Corn-Farm Boy

by Lois Lenski

  “Tell them how the hens talk, Dick,” said Margy.

  Dick sat down in the henhouse doorway. Mother Goosey came back and he took her on his lap and stroked her neck. The children crouched near by to listen. Dick made the sounds of a hen’s clucking.

  “The mother hen says, ‘Danger! Hawk’s coming!’ or maybe she says, ‘Dog or man around.’ At night she purrs to put the chicks to sleep. She keeps saying, ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep, don’t wake up till morning.’” He imitated all the sounds with henlike clucks.

  “Tell what she says when a chick gets lost,” said Margy.

  “The chick says, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m lost.’ And the mother hen answers, ‘Here I am, here I am, come right over here where I am.’”

  “You sound just like an old hen clucking, Dick,” said Robert.

  “Sure,” said Dick, “I’m first cousin to the hens and the geese. Now I’ve got to water the hogs.”

  The children jumped up and Susan Hass said, “Let’s play hide-and-seek.” Margy and the others agreed. They ran over by the barn and the corncrib where there were plenty of places to hide. The eighty-acre cornfield was just over the fence behind the hog-house. Robert started the game by being it. He began to count to one hundred by fives.

  Margy knew all the best hiding places. She tried the corncrib first. She climbed in the crib with the ear corn. She stepped up on the pile and stumbled. The whole mass of piled-up corn above her began to move. It frightened her for a minute. She slipped and lost her footing again. The pile began to tumble. Heavy ears came down and hit her on head and shoulders.

  “Wow! Dog-gone-it!” she said, jumping up. “I’m going to get out. They’ll see me in here anyhow. They can see right through the cracks.”

  She climbed out the small window where Dick scooped corn to feed the hogs. Over the fence like a little squirrel she went. Across the hog lot, over another fence and into the cornfield.

  “Robert will never find me now,” she said.

  She ducked in between the rows. The stalks of corn were so huge and the leaves were so large now, it was like a dense forest. Even when the sun was highest at midday, the lower leaves were still damp and cool. It was like being in the shade of a great big tree, of many, many trees. It was much shadier than the grove. It was a good place to cool off. Margy looked back. She was sure no one could see her now.

  “Eighty-five, ninety, ninety-five, ONE HUNDRED!”

  Margy heard Robert’s triumphant shout. She heard the dogs barking. She smiled. Robert had probably caught Susan and Peggy already, and they were all hunting for her, looking everywhere. She was supposed to stay in one place now. She stopped running and caught her breath. She waited.

  She waited a while and they did not come. She smiled to herself. They would never find her this time. They would never even think of the cornfield. She remembered the day when Mom and the whole family came out to pull cockleburrs. She remembered how she made up a game of “going through doors.” She began to walk again. She went down the shady row until she came to an open place where a hill of corn was missing. She stepped through the door into the next room. She walked down that row. She forgot about hide-and-seek. She played she was in a great big house with many rooms and windows and doors. It was fun going in and out of doors. She kept on walking.

  Meanwhile, back at the house, Mrs. Hass was calling, “Robert! Susan! Peggy!”

  “What do you want, Mom?” answered Robert.

  “It’s time to go now,” said Mrs. Hass.

  The Hass children ran to their mother and they all climbed in their car. Mrs. Hass and Mom talked a while. Then Mrs. Hass turned on the starter.

  “Where’s Margy, Susan?” asked Mom.

  “Oh,” laughed Susan, “we never found her. We were playing hide-and-seek. She’s still hiding.”

  Mom looked at Dick. “Did you see her, Dick?”

  “No,” said Dick. “She’s pretty good at finding new places to hide.”

  The Hasses drove down the lane and out the road. Mom and Dick went back in the house. Dick found a piece of cake to eat. Mom called out the back door, “Mar-gy! Mar-gy!”

  Buster came running up and Dick fed him. He whistled for Popcorn but the little dog did not come.

  “Go look in the barn and the corncrib,” said Mom. “See what she is up to. Tell her the Hass children have gone. She can come in now.”

  Dick looked in all the buildings. He called Margy by name. But he saw nothing of his little sister. Buster sniffed in every corner. She wasn’t there. Dick hated to go back in and tell Mom. But it was very strange for Margy to disappear like this.

  “She’s not out there,” Dick announced flatly. “I can’t find her.”

  “Oh, she’s hiding somewhere,” said Mom cheerfully. “She’s trying to play a joke on us. We’ll just wait till she decides to come in.”

  Mom went ahead with her pickles. She measured out the salt to make the brine. She got out her jars and sterilized them. She turned on the radio and listened to her favorite program as she filled the jars.

  But Dick was not satisfied. He went the rounds of the buildings again. This time he included the henhouse, the hayloft, the cattle lean-to, the granary and the tool house. They were all empty with a silence that was ominous. Soon Mom came out to join him. She had a worried look on her face.

  “I can’t see where that child has gone,” she said. “She’s five—old enough to know better.”

  Mom went into the cattle lot and looked in the stock tank. Nothing there but a couple of Dick’s goldfish swimming around. She looked in the cattle shed, in the stall where the new bull calf was penned. She looked in the pen where Goldie and her calf were lying down. But Margy was not there. Mom’s and Dick’s shouts echoed back and forth.

  “Run, Dick, look through the grove,” Mom said. “Maybe she’s hiding in some of that broken-down machinery.”

  Soon Dick came back. “She’s not there, Mom.”

  “Did you look up in the trees, Dick?”

  “What would she be doing up in a tree?” laughed Dick.

  “She might have found a bird’s nest,” said Mom. “Or she might just be hiding—to keep us looking for her.”

  But Margy was not in any of the trees.

  “I’m worried,” said Mom at last. “You take the tractor, Dick, and drive over to Bill Heiter’s and tell Dad we can’t find her. Tell him and Raymond to come home right away. I’ll call up Loretta Hass and see if the children know anything more.”

  Mom went to the telephone, cranked the handle and called the number. It was a party line and a busy one. All the neighbor women heard Mrs. Hoffman say that Margy was lost. Mrs. Hass questioned her children. They repeated that Margy ran off to hide and must still be hiding. They did not know where.

  Dick should have been glad to drive the new tractor. It was the first time he had been allowed on it since cultivating time in June. But now he hardly thought about it. He started the engine and began to drive automatically. All his former pleasure in the machine was gone. He wished with all his heart he could solve the puzzle of where Margy had gone. She must be just fooling them. But she was so smart, she might keep on fooling them for a long time before she showed up.

  Mrs. Hass was the first one to come. She brought her three children and came right back again. She offered to drive to the Heiters’ to bring the men, but Dick had already gone. Soon other neighbors began to drop in—the Rudens, the Sanders, the Ludwigs and Shutes. By the time Dick got back with Dad and Raymond and Mr. Heiter, the lane and barnyard were full of neighbors’ cars and trucks. It was noon now, time for midday dinner. Some of the women had brought food along. They put it on the table but no one thought of eating.

  Mrs. Hass and Mom and Dad and several men talked things over.

  “It boils down, then, to the creek, the weeds by the road and the cornfield,” Mark Hoffman told the men.

  The men divided into teams and spread out over the farm. Half of them entered the cornfield—the big eighty. Dick
started in with them, but Mom called him back.

  “One lost child is enough,” said Mom. “I don’t want two.”

  “But, Mom, I’m eleven—not five,” protested Dick. “I can find my way. Last year I drug and disced this whole eighty. This year I cultivated it. I know all the twists and turns in the corn rows. I know right where they come out on the other side.”

  But Mom would not listen. She had been crying, but now had dried her tears. There was a fierce look in her face, a look that showed she would never give up. Everywhere she went, she kept calling aloud in a voice of pain: “Mar-gy! Where are you, Mar-gy?” Those who heard her cry of anguish knew they would never forget it.

  Mrs. Hass took Mom back in the house to try to comfort her. Mrs. Ruden and the other women searched the ditches and uncut weeds by the road. Mom phoned Aunt Etta in town. Uncle Henry hurried out after he finished his day’s work. He brought Aunt Etta and three men from the factory with him. He sent the men down to the creek to drag the water hole.

  Dick watched them. He could have told them it was a waste of time. He had seen no footprints along the creek. He knew Margy had not been there. The only thing the men found was the lost corn knife. Dick took it back to the tool house. It was rusted and would need sharpening. He wondered if Dad would be glad to get it back.

  When Dick came out of the tool house, he saw Buster and called him over. Then he whistled for Popcorn, but Popcorn did not come. He had a special whistle just for Popcorn. Popcorn always recognized it and came. Dick sat down and patted Buster.

  “Where did Popcorn go?” he asked.

  Buster stretched out and panted. He had been running back and forth, excited over all the visitors. Now he was tired.

  Dick began to think. When did he last see Popcorn? He remembered. It was in the morning, after the Hasses came. The little kids began to play hide-and-seek. Popcorn had chased little Peggy and scared her. Margy had said, “Oh, Pie Face won’t hurt you, Peggy. He’s our pet. He sleeps in my bed at night.” Then Popcorn had run along with them.

  Dick jumped up suddenly.

  “I bet he’s with her right now,” said Dick. “If I can find Popcorn’s tracks, they’ll lead me to the place where she is hiding. If I can find Popcorn, he’ll follow her.”

  Dick ran over to the barn where the game of hide-and-seek had started. In a short time, he entered the cornfield behind the hog lot. He whistled now and then as he walked along, his eyes on the ground. Maybe Margy had fallen asleep somewhere. Dick had once found her asleep on top of a strawstack out in the field. She must be asleep. That was why she did not answer.

  It was beginning to grow dark when Dick came out on the other side of the big eighty. Now a little rat terrier dog scampered beside him. He came out on the highway and looked in both directions, uncertain which way to go. A large truck thundered past but did not stop.

  Dick’s legs were aching. He wished he had brought his crutches. He wondered how many miles he had walked in the cornfield. A half-hour before when Popcorn heard Dick’s whistle and came bounding up to greet him, Dick thought his search was over. But the dog did not lead him to Margy. The dog kept running in circles and Dick became more and more confused. He decided to get out to the road somewhere—anywhere, to get his bearings. On the road, Popcorn did not help him either. Dick could not decide whether to go to the right or the left. He had the feeling that Margy had come out to the road. She might have been picked up by a car. It had all been a wild-goose chase. He might as well go home. He’d better get home before Mom found out he had gone through the cornfield. That would only make her worry more. He decided to ask for a ride from the next car or truck that came along.

  He heard the truck long before it got there. He heard the singing voices of the girls, so he knew it was the detasselers coming home. Wilma would be on the truck. Russell Ruden would be driving. Russell would stop and give him a ride.

  The girls’ young voices rang out clearly:

  “O, come all detasselers

  And listen to me,

  Never stake out your fortune

  On a detasseler’s fee.

  The leaves they will wither,

  The roots they will die;

  You’ll be without money

  And never know why!”

  Dick picked Popcorn up in one arm and waved with the other. Russell Ruden, Elmer’s older brother, pulled up to a sudden stop. The girls in the body of the truck shrieked.

  “What’s the matter, Russ?” “Run over somebody, Russ?” “Oh, hurry up, Russ, I’m hungry, I want to get home,” called the girls.

  Some one began to sing:

  “Merrily we bump along, bump along,

  Merrily we bump along, o’er the dusty roads!”

  A car came up from the other way and stopped beside the crew truck. A detasseler shouted to the driver, “Don’t you see us? Can’t you hear us?”

  “I heard you all right,” answered the driver. Dick saw that it was Bill Heiter. “A load of hogs went through just before you girls came along. You girls made just a little more noise than the hogs!”

  The detasselers roared with laughter.

  “Say, Russ,” said Bill Heiter. “You didn’t pass a little girl walking along the road anywhere, as you came along. Did you?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Russell Ruden.

  “The Hoffman girl is lost … been gone since early morning,” said Bill Heiter. “Eight hours already and night’s coming.”

  “Oh yes, we saw her,” said Russell. He began to grin.

  Dick still standing in the road, tense with fear, could not move. He wondered what Russell found funny about it. He clasped Popcorn tighter. The touch of the dog was a comfort to him.

  “Where was she?” asked Bill. “We’re cruising around on all the roads in the county now. We think she’s been picked up by a car … or kidnapped maybe … Where was she?”

  “Oh, back a ways,” said Russ Ruden, still grinning. He pointed back with his thumb. Russ had the reputation of being a great tease.

  “About how far?” cried Bill Heiter. “She had on a blue dress and her feet were bare, and her hair is brown, in two short pigtails. Did she look like that? Are you sure? Where was she?”

  Russell Ruden reached over and started his engine.

  “Get in, Dick,” he said. “Crowd in here between me and Ernie.” Dick found he was able to move. He climbed in. “She’s back in there with her big sister, Bill,” Russ went on. “Now, that’s a good joke on you!”

  “Where? In your truck? You mean you’ve found her?” yelled Bill Heiter.

  “Sure,” said Russ. “She was walking along the road. Her sister Wilma spotted her and made me drive back half a mile to pick her up. Her sister gave me heck for driving by so fast. Made me back up all that distance. If Wilma wasn’t so pretty …”

  “Well, why on earth didn’t you tell me?” shouted Bill.

  “Heck!” said Russell Ruden. “How was I to know the kid was lost? All she said was she wanted a ride with the detasselers. Said she wanted to sing with ’em too.”

  “Well!!!” said Bill Heiter. “With all the county out looking for her—I bet there’s fifty men …”

  “You don’t say,” grinned Russ. He looked at Dick and Ernie Welker. “Say! I’ll be a hero, won’t I? Bringin’ her home! Any reward out?”

  Bill Heiter and Dick looked inside the truck. There they saw Margy sitting safely in her big sister’s arms. They breathed a prayer of gratitude. Then Bill spoke to Russ again.

  “I’ll turn around and drive on ahead and tell the folks the good news. Honk your horn as loud as you can. That’s the signal if she’s found. We’ll both honk all the way to Hoffman’s.”

  When the honking car and truck reached the barnyard, everybody had guessed the good news. People came running in from all directions. Margy jumped down off the rear end of the truck straight into her mother’s arms. Mom held her for a long time and did not want to let her go.

  Then Margy said, “I can
hide so no one can find me, can’t I?”

  Mom did not know whether to praise her or scold her. She managed to say, “Don’t ever do it again, Margy. Don’t ever go in the cornfield.”

  “I liked it at first,” said Margy, “but after a while, I couldn’t find my way out. So I just lay down with Sassy Brat and took a nap.”

  The listening people laughed now with relief.

  Wilma looked around, bewildered. She, Wilma, was not the center of attention tonight. Nobody looked at her or at the other detasselers, tired and weary, in the truck. This was one night when the tale of their day’s adventures had to wait. There was only one story and it was on everybody’s lips, “The little Hoffman girl has been found unharmed.”

  Dick took Margy by the hand and led her to the house.

  “I knew we’d find her, Mom,” he said.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The White Pigeon and the Sick Hog

  For the next two days after Margy was found, Dick had to stay in bed. His long trudge through the cornfield had tired him and made his rheumatism worse. On the third day, he felt rested again, so Dad dropped him off at the Rudens’ on his way to town. Dick had not seen Elmer lately.

  Elmer and his sister, Donna, had a stepladder at the back of their house.

  “Hello, what you doing?” asked Dick.

  “Tearing down sparrows’ nests,” said Elmer.

  Donna said, “Sparrows are no good. They just mess up the place.”

  “The Vet told us to clear them all out of our hog-house,” said Dick. “They carry cholera germs.”

  “They’re building nests under the eaves up here,” said Donna. “They make so much noise, they wake us up every morning.” She ran indoors and came out with a handful of red ribbons, cut in short lengths. “Mom said to tack red ribbons up. The birds are afraid of something that dangles and blows in the wind. The ribbons will keep them from building again.”

  Two large sparrow nests were under the eaves at the back door. They were big and messy, full of white chicken feathers. The sparrows were building a third nest around the corner. As the children came up, they flew off to a tree, chirping noisily.