Part 7 (2/2)

He picked one up in his hand and patted its nudging little head with hisfinger. ”Pobrecito,” he said, ”Poor little one-”

Then he let out a yell and dropped the thing. The s.p.a.ce lady snarled.

”It bit me!” gasped Padre Manuel. ”It took a chunk out of me!”

He pulled out his bandana and tried to tie it over the bleeding place onthe ball of his thumb.

All at once he was conscious of a big silence and he looked at the s.p.a.celady. She was looking down at the little s.p.a.ce creature. It was curling up inher hand like a kitten and purring to itself. Its little silver tongue cameout and licked around happily and it went to sleep. Fed.

Padre Manuel stared hard. It hadn't unswallowed! It had eaten a chunk of him and hadn't unswallowed! He looked up at the s.p.a.ce lady. She stared back.Her eyes slid shut a couple of times. In the quiet you could hear the otherlittle ones mewling. She put the s.p.a.ce kitten down.

Padre Manuel stood, one hand clasped over the crude bandage, his eyes darkand questioning in his quiet face. The s.p.a.ce lady started toward him, hermany-fingered hands reaching. They closed around his arms, above his elbows.Padre Manuel looked up into the silver gray eyes, long, long, and then closedhis eyes against the nearness.

Suddenly the fingers were gone. Padre Manuel's eyes opened. He saw thes.p.a.ce creature scoop up her little ones, the quiet one, the crying ones, andhurry them into the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. She slid in after them and the hole began toclose. Padre Manuel caught a last glimpse of silver and black and a last glintof the white pointed teeth and the hole was closed.

He watched the wine-colored s.h.i.+p dwindle away above the Estrellas until itwas gone, back into s.p.a.ce. He waved his hand at the empty sky.

Then he sighed and picked up the canteen and cup and put them into thebasket. He shooed away the flies that swarmed around him and, lifting thebasket, started back across the pasture.

Come On, Wagon!

I don't like kids-never have. They're too uncanny. For one thing, there's...o...b..ttom to their eyes. They haven't learned to pull down their mentalcurtains the way adults have. For another thing, there's so much they don'tknow. And not knowing things makes them know lots of other things grownupscan't know. That sounds confusing and it is. But look at it this way. Everytime you teach a kid something, you teach him a hundred things that areimpossible because that one thing is so. By the time we grow up, our world isso hedged around by impossibilities that it's a wonder we ever try anything new.

Anyway, I don't like kids, so I guess it's just as well that I've stayed abachelor.

Now take Thaddeus. I don't like Thaddeus. Oh, he's a fine kid, smarter thanmost-he's my nephew-but he's too young. I'll start liking him one of thesedays when he's ten or eleven. No, that's still too young. I guess when hisvoice starts cracking and he begins to slick his hair down, I'll get to likinghim fine. Adolescence ends lots more than it begins.

The first time I ever really got acquainted with Thaddeus was the Christmashe was three. He was a solemn little fellow, hardly a smile out of him allday, even with the avalanche of everything to thrill a kid. Starting firstthing Christmas Day, he made me feel uneasy. He stood still in the middle ofthe excited squealing bunch of kids that crowded around the Christmas tree inthe front room at the folks' place. He was holding a big rubber ball with bothhands and looking at the tree with his eyes wide with wonder. I was sittingright by him in the big chair and I said, ”How do you like it, Thaddeus?”

He turned his big solemn eyes to me, and for a long time, all I could seewas the deep, deep reflections in his eyes of the glitter and glory of thetree and a special s.h.i.+ningness that originated far back in his own eyes. Thenhe blinked slowly and said solemnly, ”Fine.”

Then the mob of kids swept him away as they all charged forward to claimtheir Grampa-gift from under the tree. When the crowd finally dissolved andscattered all over the place with their play-toys, there was Thaddeussquatting solemnly by the little red wagon that had fallen to him. He was.e.xamining it intently, inch by inch, but only with his eyes. His hands werepressed between his knees and his chest as he squatted.

”Well, Thaddeus.” His mother's voice was a little provoked. ”Go play withyour wagon. Don't you like it?”

Thaddeus turned his face up to her in that blind, unseeing way littlechildren have.

”Sure,” he said, and standing up, tried to take the wagon in his arms.

”Oh for pity sakes,” his mother laughed. ”You don't carry a wagon,Thaddeus.” And aside to us, ”Sometimes I wonder. Do you suppose he's got allhis b.u.t.tons?”

”Now, Jean.” Our brother Clyde leaned back in his chair. ”Don't heckle thekid. Go on, Thaddeus. Take the wagon outside.”

So what does Thaddeus do but start for the door, saying over his shoulder,”Come on, Wagon.”

Clyde laughed. ”It's not that easy, Punkin-Yaller, you've gotta have pullto get along in this world.”

So Jean showed Thaddeus how and he pulled the wagon outdoors, looking downat the handle in a puzzled way, absorbing this latest rule for acting like abig boy.

Jean was embarra.s.sed the way parents are when their kids act normal aroundother people.

”Honest. You'd think he never saw a wagon before.”

”He never did,” I said idly. ”Not his own, anyway.” And had the feelingthat I had said something profound, but wasn't quite sure what.

The whole deal would have gone completely out of my mind if it hadn't beenfor one more little incident. I was out by the barn waiting for Dad. Mom wasmaking him change his pants before he demonstrated his new tractor for me. Isaw Thaddeus loading rocks into his little red wagon. Beyond the rock pile, Icould see that he had started a playhouse or ranch of some kind, laying therocks out to make rooms or corrals or whatever. He finished loading the wagonand picked up another rock that took both arms to carry, then he looked downat the wagon.

”Come on, Wagon.” And he walked over to his play place.

And the wagon went with him, trundling along over the uneven ground,following at his heels like a puppy.

I blinked and inventoried rapidly the Christmas cheer I had imbibed. Itwasn't enough for an explanation. I felt a kind of cold grue creep over me.

Then Thaddeus emptied the wagon and the two of them went back for morerocks. He was just going to pull the same thing again when a big boy-cousincame by and laughed at him.

”Hey, Thaddeus, how you going to pull your wagon with, both hands full? Itwon't go unless you pull it.”

”Oh,” said Thaddeus and looked off after the cousin who was headed for theback porch and some pie.

So Thaddeus dropped the big rock he had in his arms and looked at thewagon. After struggling with some profound thinking, he picked the rock upagain and hooked a little finger over the handle of the wagon.

”Come on, Wagon,” he said, and they trundled off together, the handle ofthe wagon still slanting back over the load while Thaddeus grunted along by itwith his heavy armload.

I was glad Dad came just then, hooking the last strap of his stripedoveralls. We started into the barn together. I looked back at Thaddeus. Heapparently figured he'd need his little finger on the next load, so he wa.s.squatting by the wagon, absorbed with a piece of flimsy red Christmas string.He had twisted one end around his wrist and was intent on tying the other tothe handle of the little red wagon.

It wasn't so much that I avoided Thaddeus after that. It isn't hard for grownups to keep from mingling with kids. After all, they do live in twodifferent worlds. Anyway, I didn't have much to do with Thaddeus for severalyears after that Christmas. There was the matter of a side trip to the SouthPacific where even I learned that there are some grown-up impossibilities thatare not always absolute. Then there was a hitch in the hospital where I waitedfor my legs to put themselves together again. I was luckier than most of theguys. The folks wrote often and regularly and kept me posted on all the hometalk. Nothing spectacular, nothing special, just the old familiar stuff thatmakes home, home and folks, folks.

I hadn't thought of Thaddeus in a long time. I hadn't been around kids muchand unless you deal with them, you soon forget them. But I remembered himplenty when I got the letter from Dad about Jean's new baby. The kid was acouple of weeks overdue and when it did come-a girl-Jean's husband, Bert, wasout at the farm checking with Dad on a land deal he had cooking. The baby cameso quickly that Jean couldn't even make it to the hospital and when Mom calledBert, he and Dad headed for town together, but fast.

”Derned if I didn't have to hold my hair on,” wrote Dad. ”I don't think we hit the ground but twice all the way to town. Dern near overshot the gate whenwe finally tore up the hill to their house. Thaddeus was playing out front andwe dang near ran him down. Smashed his trike to flinders. I saw the handlebars sticking out from under the front wheel when I followed Bert in. Then Igot to thinking that he'd get a flat parking on all that metal so I went outto move the car. Lucky I did. Bert musta forgot to set the brakes. Derned ifthat car wasn't headed straight for Thaddeus. He was walking right in front ofit. Even had his hand on the b.u.mper and the dern thing rolling right afterhim. I yelled and hit out for the car. But by the time I got there, it hadstopped and Thaddeus was squatting by his wrecked trike. What do you supposethe little cuss said? 'Old car broke my trike. I made him get off.'

”Can you beat it? Kids get the dernedest ideas. Lucky it wasn't much downhill, though. He'd have been hurt sure.”

I lay with the letter on my chest and felt cold. Dad had forgotten thatthey ”tore up the hill” and that the car must have rolled up the slope to getoff Thaddeus' trike.

That night I woke up the ward yelling, ”Come on, Wagon!”

It was some months later when I saw Thaddeus again. He and half a dozenother nephews-and the one persistent niece-were in a tearing hurry to besomewhere else and nearly mobbed Dad and me on the front porch as they boiledout of the house with mouths and hands full of cookies. They all stopped longenough to give me the once-over and fire a machine gun volley with mycrutches, then they disappeared down the land on their bikes, heads low, rearends high, and every one of them being bombers at the tops of their voices.

I only had time enough to notice that Thaddeus had lanked out and was justone of the kids as he grinned engagingly at me with the two-tooth gap in hisfront teeth.

”Did you ever notice anything odd about Thaddeus?” I pulled out themakin's.

”Thaddeus?” Dad glanced up at me from firing up his battered old corncobpipe. ”Not particularly. Why?”

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