Centerburg Tales Page 5

  “Well, come on and tell us, Hercules,” demanded the sheriff impatiently.

  Grampa Herc silenced him with a glance and continued, “Yesterday was a bad day, what with the rain and March wind, but I had the feeling that then was the time, so I took a couple more practice hops, then sat down on a log and unpinned all the box bottoms. Yeah, I thought with the weather so bad it wouldn’t do for an old fellow like me to go stripping off any of his clothes.”

  “And then you jumped?” asked Uncle Ulysses.

  “Yes indeedy, I jumped!” said Grampa Herc. “I gave a big spring and took off. Hadn’t scarcely got higher than the old sycamore tree before I knew I was in for some real trouble.” Grampa Hercules nodded. “Yup, the wind caught me and gave me a couple quick turns and then took me right off my course, spinnin’ me end over end like a propeller! Of course my hat blew off right away. Had to climb up and fetch it down off the top of the sycamore first thing this morning. Then the wind commenced tugging and pulling at the resta my clothes. I could feel the buttons giving way, one by one. Why, even the laces o’ my shoes snapped in that gale of wind—and I can tell you, I was scared! I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best! Don’t know how long I kept ’em shut, but next thing I remember I opened ’em and found I wasn’t moving or twisting any more. I was lying all stretched out in my underwear with straw to all sides of me! I felt myself all over and made for certain that I wasn’t hurt, then looked around to find out where I’d lit. Come to find out, I’d come down smack in the middle of a hay stack! Couldn’t recognize the barn nearby or any of the surrounding landscape at first glance, but then, after I’d calmed down a mite, it began to dawn on me that I’d been in that neighborhood years before. ‘Why, this looks like Top Knot, Indiana,’ I thought to myself. ‘Hercules, you’ve missed up on your landmarks. You can’t be where you seem to be!’ But then I looked out from all the corners of that straw stack, checking the lay of the land, and sure enough, I was there!”

  “Where?” asked the sheriff.

  “Why, I’ll tell you where,” shouted Grampa Hercules. “I was three and a half miles into the state of Indiana! That wind blew me nineteen miles as the crow flies from the spot where I commenced my jump!”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Grampa Hercules continued, “Had to wait till it got dark before I could move out of that straw, being dressed only in my underwear. Took me all night, hiking across country and back lanes, to get home by sunup this morning. Caught a bit of cold too, just as I’d expected.”

  “Now, Hercules!” said the sheriff disdainfully.

  “Ha-ah!” snorted Uncle Ulysses.

  “You fellas are eying me as though you think I’ve not told you right about”—Grampa Hercules paused and blew his nose loudly—“you see? I’ve got a mighty bad cold from tramping nineteen miles in my underwear, and looka here, here’s the snag in my hat where it caught atop the old sycamore!” He passed the hat for all to examine.

  The sheriff and Uncle Ulysses looked at the hat, then looked at each other and laughed. Then they hurried off toward the barbershop.

  Homer nudged Freddy and whispered, “They’re going to spread the news. All the men in town will be laughing at Grampa Herc!”

  “Yeah!” whispered Freddy.

  “Now what are you young uns whispering about among yourselves?” Grampa Hercules demanded suspiciously. He looked around at the young faces, then abruptly he said, “Good-by,” and strode off home.

  * * *

  During the next week the situation proved fully as bad as Homer had expected. Grampa Hercules’ feelings were hurt very much indeed. He kept close to his house and chickens on the little knoll. When he did venture out to buy groceries or cough syrup for his cold, the men of the town all laughingly greeted him with embarrassing questions about his big jump.

  “Recovered from that championship hop yet, Hercules?” they’d ask.

  “Going to make another bi-state jump when the weather improves?”

  “Hercules, did I hear that the government was going to give you a contract to carry air mail between here and Kokomo?”

  To all these questions Grampa Hercules had little or nothing to say. He went about his business of buying supplies and headed for home as soon as possible. Worst of all, he avoided all the children. He never once walked through the town square and past the monument, and when he saw a group at play he would go out of his way, by walking clear around a block or by taking another street.

  “Perhaps when his cold gets better he’ll stop by and tell a story,” said Ginny Lee.

  “I’m afraid,” Homer said, “that Grampa Hercules has retired from storytelling and isn’t going to tell us any more, ever!”

  “But, Homer,” said Ginny Lee, “that’s silly. Why would he retire?”

  “Because,” said Homer, “everybody is laughing and making jokes about his jumping story and his feelings are hurt. He thinks that people the age of Uncle Ulysses and the sheriff, and we children too, are living in a scientific age and don’t appreciate anything that’s not scientifically proved in laboratories with statistics and theories.”

  “But that’s silly!” Ginny Lee repeated. “We’ll have to do something about that!”

  “Yeah!” Homer said disdainfully. “You helped boss him into this mess, so let’s you help get him out of it!”

  “Homer Price!” Ginny Lee said indignantly. “You know very well that you and Freddy and all the other girls and boys were just as curious as I was! You all wanted to see him make a championship jump. I think it’s terrible of the men to laugh about Grampa Hercules losing his clothes in the wind!”

  “Sure,” said Freddy, “but what can we do about it?”

  “We girls will do something about it!” said Ginny Lee firmly. “Come,” she commanded all the jacks players. “I have a cousin who is a Girl Scout in Top Knot, Indiana. We’ll write her a letter and have her send Grampa Herc’s clothes back.”

  She turned on her heel and, nose in air, started to lead the girls away on their errand.

  “She’ll never find them!” Homer taunted.

  “Yes, she will too,” said Ginny Lee, “with the whole troop to help her and the Brownies too—why, they’ll look in every straw stack in the county. Mu-u-umf!” she finished, with an appropriate expression and stiffly walked away, leaving Freddy and Homer by themselves.

  “If they find them,” said Freddy, “then Grampa Herc could really prove how far he’d jumped.”

  “Yeah,” said Homer, and he sat there quietly for a minute or two, watching a robin hunt worms. Then finally he said casually, “You know the brook where Grampa Herc practiced his jumping?”

  “Yeah,” answered Freddy, “I’ve been fishing there hundreds of times. It’s not very wide.”

  “But it’s deep,” said Homer, and both boys sat silent for a moment.

  “The grass and mud along the banks get sort of slick and slippery in the rain,” said Homer, looking at Freddy out of the corner of his eye.

  “I know,” said Freddy. “I hooked a big one right near there one time and the bank was so slippery I almost went in. He got away,” Freddy continued dreamily. “He got away, hook, line, and sin-sinker!”

  Freddy sat up with a start.

  “Yup! Lots of ’em!” said Homer, getting to his feet. “Let’s go fishing, Freddy.”

  “You bet,” said Freddy with a grin, “and in case we don’t catch any fish we could go swimming and catch cold!”

  “Now listen, Freddy, I’ve got a plan,” said Homer as they started off. “The only trouble is, we gotta get Ginny Lee and her friends in the Top Knot troop of Girl Scouts to help out. Now we’ll . . .”

  A few days later almost every child in Centerburg was in the town square and playing busily with jacks or tops or at some game or other.

  After the afternoon train had come in, Homer gave his top one last spin and walked across to the post office. He walked in and sort of became busy with a scratchy pen at the writing desk, whil
e he watched Posty Pratt sort out the afternoon mail. Posty finished sorting out the cards and letters, then started on the packages.

  “Dum-duum-de-dum,” hummed Posty while he worked. Then he looked up and called to Homer, “Here’s a parcel-post package for your Grandfather Hercules.”

  “I’ll tell him,” offered Homer, tossing down the pen and dashing out the door. He walked across to the monument and announced in a loud voice, “Grampa Herc has a package at the post office.”

  Without saying a word, the persuasive and usually talkative Ginny Lee started off in the direction of Grampa Hercules’ house.

  “Better wait about five minutes,” Homer whispered to Freddy. “She might need a little time to persuade him.”

  At the end of that time Freddy sauntered over to the barbershop and Homer toward the lunchroom.

  Besides a few citizens collecting their mail, the post office seemed unusually crowded with children. Posty Pratt was being his usual grouchy self, and when Uncle Ulysses “just happened” to drop in with Homer, and the sheriff “just happened” to drop in with Freddy, Posty grouchingly answered their questions.

  “No!” he grumbled. “Tain’t from New York. No return address on it, but it’s postmarked—let me see now,” said Posty, holding Grampa Hercules’ package to the light, “it’s postmarked Top Knot, Indiana.”

  “I beg your pardon!” commanded Ginny Lee, pushing her way through the group and holding tight to Grampa Hercules’ hand as though she were afraid he might suddenly decide to run away.

  Grampa Hercules silently signed the receipt for his package and turned to go, trying all the while to pretend he didn’t know there was anyone else within miles of the post office.

  “Aren’t you going to open it now?” asked Ginny Lee sweetly, looking up at Grandpa Hercules.

  The old man hesitated, and Uncle Ulysses quickly whipped out his pocketknife. “Here’s a knife to cut the string. Here, let me do it for you.”

  Then, after a few seconds of crinkling of brown wrapping paper, there was a loud thump as a pair of stringless old shoes hit the floor. Then all of Grampa Hercules’ clothes came tumbling out of the paper package. The old man pawed them over for some seconds, then he grinned and held up the jacket for all to see.

  “Tsk, tsk!” he said, smiling. “Now would you just look here, how the wind took those buttons off, as neat as if it had been done with a scissors.” He looked closely at all the children’s faces and Ginny Lee blushed.

  “Now look at my wallet!” exclaimed Grampa Hercules. “I’d heard tell of this and seen it in pictures how tornadoes could drive a straw clean through a piece of wood, but this beats all!” he said. “This straw sticking right through a hole in the leather, made as round and clean as if it had been done with a hammer and nail!”

  Freddy smiled and fidgeted a bit while Grampa Hercules’ long arms grabbed the wrapping paper from Uncle Ulysses and the sheriff, who were checking the postmark, Top Knot, Indiana, that was stamped there.

  “No return address!” remarked Grampa Hercules, looking the wrapper over carefully, “so I’ll never know who to thank. But wasn’t it a nice idea for somebody to look in my wallet and find out who I was, and send me my clothes—a very nice idea!” said Grampa Herc, looking around.

  Homer studied the expressions on Uncle Ulysses’ and the sheriff’s faces and managed not to blush—very much.

  “Posty!” demanded Grampa Hercules, slapping a coin down on the counter. “Sell me one of those important-looking big stamped envelopes. I have to write those two advertising rascals in New York and tell ’em their Gravitty-Bitties are too danged dangerous to sell to the public!”

  “Mebbe,” said Homer casually, “Gravitty-Bitty jumping would be possible if they printed a few precautions in the directions on the box—like ‘Don’t Jump in Bad Weather’ and ‘Allow for Prevailing Winds.’”

  “Oh, that jumping part, that’s nothing. But you know, those fellas are thinking of trying to get folks to eat that stuff! Yep, those fellas just couldn’t keep from overdoing it with that ‘feather-light enriched’ business.”

  “Did the Gravitty-Bitties give you indigestion?” asked Ginny Lee solicitously.

  “Me eat that stuff?” Grampa Hercules asked, and “Pfuftht!” he spat at one of the post-office receptacles. “I fed it to the chickens, and a mighty good thing too!” he said emphatically. “But those chickens haven’t been the same since! The trouble started about four or five days after they began eatin’ Gravitty-Bitties. I was gathering eggs, just like always, when by accident I happened to drop an egg—and this egg didn’t break. I didn’t think a thing of it at the time, didn’t suspect a thing, you see, and the egg sorta settled down on the cement floor and I reached down and grabbed it quick, before it could blow away. Looking back, I can’t see for the life of me why I didn’t have sense enough to stop feeding those hens Gravitty-Bitties.

  “Wu-a-ll!” exclaimed Grampa Hercules, “a few days later I started out at the regular time to collect eggs. Would you believe it?—there wasn’t a single egg in any o’ the nests! ‘Some animal or person is raiding my henhouse,’ I thought to myself, so I set a few traps and put a padlock on the door. Next day and day after, the same thing happened, no traps sprung, the lock not tampered with, and not a single solitary egg in any o’ the nests.

  “I was plumb completely puzzled, and I decided to keep my eyes and ears open. Next morning I could hear the hens clucking and carrying on as if they’d just laid a mess of eggs, and I dropped everything and rushed into the henhouse. Got there in time to find a couple o’ hens cut-cut-ca-dud-dutting as though they’d right that minute moved off their nests after layin’ some eggs.

  “‘Got here on time this time!’ I complimented myself and reached down into the nests to gather the eggs. I felt around and I looked. I put on my glasses and looked some more, and nope! not a single solitary egg. Those two hens and me stood there dumfounded, staring down into the nests. They were just as puzzled as me, you see. You can’t fool a hen about such things. They know better than anybody when they’ve just laid an egg. I tell you, I was at my wits’ end to know what could be whisking those eggs out of the nest the second the hens unset themselves. It made me howling, swearing mad. ‘Oh, you!’ I yelled. ‘You double-enriched vanilla-colored unprintable something-or-other that’s stealin’ my eggs!’ I raised my eyes—and there was the answer.

  “Wu-a-ll, do you know, those eggs were falling right straight up and breaking on the ceiling? Yup. Those hens had been eating feather-light enriched Gravitty-Bitties, and it was playing hob with egg production! The eggs didn’t have a mite o’ gravity to ’em, and the minute a hen moved off a nest after laying an egg, that egg would fall right spang up to the ceiling and smash among the rafters! The waste of it all was appalling,” said Grampa Herc, stroking his chin.

  “Couldn’t you scramble some of them for breakfast?” asked Homer. “That’s a good way to use up broken eggs.”

  “Thought of that,” said Grampa Herc, moving toward the door. “But I had to turn the frying pan upside down to keep ’em from falling up to the ceiling o’ the kitchen. A complete waste—that’s what it was. I had to scrape ’em off the henhouse ceiling and ease them out the window and watch the shells and yolks go floatin’ away. Things are getting back to normal again now,” Grampa Herc said. “Every morning I have to scrape one or two down, but now most o’ the eggs are heavy enough to stay put in a basket. And speakin’ of baskets—that reminds me of a story. But come on, all you young uns, let’s get out of this stuffy post office and over to the monument steps.”

  Grampa Hercules, followed by all of his young admirers, surged happily out of the post office. The old man, with a gay twinkle in his eye, called back over his shoulder, “Hey, Sheriff—you too, Ulysses—if you’re not busy tomorrow morning along about egg gatherin’ time, come on out and I’ll scrape down a couple of eggs for you!”

  The sheriff and Uncle Ulysses didn’t say a word, but that’s not surprisi
ng, because Grampa Hercules had the last words to say in this story. He said ’em too, didn’t he?

  EXPERIMENT 13

  EXPERIMENT 13

  THE CENTERBURG courthouse clock was just striking eight as Homer rode into the town square. He parked his bike in front of the barbershop, poked his finger into a crack in the wooden barberpole, and pulled out a key. After unlocking the door and putting up the shades, Homer swept the floor.

  By quarter of nine Homer had finished with all of his opening-up chores. He started looking through the stack of old magazines, the same magazines that had been there last Saturday and the Saturday before, the same magazines that had been in the barbershop since Homer started working there. Homer had looked at them all a hundred times, so he just sat looking out of the window, waiting for the barber to arrive at nine o’clock.

  Through the barbershop window he watched the sheriff walk across the square at ten minutes to nine, as usual, and go into Uncle Ulysses’ lunchroom for breakfast.

  He watched the mayor drive up and go into the town hall at five minutes of nine, as usual.

  The courthouse clock struck nine, and Homer yawned. Just for variety he looked in the mirror, so that he could see the town square backwards. Then, by sitting in the barber chair and leaning way back, he looked in the mirror and saw the town square upside down and backwards. Homer smiled as he watched the barber come out of the lunchroom upside down.

  Boosting himself out of the barber chair, Homer looked at the clock and thought, “He’s a little bit late, as usual!” Then he said, “Gosh!” to nobody in particular. “Everything is so usual around here. Seems as though nothing ever happens here any more.”