The Great Brain (12 page)

Uncle Mark and his wife, my Aunt Cathie, accompanied the family and Aunt Bertha back to our house from the cemetery. We removed our wet coats and hats in the side hallway and then all went into the parlor. Everybody sat down as if exhausted except Uncle Mark and us three boys.

“If I had only known,” Uncle Mark said, “but I had no idea. I thought Abie was doing all right. Calvin Whitlock told me Abie was paying his rent right on the dot. And I heard so much about that strongbox being filled with gold pieces that I believed it until I opened the box and found it empty.”

“It wasn’t empty,” Mamma said. “It contained a man’s most priceless possession.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Tena,” Uncle Mark said as he leaned against the mantlepiece of the fireplace.

“What Tena means,” Papa said, “is that the strongbox was a symbol of Abie’s pride. To have opened it and let everybody know it was empty would have meant having charity forced upon him. Abie chose to die with Jewish dignity instead of living in the humiliation of charity. It could never have happened if he hadn’t been a Jew.”

“Nonsense,” Uncle Mark said. “There isn’t a man or woman in this town who would hold that against a person.”

“You don’t understand what I meant,” Papa said. “We have cowboys who are out of work coming into town all the time. And they are broke. But they know they can live on the free lunches in the saloons and sleep in the livery stable until they find work. And when they do find work and have money, they will come into town and spend money in these saloons and stable their horses at the livery stable. Abie didn’t drink. He knew he would never spend any money in a saloon and his pride wouldn’t let him go to one to eat a free lunch even when he knew he was starving to death.”

“What has that got to do with letting Abie starve to death because he was a Jew?” Uncle Mark demanded. “Able was my friend and your friend and had all kinds of friends. He knew all he had to do was to ask and we would have given him anything he wanted.”

“But he would have had to ask,” Papa said.

“I just don’t get what you’re driving at,” Uncle Mark said, shaking his head.

“Let me put it this way,” Papa said. “It isn’t that we dislike the Jews or mean to be unkind to them. It is just that we don’t worry about them the way we worry about other people. I talked to Mr. Thompson at the meat market. He knew Abie had stopped buying meat from him weeks ago, but he didn’t worry about it. I talked to Mr. Harmon at the Z.C.M.I. store. He knew Abie had stopped buying groceries from him, but he didn’t worry about it. Oh, they had their excuses, saying they had thought Abie had stopped batching and was eating in cafes. But the fact remains we let a man starve to death because nobody worried about a Jew.”

“I don’t buy that,” Uncle Mark said.

“Let us assume,” Papa said patiently, “that Dave Teller, who is a bachelor and cooks his own meals, suddenly stopped buying meat from Mr. Thompson. You can bet Mr. Thompson would have made it his business to find out why. And let us assume that Dave Teller suddenly stopped buying groceries from the Z.C.M.I. store. You can bet Mr. Harmon would have worried enough about it to find out why. And let us assume they found out Dave Teller was broke. You can bet they wouldn’t have let Dave Teller starve to death. And if Dave Teller had fainted three times, you can bet the people in this town would have insisted on taking Dave to a doctor whether he wanted to go or not. But Abie was a Jew and so nobody worried about him. May God forgive us all.”

“I see what you’re getting at now,” Uncle Mark said. “We are all guilty.”

Mamma nodded her head as she brushed a tear from her eye with her handkerchief. “God give us strength,” she said softly, “to bear our burden of guilt.”

Two days after the funeral Mamma sent me to the Z.C.M.I. store to get several items for her. Mr. Harmon, as usual, gave me a stick of peppermint candy. I came out of the store holding the bag of groceries in one hand while I put the stick of candy into my mouth with the other hand. I took a bite of the candy. It burned my mouth and stuck in my throat. I tried to swallow it but couldn’t. I spat it out. I threw the candy away and have never been able to eat peppermint candy since.

Tom was sitting on the rail of the corral fence when I got home. I climbed up and sat down beside him. I told him about the peppermint candy.

“It’s your guilty conscience, J.D.,” he said when I finished. “You helped to kill Abie.”

I though of all the times Mamma had sent me to the store when I should have stopped at the variety store instead of going to the Z.C.M.I. store.

“How was I to know that strongbox wasn’t full of gold pieces,” I defended myself.

“You are just using that as an excuse like most people in town,” Tom said. “Maybe I should have told.”

“Told what?” I asked.

“You didn’t think my great brain would let me rest until I knew what was in that strongbox, did you?” he asked. “l have known there were no gold pieces in the box for a long time.”

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“I went to see Abie and told him I’d overheard two drifters planning to rob him and the strongbox,” Tom answered.

“You lied,” I accused him.

“How else could I find out?” Tom said. “At first Abie just laughed. He stopped laughing when I threatened to call Papa and Uncle Mark so they could make him put the gold in the bank before he got robbed. Then he began to cry.”

“To cry?” I asked, bewildered.

“Yes,” Tom said. “Then he opened the strongbox and showed me it was empty. He told me it had taken every cent he owned to open the store. Then he made me put my hand on a prayer book and swear I would never tell. He said as long as people thought he had a strongbox full of gold pieces he could remain in Adenville. He said he would have to leave if people found out the strongbox was empty.”

“What did he mean?” I asked.

“I thought he meant if people thought he was rich they would respect him more,” Tom said. “But I was wrong. It was like Papa said — Able would rather die than take charity.”

“I’d hate to have it on my conscience that I let a man starve to death,” I couldn’t help saying.

“It wasn’t me who let Abie starve to death,” Tom said. “I knew there was no gold in the strongbox, but that only meant Abie wasn’t a rich man to me. When Mamma sent me to the store, I always went to the variety store first. Many times when Abie didn’t have exactly what Mamma wanted, I went all the way back home to ask her if she couldn’t use something else Abie had suggested. No, J.D., it wasn’t me who let Abie starve to death. It was people like you.”

“But you will get all the blame,” I said, “when people find out you knew the strongbox was empty all the time.”

“The people who didn’t buy from Abie and didn’t worry about him would love to have somebody to blame for his death,” Tom said. “But they are going to have to live with their guilty consciences because I’m never going to tell, and neither are you. Give me your word, J.D., you will never tell.”

“Not even Papa and Mamma?” I asked.

“Not even Papa and Mamma,” Tom said.

“But you told me,” I protested.

“I had to tell somebody, J.D.,” Tom said. “I knew I could trust you.”

I gave my word and kept it until now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The New Teacher

SUMMER VACATION CAME to an end. We all went down to the depot to see Sweyn off for Salt Lake City to attend a Catholic academy and boarding school. Mamma was crying. Papa kept clearing his throat. I felt a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go up and wouldn’t go down. Tom was very quiet. The only one who didn’t appear even a little upset was Sweyn.

“Please stop crying, Mamma,” he said.

“What if Father O’Malley forgets to meet you at the depot in Salt Lake?” Mamma sobbed.

“You saw the telegram from Father O’Malley saying he would meet me,” Sweyn said. “Please stop crying, Mamma. People are staring at us. I’m not a little boy.”

Mamma dried her tears with a handkerchief. “You are right, my son,” she said. “You are not a little boy. I know I don’t have to ask you to promise you will write every week.”

The train came. There were kisses, hugs, good-byes, and more tears from Mamma. Sweyn boarded the train. He stood by a window, waving at us as the train pulled out of the station.

I put my arm around Tom’s shoulders. “Old S.D. certainly has courage,” I said. “He didn’t even cry.”

“That was an act put on for Mamma and Papa,” Tom aid. “As soon as the train gets around the bend he will need that extra handkerchief Mamma. put in his pocket.”

“It is going to be lonesome without S.D. around,” I said.

“That is life, J.D.,” Tom said. “When I graduate from the sixth grade, I will be leaving home for the first time to go to school in Salt Lake just like him.”

I didn’t cry when Sweyn left, but I knew I would bawl like a baby when the day came for Tom to leave.

Our friend Andy Anderson didn’t start to school with Tom and me that year. He had stepped on a rusty nail while playing in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town a couple of weeks before school started. Andy didn’t tell his parents about stepping on the rusty nail because he had been forbidden to play in the barn ever since Seth Smith’s accident. We had been playing follow-the-leader, and Seth was the leader when the accident happened. Seth was going hand over hand across the rafters in the barn when one of them broke. He had fallen on the railing of a stall, breaking two of his ribs. All the kids in town had been forbidden by their parents to play in the barn after Seth’s accident. What parents didn’t seem to realize was that this was one sure way to make us kids play in the barn.

Andy knew he would get a whipping if he told his parents about stepping on the rusty nail. He kept the secret of his injured foot from his mother and father until blood poisoning had set in and turned into gangrene. By that time there was nothing else Dr. LeRoy could do but to amputate Andy’s left leg just below the knee to prevent the gangrene from spreading. I guess Tom missed Andy more than I did because he was nearer Andy’s age, being just a year older.

My first day in school, as I got acquainted with our new teacher, Mr. Standish, I couldn’t help thinking that Andy was lucky he didn’t have to start to school.

Calvin Whitlock and the other two members of the school board, Mrs. Granger and Mr. Douglas, had decided Miss Thatcher was getting too old to teach school. Without even consulting us kids, they had retired Miss Thatcher and hired Mr. Standish to teach the first through the sixth grades in our one-room schoolhouse. Their decision brought about a complete change in the way students were disciplined. Miss Thatcher had her own system. When a student broke any of the rules, she wrote a note to the parents, leaving the punishment up to the parents. It was a good system because the punishment meted out by the parents was always more drastic than anything Miss Thatcher could have done. Just dipping a girl’s pigtails in an inkwell called for a whipping by most parents.

Miss Thatcher had been smart enough to know how tough the first day back at school is for kids. She had always pretended not to see any mischief going on that first day. But Mr. Standish let us know there would be no nonsense even on the first day of school.

He was a man in his late thirties with jet black hair that came to a widow’s peak on his forehead, giving him a sinister appearance.

“Students will come to order,” he said, rapping a ruler on his desk right after we’d been assigned our desks and seats.

Nobody paid any attention to him because Miss Thatcher had always called us .to order three or four times on the first day of school before we obeyed.

Mr. Standish looked at the front row of first graders, then at the second row of second graders, and then at the rows of third, fourth, and fifth graders, and finally at the back row of sixth graders. Not a single student had come to order. Mr. Standish then took out his watch.

“For every minute you fail to come to order,” he said, “you will all remain for fifteen minutes after school.”

We came to order in a hurry.

Mr. Standish put his watch back in his pocket. Then he pointed at a paddle in the corner. "I am here to educate you children,” he said, “and I will not tolerate anything that interferes with your education. The paddle will be used on boys of all ages who shoot spitballs, dip a girl’s pigtails in an inkwell, put a frog or any other animal in a girl’s desk, throw chalk, or any other infraction of the rules.”

Then he picked up a ruler from his desk. “This ruler will be used on the palms of girls who break the rules, and they will be forced to remain after school and clean blackboards and erasers.”

Mr. Standish let us know beyond doubt that first day of school, he was not only our teacher but our warden as well. He paddled five boys so hard they all cried. He made three girls remain after school to clean blackboards and erasers.

I was completely cowed when I left the one-room schoolhouse that first day. “That Mr. Standish is a holy terror,” I said to Tom as we walked home. “He’s got me so scared I’m afraid to go to school.”

“He’s a mean one all right,” Tom agreed.

“I’d hate to be Jimmie Peterson,” I said. “Mr. Standish is taking board and room at Jimmie’s mother’s boarding house. It’s tough enough having Mr. Standish for a teacher, but poor old Jimmie has to live in the same house with him.”

“I’m not going to worry about Mr. Standish,” Tom said.

Three days later Tom had to worry about Mr. Standish. Hal Evans put a live frog in Muriel Cranston’s desk. Like any girl, she began screaming and carrying on when she opened her desk and saw the frog. Mr. Standish got the frog and threw it out the window. Then he stood before the class.

“I want the boy who did that to come right up here,” he said, which was a silly thing to say in my opinion.

When nobody moved, Mr. Standish pointed at Basil, who had the desk behind Muriel.

“Basil, come up here,” Mr. Standish ordered.

This was Basil’s first year in an American school. I could tell he was frightened as he stood up.

“I no do it” he said.