The Great Brain Does It Again

by John D. Fitzgerald

  “Boy, oh, boy,” I said when I finished reading the letter, “you had better not mail this unless you want to go to prison. You can’t insult the President like this and get away with it.”

  “They can’t put you in prison for telling the truth,” Tom said.

  I went with him to the post office. I watched him buy a stamp and put it on the envelope. I made one last effort to stop him.

  “They’ll send the Secret Service to arrest you for lambasting the President that way,” I said. “Please don’t mail the letter.”

  “Let them,” Tom said, and then walked over and dropped the letter in the mailbox.

  Tom went to the post office every day, but ten days passed before he finally received a letter in a White House envelope in our mailbox. Mr. Olsen the postmaster stopped us.

  “Didn’t know you had friends in the White House, Tom,” he said.

  “This is a letter from the President of the United States,” Tom said.

  “I’d have to see that to believe it,” Mr. Olsen said.

  “Then I’ll show you,” Tom said. But he sure looked disappointed when he saw the letter.

  “It’s from his secretary,” he said.

  Tom waited until we got outside the post office to read the letter which read:

  Dear Master Tom D. Fitzgerald:

  The President has asked me to answer your letter to let you know that all Indians on all reservations are receiving the same allotment of food, clothing, supplies, and medicine that they have always received. If you know of any Indians who aren’t receiving their just share, have your father get in touch with the State Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Salt Lake City and report it.

  Yours truly,

  Peter Evans

  Secretary to the President

  I handed the letter back to Tom.

  “This,” he said holding up the letter, “proves that Henry Parker is a crook and is cheating the Paiutes on the reservation.”

  “Are you going to do what the letter says and have Papa report him?” I asked.

  “No,” Tom said. “I’m going to show the letter to Sheriff Baker and have him arrest that crook Henry Parker.”

  Uncle Mark and Sheriff Baker were sitting at their desks when we entered the combination marshal and sheriff’s office. Tom let both of them read the letter after telling them he had written to the President.

  “That proves Henry Parker is a crook,” he said.

  Sheriff Baker shook his head. “No, it doesn’t, Tom,” he said. “It only proves that somebody at the Shivwits-Shebit reservation is cheating the Pa-Roos-Its band.”

  Uncle Mark nodded. “What they must be doing,” he said, “is making out two requisitions and two bills of lading. They send the fake one with the wagons that bring the supplies. They keep the real one and send copies to the State Superintendent of Indian Affairs.”

  “Right,” Sheriff Baker said. “I think our best bet is to send a telegram to the State Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Salt Lake City and have him send us a United States Marshal and somebody from his office.”

  * * *

  A United States Marshal named Thomas and a man named Anderson from the office of the State Superintendent of Indian Affairs arrived the next morning on the eleven o’clock train. Tom and I were in school but Uncle Mark told us everything later. He showed the two men the letter from the Secretary to the President. Mr. Anderson said there had been no cut in the allotment for the Shivwits-Shebit reservation or the two smaller reservations.

  They went to the Pa-Roos-Its reservation. Henry Parker knew the game was up. He confessed and offered to turn state’s evidence against Benjamin Wagner, the Supply Master at the Shivwits-Shebit reservation. It was a neat scheme Wagner had worked out with Henry Parker and an Indian agent named Halpern on the other reservation. Wagner sold the surplus twenty-five percent of the rations to his brother, who ran a trading post. He kept fifty percent of the money and gave twenty-five percent to Parker and twenty-five percent to Halpern. Wagner confessed when confronted by Parker and Halpern, both of whom offered to turn state’s evidence. The three men were tried in the Federal Court in Salt Lake City and all were given prison terms.

  * * *

  Then one Saturday during lunch Papa told Tom and me to hitch up our team to our buggy.

  “We are going to the reservation,” he said. “Chief Rising Sun wants to see you, T. D.”

  Papa let Frankie and me go along. The new Indian agent, a man named Haley, met us at the reservation. Papa told Frankie and me to stay with Mr. Haley. He and Tom walked to the tepee of Chief Rising Sun. The Chief and his council were sitting in a circle in front of his tepee. Papa and Tom sat down. The Chief lit a pipe. He took a few puffs and then passed it around. Everybody except Tom took a few puffs. Then the Chief began to chant in the Uto-Aztecan language of the tribe. Mr. Haley, Frankie, and I were standing near enough to hear. Mr. Haley knew the language. He said the Chief was singing praises to Tom for getting rid of Henry Parker and saving the tribe. Then the Chief stood up. He handed the pipe to a squaw and motioned for Tom to stand beside him. He held out his left wrist. He motioned for Tom to hold out his right wrist. Then a member of the council cut each wrist just enough to make it bleed. The Chief grasped Tom’s bleeding wrist and held it against his own. He spoke first in the Uto-Aztecan language and then in English:

  “Hail to our blood brother! Hail to The Boy Who Wrote The Great White Father A Letter And Saved The Pa-Roos-Its Band.”

  The Chief let go of Tom’s wrist. Two squaws immediately bandaged Tom’s and the Chief’s wrists. Then the council stood up. They raised their right arms and spoke in the Uto-Aztecan language. Mr. Haley said they were saying, “Hail to our blood brother. Hail to The Boy Who Wrote The Great White Father A Letter And Saved The Pa-Roos-Its Band.” Then some of the tribe began beating on tom-toms and the young braves began to dance. They began to chant, “Hail to our blood brother,” some in English and some in their own language. When the dance ended the Chief and his council and Papa and Tom sat down. The Chief motioned for Mr. Haley, Frankie, and me to join them.

  “We are going to have an Indian feast,” Mr. Haley said.

  * * *

  All I can say is that when Indians decide to have a feast they aren’t fooling. Squaws brought wooden bowls with boiled mutton, roast pig, jackrabbit stew, Indian corn bread, and so many other things I can’t remember all of them. The feast lasted two hours. I was so full I was bursting, but Papa said if I didn’t eat at least a bite of everything it would be an insult to the Chief.

  And that is how I got the worst bellyache of my life, and how Tom became a blood brother of the Pa-Roos-Its band of Paiutes, with the strange and long name of The Boy Who Wrote The Great White Father A Letter And Saved The Pa-Roos-Its Band.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Herbie the Poet

  TOM WAS SO BUSY doing all of Pete Kyle’s chores and helping Papa with printing jobs that he didn’t have time to pull any swindles for a while. It was just a few days after Pete was well enough to do his own chores that Papa told us during supper a new family named Sties had arrived in town. Mr. Sties was going to take the place of Mr. Colopy, who had died suddenly of a heart attack. Mr. Colopy had been the bookkeeper at the bank. Mrs. Colopy had decided to sell their home and go back East to live with relatives. The Sties family bought the house.

  We were having fish for supper because it was Friday. And boy, oh, boy, when Mamma cooked codfish you could smell it all over town. I admit it tasted all right, but for my money Mamma should have given everybody at the table a clothespin to put on their nose. Tom liked all kinds of fish because he said fish was good for the brain. He was putting away his second helping of codfish when Papa finished.

  “Do they have any kids?” Tom asked.

  “One son,” Papa answered.

  Mamma said, “I shall call on Mrs. Sties as soon as she has put up her lace curtains.”

  Small-town etiquette was funny in those days. A new family
moved into town but nobody would call on them until they saw the lace curtains hanging in the parlor. That meant everything was unpacked and in its proper place. Then the ladies would call and leave a calling card which was like an invitation for the new family to call on them.

  * * *

  The next day was Saturday. After morning chores I went with Tom and Frankie to Smith’s vacant lot. There were about twenty of us playing different games when we all stopped to stare at the new kid in town coming toward us. He was the fattest boy I’d ever seen. He looked to be about ten or eleven years old and he was so fat that he made Tubby Ralston look skinny. He had such a fat round face that you couldn’t tell where his jaw ended and his chin began. He walked up and spoke to us:

  “Hello fellows, my name is Herbie Sties.

  Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

  We all stared at him bug-eyed. Tom finally said what was on all our minds.

  “How can we find out where you came from if we don’t ask you any questions?” he asked.

  Again Herbie spoke:

  “We lived in Salt Lake City

  And would be living there still

  If my father hadn’t come home one day and said

  We’re off, we’re off to Adenville.”

  Parley pushed his coonskin cap to the back of his head. “This kid is some kind of a freak,” he said.

  Herbie looked at him and said:

  “Maybe you’re too dumb to know it

  But I’m no freak. I’m Herbie the poet.”

  Herbie was younger and smaller than Parley. But Parley became so angry he grabbed Herbie and began shaking the fat boy.

  “Don’t you dare call me dumb, you fat freak,” he said.

  Did that scare Herbie? Heck no. He looked Parley right straight in the eyes.

  “I’m not afraid to fight you

  As sure as my name is Herbie Sties,

  Although I know if I do fight you

  I’ll end up with two black eyes.”

  Tom put a hand on Parley’s shoulder. “Let him go,” he said. Then he looked at Herbie. “Do you always talk like that?”

  Herbie nodded.

  “I always make up rhymes except in school

  Where as you know it’s against the rule.”

  “But why do you make up rhymes instead of talking like other kids?” Tom asked.

  Herbie dropped his head as if ashamed.

  “I can’t play football or baseball,

  I’m too fat to play any game at all.

  I can’t even play run-sheep-run

  Because I’m too fat to catch anyone.

  So instead of playing I make up a rhyme

  To help me pass away the time.”

  Tom patted the fat boy on the shoulder. “Forget the poetry for a while,” he said. “Are your mother and father fat like you?”

  “Nope,” Herbie said. “Just me.”

  “Then it isn’t inherited,” Tom said. “You must be fat because you are a greedy gut. Have you ever tried to take off weight by not eating candy, ice cream, desserts, and things like that?”

  “My father said he’d give me ten cents a pound for every pound I lost,” Herbie said. “I tried it once and lost one pound. But I spent the ten cents on candy. It’s no use. I was just born to be fat and that is why I’m a poet.”

  Tom got that old conniving look on his face. “Ten cents a pound,” he said. “Come over to my place. I want to talk to you.”

  Frankie and I followed Tom and Herbie to our barn. They sat down on a bale of hay.

  “Now, Herbie,” Tom said, “would your father still give you ten cents for each pound of fat you lose?”

  “Sure,” Herbie said. “He is always trying to get me to lose some weight.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to lose enough weight so you could play and have fun like other kids?” Tom asked.

  Herbie got a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do

  To be able to play and have fun like you.”

  “Good,” Tom said. “My great brain will help you lose weight so you can play and have fun just like other kids.”

  Herbie’s eyes became wide. “Your great brain?” he asked.

  “You’re new in town,” Tom said, “and don’t know about my great brain. There isn’t anything I can’t do with my great brain. Ask any kid in town. But I don’t use my great brain for nothing. I’ll make you a business proposition. You give me the ten cents a pound that your father will give you and I’ll have you weighing no more than any other kid your age in town.”

  “How?” Herbie asked.

  “With my own special exercises for taking off weight,” Tom said. “And you’ll have to promise to go on a diet and not eat any more candy or other sweets.”

  Herbie began to shake his head with a sad expression on his face.

  “No more candy, no more cakes,

  No more pies my mother bakes.

  I’m sorry but I cannot tell a lie—

  Without any sweets I know I’ll die.”

  Tom lifted up his shoulders with a sort of “who cares” look on his face.

  “If you’d rather be a tub of fat and not have any fun like other kids, that is up to you,” he said. “You can just go on being a poet and a greedy gut.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” Herbie said. “I’ll try.”

  Tom got up from the bale of hay. “Just to keep the record straight,” he said very businesslike, “we will go to Dr. LeRoy’s office and weigh you naked. And every Saturday we’ll do the same thing to see how much weight you lost during the week. You’ll collect ten cents for each pound you lose from your father and give it to me. Is it a deal?”

  Herbie nodded and they shook hands to seal the bargain.

  I didn’t think Dr. LeRoy would like the idea of a non-paying patient using his scales and his office. But after Tom explained he was going to help Herbie lose weight, Dr. LeRoy let him weigh Herbie naked on the scales. Herbie weighed ninety-six pounds. Dr. LeRoy then measured Herbie’s height and asked Herbie’s age. Herbie said he was ten years old.

  “For a boy your age and height,” Dr. LeRoy said, “you should only weigh about seventy pounds. You really should go on a diet and do exercises to help you reduce. Being overweight can affect your heart and circulatory system and shorten your life.”

  Tom really poured it on Herbie when we left the doctor’s office. “You heard what Dr. LeRoy said. If you don’t get rid of about twenty-six pounds of that blubber you will be dead in a few years. Meet me in our barn after lunch and my great brain will save you from an early grave.”

  * * *

  We had about half an hour before lunch when we got home. Tom got a book he’d sent away for one time entitled The Home Reference Library. It had everything in it from how to draw up a will to how to make homemade cough syrup. Tom opened the book to where it described exercises for taking off weight and studied them.

  After lunch Eddie Huddle came over to play with Frankie. I went to the barn with Tom. Herbie arrived a few minutes later.

  “All right, Herbie,” Tom said. “Let’s get started. We are going to do one hour of exercises after school on school days and two hours of exercises on Saturdays.”

  Tom made Herbie lie flat on his back on the floor of the barn. He told Herbie to lift up his legs and touch his stomach with his knees ten times. Herbie was so fat he couldn’t even do it once.

  “We’ll try another one,” Tom said as he grabbed Herbie’s ankles and lifted up the fat boy’s legs. “Now just lie on your back and pump your legs as if you are riding a bicycle.”

  He made Herbie do that until the fat boy was exhausted. He let Herbie rest for a couple of minutes. Then he told Herbie to stand up and bend over and touch his toes ten times. Herbie could only reach to his kneecaps. Tom made him bend over and touch his knees ten times. Herbie was puffing and sweating when he finished. Tom let him rest a couple of minutes and then continued with other we
ight-reducing exercises until Herbie just up and quit.

  “I’m pooped,” Herbie said, puffing hard as sweat poured off him.

  Tom sat down on a bale of hay. “Take a little rest and then we’ll run around the block a few times,” he said.

  For my money I didn’t think Herbie could run around the block more than one time, and I was right. He ran around once with Tom and me and then sat down in the alley and refused to move.

  “No more,” Herbie cried, painfully gasping for breath.

  “All right,” Tom said. “We’ll call it quits for today and we’ll take tomorrow off because it is Sunday. But you be here Monday right after school lets out.”

  Herbie had sweat running down his fat cheeks and was still puffing hard. “Nope,” he said. “I quit.”

  “You quit on me,” Tom said, “and I’ll get every kid in town to call you Fatso. And I’ll get them to make so much fun of you for being fat that you’ll wish you were dead.”

  Herbie got to his feet and began to cry. Then he ran down the alley. Tom watched until Herbie turned the corner. He had a grin on his freckled face.

  “If he runs all the way home,” Tom said, “that should take a few ounces off him.”

  “What good will that do?” I asked. “He said that he quit.”

  “He’ll be back,” Tom said confidently, “after he thinks it over.”

  * * *

  The Great Brain was right. We were doing our evening chores when Herbie came down the alley. He didn’t say anything as he handed Tom a piece of paper. Then he went back up the alley. Tom read what was on the paper and began laughing as he handed it to me.

  “What did I tell you?” Tom said.

  Herbie had written a poem which read:

  To Tom Fitzgerald and his Great Brain

  I thought I never wanted to see you again

  But there is one thing I know

  I don’t want to be called Fatso

  So I guess it is my fate

  To let you help me take off weight.

  Every afternoon after school during the following week Tom had Herbie doing exercises and running around the block until the fat boy was exhausted. Saturday morning I went with Tom and Herbie to Dr. LeRoy’s office. And I’ll be an elephant with two trunks if Herbie didn’t weigh a pound more than he had the week before. Tom was completely mystified at first. We left Herbie and went home for lunch. After eating we sat on the back porch steps.