The Baby in the Icebox: And Other Short Fiction Read online

  So they done it. They et some supper in a hurry, and then they sneaked out and geared the old man’s best horse to his new buggy, and then they walked the horse on the grass so the old man couldn’t hear them going by the house, and then they hit for the station. And on the way down they passed Will Howe and Heinie Williams, what was rolling the road in the nighttime on account it was getting late in the year and the contract had to be finished before frost, and Will and Heinie blowed the roller whistles for them and it looked like their trick was going to work. Them razzes would be changed to cheers. And they caught the 6:46, and down in Washington they must of put on a swell drunk act, because some people heard them arguing in the Union Station just before the owl pulled out, and Herb was for staying and spending the rest of their money, but Luke says no he wouldn’t give the old man the satisfaction of knowing they stole the horse.

  So they come back. And they was all set to get away with it, until they drove up to the piece of road they had built that day, where Will and Heinie had been rolling up to twelve o’clock. But then they seen something they had forgot about. Them two rollers was parked across the road with red lights hung on their water boxes to keep people from driving over the new piece of road that had just been rolled down. And it was a detour they could take, but Luke wouldn’t hear of no detour.

  “What?” he says. “Us turn back and drive a half mile further just for a pair of measly steam rollers? Nothing doing.”

  So he jumps out, grabs off the red lanterns, and commences waving them around.

  “Engineer,” he hollers, “do your stuff, I’m too drunk. ’Stead of us getting out of the way of these here rollers, we’ll make them get out of our way.”

  So Herb, he climbs up on the little Buffalo roller what was on the left, and he can’t see so good, and he’s pretty drunk too, but he’s seen Will and Heinie do it, and he grabs a couple of bars, and pulls them, and sure enough the little Buffalo roller begins to move and slides right back in the ditch.

  “Whoa!” says Luke, waving his lights out there in the middle of the road. “Engineer, you done great. Casey Jones couldn’t of done it no better. Now get on that other one.”

  So Herb climbs up on the big five-ton Acme what was on the right-hand side of the road.

  Now a Acme, it don’t work just the same as a Buffalo. The throttle and reverse bar is placed a little different, so when Herb grabbed aholt of them and pulled, he didn’t have no such good luck as he had the first time. ’Stead of going backward, that big five-tonner went frontward. It give a jump and run across the road and whanged right up alongside that other one. And Herb, he got throwed plumb out of the cab on the road. And it wasn’t nothing but steam coming out of both them rollers on account the bump had strained the boilers and they begun to leak. And it was dark all of a sudden. And Herb, soon as he remembered where he was at couldn’t see nothing of Luke. Because that roller, when it jumped frontward, had knocked Luke down and put out his red lights. And it had rolled him flatter than a German pancake.

  So the horse give a jump when them two rollers come together, and helloed past them up the road, and turned in at the home gate. So the old man got up and went out, and then he begun ringing all the rings on the party line telephone, and it wasn’t long before him and a bunch found the rollers, and Herb, and what was left of Luke. And then he begun to rave.

  “Oh, God,” he says, right out in front of where Herb was crying on the side of the road, “what have I done that you do this to me? Ain’t I always done right? Why did you send me a pair of worthless rascals like this when I asked you for sons?”

  So Will Howe, he stood it as long as he could, and then he says: “Well, if God made you, it ain’t much else that I would put past him.”

  “Come on, kid,” he says to Herb; “you better stay with me tonight.”

  So Herb, he stayed with Will; and the coroner held him, but the state’s attorney turned him loose. And after that, he done some work on the road, but he didn’t never get no razz.

  Queen of Love and Beauty

  DOWN IN THE COUNTRY they used to have every summer what they called a tournament, and it wasn’t much to it, only a bunch of farmers calling theirself knights, and riding work plugs down a course and spearing iron rings off hooks with a pole they said was a lance. But they generally always had a pretty good time, because the knight that spread the most rings could crown the Queen of Love and Beauty at the dance they had in the Grand Opera House that night, and them that speared next to the most rings could crown the maids of her court, so it was a little excitement anyway, and what with plenty of fried chicken and deviled eggs at the supper they had in between, everybody made out pretty good.

  So sure enough, right after wheat-thrashing time one July, they put it in the county paper the tournament would be held the next Saturday, at a farm name of Three Hills what was owned by Mr. Glynn, and when Saturday come it was a big crowd out to Three Hills, and all the women giggling about who was going to get crowned Queen of Love and Beauty.

  But what shows up on top of a runty-looking horse with a pole in his hand but a guy name of Bert Lucas. And the committee didn’t hardly know what to do. Because Bert, he wasn’t really no guy to be riding in a tournament. When he was young, he had been kind of wild, and one night he swiped a car and went on a joy ride, and then didn’t have no more sense than to wreck it. So the Grand Jury indicted him and he done the only thing he could do, and that was to skip. And when he come back about five years later to work the little farm what his old man had, nobody didn’t have much to do with him. The indictment, nobody done nothing about it, because his old man had scraped together enough money to pay for the car before he died, so they just kind of let it drop. But there it was just the same, and a guy under indictment don’t hardly look like no knight.

  Still, here he come cantering in, and the committee was all crossed up and couldn’t think of nothing to say, so it wasn’t nothing to do but let him ride. He said he was the Knight of Hawthorne Bay and they passed him in.

  Well, the first tilt wasn’t hardly over before the whole place knowed that was a big mistake. Because where Bert had went when he skipped was out West and if it was anything he couldn’t do in a saddle that runty-looking horse could pretty near do it for him, because it wasn’t nothing more or less than a cow pony, what he had rode all the way back East from Texas. He could spear them rings so easy he made all them other guys look ridiculous, and he wouldn’t come loafing up on a slow singlefoot either, but on a dead run. And he would kind of holler when he got in front of the people, like them circus cowboys does, and that was kind of a new one in that neck of the woods, and nobody knowed what to make of it.

  They couldn’t get away from his score, though, so when the judges read out that he was the winner, they tried to give him a little bit of a hand. So that went to Bert’s head just like it was liquor. I guess it had been pretty lonely out there on the farm without nobody to come and see him, and when Mr. and Mrs. Glynn set the supper out under the trees, he was laughing and cutting up like he was drunk. So all hands thought they might as well kid him along, and pretty soon somebody asks him who is he going to crown Queen of Love and Beauty.

  “I ain’t made up my mind yet. I don’t know which one I’m going to pick. It’s so many good-looking women here I’m afraid I’m going to have to shake up all the names in a hat and pull one out.”

  So with that, Mr. Glynn went behind the house and got a bunch around him.

  “Listen, men,” he says. “Do you know what? That simple-looking nut thinks that winning the tournament gives him the right to pick any woman here and name her Queen.”

  “What!” says two or three.

  “He certainly does,” says Mr. Glynn. “And I don’t know what to do. Suppose he picks my wife? I can’t have her leading the grand march with that jailbird.”

  “Say,” they says. “We got to think about that.”

  So Mr. Glynn was grand marshal of the tournament, and of course he had to m
ake the speech handing the crown over to Bert after they had all drove in to the Grand Opera House for the dance. And so he made the speech. And he made it long and flowery, because he was pretty good on that stuff on account he liked to make Fourth of July speeches. And Bert, he just ate it up. Because it look like to him that everything had been forgot and nobody didn’t hardly remember if it was him that was indicted or maybe somebody else. So he kept his eyes glued to Mr. Glynn and kept smiling to hisself. And while Mr. Glynn was talking, Mrs. Glynn and a couple other women kind of tiptoed through the little door that led back of the stage. And two or three more followed them, and then some more, and in a minute they was all slipping through the door like ghosts.

  And when Bert took the wreath of flowers from Mr. Glynn, and turned around to pick out some woman to give it to, it wasn’t a single woman in the hall.

  So Bert looked around, and his face got red, and a kind of a silly-looking grin stayed on it. And then he swallowed a couple of times, and dropped the wreath down on the floor. And then he walked straight out of the hall. And then he went to the hitching rack, and got on his horse, and rode out into the night. And nobody down there ain’t seen him from that day to this.

  Santa Claus, M.D.

  DOWN IN THE COUNTRY one time they got a new principal to the high school, name of Hartman. And he was a kind of funny-looking guy, and he taught science. So pretty soon he began to teach them pupils in the higher grades all about how the animals has little ones, and he was wasting his breath if you ask me, because if it was anything them tough mugs didn’t know about the animals and all the rest of it, why it wasn’t much. But along about Thanksgiving it begun to be some talking around. A whole lot of people, they let on they didn’t think much of it, teaching boys and girls stuff like that. And pretty soon, the board of trustees, they held a couple meetings.

  So just about that time Hartman, he stood up in the assembly hall in front of the whole school, little children and all, and give them a little talk on Christmas. And he says the best thing is to know the truth about Christmas, and the truth is that it ain’t no Santa Claus, but only your father dressed up, and the real way to celebrate Christmas was to quit thinking so much about presents and to go to church and give thanks that Jesus Christ was born that day.

  Well, did you ever cuff a hornet’s nest with the butt end of a fishing pole while you was trying to jerk a big one up on the bank? That’s what it was like when Hartman made that little talk. Them little children went home bellering to their father and mother, and a couple dozen big Ikes showed up at the school and wanted to fight, and things got hot. So the trustees, they made up their mind what they was going to do pretty quick. They fired Hartman, and took the key to the school away from him, and put one of them woman teachers in charge till they could get somebody else.

  So that kind of eased things off, but Hartman ain’t left town. He hung around and he would come over to one of the stores from the little house where he lived at on the edge of town, and buy some stuff, and then duck away without speaking to nobody. So the day before Christmas some of the boys fixed it up that they would kind of give him the idea that he better beat it. And what they was going to do was go around that night and take him out, and maybe fan him a few times with a strap, and then make him kneel down in front of Doc Merritt, who would have on the Santa Claus suit that he used to wear up to the festival at the Methodist church, and then let him take his pick would he leave town hisself or get rode out on a rail.

  So they done it. The Doc put on his suit, and him and about a dozen others sneaked over there. And when they beat on the door, they could hear some running around upstairs, but not nobody come to the door.

  “Come on out, Hartman!” they hollers. “We brung Santa Claus with us and we want you to look at him.”

  But still nobody come to the door, and they was getting ready to break it down. But all of a sudden a light showed, and through the glass in the door they seen Hartman running down the steps, fast as he could come. And he opened the door and come running out without no hat.

  “Grab him!” one of them hollers, and a couple of them made a pass at him.

  But he throwed them off like they was puppy dogs or something, and went running up the street fast as he could go. And they was so surprised all they done was stand there and look at him.

  So it seemed like it was something funny about it and they opened the door and peeped in. And right away they could hear something upstairs. It sound like a woman crying.

  “Hell,” says one of them. “Let’s beat it.”

  “Wait a minute,” says Doc Merritt. “Shut up, you guys.” And he listened, and then he tiptoed upstairs.

  “What’s the matter?” they says when he come back.

  “Boys,” he says, “this party is off. It’s his wife. She’s having a baby.”

  So he sent a couple of them over to his office, and give them the key, and told them to bring him his kit, and went back upstairs. And the rest of them, they felt kind of ashamed of theirself, and they beat it.

  So Hartman, where he was heading for was Doc Merritt. And he run over to his office, and didn’t find him there, and then he helloed over to the boardinghouse where the Doc lived at, and didn’t find him there. And then he got kind of wild, and went running all over town, in stores and everywhere, trying to find the Doc. And not nobody could tell him where the Doc was, on account this fanning bee had been kept pretty dark, and everybody was wondering what was up.

  So in about a hour, here he come running back, and he didn’t have no Doc and he didn’t have nothing. And when he went upstairs he almost fainted. And then he begun blubbering and crying and carrying on like he was crazy, and the more the Doc tried to calm him down the worse he went on. Because it was all over, and what he seen was the Doc, wrapping up the new baby boy in a little piece of woolen cloth. But what the Doc had forgot was, on account he had been working so hard, that he still had on the Santa Claus suit, with the whiskers still sticking to his chin, and for all Hartman could see it was Santa Claus hisself that had brung him his child and made everything all right.

  “It is a Santa Claus,” he kept saying over and over, even when he got it straight what happened. “Oh, God, after the way I ran and prayed, and then come back and find—” And then he would just cry.

  So them eggs that was going to fan him, they was trying to tell theirself it was all a joke by that time, and they showed up with a lot of Christmas stuff, and a drum for the kid. And it was all over town in an hour about how Hartman has changed his mind about Santa Claus, and maybe ain’t so sure how little ones gets in the world no more, so Christmas Day the trustees held a special meeting and took him back. So after that he done fine. So it looks like to me Santa Claus pulled a fast one on him.

  DECEMBER 22, 1929

  Gold Letters Hand Painted

  WHEN I WAS ABOUT fifteen years old, I and all the other young men about town used to resort to various schemes to give the impression that we had reached man’s estate. Some of us acquired girls, some took jobs, some played poker, and some just talked. But Bob Plummer, son of one of the Metho-preachers in town, made the mistake of hatching a scheme so grand that it challenged the gods; and that, as we all know, is merely storing up dynamite against the lightning bolt. Bob’s scheme was an individual shaving mug, no less. He went away to Wilmington, Delaware, with his father one spring, to attend the annual conference, and when he came back he had it in his suitcase. He didn’t show it around, of course, and boast about it. That would have been a gross strategic blunder. He merely strolled around to Johnny Vandergrift’s barber shop in the most casual manner, left it there, and told Johnny that from now on he would come on Saturday nights to be shaved.

  Well, that, as you may understand, was a bombshell; it made girls, jobs, poker games, white pants, and all such things seem childish nonsense by comparison. By twos and threes that afternoon we all had a look at it, coming to jeer, remaining to be struck dumb with awe. There it stood in plain vi
ew, among the hundreds of cups belonging to Johnny’s regular customers, and on its pearly face, in beautiful gold letters, was his own individual name, thus:

  ROB’T P. PLUMMER, JR.

  And for a whole week we were so groggy that our faculties were practically paralyzed. But then duty called: we had to organize some sort of counteroffensive. And presently we had one that we thought very neat. It was called the Foggy Club, and it was formed for the sole purpose of affording the members an opportunity to foregather occasionally for the sociable smoking of cigarettes. And the beauty of it was that Bob, since his father was a minister, could not very well join.

  The next thing, of course, was to select a propitious moment for inviting him to join, and we decided that none could be better than when he was reclining in Johnny Vandergrift’s best chair, having himself shaved out of his precious blue mug. The next Saturday night accordingly, having made sure that the operation had actually started, we all trooped into the shop.

  Red Lucas led off. He yawned awhile, and then put down his magazine and looked over at Johnny.