“Dad, I go so fast not even mosquitoes can catch me. I went the whole way and not one bite, see?”
He holds out his thin, bare, but not fragile arms.
“Up high like that, Mom, you can see everything and I think I got home in half the time it took me running down there. Think of it: half the time.”
That September, Sture began high school. He’d do the morning milking early with his father then start out on his bicycle. Most of the country roundabout was fairly flat, but it was a slow, long uphill pump to school. Sture would wear his farm clothes directly from milking and tie his school clothes on his back with his lunch.
At school, after he’d locked his bicycle, he’d go into the boys’ room and change. He kept his farm clothes cached in a cubbyhole out of sight over the toilet. The high school was large, with inside toilets.
Sture quickly settled into his studies. At first, most of the other pupils thought he was only a child visiting. Sture was not particularly small but he was thirteen years old, two years younger than any of the other students. Within a few weeks, however, the other students knew about him. His class participation, questions, his first test and examination results set him apart. The teachers, originally apprehensive about so young a student, soon began to delight in his learning ability. His algebra teacher couldn’t believe Sture’s competence; it was unnatural the ease with which he handled the more complicated algebra usually reserved for the most advanced students. His Latin teacher insisted he must have studied Latin before; no one could absorb and use so much of a new language without previous experience. Sture didn’t know it, but by Christmas there had been several teachers’ meetings devoted almost exclusively to him.
Sture enjoyed his school work, but because he had to leave immediately after the last bell, there was no time for socializing. He used the short lunch period to nibble on a piece of home-baked black bread and hard Cheddar. The school library was a place of wonder to him, and it was there he went for lunch. He quickly learned one was not allowed to eat in the library, so he started cutting his bread and cheese into bite-size pieces and stashing them in his pockets to be eaten surreptitiously.
Sture’s mind was still mostly captivated by his bicycle. He’d bought a lock and chain so he could secure it to a post near the school gate. He was working on a way to pedal up the hill to school faster and more easily and at the same time not use all his energy going home by holding back on the pedals. After much experimentation he developed two different shanks to attach the pedals to the sprocket. One set was very short, only about four inches, and the other long, long as he could make them without his pedals touching the ground. When he went to school he used the long shank and could pump up the hills much more easily. He’d carry the short shanks with his school clothes, books, and lunch. Then, on the way home, he’d substitute the short shanks on the pedals and could pedal at great speed, getting home easily in time to milk the cows. In fact, on that bicycle, coming down that hill from school, he was probably the fastest-traveling human being within a hundred miles of Oshkosh. He started getting home too early for milking and began staying on an extra half hour to work in the library, where it was quiet and there was good, steady electric light.
Sture went through his high-school years, pedaling from home to school every day. Winters he tied rope around the wheels of his bicycle so he could get a grip in ice and snow. Even on days when snowdrifts were up to the second story of his house he snowshoed to school. Twice he was the only pupil to show up in his classes.
At the farm, they’d increased the herd by ten cows and that meant more milking, so Sture’s time at school was soon limited to class time. He read almost every book in the school library. It was as if he ate books. In the evenings, he read everything he could, on the pretext he was doing homework for school. He actually could do all his required assignments during lunchtime at the library.
The world interested Sture. He began to want to travel and see some of it. He worked ever harder at the farm but he knew it was not where he wanted to be all his life.
He graduated from high school at sixteen with every prize and honor, but there was no way for him to go on to a college or university.
He helped his father build an extension to the barn, and together they installed an indoor toilet and bathtub. Sture’s father and mother lived in a constant amazement at their son, and at the same time worried about him. He didn’t seem to smile as much. He didn’t talk with the animals any more. All he did was read books.
He wanted them to buy a tractor. He mailed away and got catalogues of tractors, showing them to his mother and father, trying to explain the work they could do with one, how the farm would prosper. But there wasn’t enough money for that, and their simple, saving Swedish minds couldn’t allow for borrowing any more money; already the mortgage payments were hard enough to make.
There were no girls in Sture’s life. He didn’t go to any of the social events at school, partly because he was too young, too small; but mostly because in his experience the unpredictability of girls made them unpleasant to him. Sture liked things to proceed with some understandable logic and direction. He could understand most things, but the things he could not understand he avoided. He tried to avoid illness, art, music, and girls. This was another weakness of Sture’s. He valued consistency and predictability far more than change and chance.
His greatest interest was still in machinery of any kind. Man designed machines, therefore they were understandable by another man. It was like mathematics. If he took his time and paid careful attention, he felt he could understand any machine or any equation that someone else could invent. He also felt he could invent either machines or mathematics.
He invented many machines; one was a machine for washing clothes. It was run by his windmill and turned paddles back and forth in a large tub. The problem was he could never get his mother to use it; she was afraid of it, or any machine. Sture became the one who washed clothes on the farm. He was also working on a mechanical system for milking cows. He was trying to do it with vacuum pumps, also run by his windmill, but couldn’t get the pressure valves regulated and the milk kept running up into his vacuum lines instead of out and into the milk pail.
He managed to build a small crystal radio set with which they could hear music from Oshkosh. This was a machine his mother did like. For her it was what reading was to Sture, a way to go away without leaving the farm.
When World War I started, Sture took a great interest in its progress. This horrendous conflict between men, in which thousands were dying, seemed incredibly illogical to him. He could not conceive of any other animal participating in such a crazy orgy of killing, maiming, and destruction. He would buy the daily newspaper in Manawa every day and pedal home with it quickly. It became part of his reading program. There was hardly a book in the high school and public library there he had not read, so the newspaper filled a gap in his reading time and a gap in his worldly knowledge.
In 1917, Sture was twenty-one years old and one of the first in his area to be drafted into the army. He had mixed feelings. He hated leaving the farm in the hands of his, to him, aging parents. They were at this time sixty years old. He also did not want to be killed.
But the chance to travel, to see what the rest of the world was really like, and to find for himself the nature of this seeming carnage going on in Europe, had its fascination. When Sture boarded the train going to training camp in Fort Benning, Georgia, he still had not been any farther from home than Oshkosh and he still hadn’t kissed a girl, or even held hands with one.
His parents kissed him tearfully goodbye and assured him they would keep the farm in good order while he was away. They were frightened for him, at the same time proud. It was part of his being a real American, going away to fight for his country.
PART 3
The way they let us out at our school is exactly as if they were letting us out of some prison. We’re all lined up in twos, girls in one line, boys in the other. The
little first graders get to go first and then it’s each grade till the eighth graders, who’re last. We have to march with our schoolbags almost like in step at a parade. Anybody who goes to a Catholic school is all ready for the army; they only need to teach you how to shoot a gun.
I’ve been thinking about Cannibal all day, even during religion. He still bites at my finger when I put it near him but it isn’t as if he wants to hurt me; he’s only holding on. He’s also started wrapping his little body around my hand, holding tight with his paws. Sometimes he forgets to pull in his claws so I’ve got scratches on the backs of my hands. I try not to let Mom see them and she hasn’t said anything yet.
In our school we have what are called safeties. The top four kids in every class from fourth through eighth grade get to wear a white belt with a white shoulder strap and a badge. These safeties are supposed to help us cross streets so we won’t get killed by automobiles going past our school. Most of the time there aren’t any cars, so it isn’t much of a job. I almost got to be a safety once but the sixty I got in religion kept me out.
After we get past where the safeties are, we cut loose like wild animals down Lewis Avenue all the way to Long Lane. There’s a lot shorter way for getting to our house than going straight down Lewis but we’re not allowed to go that way.
Old man Stringle is at Long Lane, where Lewis comes in, and he’s supposed to help us across. There are some cars on Long Lane, practically traffic, almost, but I cross it all the time and I’ve never been killed.
Mr. Stringle is so old he can hardly see and lots of times, especially in the afternoons, he’s so drunk he can just barely stand up. He walks out in front of cars, without looking, smiling, laughing, and waving us across. He’s big, fat, with fat fingers and flat feet. I think he spends the time between lunch and the time school gets out at the Triangle Café, right up the street.
When I get across Long Lane, I’m supposed to wait for Laurel. Usually she’s behind me, even though she got out first; the little ones can’t keep up with us when we make the mad dash down Lewis Avenue. It’s actually amazing the first and second graders don’t get smashed into the ground.
Once, John Williamson stepped off a curb running with us and broke his collarbone. I didn’t even know there was a bone to hang collars on; maybe that’s how big businessmen and people in the movies keep their collars so clean and straight. My collar and necktie always gets wrinkled and sweaty, also the tie works its way around my neck. Maybe I don’t have a collarbone. It’d help explain things.
I don’t mind waiting for Laurel. We don’t usually talk much walking home but it’s nice walking with her. Laurel and I fight sometimes but mostly we keep each other company and play together a lot. I taught her to read and she could read the first-grade book when she was only four. I don’t know what she’s doing in first grade now where all the other kids are learning to read. She’s probably as bored as I am. The Catholic school doesn’t have a kindergarten; that’s at the public school. So we have one year more freedom than the Protestants.
We’re walking together along Long Lane when a really gigantic, shiny, fancy car pulls up beside us. It has a running board covered with black clean rubber, almost as if nobody ever stepped on it. There are great extra wheels in metal holders on the running boards set in the front fenders, and it has a slanted windshield. We both stop to look at this car; we don’t usually see anything like this in our neighborhood.
There are four men in the car. They’re all wearing suits and they look sweaty even though it isn’t very hot. Of course, I’m hot from running, but that’s natural. The man in the front seat rolls down his window and leans out. He has a wide space between his teeth and he has red eyelids.
“Hey, kid! You Dickie Kettleson?”
I nod my head. Laurel gets behind me.
“Remember, Dickie, Mother says we’re not to talk with strange men or get in other people’s cars.”
Sure I remember. I’m already thinking of running. The man holds something out in his hand. It looks like an envelope.
“Here, kid. You take this. Give it to your old man and say some friends of his gave it to you.”
I reach over and take the envelope. No sooner do I have it in my hand than he rolls up his window and that car speeds off down Long Lane, through the stores, and over the little hill to Marshall Road. I don’t think I ever saw a car go that fast down Long Lane.
Laurel and I look at each other, then start running home. We speed past Mr. Marsden’s office and up our street fast as we can. We go in through our alley the way we usually do, and I stop in the cellar to see how Cannibal’s doing. I’ve already begun to think Cannibal isn’t a he but is a she. I don’t have any real reason for thinking this, but every day I’m becoming more sure.
“Come on, Dickie, you can’t play with the kitten now. You’ve got to give that letter to Mom.”
Laurel sometimes calls Cannibal a kitten, but to me it’s been a cat from the beginning. There’s nothing of a kitten there; it might be a he or a she, and it’s tiny, but it definitely is not a kitten. She’s asleep and looks fine.
We go upstairs and Mom’s in the kitchen. I tell her about the man stopping. Rather, we both tell her, Laurel interrupting me and me interrupting her, then both of us talking at the same time. Mom doesn’t like confusion. She looks from one of us to the other but she’s smiling.
“I can’t tell hide nor hair from what you’re saying. What man, what car, what envelope?”
I hold the envelope out to her and she opens it right there in the kitchen.
I’m already sitting down to our lunch spread out on the table: tomato soup and cheese sandwiches again. Laurel’s sitting on the other side. I look up. Mom’s face is turning white and she’s running her hands through her hair.
Then she sort of half screams and starts crying. She runs out of the kitchen into the living room and locks the front door. Then she runs upstairs.
Laurel and I look at each other. We only have half an hour for lunch, so we eat. The radio’s on and they’re playing that Helen Trent song, “Just a little love, a little kiss…” Before we leave, Mom comes down again and locks the kitchen door; then goes downstairs and locks the cellar door. I can hear the lock click. Then she comes back up and sits at the table. She leans close and gives each of us a big hug, so hard it hurts. You don’t think of Mom as strong, but adults, even small ladies, are strong compared to kids.
She’s crying. She has a hard time talking. She still has that envelope and the letter in her hands getting wet with sweat and, I guess, tears. The letter looks strange. It isn’t written or even typed but somebody’s cut out different-size letters from magazines and pasted them all over the paper. It’s like something in the movies. Maybe Laurel and I are going to be kidnaped the way they did the Lindbergh baby. No, that’s dumb; we’re not worth anything.
Mom looks me straight in the eye; I’m finishing the last spoonfuls of soup, tipping the bowl. The clock on our wall says we still have almost fifteen minutes before school starts. We’re having a test in arithmetic but that’ll be easy. It’s easy but boring.
“Tell me everything again, Dickie. Where did the car stop you? What did the man look like? Tell me everything.”
I tell her everything I can remember and so does Laurel. That’s when Mom says we’re to stay in the house and not go back to school. I try telling her about my arithmetic test but it doesn’t make any difference. I’ll get to play with Cannibal so it’s O.K. with me, only Laurel begins crying. I think she’s just crying because Mom’s crying. She can’t really want to go back to school as bad as that.
So all afternoon I stay in the cellar playing with Cannibal. It’s almost as if I’m sick or it’s Saturday. Laurel plays with her paper dolls and we try to stay out of the way. Mom keeps coming down to the cellar and asking if we’re all right. Of course we’re all right; we’re in our own cellar. She even checks the lock on the cellar door. I don’t think we’ve locked the cellar door in the daytime,
ever.
We’re all down there, in the cellar, waiting, when Dad comes home. Mom wouldn’t even let me go meet Dad; in fact, she started crying again when I asked if I could.
Dad comes in and Mom falls into his arms. Laurel and I are sitting on the floor beside Cannibal. We have some old newspapers under us. Neither of us can figure what’s going on. Mom pushes away from Dad and hands him the piece of paper with the cutout letters. She’s been carrying it around in her hand the whole day, so it’s all wrinkled.
Dad looks over her shoulder at us, especially at me. He puts down his work jacket and lunch pail on his bench. He holds on to Mom while he reads the piece of paper, holding it in one hand. He has his work cap tipped back on his head, his blue one with the brim like a baseball player’s cap. As he reads, he lets go of Mom and holds the paper in both hands. His hands start shaking.
“What is this? Where did this come from?”
He looks at Mom, at Laurel, at me. I try to tell him what happened, about the man, the car, and all but I’m getting scared myself. I’ve never seen Dad so scared-looking and mad at the same time; he looks cut in half; his lips are quivering and tears are coming into his eyes. He turns away from us and faces the dart board.
“Oh my God! Don’t let this happen.”
Then he holds on to Mom again, the two of them in the center of our cellar. Laurel gets up, goes over, and grabs Dad by his leg. It’s what I want to do myself but can’t. Mom’s crying hard, shaking against Dad.
“You’ve got to quit, Dick; we’ll just move away from here. Nothing’s worth this; my nerves can’t stand it. I’ve been so afraid for you, now it’s all of us. Please, why can’t you just do your job like everybody else and get out of all this union business?”
Dad puts his arms around Mom again with the note in his hand. I can see it flat against her back. The letters are big and clear, though some of them are crooked, but it’s easy to read. It says:
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