and Main when I spotted a quarter at the bottom of a sewer. I went to the alley behind the Dixie and found a long stick, stuck the wad of gum I was chewing on the end, and returned to the sewer, where, after considerable maneuvering, and with Skip hunched down and gazing at this operation with his usual curiosity,I speared the quarter with the gum and with a vigorous yank brought it out. With these unexpected earnings I hailed the ice-cream man again, who by now had made it all the way across town from our house, and this time bought
two
Fudg-sicles, one for me, one for Skip. Then, for a nickel, because the driver let Skip ride free, we boarded the new city bus on Jefferson Street and rode in much excitement and pride, since the town had never had a bus line before, up Main and Canal and Brickyard Hill and the boulevard and down Canal to Main again: the limits of our world.
Now we went to my fathers office, where I experimented for a while with his typewriter; then on to the radio station to read the news coming in from all the worlds capitals on the teletype and to hear the announcers promote the virtues of various insecticides and fertilizers and a spectacular locally made patent medicine that cured everything from gallstones to summer itch; then to the offices of the newspaper to observe that weeks issue coming off the flatbed press; and next to the ice house, where on especially scalding days the boy who worked there allowed us to spend a few minutes in the room where they made ice, a dark, frigid, timeless chamber a universe removed from the blazing summer world outside. There was a cotton auction taking place at the auction center, the first of the year, and we watched that for a few minutes: the staccato warble of the auctioneer, the men in khakis milling around in clusters, discussing the quality of that summers product. Then to the Armenians to watch himmake bread, and to the Italians to watch him make coffee, and to Gregorys Funeral Home to watch a funeral procession get started, and to the courthouse to watch part of a trial from an empty balcony, and to the Catholic church to look into the windows and get scared. Once Father Hunter himself caught us at one of the windows and gave us a tour inside: the unfamiliar statuary, the alien baptistery the faint incense odor. Then to a big open field right in the middle of town to play among the rows of cotton bales waiting to be hauled up to Memphis on the train. Then on to the Ricks Memorial Library, where the ancient ladies permitted Skip to go to sleep under the long oaken table in the reading room while I read the latest serials in
Open Road for Boys.
Then up to the firehouse to visit the firemen, playing dominoes while listening to a ballgame, who in their gregarious indomitability had put aside their embarrassment over the fact that the fire-house itself had partially burned because of faulty electrical wiring the previous summer, and who more often than not gave me a Nehi Strawberry and Skip a nibble of ham or hard-boiled egg. Finally, on the way home, we might stop at Bubba's, who would by now be back from weighing cotton at his fathers plantation, and we might bake some more oatmeal cookies using our standard recipe of castor oil, milk of magnesia, and Skip's dog-worming medicine, then gift wrap them and put them on some mean old mans front porch.
On the Fourth of July there was always a political rally in some large and dusty clearing in the middle of the woods.
The barbecue and potato salad and sliced homegrown tomatoes and corn on the cob and biscuits were stacked on long tables and served up by country people, and I sat on the grass with this steaming feast in my lap, splitting some of it with Skip, lethargically eating and listening to the preachers and politicians.
But mostly we liked the little creeks and streams that trickled out of the hills into the flatland, and most of all the river itself in the summertimes, the river of the vanished Indians, the
two
Fudg-sicles, one for me, one for Skip. Then, for a nickel, because the driver let Skip ride free, we boarded the new city bus on Jefferson Street and rode in much excitement and pride, since the town had never had a bus line before, up Main and Canal and Brickyard Hill and the boulevard and down Canal to Main again: the limits of our world.
Now we went to my fathers office, where I experimented for a while with his typewriter; then on to the radio station to read the news coming in from all the worlds capitals on the teletype and to hear the announcers promote the virtues of various insecticides and fertilizers and a spectacular locally made patent medicine that cured everything from gallstones to summer itch; then to the offices of the newspaper to observe that weeks issue coming off the flatbed press; and next to the ice house, where on especially scalding days the boy who worked there allowed us to spend a few minutes in the room where they made ice, a dark, frigid, timeless chamber a universe removed from the blazing summer world outside. There was a cotton auction taking place at the auction center, the first of the year, and we watched that for a few minutes: the staccato warble of the auctioneer, the men in khakis milling around in clusters, discussing the quality of that summers product. Then to the Armenians to watch himmake bread, and to the Italians to watch him make coffee, and to Gregorys Funeral Home to watch a funeral procession get started, and to the courthouse to watch part of a trial from an empty balcony, and to the Catholic church to look into the windows and get scared. Once Father Hunter himself caught us at one of the windows and gave us a tour inside: the unfamiliar statuary, the alien baptistery the faint incense odor. Then to a big open field right in the middle of town to play among the rows of cotton bales waiting to be hauled up to Memphis on the train. Then on to the Ricks Memorial Library, where the ancient ladies permitted Skip to go to sleep under the long oaken table in the reading room while I read the latest serials in
Open Road for Boys.
Then up to the firehouse to visit the firemen, playing dominoes while listening to a ballgame, who in their gregarious indomitability had put aside their embarrassment over the fact that the fire-house itself had partially burned because of faulty electrical wiring the previous summer, and who more often than not gave me a Nehi Strawberry and Skip a nibble of ham or hard-boiled egg. Finally, on the way home, we might stop at Bubba's, who would by now be back from weighing cotton at his fathers plantation, and we might bake some more oatmeal cookies using our standard recipe of castor oil, milk of magnesia, and Skip's dog-worming medicine, then gift wrap them and put them on some mean old mans front porch.
On the Fourth of July there was always a political rally in some large and dusty clearing in the middle of the woods.
The barbecue and potato salad and sliced homegrown tomatoes and corn on the cob and biscuits were stacked on long tables and served up by country people, and I sat on the grass with this steaming feast in my lap, splitting some of it with Skip, lethargically eating and listening to the preachers and politicians.
But mostly we liked the little creeks and streams that trickled out of the hills into the flatland, and most of all the river itself in the summertimes, the river of the vanished Indians, the
Similar Books
