
roots of my hair, he was so deadly earnest.
He answered quickly, "Yup, it's proof all right. I been
keepin' it for nigh two year. Ain't many people seen it them
that did only laughed."
'
"How much did this man weigh?'' I asked, still thinki.D.g maybe I could trip him.
He gave me a quick glance as he drove into a cart path that
led to a cabin of rough boards. "Weren't no way o' weighin'
him. I guessed him more'n a ton at first." Then, as though I had
not appreciated the significance of his words, "A ton's a power-
ful lot o' man."
·
"I'll say it is," I agreed.
"But," he added quickly, "he must o' weighed more'n that
at the commencin.' I've got proof; I'll show you."
We reached the house, and the two of us unloaded from the
flivver.
"I live by myself," he said, and repeated, ''the neighbors
think I'm queer.''
As though he was in a terrible hurry to show me what he
had, he started off. "Down here," he said. "I've got proof, you'll
see."
There were a lot of hotbed frames in a row. He went to the
farthest of these, maybe a hundred feet from the house; it was
covered with glass. I stooped over and looked down. At first
all I saw was a deep impression in the ground, about twentyeight or thirty inches long, all of a foot deep, and maybe ten or twelve inches across. Suddenly, I realized it could have been
made by a human foot, an enormous foot.
The old boy was watching me, and he shouted gleefully.
"You see it! You see it! I told you I had proof." Then he
pointed to another of the same box-like frames off to one siae,
about five or six feet away.
I went over and looked. I saw plainly enough now that one
was a left and the other a right imprint of a gigantic foot.
Even_ the toes had made separate indentations in the wet dirt.
''That's where he lit," the old ·fellow said excitedly. "And
them others," he pointed to the row of frames leading to the
cabin, " 's where he walked to the house. The ground was wet.
November."
I stepped off the distance between each print; it was about
ten feet. These were not as deep as the first two, but topped
with glass, like them, so they could be examined.
I tried to reason the thing out as we walked back to the
cabin. I couldn't believe the old man was a fake; simple, per-
98 • Nineteen Tales ol Tenor
haps, or, as the neighbors said, "queer," but honest for all
that.
"That's proof, ain't it?" He looked up at me anxiously.
I could feel the skin prickling along my neck as I walked
beside him. "That's proof," I agreed, "of something,'' and wondered if perhaps I were a little crazy myself.
When we were in the kitchen, he began, "It's two year this
comin' November day first. 'Twas a'ready dark, and I was
sittin' here craunchin' my vittles when I heard a who-o-sh, like
a tree fallin'; then a jar, not much, but I could feel it. Everythin' was still after that. I went to the door, but I couldn't see nothin, so I was finishin' my sow belly when I felt the house
shake like sometbin' bad bit it.
" 'Fore I could get up, the whole side of the house was tore
away and this man come in on me. He didn't walk; just
crawled in. I tried to run by, and his hand, as big as the hind
leg of a porker and all bloody, grabbed me. 'Most 'fore I
knowed it, he'd broke both my legs. I reckon be didn't aim to
do it, but they was broke just the same. Look!"
He rolled up his trousers and showed me the poorly set
bones just below his knees.
"Ain't that proof?" be asked hopefully.
Then before I could answer, he continued, ''This man kept
pushin' me ahead o' him till he had crawled plumb inside.
Chairs 'n tables didn't mean nothin'. He kept edgin' along slow
like. I think now it was the beat from the he'rth he wanted, and
seein' bow it was November and him without a stitch on, I
wasn't blamin' him.
"He kept sayin' things in a husky whisper to himself, and my
legs felt like they'd been cut off at the knees. He knowed he had
hurt me bad, and I beard him cryin' like a whupped rabbit, and
his hand was still bleedin'. That first night was everlastin' torment. Every once in a while I flung a piece o' chair or table on the fire. That give some heat. I kept as close up ag'inst him as
he'd let me; he never would stand for me touchin' him. The
lamp on the shelf went out, and I lay there with two broken
legs waitin' for mornin'.
"Come daylight, I got a good look at him, and I thought
then he must weigh twenty-five hundred pounds, maybe more,
but I wanted to be fair, so I called it a ton. His head was there
jammin' the wall, and his feet was just 'cross the threshold, but
his knees was doubled up. That mornin' he helped me set the
bones in my legs the best he could. The blood had dried on his
hand, but -I was scared to let him more'n touch me, he was so
big. All that day I lay there tendin' the fire. I made out to
gather a few vittles that was left. He wouldn't eat nothin',
seemed to be hurt inside; never ate nor drank a speck, just lay
Foot of tile Giant • u
there and watched me, sometimes cryin' like a whupped rabbit.
" 'Bout the third day I noticed somethin' mighty odd. His
head had been jammed up 'ginst the wall, but now it was 'most
a foot clear. So I took soap and marked all 'round him !yin'
there on the floor. After a couple more days I tried fixin' the
wall where he'd come in. I couldn't do much, me with two
broken legs, but I fixed it some, and that night it rained. I set
out pails and saved water.
"I was 'feared I was goin' to die. Sometimes I don't see a
neighbor for more'n a month. I watched the road, hopin' someone would go by. I didn't see no one.
"By ten days he weren't more'n half as big as he had been,
and I hated to drag my eyes from him as he lay there shrinkin',
shrinkin', like a block o' ice in the sun, only he didn't seem a
mite different, just smaller.
"When he'd been here three weeks, I could hop 'round on
some crutches I made. He was little then, like a boy, and I was
wonderin' what to do with him. I d
idn't want him to up and
leave me like that. He wouldn't eat nor drink nothin', and kept
edgin' closer to the fire. I throwed an old coat over him, but he
flung it off, so in the end he lay there stark naked.
"I made shift to build shelters over his footprints and the
place where he lit. The rain had washed them some, but not
much.
"It was a month to the day that I heard a car tum off the
main road and come this way. I looked at the funny feller. He
was layin' there on the floor, about the size o' a chicken, and
weighin' maybe two pounds. He never let me touch him, 'n I
was in a muddle whether to try and take him with me or not,
but I left him and went hoppin' down the lane on my crutches
and hailed the car. It was Dave Carson, who does the preachin'
in these parts. I hollered at him to come quick to the house. He
turned in at the lane and I come hoppin' back.
'The man was still layin' there, only he weren't much
bigger'n a robin. I hollered at Dave to hurry. He come right in
behind me and the funny feller was still there, only he weren't
hardly bigger'n a new-hatched sparrer.
"I said, 'Dave, look quick!' Dave looked where I was p'intin',
and I looked, too, but there weren't nothin' there.
"I told Dave about him. Dave bein' a preacher, I thought
he'd understand ; but he claimed I broke my legs and was out o'
my head. I showed him the footprints, too, but he didn't
b'lieve 'em; said I made 'em."
The old man gave me a hard, searching look, then banged his
fist on the table. "But I tell· you I seen him! He was right here!
I lived with him.a month! And I got proof!"
"Sure," I said. "I believe you."
I DO • Nineteen Tal as of Terror
But his enthusiasm was suddenly gone, and he set about
getting food from a low cupboard. Once he stopped and turned
to face me. "You're like the others," he said bitterly, "you
think I'm queer."
He put cornbread and cold meat on the table, and started a
fire in the fireplace and hung a kettle to boil. He measured
coffee from a can in a small, shell-like scoop that was different
from anything I had ever seen. "That coffee scoop," I asked
when he started to put it away, "where'd you get it?"
He looked bewildered for a moment, then his face lit up.
"It's a mud turkle's shell; I dug it out o' the yard last spring.
Pretty, ain't it?"
"What do you suppose gives it that funny color?" I asked,
when he gave it to me to examine.
"I never put no thought to that," he said, and set a steaming
pot of coffee on the table.
You can go there and see for yourself, and hear the tale, too.
Just take the road south from Lexington, walk twenty miles,
tum left at a bridge onto a dirt road, walk about thirty-five
miles more, then left again and go a mile. You'll see the rough
board cabin there in the field, and the funny-looking frames
leading to it.
If you're still unconvinced, as I was, when you have heard the
story, ask him to show you the scoop he uses to measure coffee.
It might be, as he says, a small opaque turtle shell, or it could
be a gigantic finger nail that was wrenched off when its owner
tore the rough boards from the cabin with his bare hands.
I call it proof. I don't know what you'll call it.
JERRY WEXLER
I AM EDGAR
EDGAR closed the door behind him, strode to
the desk in the front of the room, and deposited an armload of
books. He turned his back on the class and chalked on the
blackboard in large block capitals :
EDGAR BAKER, MR.
"THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE"
(ENGLISH 1203)
M-W-F 4-5
He faced the class again, standing. He was good-looking in
the pre-Raphaelite manner: pale, with soft, classically regular
features and large dark eyes. His black wavy hair, cut quite
long, fell low over his ears in the old-fashioned style that had
come into vogue again with actors and smart urban people. His
suit was a dark blue drape model, and he wore a shirt with a
soft unstarched collar, and a red and blue foulard bow tie.
Edgar was conscious that his appearance differed greatly from
that of his men students. They had round haircuts, and their
clothing was a hybrid of government issue and Esquire.
Trembling, Edgar surveyed them and sighed.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "the information on the
blackboard is germane to our happiness for the next fourteen
weeks. I am Edgar Baker, not Edwin Baker, Edward Baker,
or Edmund Baker. My rank in the faculty is associate professor, and I have a doctorate in American literature. I entreat you, however, not to address me as Doctor or Professor, modes
of salutation which I am given to understand are common in
this institution, but which are not, nevertheless, in good taste.
Call me Mr. Baker, or Ed, if you prefer, but not Doctor or
Professor."
101
I D2
Nineteen Tales of Terror
•
He paused, but they only stared at him blankly. It was not
the way he had planned it. Somehow, he had begun badly,
hadn't struck the right note. His palms had started sweating. He
wiped them with his handkerchief.
-
"Now, about the course," he went on, after a racking pause,
"it is called, for reasons I can neither fathom nor attempt to
clarify, 'The American Renaissance.' I prefer the more prosaic
catalogue designation of 'English 1 203, elective, prerequisites
Freshman Rhetoric and English Literature I.' Your presence
here is sufficient evidence for me that you have met those requirements. I am anxious, however, to ascertain your reasons for registering in the course, which, as I hope you know, will
deal exclusively with the works of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville,
and Whitman."
The class stirred restlessly. One of the boys nudged his
neighbor and whispered to him. The neighbor shook his head
and shrugged.
Edgar opened the attendance book. "As I call your name,
I'm going to ask you to tell me your major subject and your
particular interest in this course. Please speak freely and without reserve. And I hope that you don't regard my interest in you as mere prying. Like most of you, I have been away from
college for some time. This is my first class in three years, and,
as you probably know, my first in this college. I want this hour
to be a sort of orientation for all of us."
He paused, and for the first time, tried a smile. He looked
from one student to the other, and in each face he read unyielding antipathy. An old fear scalded him through, and he shut his eyes. He stroked his temples with his fingertips as the
first wire-fine twinges of migraine flared in back of his eyeballs.
He opened his eyes, and his glance fell on a girl in the far
comer. She alone of all the students had understanding in her
face. Her expression was an emphatic image of his own suffering, her fleeting smile and slight nod a message of kindred sensibility and encouragement. The pain and nausea abated
somewhat
, and Edgar managed a grateful smile. He called the
first name in the attendance book.
"Mr. Arnold?"
A loutish-looking blond boy with the pink-skinned face of a
baby pig flushed and mumbled that he was present.
"Mr. Arnold," Edgar said gently, "won't you tell us your
major subject and your interest in this particular course?"
Stammering and blushing, Mr. Arnold revealed that he was
in civil engineering, but he figured he'd ought to get in one or
two cultural courses on his own. His dean had suggested this
one, so he figured he might as well . • . •
I Am Edpr • 1 03
Mr. Arnold's response set the pattern for the rest of the students. They were veterinary, or home ec, or agricultural journalism, and it seemed that they all yearned to get something cultural under their belts. Gradually, from their halting, semiliterate responses, a syndrome began to emerge for Edgar. It became patent that English 1203 was by tradition a snap
course, an easy way of cinching three elective credits without
undue strain on the intellect. One by one they made their confessions, some coy, some embarrassed, some bold with annoyance at the new teacher's strange manners and appearance, but all baffled by this unfamiliar first-day gambit to a college course
in English.
All except the girl in the comer. Hers was the last name on
the roster, and as Edgar went down the list he scarcely bothered with the hesitant testimonials of the others.
"Miss Willis," Edgar said, his voice hoarse, and the incipient
migraine whispering behind his eyes. Helen Willis. Helen.
Her voice bad a controlled vibrato, and the pitch changed
with the sense of her words, and there were beat and measure
in her speech. She did not sound like the others, the fiat toneless
ones whose persons imaged the featureless topography of their
native plains.
"I am in arts and sciences, majoring in English," she said. "I
write, and I'm especially interested in Poe as an artist and
craftsman. I think I can learn something in this class."
Edgar was conscious of a crystallization in the class attitude.
The girl's uninhibited words catalyzed the swirling, undirected
resentment in the room. In an instant she had given them a peg
for their outraged feelings; she had put herself beyond the pale
with her statement of artistic purpose. Irrevocably she was with
