Show ra PF A RE al Z by HOM E it CROY 1 P zi i NEE I 1 te tears rs glistened in his eyes as homer croy drove along alone the country road amid the scenes of his bis childhood A prodigal son ot of northwest missouri he was going horn home eba back to the kennedy place where he had had bad such fun as a child he remembered the happy times he had with the ken hen gedys newt the kindest man he had ever known mrs kennedy their two girls lucy and ida like older sisters to him harlan harian his childhood playmate then he remembered but with terrifying vividness the vaccinating by newt and the that moved over the people for smallpox the thing thine they dreaded most threatened a tramp having been found dead of the disease CHAPTER 11 the grownup grown up people had been vaccinated vaccina ted so now the children I 1 can see us children going toward the house all knowing something dreadful was going to hap happen pen but our fathers and mothers were taking us so everything must be all right I 1 see the overshoes on the porch the door opening and shutting the people sitting in the kitchen the tracks on the floor I 1 smell the lovely intoxicating odor of melted sugar and popcorn usually the children were at newts heels but not today they sense something is wrong he tries to ao be friendly but they edge away the men come up from the barn lot they dont go in the house but stand tand outside talking in low tones ida and lucy move here and there looking after the young children grandpa sits behind the kitchen stove out of the way for this is not his day nobody wants to hear about pioneer times now and then when one of the children comes near he bends close to inspect my my he says then settles back again newt takes off his coat dips water out of the reservoir washes his hands and dries them on the roller towel then gives the roller towel a tug it is not manners to leave a wet spot showing he pretends to be cheerful well boys and girls weve got a little business to attend to but it wont take long and wont hurt much and soon be over ghastly words as were ever uttered he goes into the sitting room but instead of its usual cheerful appearance the room is bare except for a table some glasses cotton batting and a drugstore box by the side of the table are two empty ominous chairs who wants to be first he asks nobody wants to be first in fact no one wants to be at all but the crowd the occasion the antens intensity ty the importance these can no more be resisted than wind from the north its not going to hurt says the liar A terrified girl is coaxed into one of the chairs and newt sits down in front of her and tries to smile he pats her and tells her she is a nice girl but she is not deceived trouble is coming and it does come for he begins to roll up her left sleeve there is her white arm and it 13 trembling and so I 1 verily believe now that I 1 am older and have a child of my own is newt A tense heavy breathing silence falls over all back and forth the goes blood rolls rolli down the white arm and now the most trying moment of all newt picks up one of the points made out of white bone about the size of a steel pen and shaped somewhat like it broad and rounded at one end tapered at the other ali ah I 1 have no trouble seeing it nor feeling it either for I 1 carry its scar today on the end was the medicine into the living flesh he thrusts the po point int and holds it there moving it and wiping it so the virus will come off then drops it into the coal bucket now its time for the bandage and time for the little girl to cry it is all right to cry afterward but it if you are brave you wont cry until all is over one after another the children go 0 o up to newt who is no longer trying to be cheerful then comes my time and I 1 go up and I 1 die or so it seems yet somehow I 1 live and manage to get back to my mothers lap A stranger in our midst at last it is all over there is a spatter of white bones in the coal bucket the children are going about with their left arms drawn up the men come in from the outside and there is laughing and talking and now the fathers find chairs and get to hold the children on their laps mrs kennedy takes the dishpan from the top of the range and strips the cover off the pan it is filled with pink colored sugar coated popcorn heavenly balls in a moment we each have a ball in our right hand and are gnawing away like puppies at bones newt goes anxiously from child to child making friendly advances time to go home the men who had so quietly tied their teams now untie them calling back and forth to each other as they do so newt goes from buggy to buggy and from child to child just to make sure he is forgiven he is no one could really hold out against friendly understanding newt the next day we are in school again no rough games now no running g games no prisoners base no ante over one of the children asked to be allowed to go home in a moment she is going down the road with her tin dinner bucket we get an idea we really should have thought of that before however hardly do IQ develop a sore arm now but theres tomorrow yes I 1 am shocked kedas as alook I 1 look back but none of us ever suffered greatly from fram our vaccination some of us developed unduly sore arms but that was all later I 1 had the smallpox and was taken to the but newt had done his work well for I 1 had what was called and came out with only one mark on my face newt was a good vaccinator sometimes I 1 think he suffered more than we did our farmers were a sort of aristocracy of the soil they had always lived on their farms they always expected to sometimes however a farmer decided to retire e move to town and take it easy but when he got to town there was nothing to do he would come downtown and sit on a park bench in the courthouse yard and watch the teams go by at noon he would walk slowly home after dinner he would walk slowly downtown again he would go into the harness store and talk to mr wadley after a while he would be on the park bench again watching the teams go by it was hard work he soon died there was always tremendous interest when a farm changed hands this meant a new neighbor was coming in usually this person was from another school district or another township QT or another county sometimes a farmer crossed the line from iowa sometimes a farmer moved in from nebraska mostly from the hardpan section but this often most of the farms changed hands to people we knew they were our kind we understood der stood them and they understood us behind the poor farm was a miserable rundown run down horseweed horse weed ridden farm of forty acres it was most unusual to have a farm of this number of acres for farms are not so divided it had this strange number of acres because the county had bought a farm tor for its inmates and there had been this much left over nobody wanted to buy it because it was too small in addition it was situated behind the poor farm the house was so far back you see it from the road there was a wooden gate that led to the house you had to get out and open the gate then shut and wire it behind you the farm was what we called V N Z 4 S leonard in his ridiculous clothes sat gazing silently at ida because of 0 her good looks 1 in I litigation no one wanted to buy a farm where the heirs were fighting also the farm was run down gullies big enough to throw a henhouse into the house was run down too yellow hammers had drilled holes in the eaves the cave door would not shut there were polecats pole cats under the henhouse we heard the farm had changed hands that was all anyone knew then came the news it had changed hands to a foreigner A welcome party for the foreigners there were no foreigners in our section sometimes a family had a grandpa or grandma who spoke with a german or a swedish accent that was all then came the startling news that the farm had changed hands to a russian none of us had ever seen a russian all we knew was that they threw their brides out of their sleighs to the wolves we want that to get started in our neighborhood when he moved in he had his things on a two wheeled wag wagon on drawn by one horse the horse had big brass hames and over the hames was an arch none of us had ever seen such a way of doing nor even heard of such a way our people when they moved onto a new farm had big two horse wagons and sometimes had to take two or three loads the last thing in the world we wanted was an outlandish man like that living in our neighborhood trying to farm with one horse it would take at least two horses even for a farm of that size but there he was with one horse and several children on top of this he had a queer beard and wore a fur thing on his head that was about halfway between a hat and a cap we found his name was delinsky he may really have been a pole but to us he was a dooshan Ro mr went over to ask it if there was anything he could do tor for him the man looked at him fiercely and made him understand that he want anything to do with him other things came to light he made his wife work in the field none of our farmers ever made their wives do that sometimes a wife would bring a jug of water out to the or some bread and apple butter sometimes she would mount the hay rake and drive the team across and back but that was in the nature of a joke no woman really worked in the field but mrs delinsky did we found out also that he sometimes teamed a cow with his horse that was the lowest yet the worst thing that had ever happened to our section was when this anton delinsky moved in the oldest was a boy named leonard who seemed as strange and eccentric as his father the oldest girl was lizzie she started at our school she had tremendous brass earrings her hair was in plaits and she wore boots no girl wore high topped boots to school the boys did but not the girls she have a tin dinner bucket as the rest of us had but brought her eating in a brown paper parcel at noon we stared at the outlandish things that came out of that brown paper parcel we laughed and snickered all our people go to church but no one would have dreamed of working on the sabbath unless it was to save a crop but anton delinsky got out his horse and single shovel and plowed on sunday some spoke of going over and having a talk with him but finally decided to let him go his own way they went to town in their ridiculous one horse wagon with the brass hames and the big arch and tied to the hitch racks people walked by just to see the contraption anton delinsky with his wife and his children walked up and down the street together as if afraid to separate they spoke to no one hardly anyone spoke to all them m the word got out to have nothing to do with them then newt announced he was going to give them a welcome party this was always done when a new family moved in but the were not the kind of people we wanted to welcome it would be better if they pulled out but newts newt s kindness of heart and his friendliness toward everybody made him go ahead the neighbors were given the news but they held back it was just as well not to encourage the lizzie was told the plans the family was to come coma on a certain night lizzie seem to under stand very well but that was because the idea was new we decided it was the custom tor for the family in whose honor the party was given to wait and come in last this made it a kind of ceremony lots of laughing and good feeling then suspense hung over the household like august heat over a cornfield chores were done early the family scrambled about getting dressed the tantalizing odor of baking filled the air I 1 could hardly wait ida looked out the window and said theres a lantern coming it was early maybe it was one of the neighbors coming to hel hels with the work we saw it was the we looked at each other flabbergasted when they came in there were mr and mrs delinsky and lizzie and leonard which was the number we had expected and three small children and mrs delinsky was carrying a baby in her arms people never brought a baby to a party and tor for that matter they bring small children either these were left at home with grandpa or grandma but there was no grandpa or grandma in the delinsky family and they know any neighbor they could get to come in and stay with the children so here they were newt and mrs kennedy went heartily forward but they talk to them thein the stood with their children staring at the sitting room and not saying a word the party proves A painful ordeal finally after a great deal of pointing and gesturing and sign making an old cradle was hauled out and a place fixed tor for it in the downstairs bedroom then without saying a word the queer pulled chairs back placed them in a row against the wall and sat down as stiffly as it if in church the were il in the way during the last minute rush but they seem to know this just sat and stared at everything in the room people began arriving they blew out their lanterns and set them in a row on the front porch mrs kennedy tried to introduce the silent each time the de would say something in a foreign language then again stare silently around the room lizzie was asked to interpret but was so ill at ease that she made a bad jolof it and finally newt and minni gave up trying to use her leonard in his bis ridiculous clothes sat gazing silently at ida because of her good looks but ida want anything to do with such an oddity only once did mr and mrs delinsky show the slightest interest in what was going on this was when one of the neighbors arrived with a basket of food mr and mrs delinsky glanced at each other then again stared silently around the room their presence threw a pall over everybody now and then one of the neighbors would make friendly advances but got no encouragement the people talked about crops the price price of hogs and who was sick but without the deep interest these subjects always had for there were the silent crazy foreigners strangely enough grandpa was the most liberal one toward them makes me think of when I 1 got out here on the plains we was all foreigners then TO BE CONTINUED |