The Great Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “Good,” Tom said. “Now how many of you think you could sneak just one drink out of the bottle?”

  Basil stepped forward. “Why only one drink?” he asked.

  “Because if we take any more our fathers might get suspicious,” Tom answered.

  “My pa,” Danny Forester spoke up, “keeps his bottle in the pantry. I could sneak in there when Ma isn’t in the kitchen, but how am I going to carry it?”

  “J.D.,” Tom said to me, “go up to the loft and get that old hot water bottle of Mamma’s.”

  I scooted up the rope ladder to the loft and back down with the hot water bottle.

  “Now watch me closely,” Tom said as he took the hot water bottle. “You open your shirt and put the hot water bottle under it and down in your pants. Then you unscrew the top like this.” He picked up one of the empty quart whiskey bottles. “Now pretend this is your father’s bottle of whiskey. You take the cork out and pour a drink from the whiskey bottle into the hot water bottle. You screw back the cap on the hot water bottle like this. You can button up your shirt and if you hold in your belly you can walk right by anybody without them getting suspicious.”

  “What a brain!” Danny Forester shouted. “We can go to my house right now. Pa is at work and Ma is over helping my Aunt Sarah do some canning.”

  “All right, Danny,” Tom said with a grin, “We’ll begin Mr. Standish’s downfall with you.”

  One of the greatest whiskey raids ever made took place after school during the rest of the week. Papa’s bottle was short a couple of ounces along with the bottles belonging to the fathers of twelve other kids. When the raid was over, there was enough whiskey in the hot water bottle to pour about three ounces of whiskey into each of the pint bottles and about six ounces into one of the quart bottles.

  The success of Tom’s plan to get rid of Mr. Standish depended a great deal on Jimmie Peterson. Tom met with Jimmie and Sammy Leeds in our barn on Saturday morning. I was permitted to attend the meeting.

  “I printed this note,” Tom said as he handed Sammy an envelope. “Tomorrow night after curfew you sneak out of your house and slip the note and envelope under Calvin Whitlock’s front door. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Sammy said as he put the note in his pocket.

  “Now, Jimmie,” Tom said, “tonight after curfew I’ll sneak out of the house. I’ll hide the pint flask and quart bottle with whiskey in them in your woodshed where I showed you. You’ve got all day tomorrow to wait for just the perfect chance to sneak them up to your room and hide them. Monday morning after Mr. Standish leaves for the schoolhouse, it will be up to you to hide the pint flask under his pillow and the quart bottle in his clothes closet. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Jimmie said, grinning.

  “Tomorrow night after curfew,” Tom said, “I’ll sneak out of the house again and put the empty quart bottle in Mrs. Taylor’s trash can where she will be sure to see it Monday morning when she goes to the backhouse. And I’ll plant the other pint flask with whiskey in it in Mr. Standish’s coat pocket at school Monday morning.”

  Everything went without a hitch that weekend, and on Monday morning Tom’s plan for getting rid of the new teacher went into action. Jimmie was in the kitchen where his mother was preparing breakfast for her boarders when Mrs. Taylor knocked on the back door. Jimmie’s mother opened the door.

  “teacher went into action. Jimmie was in the kitchen where

  his mother was preparing breakfast for her boarders when

  Mrs. Taylor knocked on the back door. Jimmie’s mother

  opened the door.

  “I’ll thank you, Mrs. Peterson,” Mrs. Taylor said as she waved the empty quart whiskey bottle that Tom had planted in her trash can, “to tell your boarders that I do not want them throwing their empty whiskey bottles in my trash can.”

  “So, it is Mrs. Peterson instead of Jenny is it?” Jimmie’s mother said. “Well, I’ll thank you, Mrs. Taylor, not to be accusing my boarders of doing such a thing. None of my boarders ever touches a drop.”

  “Where else could this bottle have come from?” Mrs. Taylor demanded. “You and your boarders are the only people in the block who aren’t Mormons, and you know us Mormons never touch alcohol.”

  “Then you must have a backslider in your midst,” Jimmie’s mother said. “I would not take in a boarder who drank or smoked.”

  And with that, Jimmie told us later, his mother slammed the door in Mrs. Taylor’s face.

  After eating breakfast, Jimmie waited in his room until he saw Mr. Standish leave for the schoolhouse. Then he slipped into the teacher’s room and put the pint flask under the pillow and hid the quart bottle in the clothes closet. And for an added touch that Tom had thought up on Sunday, Jimmie placed an open package of Sen Sen, which had cost my brother five cents, on the teacher’s dresser.

  Mr. Standish kept a black alpaca coat at the schoolhouse, which he wore during school hours. He hung his regular coat in the hallway on one of the hooks used by pupils. It was no trick at all for Tom to sneak into the hallway that Monday morning and plant the pint flask in the teacher’s inside coat pocket.

  What followed I didn’t learn until later, but I’m going to tell it as it happened.

  Calvin Whitlock had his breakfast interrupted that morning by his housekeeper, Mrs. Hazzelton, who handed him the note Sammy had slipped under the front door. It read:

  THE NEW SCHOOLTEACHER IS A SECRET DRINKER. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IT, LOOK IN HIS COAT POCKET AT SCHOOL AND SEARCH HIS ROOM.

  Mr. Whitlock immediately telephoned the other two schoolboard members. The three of them went to Mrs. Peterson’s boarding house. They arrived just as Jimmie’s mother was coming out of the house.

  “I was just on my way to see you,” she said to Mr. Whitlock. “I will not tolerate any drinkers in my boarding house. And I certainly will not tolerate any teacher who drinks as a teacher for my son, Jimmie.”

  “You discovered this only now?” Mr. Whitlock asked.

  “Just this morning,” Mrs. Peterson replied.

  “Then you didn’t write the note?” Mr. Whitlock asked.

  “What note?” Mrs. Peterson asked.

  The banker showed Jimmie’s mother the note.

  “It’s printed,” Mrs. Peterson said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Mrs. Taylor who wrote it. It all started with her coming to the house this morning and accusing one of my boarders of throwing empty whiskey bottles in her trash can. I couldn’t believe it was one of my boarders until I went up to make up Mr. Standish’s room. Laying right under his pillow where he’d forgotten it was a pint bottle with whiskey in it. And on his dresser there was an open package of Sen Sen which he took to kill the odor of the whiskey on his breath.”

  “Did you leave the bottle where you found it?” Mr. Whitlock asked.

  When Mrs. Peterson nodded, the banker said he would need the bottle for evidence. They all went up to the teacher’s room.

  “I never did like that man,” Mrs. Granger said as they entered the room. “There was something about him I just ‘ didn’t like.”

  Mr. Whitlock removed the pint flask from under the pillow and put it in his pocket. Then he looked around the room. “With a man like this you never know,” he said. “Perhaps we should search the room.”

  When the quart bottle with whiskey in it was found in the clothes closet, Mr. Whitlock exclaimed with disgust.

  “The man is nothing but a drunken sot. Whiskey under his pillow. Whiskey in his clothes closet. And according to the note he even takes whiskey to school with him. How could we have been so taken in by such a man?”

  The two bottles and the package of Sen Sen were placed in a brown paper bag. Mr. Whitlock was carrying the paper bag when he and the other two members of the schoolboard entered the schoolhouse. They went directly into the hallway where they found the pint flask with whiskey in it in the teacher’s coat pocket. This bottle joined the others in the brown paper bag. Then Mr. Whitlock and the two board memb
ers came into the classroom. The banker’s face was red with anger as he looked at Mr. Standish.

  “You will dismiss school for today immediately,” Mr. Whitlock said, “and report to me and the other board members at my home this afternoon at two o’clock sharp.”

  Tom was rubbing his hands gleefully as we left the schoolhouse. “I told you I would make Mr. Standish rue the day he paddled me,” he chuckled. “He was a fool to go up against my great brain.”

  Papa was upset when he came home for lunch. “I met Calvin Whitlock this morning,” he told Mamma. “The schoolboard is meeting this afternoon to dismiss Mr. Standish.”

  “Because of the paddlings?” Mamma asked.

  “No,” Papa said, shaking his head, “it seems that Mr. Standish is a secret drinker.”

  “I can’t believe it” Mamma said.

  “Calvin has more than enough evidence to prove it,” Papa said. “He told me they would rehire Miss Thatcher until such a time as they can get another teacher.”

  “Hurray!” Tom shouted.

  Papa gave Tom a funny look. Then he shook his head as if dismissing some crazy idea he might have had.

  When Papa came home for supper that night, he was very quiet. He hardly spoke at all until Mamma and Aunt Bertha had finished the supper dishes and came into the parlor. Mamma looked at him as she sat down in her maple rocker.

  “What is on your mind?” she asked.

  “I can’t get Mr. Standish off my mind,” Papa said. “The poor man came to see me this afternoon after being dismissed by the schoolboard. He swears he never took a drink in his life and doesn’t know how the whiskey got into his room or in his coat pocket at school.”

  “Isn’t that about what a secret drinker who was a schoolteacher would say?” Mamma asked.

  “I suppose so,” Papa said, “but I flatter myself I am a pretty good judge of character. I just can’t believe Mr. Standish is guilty. The man swore before God to me that he was innocent and somebody must have framed him.” Papa shrugged helplessly. “But who in the world would do a contemptible thing like that?”

  Tom got up from the floor where we were playing dominoes. He walked over to Papa.

  “Why did you say ‘contemptible’?” he asked.

  “What would you call a person who ruined my reputation with false evidence?” Papa said.

  “But that is different,” Tom said. “Every kid in school hates Mr. Standish.”

  “That is no excuse,” Papa said. “If Mr. Standish is innocent, as he claims to be, somebody in this town has done one of the cruelest things one man can do to another.” Papa turned his head and looked at Mamma. “Mrs. Peterson wouldn’t even let the poor man in the house. She had his things packed and placed on the front porch. He had to take a room at the Sheepmen’s Hotel. He is leaving for Salt Lake City in the morning. I can’t help feeling sorry for him, guilty or innocent.”

  “But, Papa,” Tom protested, “Mr. Standish paddled me because I wouldn’t be a tattletale. He had no right to paddle me for that.”

  I thought Papa was going to choke. His face turned red and his cheeks puffed up like a tormented bullfrog. Then he relaxed.

  “It couldn’t be,” he said as if reassuring himself. “The whiskey rules it out.”

  Mamma knew my brother better than Papa did. She crooked her linger and motioned to Tom with a stern look on her face. Tom walked over and stood in front of her.

  “Tom Dennis,” Mamma said sharply, “I have a sneaking suspicion that you know something. If you do know anything that will prove Mr. Standish innocent of these charges, you had better speak up right now.”

  “He had no right to paddle me.” Tom said stubbornly.

  “But the whiskey…” Papa cried out as if in pain.

  I jumped to my feet. “Twelve kids helped us get it,” I said without thinking.

  “Oh, no!” Papa said with a groan as he pressed the palms of his hands to the sides of his head.

  “Tom’s great brain figured out how to get rid of the new teacher,” I said, thinking now that I’d spilled the beans I might as well spill some more.

  Papa’s mouth flapped open and shut without any words coming from it as he looked helplessly at Mamma. For the first time in my life I saw Mamma so stunned she couldn’t react quickly to a crisis as she stared at me with her mouth open. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of myself at making both my parents speechless.

  Papa finally recovered his voice. “Son,” he said to Tom, “to ruin a man’s good name is about as low and mean a thing as one person can do to another. If you can save Mr. Standish’s reputation and refuse to speak, your mother and I will never forgive you.”

  “I swore I’d never tell,” Tom said. Then he gave me a dirty look. “And so did J.D.”

  “There comes a time in every man’s life,” Papa said, “when he must break his word to help somebody.”

  “But you always said that a man’s word was his bond,” Tom argued.

  Papa looked helplessly at Mamma who was fully recovered now.

  “We will have no more of this nonsense, Tom Dennis,” Mamma said sternly. “A man’s entire future is at stake. You will tell your father and me exactly what happened right from the beginning.”

  Tom hesitated for a moment, then said, “All right, I’ll tell.”

  I watched the expression on Papa’s face change from interest to surprise and then to astonishment and finally to complete unadulterated awe as Tom confessed.

  “I told Mr. Standish he would be sorry for paddling me,” Tom said in conclusion. “He was a fool to think he could go up against my great brain and win.”

  “I have never laid a hand on you,” Papa said, breathing heavily, “but right at this moment if I had that paddle, I’m afraid I would give you a paddling that would make the one you got from Mr. Standish seem like patty-cakes.”

  Then Papa stood up and got very dramatic as he looked at Mamma. “So help me, Tena,” he said, “if the stars stop shining some night and the sun fails to come up some morning, I will know who to blame. Calvin Whitlow is going to have to call another schoolboard meeting tonight at his home.” Then he pointed at Tom. “And you are going to be the star witness,” Papa said emphatically.

  “Can I be a witness too?” I asked, not wanting to be left out of things.

  “I think,” Papa said, “that admitting one Fitzgerald was the ring leader in all of this is about all I can stand for one evening.”

  Mamma let me stay up that night until Papa and Tom returned from the schoolboard meeting. Tom told me about the meeting as we got undressed for bed. He said he had confessed everything except one thing.

  “I didn’t tattle on any of the kids who were in on it,” he told me. “They knew Jimmie Peterson must have been in on it but I didn’t say so.”

  It was strange but I never thought about the oath I’d taken on the skull of the dead Indian chief until I tried to go to sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes I would see the ghost of the dead Indian chief sneaking into the room with a knife to cut my tongue out. I began to cry.

  “What’s eating you, J.D.?” Tom asked, sitting up in bed.

  I told him. He began to laugh.

  “It isn’t funny,” I said.

  “Shucks, J.D.,” Tom said. “There is no such thing as a ghost.”

  “But you told all the kids—”

  “That was just to throw a scare into them,” Tom interrupted me. “Now if there were such things as ghosts, don’t you think my great brain would know it?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Well, my great brain knows there is no such thing as a ghost,” Tom said, “so go to sleep and forget about it.”

  I was almost asleep when Tom said, “I’m sorry in a way there are no ghosts. If there were I’d put my great brain to work on how to communicate with them.”

  The next morning Mr. Standish rapped his ruler on his desk to bring the students to order. I figured his first business of the day would be to give Tom
at least twenty whacks with the paddle. I was dead wrong.

  “I have something to say to one boy in this room,” Mr. Standish said. “I didn’t have an opportunity to thank that boy last night. Regardless of what that boy did to me, he more than made up for it with his courage and kindness in coming to my defense. That particular boy has made it possible for me to go on doing the thing I love the most — teaching. To show my appreciation, we will revert to the system Miss Thatcher used. When any student breaks the rules, that student will be given a note to take home. The punishment for the infraction of rules will be left to the parents.”

  Well, it was like Papa said to Mamma when they imposed a whole week of the silent treatment as punishment for me and Tom.

  “T.D. will probably come out of this a hero to every kid in school,” Papa said, and that is just how it turned out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Great Brain’s Reformation

  IT WAS THE FIRST WEEK in November before Andy Anderson was able to attend school. Mr. Jamison, the carpenter, had built a wooden peg leg for Andy with a pad made from leather where the knee rested.

  At first all of us kids were quite awed by the peg leg. We tried it on and walked on it. But the novelty soon wore off and we began calling him Peg Leg. Andy couldn’t join us in most of the games we played. His father must have realized this and had ordered an erector set from Sears Roebuck. I guess he thought the erector set would draw kids to the Anderson home where they would play with Andy. He was right. I learned from Howard Kay one Saturday morning that the erector set had arrived. We ran all the way to the Anderson home.

  Andy came hobbling on his peg leg to the front door after we had rung the bell. Howard and I reminded him we were his friends. He invited us into the house and we played with the erector set until noon.

  I told Tom about it as we sat on the front porch waiting for Mamma to call us for lunch.

  “Gosh, T.D.,” I said, still filled with wonder, “you never saw anything like it in your life. You can build windmills, steam shovels, cranes, and all kinds of things that actually work when you turn a crank.”

  “I saw the picture of the set in the Sears Roebuck catalog,” Tom said. “It costs six dollars. If I had a set like that, I could make a fortune.”