Hogben stories, p.6
Hogben Stories, page 6
“You ain’t hitting no Hogbens,” Maw said. “None of us been in New York since afore you was born. I mean, we ain’t never been there. So you kin just leave us out of it. How’d you like to git a million dollars instead? Or maybe you want to git young again or something like that? We kin fix that for you instead, if you’ll give up this here wicked idea.”
“I ain’t a-gonna,” Yancey said, stubborn. “You give your gospel word to help me.”
“Well, we ain’t bound to keep a promise like that,” Maw said, but then Grandpaw chimed in from the attic.
“The Hogben word is sacred,” he told us. “It’s our bond. We must keep our promise to this booby. But, having kept it, we are not bound further.”
“Oh?” I said, sort of gitting a thought. “That being the case — Mr. Yancey, just what did we promise, exact?”
He waved the monkey wrench at me.
“I’m a-gonna git split up into as many people as they are people in the world, and I’m a-gonna be standing right beside all of ’em. You give your word to help me do that. Don’t you try to wiggle out of it.”
“I ain’t wiggling,” I said. “Only we better git it clear, so’s you’ll be satisfied and won’t have no kick coming. One thing, though. You got to be the same size as everybody you visit.”
“Hey?”
“I kin fix it easy. When you step on this here gadget, there’ll be two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnered and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnered and twenty Yanceys all over the world. S’posin’, now, one of these here Yanceys finds himself standing next to a big feller seven feet tall. That wouldn’t be so good, would it?”
“I want to be eight feet high,” Yancey said.
“No, sir. The Yancey who goes to visit a feller that high is a-gonna be just that high hisself, exactly. And the one who visits a baby only two feet high is a-gonna be only two feet high hisself. What’s fair’s fair. You agree to that, or it’s all off. Only other thing, you’ll be just exactly as strong as the feller you’re up again’.”
I guess he seen I was firm. He hefted the monkey wrench.
“How’ll I git back?” he asked.
“We’ll take care of that,” I said. “I’ll give you five seconds. That’s long enough to swing a monkey wrench, ain’t it?”
“It ain’t very long.”
“If’n you stay longer, somebody might hit back.”
“So they might,” he said, turning pale under the dirt. “Five seconds is plenty.”
“Then if’n we do just that, you’ll be satisfied? You won’t have no kick coming?”
He swung the monkey wrench and laughed.
“Suits me fine and dandy,” he said. “I’ll bust their haids good. Heh, heh, heh.”
“Then you step right on here,” I said, showing him. “Wait a mite, though. I better try it fust, to make sure it works right.”
I picked up a stick of firewood from the box by the stone and winked at Yancey. “You git set,” I said. “The minute I git back, you step right on here.”
Maw started to say something, but all of a sudden Grandpaw started laughing in the attic. I guess he was looking into the future again.
I stepped on the gadget, and it worked slick as anything. Afore I could blink, I was split up into two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen Saunk Hogbens.
There was one short, o’ course, on account of I left out Yancey, and o’ course the Hogbens ain’t listed in no census. But here I was, standing right in front of everybody in the whole, entire world except the Hogben fam’ly and Yancey hisself. It was plumb onreasonable.
Never did I know there was so many faces in this world! They was all colors, some with whiskers, some without, some with clothes on, some naked as needles, some awful big and some real short, and half of them was in daylight and half was in the nighttime. I got downright dizzy.
For just a flash, I thought I could make out some of the people I knowed down in Piperville, including the Sheriff, but he got mixed up with a lady in a string of beads who was casing a kangaroo-critter, and she turned into a man dressed up fit to kill who was speechifyin’ in a big room somewheres.
My, I was dizzy.
I got ahold of myself and it was about time, too, for just about then near everybody in the whole world noticed me. ’Course, it must have looked like I’d popped out of thin air, right in front of them, real sudden, and — well, you ever had near two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen people looking you right square in the eye? It’s just awful. I forgot what I’d been intending. Only I sort of heard Grandpaw’s voice telling me to hurry up.
So I pushed that stick of firewood I was holding, only now it was two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen sticks, into just about the same number of hands and let go. Some of the people let go too, but most of ’em held on to it. Then I tried to remember the speech I was a-gonna make, telling ’em to git in the fust lick at Yancey afore he could swing that monkey wrench.
But I was too confounded. It was funny. Having all them people looking right at me made me so downright shy, I couldn’t even open my mouth. What made it worse was that Grandpaw yelled I had only one second left, so there wasn’t even time to make a speech. In just one second, I was a-gonna flash back to our kitchen, and then old Yancey was all ready to jump in the gadget and swing that monkey wrench. And I hadn’t warned nobody. All I’d done was give everybody a little old stick of firewood.
My, how they stared! I felt plumb naked. Their eyes bugged right out. And just as I started to thin out around the edges like a biscuit, I — well, I don’t know what come over me. I guess it was feeling so oncommon shy. Maybe I shouldn’t of done it, but—
I done it!
Then I was back in the kitchen. Grandpaw was laughing fit to kill in the attic. The old gentleman’s got a funny kind of sense of humor, I guess. I didn’t have no time for him then, though, for Yancey jumped past me and into the gadget. And he disappeared into thin air, the way I had. Split up, like I’d been, into as many people as there was in the world, and standing right in front of ’em.
Maw and Paw and Uncle Les was looking at me real hard. I sort of shuffled.
“I fixed it,” I said. “Seems like a man who’s mean enough to hit little babies over the haid deserves what he’s” — I stopped and looked at the gadget — “what he’s been and got,” I finished, on account of Yancey had tumbled out of thin air, and a more whupped-up old rattlesnake I never seen. My!
Well, I guess purty near everybody in the whole world had took a whang at Mr. Yancey. He never even had a chance to swing that monkey wrench. The whole world had got in the fust lick.
Yes, siree. Mr. Yancey looked plumb ruined.
But he could still yell. You could of heard him a mile off. He kept screaming that he’d been cheated. He wanted another chance, and this time he was taking his shooting iron and a bowie knife. Finally Maw got disgusted, took him by the collar, and shook him up till his teeth rattled.
“Quoting Scripture!” she said, madlike. “You little dried-up scraggle of downright pizen! The Good Book says an eye for an eye, don’t it? We kept our word, and there ain’t nobody kin say different.”
“That’s the truth, certes,” Grandpaw chimed in from the attic.
“You better go home and git some arnicy,” Maw said, shaking Yancey some more. “And don’t you come round here no more, never again, or we’ll set the baby on you.”
“But I didn’t git even!” Yancey squalled.
“I guess you ain’t a-gonna, ever,” I said. “You just cain’t live long enough to git even with everybody in the whole world, Mr. Yancey.”
By and by, that seemed to strike Yancey all in a heap. He turned a rich color like beet soup, made a quacking noise, and started cussing. Uncle Les reached for the poker, but there wasn’t no need.
“The whole dang world done me wrong!” Yancey squealed, and clapped his hands to his haid. “I been flummoxed! Why in tarnation did they hit me fust? “There’s something funny about—”
“Hush up,” I said, all of a sudden realizing the trouble wasn’t over, like I’d thought. “Listen, anybody hear anything from the village?”
Even Yancey shet up whilst we listened. “Don’t hear a thing,” Maw said.
“Saunk’s right,” Grandpaw put in. “That’s what’s wrong.”
Then everybody got it — that is, everybody except Yancey. Because about now there ought to of been quite a rumpus down at Piperville. Don’t fergit me and Yancey went visiting the whole world, which includes Piperville, and people don’t take a thing like that quiet. There ought to of been some yelling going on, at least.
“What are you all standing round dumb as mutes for?” Yancey busted out. “You got to help me git even!”
I didn’t pay him no mind. I sat down and studied the gadget. After a minute I seen what it was I’d done wrong. I guess Grandpaw seen it about as quick as I did. You oughta heard him laugh. I hope it done the old gentleman good. He has a right peculiar sense of humor sometimes.
“I sort of made a mistake in this gadget, Maw,” I said. “That’s why it’s so quiet down in Piperville.”
“Aye, by my troth,” Grandpaw said, still laughing. “Saunk had best seek cover. Twenty-three skiddoo, kid.”
“You done something you shouldn’t, Saunk?” Maw said.
“Blabber, blabber, blabber!” Yancey yelled. “I want my rights! I want to know what it was Saunk done that made everybody in the world hit me over the haid! He must of done something. I never had no time to—”
“Now you leave the boy alone, Mr. Yancey,” Maw said. “We done what we promised, and that’s enough. You git outa here and simmer down afore you say something you regret.”
Paw winked at Uncle Les, and before Yancey could yell back at Maw the table sort of bent its legs down like they had knees in ’em and snuck up behind Yancey real quiet. Then Paw said to Uncle Les, “All together now, let ’er go,” and the table straightened up its legs and give Yancey a terrible bunt that sent him flying out the door.
The last we heard of Yancey was the whoops he kept letting out whenever he hit the ground all the way down the hill. He rolled half the way to Piperville, I found out later. And when he got there he started hitting people over the haid with his monkey wrench.
I guess he figgered he might as well make a start the hard way.
They put him in jail for a spell to cool off, and I guess he did, ’cause afterward he went back to that little shack of his’n. I hear he don’t do nothing but set around with his lips moving, trying to figger a way to git even with the hull world. I don’t calc’late he’ll ever hit on it, though.
At that time, I wasn’t paying him much mind. I had my own troubles. As soon as Paw and Uncle Les got the table back in place, Maw lit into me again.
“Tell me what happened, Saunk,” she said. “I’m a-feared you done something wrong when you was in that gadget. Remember you’re a Hogben, son. You got to behave right when the whole world’s looking at you. You didn’t go and disgrace us in front of the entire human race, did you, Saunk?”
Grandpaw laughed agin. “Not yet, he hasn’t,” he said.
Then down in the basement I heard the baby give a kind of gurgle and I knowed he could see it too. That’s surprising, kinda, We never know for sure about the baby. I guess he really kin see a little bit into the future too.
“I just made a little mistake, Maw,” I said. “Could happen to anybody. It seems the way I fixed that gadget up, it split me into a lot of Saunks, all right, but it sent me ahead into next week too. That’s why there ain’t no ruckus yet down in Piperville.”
“My land!” Maw said. “Child, you do things so careless!”
“I’m sorry, Maw,” I said. “Trouble is, too many people in Piperville know me. I’d better light out for the woods and pick me a nice holler tree. I’ll be needing it, come next week.”
“Saunk,” Maw said, “you been up to something. Sooner or later I’ll find out, so you might as well tell me now.”
Well, shucks, I knowed she was right. So I told her, and I might as well tell you, too. You’ll find out anyhow, come next week. It just shows you can’t be too careful. This day next week, everybody in the whole world is a-gonna be mighty surprised when I show up out of thin air, hand ’em all a stick of firewood, and then r’ar back and spit right smack in their eye.
I s’pose that there two billion, two hunnerd and fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen includes everybody on earth.
Everybody!
Sometime next week, I figger.
See you later.
“Cold War”
Published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol. 35, No. 1 (October 1949).
Chapter 1
Last of the Pughs
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I’LL NEVER have a cold in the haid again without I think of little Junior Pugh. Now there was a repulsive brat if ever I saw one. Built like a little gorilla, he was. Fat, pasty face, mean look, eyes so close together you could poke ’em both out at once with one finger. His paw thought the world of him though. Maybe that was natural, seeing as how little Junior was the image of his pappy.
“The last of the Pughs,” the old man used to say stickin’ his chest out and beamin’ down at the little gorilla. “Finest little lad that ever stepped.”
It made my blood run cold sometimes to look at the two of ’em together. Kinda sad, now, to think back to those happy days when I didn’t know either of ’em. You may not believe it but them two Pughs, father and son, between ’em came within that much of conquerin’ the world.
Us Hogbens is quiet folks. We like to keep our heads down and lead quiet lives in our own little valley, where nobody comes near withouten we say so. Our neighbors and the folks in the village are used to us by now. They know we try hard not to act conspicuous. They make allowances.
If Paw gets drunk, like last week, and flies down the middle of Main Street in his red underwear most people make out they don’t notice, so’s not to embarrass Maw. They know he’d walk like a decent Christian if he was sober.
The thing that druv Paw to drink that time was Little Sam, which is our baby we keep in a tank down-cellar, startin’ to teethe again. First time since the War Between the States. We’d figgered he was through teething, but with Little Sam you never can tell. He was mighty restless, too.
A perfesser we keep in a bottle told us once Little Sam emitted subsonic somethings when he yells but that’s just his way of talking. Don’t mean a thing. It makes your nerves twiddle, that’s all. Paw can’t stand it. This time it even woke up Grandpaw in the attic and he hadn’t stirred since Christmas. First thing after he got his eyes open he bust out madder’n a wet hen at Paw.
“I see ye, wittold knave that ye are!” he howled. “Flying again, is it? Oh, sic a reowfule sigte! I’ll ground ye, ywis!” There was a far-away thump.
“You made me fall a good ten feet!” Paw hollered from away down the valley. “It ain’t fair. I could of busted something!”
“Ye’ll bust us all, with your dronken carelessness,” Grandpaw said. “Flying in full sight of the neighbors! People get burned at the stake for less. You want mankind to find out all about us? Now shut up and let me tend to Baby.”
Grandpaw can always quiet the baby if nobody else can. This time he sung him a little song in Sanskrit and after a bit they was snoring a duet.
I was fixing up a dingus for Maw to sour up some cream for sour-cream biscuits. I didn’t have much to work with but an old sled and some pieces of wire but I didn’t need much. I was trying to point the top end of the wire north-northeast when I seen a pair of checked pants rush by in the woods.
It was Uncle Lem. I could hear him thinking. “It ain’t me!” he was saying, real loud, inside his haid. “Git back to yer work, Saunk. I ain’t within a mile of you. Yer Uncle Lem’s a fine old feller and never tells lies. Think I’d fool ye, Saunkie boy?”
“You shore would,” I thunk back. “If you could. What’s up, Uncle Lem?”
At that he slowed down and started to saunter back in a wide circle.
“Oh, I just had an idy yer Maw might like a mess of blackberries,” he thunk, kicking a pebble very nonchalant. “If anybody asks you say you ain’t seen me. It’s no lie. You ain’t.”
“Uncle Lem,” I thunk, real loud, “I gave Maw my bounden word I wouldn’t let you out of range without me along, account of the last time you got away—”
“Now, now, my boy,” Uncle Lem thunk fast. “Let bygones be bygones.”
“You just can’t say no to a friend, Uncle Lem,” I reminded him, taking a last turn of the wire around the runner. “So you wait a shake till I get this cream soured and we’ll both go together, wherever it is you have in mind.”
I saw the checked pants among the bushes and he come out in the open and give me a guilty smile. Uncle Lem’s a fat little feller. He means well, I guess, but he can be talked into most anything by most anybody, which is why we have to keep a close eye on him.
“How you gonna do it?” he asked me, looking at the creamjug. “Make the little critters work faster?”
“Uncle Lem!” I said. “You know better’n that. Cruelty to dumb animals is something I can’t abide. Them there little critters work hard enough souring milk the way it is. They’re such teentsy-weentsy fellers I kinda feel sorry for ’em. Why, you can’t even see ’em without you go kinda crosseyed when you look. Paw says they’re enzymes. But they can’t be. They’re too teeny.”
“Teeny is as teeny does,” Uncle Lem said. “How you gonna do it, then?”
“This here gadget,” I told him, kinda proud, “will send Maw’s creamjug ahead into next week some time. This weather, don’t take cream more’n a couple of days but I’m giving it plenty of time. When I bring it back — bingo, it’s sour.” I set the jug on the sled.
