Part 8 (1/2)

”Beg pardon?” The young lady blinked.

”Innocence, continue in thy innocence,” said Grand pa, and fell asleep.

The train pulled into Cranamockett at six o'clock. Only then was John allowed back from his exile in the head of that robin on a fence miles behind.

There were absolutely no relatives in Cranamockett willing to take in the cousins. At the end of three days, Grandfather rode the train back to Illinois, the cousins still in him, like peach stones. And there they stayed, each in a different territory of Grandpa's sun-or-moonlit attic keep.

Tom took residence in a remembrance of 1840 in Vienna with a crazed actress, William lived in Lake County with a flaxen-haired Swede of some indefinite years, while John shuttled from fleshpot to fleshpot, 'Frisco, Berlin, Paris, appearing, on occasion, as a wicked glitter in Grandpa's eyes. Philip, on the other hand, locked himself deep in a potato-bin cellar, where he read all the books Grandpa ever read.

But on some nights Grandpa edges over under the covers toward Grandma.

”You!” she cries. ”At your age! Git!” she screams.

And she beats and beats and beats him until, laughing in five voices, Grandpa gives up, fells back, and pretends to sleep, alert with five kinds of alertness, for another try.

The Last Circus

Red Tongue Jurgis (we called him that because he ate candy red-hots all the time) stood under my window one cold October morning and yelled at the metal weatherc.o.c.k on top of our house. I put my head out the window and blew steam. ”Hi, Red Tongue!”

”Jiggers!” he said. ”Come on! The circus!”

Three minutes later I ran out of the house polis.h.i.+ng two apples on my knee. Red tongue was dancing to keep warm. We agreed that the last one to reach the train yard was a d.a.m.nfool old man.

Eating apples, we ran through the silent town.

We stood by the rails in the dark train yard and listened to them humming. Far away in the cold dark morning country, we knew, the circus was coming. The sound of it was in the rails, trembling. I put my ear down to hear it traveling. ”Gosh,” I said.

And then, there was the locomotive charging on us with fire and tight and a sound like a black storm, clouds following it. Out of boxcars red and green lanterns swung and in the boxcars were snorts and screams and yells. Elephants stepped down and cages rolled and everything mixed around until, in the first tight, the animals and men were marching, Red Tongue and I with them, through the town, out to tine meadowlands where every gra.s.s blade was a white crystal and every bush rained if you touched it.

”Just think, RX,” I said. ”One minute there's nothing there but land. And now look at it.”

We looked. The big tent bloomed out like one of those j.a.panese flowers in cold water. Lights flashed on. In half an hour there were pancakes frying somewhere and people laughing.

We stood looking at everything. I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart thumping my fingers like those trick shop palpitators you buy for two bits. All I wanted to do was look and smell.

”Home for breakfast!” cried RT and knocked me down so he got a head start running. ”Tuck your tongue in and wash your face,” said Mom, looking up from her kitchen stove.

”Pancakes!” I said, amazed at her intuition.

”How was the circus?” Father lowered his newspaper and looked over it at me.

”Swell,” I said. ”Boy!”

I washed my face in cold tap water and sc.r.a.ped my chair out just as Mom set the pancakes down. She handed me the syrup jug. ”Float them,” she said.

While I was chewing, Father adjusted the paper in his hands and sighed. ”I don't know what it's coming to.”

”You shouldn't read the paper in the morning,” Mom said. ”It ruins your digestion.”

”Look at this,” cried Father, flicking the paper with his finger. ”Germ warfare, atom bomb, hydrogen bomb. That's all you read!”

”Personally,” said Mother, ”I've a big was.h.i.+ng this week.”

Father frowned. ”That's what's wrong with the world; people on a powder keg doing their wash.” He sat up and leaned forward. ”Why it says here this morning, they've got a new atom bomb that would wipe Chicago clean off the map. And as for our town-nothing left but a smudge. The thing I keep thinking is it's a darn shame.”

”What?” I asked.

”Here we've taken a million years to get where we are. We build towns and build cities out of nothing. Why, a hundred years ago, this town wasn't nowhere to be seen.

Took a lot of time and sweat and trouble, and now we've got it all one brick on another and what happens? BANG BANG!”

”It won't happen to us, I bet,” I said.

”No?” Father snorted. ”Why not?”

”It just couldn't” I said.

”You two leave oft” Mom nodded at me. ”You're too young to understand.” She nodded at Pop. ”You're old enough to know better.” We ate in silence. Then I said to Pop, ”What was it like before this town was here?”

”Nothing at all. Just the lake and the hills is all.”

”Indians?”

”Not many around here. Just empty woods and hills is all.”

”Pa.s.s the syrup,” said Mom.

”Whambo!” cried RT ”I'm an atom bomb! Boom!”

We were waiting in line at the Elite theater. It was the biggest day of the year. We had lugged pop all morning at the circus to earn show tickets. Now, in the afternoon, we were seeing cowboys and Indians on the movie screen, and, this evening, the circus itself! We felt rich and we laughed all the time. RT kept squinting through his atomic ring, yelling, ”Whoom! You're dis integrated!”

Cowboys chased Indians across the screen. Half an hour later the Indians chased the cowboys back the other way. After everybody was tired of stomping, the cartoon came on, and then a newsreel.

”Look, the atom bomb!” RT settled down for the first time. The big gray cloud lifted on the screen, blew apart, battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers burst open and rain fell.

RT held my arm tight, staring up at the burning whiteness. ”Ain't that something, Doug, ain't it?” He jabbed my ribs.