HOGBEN STORIES

Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore

Compiled, formatted and
cover design

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Enter Professor

Pile of Trouble

See You Later

Cold War

Chapter 1 — Last of the Pughs

Chapter 2 — A Fine Old Feller

Chapter 3 — Over a Barrel

Chapter 4 — Pughs A-Coming

“Exit the Professor”

Published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol. 31, No. 1 (October 1947).

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WE HOGBENS are right exclusive. That Perfesser feller from the city might have known that, but he come busting in without an invite, and I don’t figger he had call to complain afterward. In Kaintuck the polite thing is to stick to your own bill of beans and not come nosing around where you’re not wanted.

Time we ran off the Haley boys with that shotgun gadget we rigged up — only we never could make out how it worked, somehow — that time, it all started because Rafe Haley come peeking and prying at the shed winder, trying to get a look at Little Sam. Then Rafe went round saying Little Sam had three haids or something.

Can’t believe a word them Haley boys say. Three haids! It ain’t natcheral, is it? Anyhow, Little Sam’s only got two haids, and never had no more since the day he was born.

So Maw and I rigged up that shotgun thing and peppered the Haley boys good. Like I said, we couldn’t figger out afterward how it worked. We’d tacked on some dry cells and a lot of coils and wires and stuff and it punched holes in Rafe as neat as anything.

Coroner’s verdict was that the Haley boys died real sudden, and Sheriff Abernathy come up and had a drink of corn with us and said for two cents he’d whale the tar outa me. I didn’t pay no mind. Only some damyankee reporter musta got wind of it, because a while later a big, fat, serious-looking man come around and begun to ask questions.

Uncle Les was sitting on the porch, with his hat over his face. “You better get the heck back to your circus, mister,” he just said. “We had offers from old Barnum hisself and turned ’em down. Ain’t that right, Saunk?”

“Sure is,” I said. “I never trusted Phineas. Called Little Sam a freak, he did.”

The big solemn-looking man, whose name was Perfesser Thomas Galbraith, looked at me. “How old are you, son?” he said.

“I ain’t your son,” I said. “And I don’t know, nohow.”

“You don’t look over eighteen,” he said, “big as you are. You couldn’t have known Barnum.”

“Sure I did. Don’t go giving me the lie. I’ll wham you.”

“I’m not connected with any circus,” Galbraith said. “I’m a biogeneticist.”

We sure laughed at that. He got kinda mad and wanted to know what the joke was.

“There ain’t no such word,” Maw said. And at that point Little Sam started yelling, and Galbraith turned white as a goose wing and shivered all over. He sort of fell down. When we picked him up, he wanted to know what had happened.

“That was Little Sam,” I said. “Maw’s gone in to comfort him. He’s stopped now.”

“That was a subsonic,” the Perfesser snapped. “What is Little Sam — a short-wave transmitter?”

“Little Sam’s the baby,” I said, short-like. “Don’t go calling him outa his name, either. Now, s’pose you tell us what you want.”

He pulled out a notebook and started looking through it.

“I’m a — a scientist,” he said. “Our foundation is studying eugenics, and we’ve got some reports about you. They sound unbelievable. One of our men has a theory that natural mutations can remain undetected in undeveloped cultural regions, and — ” He slowed down and stared at Uncle Les. “Can you really fly?” he asked.

Well, we don’t like to talk about that. The preacher gave us a good dressing-down once. Uncle Les had got likkered up and went sailing over the ridges, scaring a couple of bear hunters outa their senses. And it ain’t in the Good Book that men should fly, neither. Uncle Les generally does it only on the sly, when nobody’s watching.

So anyhow Uncle Les pulled his hat down further on his face and growled.

“That’s plumb silly. Ain’t no way a man can fly. These here modern contraptions I hear tell about — ’tween ourselves, they don’t really fly at all. Just a lot of crazy talk, that’s all.”

Galbraith blinked and studied his notebook again.

“But I’ve got hearsay evidence of a great many unusual things connected with your family. Flying is only one of them. I know it’s theoretically impossible — and I’m not talking about planes — but—”

“Oh, shet your trap.”

“The medieval witches’ salve used aconite to give an illusion of flight — entirely subjective, of course.”

“Will you stop pestering me?” Uncle Les said, getting mad, on account of he felt embarrassed, I guess. Then he jumped up, threw his hat down on the porch and flew away. After a minute he swooped down for his hat and made a face at the Perfesser. He flew off down the gulch and we didn’t see him fer a while.

I got mad, too.

“You got no call to bother us,” I said. “Next thing Uncle Les will do like Paw, and that’ll be an awful nuisance. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of Paw since that other city feller was around. He was a census taker, I think.”

Galbraith didn’t say anything. He was looking kinda funny. I gave him a drink and he asked about Paw.

“Oh, he’s around,” I said. “Only you don’t see him no more. He likes it better that way, he says.”

“Yes,” Galbraith said, taking another drink. “Oh, God. How old did you say you were?”

“Didn’t say nothing about it.”

“Well, what’s the earliest thing you can remember?”

“Ain’t no use remembering things. Clutters up your haid too much.”

“It’s fantastic,” Gaibraith said. “I hadn’t expected to send a report like that back to the foundation.”

“We don’t want nobody prying around,” I said. “Go way and leave us alone.”

“But, good Lord!” He looked over the porch rail and got interested in the shotgun gadget. “What’s that?”

“A thing,” I said.

“What does it do?”

“Things,” I said.

“Oh. May I look at it?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll give you the dingus if you’ll go away.”

He went over and looked at it. Paw got up from where he’d been sitting beside me, told me to get rid of the damyankee and went into the house. The Perfesser came back. “Extraordinary!” he said. “I’ve had training in electronics, and it seems to me you’ve got something very odd there. What’s the principle?”

“The what?” I said. “It makes holes in things.”

“It can’t fire shells. You’ve got a couple of lenses where the breech should — how did you say it worked?”

“I dunno.”

“Did you make it?”

“Me and Maw.”

He asked a lot more questions.

“I dunno,” I said. “Trouble with a shotgun is you gotta keep loading it. We sorta thought if we hooked on a few things it wouldn’t need loading no more. It don’t, neither.”

“Were you serious about giving it to me?”

“If you stop bothering us.”

“Listen,” he said, “it’s miraculous that you Hogbens have stayed out of sight so long.”

“We got our ways.”

“The mutation theory must be right. You must be studied. This is one of the most important discoveries since—” He kept on talking like that. He didn’t make much sense.

Finally I decided there was only two ways to handle things, and after what Sheriff Abernathy had said, I didn’t feel right about killing nobody till the Sheriff had got over his fit of temper. I don’t want to cause no ruckus.

“S’pose I go to New York with you, like you want,” I said. “Will you leave the family alone?”

He halfway promised, though he didn’t want to. But he knuckled under and crossed his heart, on account of I said I’d wake up Little Sam if he didn’t. He sure wanted to see Little Sam, but I told him that was no good. Little Sam couldn’t go to New York, anyhow. He’s got to stay in his tank or he gets awful sick.

Anyway, I satisfied the Perfesser pretty well and he went off, after I’d promised to meet him in town next morning. I felt sick, though, I can tell you. I ain’t been away from the folks overnight since that ruckus in the old country, when we had to make tracks fast.

Went to Holland, as I remember. Maw always had a soft spot fer the man that helped us get outa London. Named Little Sam after him. I fergit what his name was. Gwynn or Stuart or Pepys — I get mixed up when I think back beyond the War between the States.

That night we chewed the rag. Paw being invisible, Maw kept thinking he was getting more’n his share of the corn, but pretty soon she mellowed and let him have a demijohn. Everybody told me to mind my p’s and q’s.

“This here Perfesser’s awful smart,” Maw said. “All perfessers are. Don’t go bothering him any. You be a good boy or you’ll ketch heck from me.”

“I’ll be good, Maw,” I said. Paw whaled me alongside the haid, which wasn’t fair, on account of I couldn’t see him.

“That’s so you won’t fergit,” he said.

“We’re plain folks,” Uncle Les was growling. “No good never come of trying to get above yourself.”

“Honest, I ain’t trying to do that,” I said. “I only figgered—”

“You stay outa trouble!” Maw said, and just then we heard Grandpaw moving in the attic. Sometimes Grandpaw don’t stir for a month at a time, but tonight he seemed right frisky.

So, natcherally, we went upstairs to see what he wanted.

He was talking about the Perfesser.

“A stranger, eh?” he said. “Out upon the stinking knave. A set of rare fools I’ve gathered about me for my dotage! Only Saunk shows any shrewdness, and, dang my eyes, he’s the worst fool of all.”

I just shuffled and muttered something, on account of I never like to look at Grandpaw direct. But he wasn’t paying me no mind. He raved on.

“So you’d go to this New York? ’Sblood, and hast thou forgot the way we shunned London and Amsterdam — and Nieuw Amsterdam — for fear of questioning? Wouldst thou be put in a freak show? Nor is that the worst danger.”

Grandpaw’s the oldest one of us all and he gets kinda mixed up in his language sometimes. I guess the lingo you learned when you’re young sorta sticks with you. One thing, he can cuss better than anybody I’ve ever heard.

“Shucks,” I said. “I was only trying to help.”

“Thou puling brat,” Grandpaw said. “ ’Tis thy fault and thy dam’s. For building that device, I mean, that slew the Haley tribe. Hadst thou not, this scientist would never have come here.”

“He’s a perfesser,” I said. “Name of Thomas Galbraith.”

“I know. I read his thoughts through Little Sam’s mind. A dangerous man. I never knew a sage who wasn’t. Except perhaps Roger Bacon, and I had to bribe him to — but Roger was an exceptional man. Hearken:

“None of you may go to this New York. The moment we leave this haven, the moment we are investigated, we are lost. The pack would tear and rend us. Nor could all thy addlepated flights skyward save thee, Lester — dost thou hear?”

“But what are we to do?” Maw said.

“Aw, heck,” Paw said. “I’ll just fix this Perfesser. I’ll drop him down the cistern.”

“An’ spoil the water?” Maw screeched. “You try it!”

“What foul brood is this that has sprung from my seed?” Grandpaw said, real mad. “Have ye not promised the Sheriff that there will be no more killings — for a while, at least? Is the word of a Hogben naught? Two things have we kept sacred through the centuries — our secret from the world, and the Hogben honor! Kill this man Galbraith and ye’ll answer to me for it!”

We all turned white. Little Sam woke up again and started squealing. “But what’ll we do?” Uncle Les said.

“Our secret must be kept,” Grandpaw said. “Do what ye can, but no killing. I’ll consider the problem.”

He seemed to go to sleep then, though it was hard to tell.

The next day I met Galbraith in town, all right, but first I run into Sheriff Abernathy in the street and he gave me a vicious look.

“You stay outa trouble, Saunk,” he said. “Mind what I tell you, now.” It was right embarrassing.

Anyway, I saw Galbraith and told him Grandpaw wouldn’t let me go to New York. He didn’t look too happy, but he saw there was nothing that could be done about it.

His hotel room was full of scientific apparatus and kinda frightening. He had the shotgun gadget set up, but it didn’t look like he’d changed it any. He started to argue.

“Ain’t no use,” I said. “We ain’t leaving the hills. I spoke outa turn yesterday, that’s all.”

“Listen, Saunk,” he said. “I’ve been inquiring around town about you Hogbens, but I haven’t been able to find out much. They’re closemouthed around here. Still, such evidence would be only supporting factors. I know our theories are right. You and your family are mutants and you’ve got to be studied!”

“We ain’t mutants,” I said. “Scientists are always calling us outa our names. Roger Bacon called us homunculi, only—”

“What?” Galbraith shouted. “Who did you say?”

“Uh — he’s a share-cropper over in the next county,” I said hasty-like, but I could see the Perfesser didn’t swaller it. He started to walk around the room.

“It’s no use,” he said. “If you won’t come to New York, I’ll have the foundation send a commission here. You’ve got to be studied, for the glory of science and the advancement of mankind.”

“Oh, golly,” I said. “I know what that’d be like. Make a freak show outa us. It’d kill Little Sam. You gotta go away and leave us alone.”

“Leave you alone? When you can create apparatus like this?” He pointed to the shotgun gadget. “How does that work?” he wanted to know, sudden-like.

“I told you, I dunno. We just rigged it up. Listen, Perfesser. There’d be trouble if people came and looked at us. Big trouble. Grandpaw says so.”

Galbraith pulled at his nose.

“Well, maybe — suppose you answered a few questions for me, Saunk.”

“No commission?”

“We’ll see.”

“No, sir. I won’t—”

Galbraith took a deep breath.

“As long as you tell me what I want to know, I’ll keep your whereabouts a secret.”

“I thought this fundation thing of yours knows where you are.”

“Ah — yes,” Galbraith said. “Naturally they do. But they don’t know about you.”

That gave me an idea. I coulda killed him easy, but if I had, I knew Grandpaw would of ruined me entire and, besides, there was the Sheriff to think of. So I said, “Shucks,” and nodded.

My, the questions that man asked! It left me dizzy. And all the while he kept getting more and more excited.

“How old is your grandfather?”

“Gosh, I dunno.”

“Homunculi — mm-m. You mentioned that he was a miner once?”

“No, that was Grandpaw’s paw,” I said. “Tin mines, they were, in England. Only Grandpaw says it was called Britain then. That was during a sorta magic plague they had then. The people had to get the doctors — droons? Droods?”

“Druids?”

“Uh-huh. The Druids was the doctors then, Grandpaw says. Anyhow, all the miners started dying round Cornwall, so they closed up the mines.”

“What sort of plague was it?”

I told him what I remembered from Grandpaw’s talk, and the Perfesser got very excited and said something about radioactive emanations, as nearly as I could figger out. It made oncommon bad sense.

“Artificial mutations caused by radioactivity!” he said, getting real pink around the jowls. “Your grandfather was born a mutant! The genes and chromosomes were rearranged into a new pattern. Why, you may all be supermen!”

“Nope,” I said. “We’re Hogbens. That’s all.”

“A dominant, obviously a dominant. All your family were — ah — peculiar?”

“Now, look!” I said.

“I mean, they could all fly?”

“I don’t know how yet, myself. I guess we’re kinda freakish. Grandpaw was smart. He allus taught us not to show off.”

“Protective camouflage,” Galbraith said. “Submerged in a rigid social culture, variations from the norm are more easily masked. In a modern, civilized culture, you’d stick out like a sore thumb. But here, in the backwoods, you’re practically invisible.”

“Only Paw,” I said.

“Oh, Lord,” he sighed. “Submerging these incredible natural powers of yours. . . . Do you know the things you might have done?” And then all of a sudden he got even more excited, and I didn’t much like the look in his eyes.

“Wonderful things,” he repeated. “It’s like stumbling on Aladdin’s lamp.”

“I wish you’d leave us alone,” I said. “You and your commission!”

“Forget about the commission. I’ve decided to handle this privately for a while. Provided you’ll cooperate. Help me, I mean. Will you do that?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Then I’ll bring the commission down from New York,” he said triumphantly.

I thought that over.

“Well,” I said finally, “what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said slowly. “My mind hasn’t fully grasped the possibilities.”

But he was getting ready to grab. I could tell. I know that look.

I was standing by the window looking out, and all of a sudden I got an idea. I figgered it wouldn’t be smart to trust the Perfesser too much, anyhow. So I sort of ambled over to the shotgun gadget and made a few little changes on it.

I knew what I wanted to do, all right, but if Galbraith had asked me why I was twisting a wire here and bending a whozis there I couldn’t of told him. I got no eddication. Only now I knew the gadget would do what I wanted it to do.

The Perfesser had been writing in his little notebook. He looked up and saw me.

“What are you doing?” he wanted to know.

“This don’t look right to me,” I said. “I think you monkeyed with them batteries. Try it now.”

“In here?” he said, startled. “I don’t want to pay a bill for damages. It must be tested under safety conditions.”

“See the weathercock out there, on the roof?” I pointed it out to him. “Won’t do no harm to aim at that. You can just stand here by the winder and try it out.”

“It — it isn’t dangerous?” He was aching to try the gadget, I could tell. I said it wouldn’t kill nobody, and he took a long breath and went to the window and cuddled the stock of the gun against his cheek.

I stayed back aways. I didn’t want the Sheriff to see me. I’d already spotted him, sitting on a bench outside the feed-and-grain store across the street.

It happened just like I thought. Galbraith pulled the trigger, aiming at the weathercock on the roof, and rings of light started coming out of the muzzle. There was a fearful noise. Galbraith fell flat on his back, and the commotion was something surprising. People began screaming all over town.

I kinda felt it might be handy if I went invisible for a while. So I did.

Galbraith was examining the shotgun gadget when Sheriff Abernathy busted in. The Sheriff’s a hard case. He had his pistol out and handcuffs ready, and he was cussing the Perfesser immediate and rapid.

“I seen you!” he yelled. “You city fellers think you can get away with anything down here. Well, you can’t!”

“Saunk!” Galbraith cried, looking around. But of course he couldn’t see me.

Then there was an argument. Sheriff Abernathy had seen Galbraith fire the shotgun gadget and he’s no fool. He drug Galbraith down on the street, and I come along, walking soft. People were running around like crazy. Most of them had their hands clapped to their faces.

The Perfesser kept wailing that he didn’t understand.

“I seen you!” Abernathy said. “You aimed that dingus of yours out the window and the next thing everybody in town’s got a toothache! Try and tell me you don’t understand!”

The Sheriff’s smart. He’s known us Hogbens long enough so he ain’t surprised when funny things happen sometimes. Also, he knew Galbraith was a scientist feller. So there was a ruckus and people heard what was going on and the next thing they was trying to lynch Galbraith.

But Abernathy got him away. I wandered around town for a while. The pastor was out looking at his church windows, which seemed to puzzle him. They was stained glass, and he couldn’t figger out why they was hot. I coulda told him that. There’s gold in stained-glass windows; they use it to get a certain kind of red.

Finally I went down to the jailhouse. I was still invisible. So I eavesdropped on what Galbraith was saying to the Sheriff.

“It was Saunk Hogben,” the Perfesser kept saying. “I tell you, he fixed that projector!”

“I saw you,” Abernathy said. “You done it. Ow!” He put up his hand to his jaw. “And you better stop it, fast! That crowd outside means business. Half the people in town have got toothaches.”

I guess half the people in town had gold fillings in their teeth.

Then Galbraith said something that didn’t surprise me too much.

“I’m having a commission come down from New York, I meant to telephone the foundation tonight, they’ll vouch for me.”

So he was intending to cross us up, all along. I kinda felt that had been in his mind.

“You’ll cure this toothache of mine — and everybody else’s — or I’ll open the doors and let in that lynch mob!” the Sheriff howled. Then he went away to put an icebag on his cheek.

I snuck back aways, got visible again and made a lot of noise coming along the passage, so Galbraith could hear me. I waited till he got through cussing me out. I just looked stupid.

“I guess I made a mistake,” I said. “I can fix it, though.”

“You’ve done enough fixing!” He stopped. “Wait a minute. What did you say? You can cure this — what is it?”

“I been looking at that shotgun gadget,” I said. “I think I know what I did wrong. It’s sorta tuned in on gold now, and all the gold in town’s shooting out rays or heat or something.”

“Induced selective radioactivity,” Galbraith muttered, which didn’t seem to mean much. “Listen. That crowd outside — do they ever have lynchings in this town?”

“Not more’n once or twice a year,” I said. “And we already had two this year, so we filled our quota. Wish I could get you up to our place, though. We could hide you easy.”

“You’d better do something!” he said. “Or I’ll get that commission down from New York. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

I never seen such a man fer telling lies and keeping a straight face.

“It’s a cinch,” I said. “I can rig up the gadget so it’ll switch off the rays immediate. Only I don’t want people to connect us Hogbens with what’s going on. We like to live quiet. Look, s’pose I go back to your hotel and change over the gadget, and then all you have to do is get all the people with toothaches together and pull the trigger.”

“But — well, but—”

He was afraid of more trouble. I had to talk him into it. The crowd was yelling outside, so it wasn’t too hard. Finally I went away, but I came back, invisible-like, and listened when Galbraith talked to the Sheriff.

They fixed it all up. Everybody with toothaches was going to the Town Hall and set. Then Abernathy would bring the Perfesser over, with the shotgun gadget, and try it out.

“Will it stop the toothaches?” the Sheriff wanted to know. “For sure?”

“I’m — quite certain it will.”

Abernathy had caught that behitation.

“Then you better try it on me first. Just to make sure. I don’t trust you.”

It seemed like nobody was trusting nobody.

I hiked back to the hotel and made the switch-over in the shotgun gadget. And then I run into trouble. My invisibility was wearing thin. That’s the worst part of being just a kid.

After I’m a few hunnerd years older I can stay invisible all the time if I want to. But I ain’t right mastered it yet. Thing was, I needed help now because there was something I had to do, and I couldn’t do it with people watching.

I went up on the roof and called Little Sam. After I’d tuned in on his haid, I had him put the call through to Paw and Uncle Les. After a while Uncle Les come flying down from the sky, riding mighty heavy on account of he was carrying Paw. Paw was cussing because a hawk had chased them.

“Nobody seen us, though,” Uncle Les said. “I think.”

“People got their own troubles in town today,” I said. “I need some help. That Perfesser’s gonna call down his commission and study us, no matter what he promises.”

“Ain’t much we can do, then,” Paw said. “We cain’t kill that feller. Grandpaw said not to.”

So I told ’em my idea. Paw being invisible, he could do it easy. Then we made a little place in the roof so we could see through it, and looked down into Gaibraith’s room.

We was just in time. The Sheriff was standing there, with his pistol out, just waiting, and the Perfesser, pale around the chops, was pointing the shotgun gadget at Abernathy. It went along without a hitch. Galbraith pulled the trigger, a purple ring of light popped out, and that was all. Except that the Sheriff opened his mouth and gulped.

“You wasn’t faking! My toothache’s gone!”

Gaibraith was sweating, but he put up a good front. “Sure it works,” he said. “Naturally. I told you—”

“C’mon down to the Town Hall. Everybody’s waiting. You better cure us all, or it’ll be just too bad for you.”

They went out. Paw snuck down after them, and Uncle Les picked me up and flew on their trail, keeping low to the roofs, where we wouldn’t be spotted. After a while we was fixed outside one of the Town Hall’s windows, watching.

I ain’t heard so much misery since the great plague of London. The hall was jam-full, and everybody had a toothache and was moaning and yelling. Abernathy come in with the Perfesser, who was carrying the shotgun gadget, and a scream went up.

Galbraith set the gadget on the stage, pointing down at the audience, while the Sheriff pulled out his pistol again and made a speech, telling everybody to shet up and they’d get rid of their toothaches.

I couldn’t see Paw, natcherally, but I knew he was up on the platform. Something funny was happening to the shotgun gadget. Nobody noticed, except me, and I was watching for it. Paw — invisible, of course — was making a few changes. I’d told him how, but he knew what to do as well as I did. So pretty soon the shotgun was rigged the way we wanted it.

What happened after that was shocking. Galbraith aimed the gadget and pulled the trigger, and rings of light jumped out, yaller this time. I’d told Paw to fix the range so nobody outside the Town Hall would be bothered. But inside— Well, it sure fixed them toothaches. Nobody’s gold filling can ache if he ain’t got a gold filling.

The gadget was fixed now so it worked on everything that wasn’t growing. Paw had got the range just right. The seats was gone all of a sudden, and so was part of the chandelier. The audience, being bunched together, got it good. Pegleg Jaffe’s glass eye was gone, too. Them that had false teeth lost ’em. Everybody sorta got a once-over-lightly haircut. . . .

Also, the whole audience lost their clothes. Shoes ain’t growing things, and no more are pants or shirts or dresses. In a trice everybody in the hall was naked as needles. But, shucks, they’d got rid of their toothaches, hadn’t they?

We was back to home an hour later, all but Uncle Les, when the door busted open and in come Uncle Les, with the Perfesser staggering after him. Galbraith was a mess. He sank down and wheezed, looking back at the door in a worried way.

“Funny thing happened,” Uncle Les said. “I was flying along outside town and there was the Perfesser running away from a big crowd of people, with sheets wrapped around ’em — some of ’em. So I picked him up. I brung him here, like he wanted.” Uncle Les winked at me.

“Ooooh!” Galbraith said. “Aaaah! Are they coming?”

Maw went to the door.

“They’s a lot of torches moving up the mountain,” she said. “It looks right bad.”

The Perfesser glared at me.

“You said you could hide me! Well, you’d better! This is your fault!”

“Shucks,” I said.

“You’ll hide me or else!” Galbraith squalled. “I — I’ll bring that commission down.”

“Look,” I said, “if we hide you safe, will you promise to fergit all about that commission and leave us alone?”

The Perfesser promised. “Hold on a minute,” I said, and went up to the attic to see Grandpaw.

He was awake.

“How about it, Grandpaw?” I asked.

He listened to Little Sam for a second.

“The knave is lying,” he told me pretty soon. “He means to bring his commission of stinkards here anyway, recking naught of his promise.”

“Should we hide him, then?”

“Aye,” Grandpaw said. “The Hogbens have given their word — there must be no more killing. And to hide a fugitive from his pursuers would not be an ill deed, surely.”

Maybe he winked. It’s hard to tell with Grandpaw. So I went down the ladder. Galbraith was at the door, watching the torches come up the mountain.

He grabbed me.

“Saunk! If you don’t hide me—”

“We’ll hide you,” I said. “C’mon.”

So we took him down to the cellar.

When the mob got here, with Sheriff Abernathy in the lead, we played dumb. We let ’em search the house. Little Sam and Grandpaw turned invisible for a bit, so nobody noticed them. And naturally the crowd couldn’t find hide nor hair of Galbraith. We’d hid him good, like we promised.

That was a few years ago. The Perfesser’s thriving. He ain’t studying us, though. Sometimes we take out the bottle we keep him in and study him.

Dang small bottle, too!

“Pile of Trouble”

Published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol XXXII, No 1 April 1948.

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WE CALLED LEMUEL "Gimpy," on account of he had three legs. After he got his growth, about the time they fit the War Between the States, he was willing to keep his extra leg sort of tucked up behind him inside his britches, where it would be out of sight and people wouldn't talk. Course it made him look a little like one of them camel critters, but then Lemuel never was vain. It was lucky he was doublejointed, though, or he might of got cramps from keeping his leg tucked up thataway.

We hadn't seen Lemuel for some sixty years. He was living in the southern part of the mountains, and the rest of us was up in northern Kaintuck. And I guess we wouldn't of got in that trouble if Lemuel hadn't been so blame shiftless. It looked like big trouble for a while. We Hogbens had had plenty of that before we moved to Piperville, what with people peeping and prying and trying to find out why the dogs barked so much for miles around. It got so we couldn't do no flying at all. Finally grandpaw said we'd just better pull up stakes and move down south where Lemuel was staying.

I hate moving. That trip to Plymouth Rock made me sick to my stummick. I'd ruther of flew. But Grandpaw's the boss.

He made us hire a truck and load everything in it. We had trouble getting the baby in; he don't weigh more'n three hundred pound, but that tank we got to keep him in is purty bulky. No trouble about Grandpaw, though; we just tied him up in an old gunny sack and shoved him under the seat. I had to do all the work. Paw had got at the corn likker and was plomb silly. He kept hopping around on the top of his haid and singing something called, "The World Turned Upside Down."

Uncle wouldn't come. He'd dug himself in under the corncrib and said he was gonna hibernate fer ten years or so. We just left him there. "Allus traveling around," he kept complaining. "Cain't stay put. Every five hundred years or so, bang! Traipsin' off summers. Go on, git!"

So we got.

Lemuel, the one we used to call Gimpy, was one of the family. Seems there was a dust-up when we first came to Kaintuck—the way I heard it. Everybody was supposed to pitch in and help build a house, but not Lemuel—he wouldn't. Plomb shiftless. He flew off to the south. Every year or two he'd wake up a little and we'd hear him thinking, but mostly he just sot.

We figgered we'd live with him fer a while.

That's what we did.

Seems like Lemuel lived in an old water mill in the mountains up over a town called Piperville. It was kind of ramshackle. Lemuel was on the porch. He'd been sitting in a chair, but it had fallen down some while before, and he hadn't bothered to wake up to fix it. So he sat there in the middle of his whiskers, breathing a trifle. He was having a nice dream. We didn't wake him up. We toted the baby in the house, and Grandpaw and Paw started carrying in the bottles of corn.

That was how we settled in. It warn't exactly convenient at first. Lemuel was too remarkable shiftless to keep vittles in the house. He'd wake up enough to hypnotize a coon, back somewheres in the woods, and purty soon the coon would come wandering along looking dazed, ready to be et. Lemuel had to eat coons mostly because they're clever with their paws, which are sort of like hands. You can call me a weasel if that shiftless Lem didn't hypnotize the coons into building a fire and cooking themselves. I never figgered out how he got the critters skun. Maybe he spit out the fur. Some people are just too lazy for anything.

When he got thirsty, he made it rain a little over his haid and opened his mouth. It was shameful.

Nobody paid no attention to Lemuel, though. Maw got busy. Paw, natcherally, snuck off with a jug of corn, and I had to do all the work. 'Twarn't much. Main trouble was we needed some sort of power. Keeping the baby alive in his tank uses up a lot of current, and Grandpaw drinks electricity like a hawg sucks up swill. Ef'n Lemuel had kept the water running in the stream, we'd of had no trouble, but that was Lemuel! He just let it dry up. There was a trickle, no more.

Maw helped me build a gadget in the henhouse, and after that we got all the power we needed.

The trouble all started when a skinny little runt come up the trail one day and seemed surprised to see maw take the washing out in the yard. I trailed along, interested like.

"Right nice day," Maw said. "Want a drink, stranger?"

He said he didn't mind if'n he did, so I got him a dipperful, and after he had drunk the corn he took a few gasping breaths and said, thanks, no, he didn't want any more just then or ever. He said he could cut his throat cheaper, and get the same effect.

"Just moved in here?" he asked.

Maw said yes, we had, and Lemuel was a relative. The feller looked at Lemuel, sitting on the porch with his eyes shut, and said, "You mean he's alive?"

"Shore is," Maw said. "Alive and kicking, so to speak."

"We thought he'd been dead for years," the man said. "That's why we never bothered about collecting the poll tax for him. I guess you'd better pay yours, too, now that you've moved in. How many of you are there?"

" 'Bout six," Maw said.

"All of age?"

"There's Paw and Saunk and the baby——"

"How old?"

"The baby's about four hundred now, ain't he, Maw?" I asked, but she clouted me 'longside the haid and said I should shet up. The man pointed at me and said he'd meant how old was I. Heck, I couldn't tell him. I lost track round about Cromwell's time. Finally he said we'd all have to pay a poll tax except the baby.

"Not that it matters," he said, writing in a little book. "You have to vote the right way in this town. The Machine's in to stay. There's only one boss in Piperville, and his name's Eli Gandy. Twenty dollars that'll be."

Maw told me to git some money, so I went searchin'. Grandpaw didn't have anything except something he said was a denarius, and that was his lucky piece anyhow; he said he'd swiped it from a feller named Julius up in Gaul. Paw was daid drunk. The baby had three dollars. I went and looked through Lemuel's pockets but didn't find nothing but an old oriole's nest with two eggs in it.

When I told Maw, she scratched her haid, so I said, "We can make some by tomorrow, Maw. You'll take gold, won't you, Mister?"

Maw clouted me. The man looked kind of funny and said sure, he'd take gold. Then he went away through the woods passing a coon that was carrying a bundle of twigs fer firewood, and I figgered Lemuel was getting hungry. The man started to walk faster.

I started looking fer some old iron I could change into gold.

The next day we got carted off to jail.

We knew about it in advance, of course, but there wasn't much we could do. It's allus been our idea to keep our haids down and not attract no special attention. That's what Grandpaw told us to do now. We all went up to the attic—all but the baby and Lemuel, who never stirred—and I kept looking at a spiderweb up in one corner, so I wouldn't have to look at Grandpaw. He hurts my eyes.

"Out upon them for stinkard knaves," Grandpaw said. " 'Tis best that we go to their gaol; the days of the Inquisition are over. 'Twill be safe enough."

"Cain't we hide that thar gadget we made?" I asked him.

Maw clouted me fer speaking before my elders. "That won't do no good," she said. "Them spies from Piperville was up here this morning and seen it."

Grandpaw said, "Have you hollowed a cavern under this house? Good. Hide me and the baby there. The rest of you——" He relapsed into old-fashioned language. " 'Tis pity if we were to live thus long and be found out by these black-avised dullards. 'Twere better their weasands were slit. Nay, Saunk—I spoke in jest. We would not call attention to ourselves. We will find a way."

That was the way it was. We all got toted off, all but Grandpaw and the baby, who were down in the cave by that time. We got carried off to Piperville and put in the hoosegow. Lemuel never woke up. They drug him off by the heels.

As fer Paw, he stayed drunk. He's got a trick he knows. He can drink corn, and then, as I understand it, the alcohol goes in his blood and gets changed into sugar or something. Magic, I guess. He tried to explain it to me, but it made oncommon bad sense. Likker goes into your stummick; how kin it go up inside your skull and turn into sugar? Plumb silly. Or conjure, anyhow. But what I was going to say, Paw says he's trained some friends of his named Enzymes—furriners, by the name—so they change the sugar right back to alcohol, and he kin stay drunk as long as he wants. Still, he likes fresh corn if he can get it. Me, I don't like them conjure tricks; they make me skittery.

I was took into a room with people in it and told to sit down in a chair. They asked me questions. I played dumb. I said I didn't know nothing.

"It's impossible!" somebody said. "They couldn't have built it themselves—illiterate hillbillies! But, unmistakably, there's a uranium pile in their henhouse!"

Shucks.

I kept on playing dumb. After a while they took me back to my cell. There was bedbugs. I made a sort of ray come out of my eyes and killed 'em off, much to the surprise of a seedy little feller with pink whiskers who was asleep in the upper bunk, and who I didn't notice was awake till it was too late.

"I have been in some strange prisons in my time," said the seedy little feller, blinking rapid, "and I have had some unusual cellmates, but never yet have I encountered one whom I suspected to be the devil. My name is Armbruster, Stinky Armbruster, and I'm up for vagrancy. What's the charge against you, my friend? Buying souls over the ceiling price?"

I said I was pleased to meet him. I had to admire his language. He had eddication something fearful.

"Mr. Armbruster," I said, "I got no idea why I'm here. They just carted me off—Paw and Maw and Lemuel. Lemuel's asleep, though, and Paw's drunk."

"I would like to be drunk." Mr. Armbruster told me. "Then I wouldn't be so surprised to see you floating two feet off the floor."

That kind of embarrassed me. Nobody likes to be caught doing things like that. It was just that I was absent-minded, but I felt foolish. I said I was sorry.

"It doesn't matter," Mr. Armbruster said, rolling over and scratching his whiskers. "I've been expecting this for years. I've had a pleasant life, all in all. And this is a delightful way to go crazy. Why did you say they arrested you?"

"They said we had a uranium pile," I told him. "I bet we ain't. We got a woodpile, I know, 'cause I chopped the wood. But I know I never chopped no uranium."

"You'd remember it if you had," he said. "It's probably some political gambit. Election's a week off. There's a reform party starting, and old Gandy's smashing it before it can start."

"Well, we ought to be getting home," I said.

"Where do you live?"

I told him, and he thought that over. "I wonder. You're on the river, aren't you—the creek, I mean? Big Bear?"

"It ain't even a creek," I said.

Mr. Armbruster laughed. "Gandy called it the Big Bear River. That was before he got the Gandy Dam built, down below your place. There hasn't been any water in that creek for fifty years, but old Gandy put through an appropriation for I don't know how much money, about ten years ago. He got the dam built by calling the creek a river."

"What did he want to do that for?" I asked.

"Do you know how much crooked money you can make out of building a dam?" Mr. Armbruster asked me. "But Gandy's in to stay, I guess. When a man owns the newspapers, he can write his own ticket. Oh-oh. Here comes somebody."

A man come with keys and took Mr. Armbruster away. After quite awhile somebody else come and let me out. I was took into another room full of lights. Mr. Armbruster was there, and Maw and Paw and Lemuel, and some big fellers with guns. There was a little skinny wizened man with a bald head and snaky eyes, and everybody done what he told 'em. They called him Mr. Gandy.

"This boy's an ordinary hillbilly," Mr. Armbruster said, when I come in. "If he's got into trouble, it must be by accident."

They told him to keep quiet and banged him one. So he kept quiet. That Mr. Gandy sat off in a corner and sort of nodded, looking mean. He had a bad eye. "Listen, boy," he said to me. "Who are you shielding? Who built that uranium pile in your woodshed? You'd better tell me the truth or you'll get hurt."

I just looked at him, so somebody hit me on top of the haid. Shucks. You can't hurt a Hogben by hitting him on the haid. I recollect the time the feuding Adamses cotched me and banged me on the haid till they was plumb wore out and couldn't even squeal when I dumped 'em down a cistern.

Mr. Armbruster made noises.

"Listen, Mr. Gandy," he said. "I know it'll make a big story if you find out who built that uranium pile, but you'll get re-elected without it. Maybe it isn't a uranium pile anyway."

"I know who built it," Mr. Gandy said. "Renegade scientists. Or escaped Nazi war criminals. And I intend to find them!"

"Oh-oh," said Mr. Armbruster. "Now I get the idea. A story like that would be nationwide, wouldn't it? You could run for Governor or the Senate or—or write your own ticket."

"What did that boy tell you?" Mr. Gandy asked. But Mr. Armbruster said I hadn't told him nothing.

Then they started to whup Lemuel.

It was tiresome. Nobody can't wake up Lemuel when he's sot on a nap, and I never seen nobody so sot just then. They give him up fer daid after a time. He might as well of been. Lemuel is so bone lazy that when he's sleeping hard he don't even trouble to breathe.

Paw was working magic with them Enzyme friends of his'n, and he was remarkable drunk. It sort of tickled him to get whupped. Every time they whammed him with a length of hose he giggled kind of foolish. I was ashamed.

Nobody tried to whup Maw. When anybody got close enough to hit her, he'd go all over white as a goose wing and start busting out with sweat and shaking. Once we knowed a perfesser feller who said Maw could emit a tight-beam subsonic. He was a liar. She just made a noise nobody could hear and aimed it wherever she wanted. All them high-falutin words! Simple as firing a squirrel rifle. I can do it myself.

Mr. Gandy said to take us back to where we was, and he'd see us later. So they drug out Lemuel, and we all went back to our cells. Mr. Armbruster had a lump on his haid the size of a duck egg. He lay down on his bunk moaning, and I sot in a corner looking at his haid, and sort of shooting a light out of my eyes, only nobody couldn't see the light. What it did was—shucks, I ain't eddicated. It worked like a poultice, anyhow. After a while the bump on Mr. Armbruster's haid went away, and he stopped groaning.

"You're in trouble, Saunk," he said—I had told him my name by then. "Gandy's got big ideas now. And he's got the people of Piperville hypnotized. What he wants is to hypnotize the state, or even the nation. He wants to be a national figure. The right sort of news story could do that for him. Besides, it would ensure his re-election next week—not that he needs insurance. He's got the city in his pocket. Was that a uranium pile?"

I just looked at him.

"Gandy seems certain," he went on. "He sent up some physicists, and they said it was apparently Two-thirty-five with the graphite dampers. Saunk, I heard them talking. For your own good, you'd better not shield anyone. They're going to use a truth drug on you—sodium pentathol or scopolamine."

"You better go to sleep," I said, because I heard Grandpaw calling me, inside my haid. I shet my eyes and listened. 'Twarn't simple, because Paw kept tuning in. Oh, my, he was drunk!

"Have a drink," Paw said, cheerful, only without talking, if you understand.

"Beshrew thee for a warrantable louse," Grandpaw said, much less cheerful. "Get thy dullard mind away from here. Saunk!"

"Yes, Grandpaw," I said, silent-like.

"We must make a plan——"

Paw said, "Have a drink, Saunk."

"Now, Paw, do shet up," I told him. "Have some respect fer your elders. I mean Grandpaw. Besides, how can I have a drink? You're 'way off in some other cell."

"I got me a pipeline," Paw said. "I can give you a what-you-call-it, a transfusion. Teleportation, that's what it is. I just short-circuit space between your blood stream and mine and I can pump alcohol from my veins into your'n. Look, this is how I do it." He showed me how, in a sort of picture inside my haid. It looked easy enough. For a Hogben, I mean.

I got mad. "Paw," I said, "don't make your loving son disrespect you more than natcheral, you runty old wood-shoat, you. I know you ain't got no book-larnin'. You're just picking them four-bit words out of somebody's skull."

"Have a drink," Paw said, and then yelled. I heard Grandpaw chuckle.

"Stealing the wisdom from men's minds, eh?" he said. "I, too, can do that. I have just rapidly cultured a migraine virus in my blood stream and teleported it to your brain—you gorbellied knave! A plague upon the varlet! Hearken to me, Saunk. Thy rascally sire will not trouble us bewhiles."

"Yes, Grandpaw," I said. "Are you fit?"

"Aye."

"And the baby?"

"Aye. But you must act. 'Tis your task, Saunk. The trouble lies in that—what is the word? That uranium pile."

"So that's what it is," I said.

"Who would have thought anyone in the world could recognize it? My own grandsire told me how to make it; they existed in his time. Indeed, 'twas through such things that we Hogbens became mutants. Faith, I must pick a brain myself to make this clear. There are men in the town where you are, Saunk, who know the words I need—let me see."

He sort of shuffled through a few brains. Then he went on.

"When my grandsire lived, men had begun to split the atom. There were—um—secondary radiations. They affected the genes and chromosomes of some men and women—a dominant mutation, with us Hogbens. So we are mutants."

"That's what Roger Bacon said, wasn't it?" I asked.

"Aye. But he was friendly and kept silence. Had men known our powers in those days, we'd have been burned. Even today, it would not be safe for us to reveal ourselves. Eventually—you know what we plan eventually, Saunk.''

"Yes, Grandpaw," I said, for I did know.

"Well, here's the rub. It seems that men have split the atom again. Thus they were able to recognize this uranium pile. We must destroy it; we do not want men's eyes upon us. Yet we need power. Not much, but some. The uranium pile was the easiest way to get it, but we cannot use it now. Saunk, here is what you must do—so that enough energy will be supplied for the baby and for me."

He told me what to do.

Then I went and done it.

When I sort of shift my eyes, I can see real purty things. Like them bars on the window, I mean. They get busted up into teeny-weeny little bits, all rushing around like they was crazy. I hear tell them is atoms. My, they look cheerful—all bustling like they was hurrying to git to meeting on a Sunday. 'Course it's easy to juggle 'em like blocks. You look real hard and make something come out of your eyes, and more teeny little fellers come busting out of your eyes and they all get together and it's mighty amusing. I made a mistake the first time and changed them iron bars into gold. Missed an atom, I expect. But after that I got it right and turned the bars into nothing much. I clomb out and turned 'em back into iron. First I'd made sure Mr. Armbruster was asleep. That was easy.

We was seven stories up above the street, in a big building that was part the city hall and part jail. It was nighttime, so nobody noticed me. I flew away. Once an owl came past, figgering I couldn't see in the dark, and I spit on him. Hit him, too.

I fixed that there uranium pile. There was guards around it with lights, but I hung up in the sky where they couldn't see me and got busy. First I hotted the thing up so the stuff Mr. Armbruster had called graphite turned into nothing and blew away. Then it was safe to handle the rest of the junk—Two-thirty-five, is it?—so I did, and I turned that into lead. The real crumbly kind. I made it so fearful crumbly it started to blow away. Soon there wasn't nothing left.

Then I flew away up the crick. There was only a dollop of water in it, and Grandpaw said he needed more than that. I got way up in the mountains, but didn't have no luck. Grandpaw started to talk to me. He said the baby was crying. I guess I shouldn't have tore up the uranium pile till I'd made plumb certain of getting more power.

Only thing to do was to make it rain.

There are several ways to do that, but I friz a cloud, sort of. Had to land and build a gadget fast and then fly way up where there was clouds; it took time, but pretty soon there was a thunderstorm coming up, and then it rained. But the water didn't go down the crick. I searched for a while, till I found a place where the whole crick bottom had fell out. Seems like there was caves underneath. I did some rapid plugging. No wonder there hadn't been no water to speak of in the crick for so long. I fixed that.

Grandpaw wanted a steady supply, though, and I smelled around till I located some big springs. I opened them up. By that time it was raining oncommon rapid. I went back to see Grandpaw.

Them men who was on guard had gone home, I guess. Grandpaw said the baby had plumb upset them when he started crying. They all stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed and run off. I looked over the water wheel, like Grandpaw told me, and done a few repairs. There warn't much needed. They built purty good a hundred years ago—and the wood had got seasoned, too. I admired that wheel, turning and turning as the water piled up in the crick—crick, nothing! It was a river now.

But Grandpaw said I oughta of seen the Appian Way when it was being set up.

I fixed him and the baby up nice and comfortable, and then I flew back to Piperville. It was coming on dawn, and I didn't want nobody to see me flying. This time I spit on a pigeon.

There was a rumpus going on in the city hall. Seems like Maw and Paw and Lemuel had plumb vanished. There was people running around remarkable upset, and there was great confusion. I knowed what had happened, though. Maw spoke to me, in my haid, and told me to come up to the cell at the end of the block, which was spacious. They was all there. Invisible, though.

I fergot to say I'd made myself invisible too, after I'd snuck in, seen Mr. Armbruster was still asleep, and noticed the excitement.

"Grandpaw told me what was happening," Maw said. "I figgered we'd better stay out'n the way for a while. Raining hard, ain't it?"

"Shore is," I said. "What's everybody so excited about?"

"They cain't figger out what become of us," Maw told me. "Soon as the ruckus quiets down, we'll all go home. You fixed it, I guess."

"I done what Grandpaw said," I explained, and then there was sudden yells from down the corridor. A little old fat coon came trundling in, carrying a bundle of sticks. He come right along till he got to the bars in front of where we was. Then he sot himself down and begun arranging the sticks to make a fire. He had that dazed look in his eyes, so I knew Lemuel must of hypnotized him.

People came crowding around outside. They couldn't see us, natcherally, but they were watching that there little old coon. I watched too, on account of I never was able to figger out how Lemuel could get the critter skun. I seen them build fires before—Lemuel could make 'em do that—but I just never happened to be around when one of his coons stripped down and skun hisself. That I wanted to see.

Just before the coon got started, though, a policeman put him in a bag and took him away, so I never did know. It was light by then. I kept hearing bellers from somewheres, and once I heard a voice I knew sing out.

"Maw," I said, "that sounds like Mr. Armbruster. I better go see what they're doing to the pore little guy."

"Time we was going home," she said. "We got to dig up Grandpaw and the baby. You say the water wheel's turning?"

"Yes, Maw," I said. "There's plenty electric power now."

She reached around till she found Paw and whammed him. "Wake up," she said.

"Have a drink," Paw said.

But she roused him and said we was going home. Ain't nobody can wake up Lemuel, though. Finally Maw and Paw took Lemuel between them and flew out through the window, after I fixed the bars so they could get through. They stayed invisible, on account of there was a crowd down below. It was raining, but Maw said they warn't made of sugar nor salt, and I'd better come along or I'd get my britches tanned.

"Yes, Maw," I said, but I wasn't going to. I stayed behind. I was going to find out what they were doing to Mr. Armbruster.

They had him in that big room with the lights on. Mr. Gandy was standing by the window, looking real mean, and they had Mr. Armbruster's sleeve rolled up and was going to stick a sort of glass needle into his hide. Well! Right away I made myself get visible again.

"You better not do that," I said.

"It's the Hogben kid!" somebody yelled. "Grab him!"

They grabbed me. I let 'em. Pretty soon I was sitting in a chair with my sleeve rolled up, and Mr. Gandy was grinning at me like a wolf.

"Use the truth serum on him," he said. "No need to ask that tramp questions now."

Kind of dazed, Mr. Armbruster kept saying, "I don't know what happened to Saunk! I wouldn't tell you if I knew——"

They whammed him.

Mr. Gandy stuck his face right into mine.

"We'll get the truth about that uranium pile now," he told me. "One shot of this and you'll answer our questions. Understand?"

So they stuck the needle in my arm and squirted the stuff into me. It tickled.

Then they asked me questions. I said I didn't know nothing. Mr. Gandy said to give me another shot. They done it.

It tickled worse than ever.

Right then somebody ran into the room and started yelling.

"The dam's busted!" he bellered. "The Gandy Dam! It's flooded out half the farms in the south valley!"

Mr. Gandy rared back and squalled. "You're crazy!" he told everybody. "It's impossible! There's been no water in Big Bear River for a hundred years!"

Then they all got together and started whispering. Something about samples. And a big mob downstairs.

"You've got to calm 'em down," somebody told Mr. Gandy. "They're boiling mad. All the crops ruined——"

"I'll calm 'em down," Mr. Gandy said. "There's no proof. And only a week before election!"

He rushed out of the room and everybody ran out after him. I got up out of my chair and scratched. That stuff they pumped into me itched fearful inside my skin. I was kind of mad at Mr. Gandy.

"Quick!" Mr. Armbruster said. "Let's sneak out. Now's our chance."

We snuck out the back way. It was easy. We circled around to the front, and there was a big mob standing there in the rain. Up on the court-house steps was Mr. Gandy, mean as ever, facing a big, husky feller who was waving a chunk of rock.

"Every dam has its breaking point," Mr. Gandy said, but the big feller roared and shook the rock over his haid.

"I know good concrete from bad!" he bellered. "This stuff's all sand. That dam wouldn't hold a gallon of water backed up behind it!"

Mr. Gandy shook his haid.

"Outrageous!" he said. "I'm just as shocked as you are. Of course we gave out the contracts in all good faith. If the Ajax Construction Company used shoddy material, we'll certainly sue them."

At that point I got so tired of itching that I decided to do something about it. So I did.

The husky feller stepped back a pace and pointed his finger at Mr. Gandy. "Listen," he said. "There's a rumor around that you own the Ajax Construction Company. Do you?"

Mr. Gandy opened his mouth and closed it. He shivered a little.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I own it."

You should of heard the roar that went up from that mob.

The big feller sort of gasped.

"You admit it? Maybe you'll admit that you knew the dam was no good, too, huh? How much did you make out of the deal?"

"Eleven thousand dollars," Mr. Gandy said. "That was net, after I'd paid off the sheriff, the aldermen, and——"

But at that point the crowd sort of moved up the steps, and there wasn't no more heard from Mr. Gandy.

"Well, well," said Mr. Armbruster. "Now I've seen everything. Know what this means, Saunk? Gandy's gone crazy. He must have. But the reform administration will go in, they'll throw out all the crooks, and I will have a pleasant life in Piperville once more. Until I move south, that is. Come winter, I always move south. By a strange happenstance, I find I have a few coins in my pocket. Will you join me in a drink, Saunk?"

"No, thanks," I said. "Maw'll be wondering where I got to. Won't there be no more trouble, Mr. Armbruster?"

"Eventually," he said. "But not for quite awhile. They're carrying old Gandy into the jail, see? For his own protection, probably. I must celebrate this, Saunk. Sure you won't—Saunk! Where are you?"

But I had went invisible.

Well, that was all there was to it. I didn't itch no more, so I flew back home and helped rig up the electric current from the water wheel. After a time the flood had died down, but we got a steady flow down the crick thereafter, because of the way I'd arranged things upstream. We settled down to the sort of quiet life we Hogbens like. It's safest, for us.

Grandpaw said it was quite a flood. It reminded him of something his Grandpaw had told him. Seems like when Grandpaw's Grandpaw was alive, they had uranium piles and a lot more, and pretty soon the things got out of hand and they had a real flood. Grandpaw's Grandpaw had to move out of the country right fast. Ain't nothing been heard of the place from that day to this. I gather everybody in Atlantis got drowned daid. But they was only furriners.

Mr. Gandy went to jail. Nobody ever knew what made him confess the way he did; maybe he got an attack of conscience. I don't suppose it could of been because of me. 'Tain't likely. Still——

Remember that trick Paw showed me about making a short-circuit in space and pumping the corn likker from his blood into mine? Well, I got tired of itching where I couldn't scratch it, so I used that trick myself. That stuff they'd squirted into me was making me itch, whatever it was. I just twisted space around a mite and pumped it right into Mr. Gandy's blood, up where he was standing on them court-house steps. After that I stopped itching, but Mr. Gandy must have been itching real bad. Served him right, though.

Wonder if it could have plumb itched him into telling the truth?

“See You Later”

Published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol. 34, No. 2 (June 1949).

« ^ »

OLD YANCEY WAS just about the meanest man in the world. I never seen a feller so downright, sot-in-his ways, shortsighted, plain, ornery mean. What happened to him reminded me of what another feller told me oncet, quite a spell ago. Fergit exactly who it was — name of Louis, maybe, or could be Tamerlane — but one time he said he wished the whole world had only one haid, so’s he could chop it off.

Trouble with Yancey, he got to the point where he figgered everybody in the world was again’ him, and blamed if he warn’t right. That was a real spell of trouble, even for us Hogbens.

Oh, Yancey was a regular stinker, all right. The whole Tarbell family was bad-eyed, but Yancey made even them plumb disgusted. He lived up in a little one-room shanty back of the Tarbell place, and wouldn’t let nobody near, except to push vittles through the cut-out moon in the door.

Seems like some ten years back there was a new survey or something and the way it worked out, through some funny legal business, Yancey had to prove he’d got squatter’s rights on his land. He had to prove it by living there for a year or something. ’Bout then he had an argument with his wife and moved out to the little shack, which was across the property line, and said he was a-gonna let the land go right back to the government, for all he cared, and that’d show the whole family. He knew his wife sot store by her turnip patch and was afraid the government would take it away.

The way it turned out, nobody wanted the land anyhow. It was all up and down and had too many rocks in it, but Yancey’s wife kept on worriting and begging Yancey to come back, which he was just too mean to do.

Yancey Tarbell couldn’t have been oncommon comfortable up in that little shack, but he was short-sighted as he was mean. After a spell Mrs. Tarbell died of being hit on the haid with a stone she was throwing up the slope at the shack, and it bounced back at her. So that left only the eight Tarbell boys and Yancey. He stayed right where he was, though.

He might have stayed there till he shriveled up and went to glory, except the Tarbells started feuding with us. We stood it as long as we could, on account of they couldn’t hurt us. Uncle Les, who was visiting us, got skittery, though, and said he was tired of flying up like a quail, two or three miles in the air, every time a gun went off behind a bush. The holes in his hide closed up easy enough, but he said it made him dizzy, on account of the air being thinned out that high up.

This went on for a while, leastwise, and nobody got hurt, which seemed to rile the eight Tarbell boys. So one night they all come over in a bunch with their shooting irons and busted their way in. We didn’t want no trouble.

Uncle Lem — who’s Uncle Les’s twin except they was born quite a spell apart — he was asleep for the whiter, off in a holler tree somewheres, so he was out of it. But the baby, bless his heart, is gitting kind of awkward to shift around, being as how he’s four hunnerd years old and big for his age — ’bout three hunnerd pounds, I guess.

We could of all hid out or gone down to Piperville in the valley for a mite, but then there was Grandpaw in the attic, and I’d got sort of fond of the little Perfesser feller we keep in a bottle. Didn’t want to leave him on account of the bottle might of got smashed in the ruckus, if the eight Tarbell boys was likkered up enough.

The Perfesser’s cute — even though he never did have much sense. Used to say we was mutants, whatever they are, and kept shooting off his mouth about some people he knowed called chromosomes. Seems like they got mixed up with what the Perfesser called hard radiations and had some young ’uns which was either dominant mutations or Hogbens, but I allus got it mixed up with the Roundhead plot, back when we was living in the old country. ’Course I don’t mean the real old country. That got sunk.

So, seeing as how Grandpaw told us to lay low, we waited till the eight Tarbell boys busted down the door, and then we all went invisible, including the baby. Then we waited for the thing to blow over, only it didn’t.

After stomping around and ripping up things a lot, the eight Tarbell boys come down in the cellar. Now, that was kind of bad, because we was caught by surprise. The baby had gone invisible, like I say, and so had the tank we keep him in, but the tank couldn’t move around fast like we could.

One of the eight Tarbell boys went and banged into it and hit hisself a smart crack on the shank bone. How he cussed! It was shameful for a growing boy to hear, except Grandpaw kin outcuss anybody I ever heard, so I didn’t larn nothing.

Well — he cussed a lot, jumped around, and all of a sudden his squirrel rifle went off. Must have had a hair trigger. That woke up the baby, who got scared and let out a yell. It was the blamedest yell I’d ever heard out of the baby yet, and I’ve seen men go all white and shaky when he bellers. Our Perfesser feller told us oncet the baby emitted a subsonic. Imagine!

Anyhow, seven of the eight Tarbell boys dropped daid, all in a heap, without even time to squeal. The eighth one was up at the haid of the cellar steps, and he got all quivery and turned around and ran. I guess he was so dizzy he didn’t know where he was heading. ’Fore he knowed it, he was up in the attic, where he stepped right square on Grandpaw.

Now, the fool thing was this: Grandpaw was so busy telling us what to do he’d entirely fergot to go invisible hisself. And I guess one look at Grandpaw just plumb finished the eighth Tarbell boy. He fell right down, daid as a skun coon. Cain’t imagine why, though I got to admit Grandpaw wasn’t looking his best that week. He’d been sick.

“You all right, Grandpaw?” I asked, sort of shaking him out. He cussed me.

“ ’Twarn’t my fault,” I told him.

“ ’Sblood!” he said, mad-like. “What rabble of canting jolt-heads have I sired? Put me down, you young scoundrel.” So I put him back on the gunny sack and he turned around a couple of times and shut his eyes. After that, he said he was going to take a nap and not to wake him up for nothing, bar Judgment Day. He meant it, too.

So we had to figger out for ourselves what was best to do. Maw said it warn’t our fault, and all we could do was pile the eight Tarbell boys in a wheelbarrow and take ’em back home, which I done. Only I got to feeling kind of shy on the way, on account of I couldn’t figger out no real polite way to mention what had happened. Besides, Maw had told me to break the news gentle. “Even a polecat’s got feelings,” she said.

So I left the wheelbarrow with the eight Tarbell boys in it behind some scrub brush, and I went on up the slope to where I could see Yancey sitting, airing hisself out in the sun and reading a book. I still hadn’t studied out what to say. I just traipsed along slow-like, whistling “Yankee Doodle.” Yancey didn’t pay me no mind for a while.

He’s a little, mean, dirty man with chin whiskers. Couldn’t be much more’n five feet high. There was tobacco juice on his whiskers, but I might have done old Yancey wrong in figgering he was only sloppy. I heard he used to spit in his beard to draw flies, so’s he could ketch ’em and pull off their wings.

Without looking, he picked up a stone, and flang it past my head. “Shet up an’ go way,” he said.

“Just as you say, Mr. Yancey,” I told him, mighty relieved, and started to. But then I remembered Maw would probably whup me if I didn’t mind her orders, so I sort of moved around quiet till I was in back of Yancey and looking over his shoulder at what he was reading. It looked like a book. Then I moved around a mite more till I was upwind of him.

He started cackling in his whiskers.

“That’s a real purty picture, Mr. Yancey,” I said.

He was giggling so hard it must of cheered him up.

“Ain’t it, though!” he said, banging his fist on his skinny old rump. “My, my! Makes me feel full o’ ginger just to look at it.”

It wasn’t a book, though. It was a magazine, the kind they sell down at the village, and it was opened at a picture. The feller that made it could draw real good. Not so good as an artist I knowed once, over in England. He went by the name of Crookshank or Crookback or something like that, unless I’m mistook.

Anyway, this here that Yancey was looking at was quite a picture. It showed a lot of fellers, all exactly alike, coming out of a big machine which I could tell right off wouldn’t work. But all these fellers was as like as peas in a pod. Then there was a red critter with bugged-out eyes grabbing a girl, I dunno why. It was sure purty.

“Wisht something like that could really happen,” Yancey said.

“It ain’t so hard,” I told him. “Only that gadget’s all wrong. All you need is a washbasin and some old scrap iron.”

“Hey?”

“That thing there,” I said. “The jigger that looks like it’s making one feller into a whole lot of fellers. It ain’t built right.”

“I s’pose you could do it better?” he snapped, sort of mad.

“We did, once,” I said. “I forget what Paw had on his mind, but he owed a man name of Cadmus a little favor. Cadmus wanted a lot of fighting men in a real hurry, so Paw fixed it so’s Cadmus could split hisself up into a passel of soldiers. Shucks. I could do it myself.”

“What are you blabbering about?” Yancey asked. “You ain’t looking at the right thing. This here red critter’s what I mean. See what he’s a-gonna do? Gonna chaw that there purty gal’s haid off, looks like. See the tusks on him? Heh, heh, heh. I wisht I was a critter like that. I’d chaw up plenty of people.”

“You wouldn’t chaw up your own kin, though, I bet,” I said, seeing a way to break the news gentle.

“ ’Tain’t right to bet,” he told me. “Allus pay your debts, fear no man, and don’t lay no wagers. Gambling’s a sin. I never made no bets and I allus paid my debts.” He stopped, scratched his whiskers, and sort of sighed. “All except one,” he added, frowning.

“What was that?”

“Oh, I owed a feller something. Only I never could locate him afterward. Must be nigh on thutty years ago. Seems like I got likkered up and got on a train. Guess I robbed somebody, too, ’cause I had a roll big enough to choke a hoss. Never tried that, come to think of it. You keep hosses?”

“No, sir,” I said. “We was talking about your kin.”

“Shet up,” old Yancey said. “Well, now, I had myself quite a time.” He licked his whiskers. “Ever heard tell of a place called New York? In some furrin country, I guess. Can’t understand a word nobody says. Anyway, that’s where I met up with this feller. I often wisht I could find him again. An honest man like me hates to think of dying without paying his lawful debts.”

“Did your eight boys owe any debts?” I asked.

He squinted at me, slapped his skinny leg, and nodded.

“Now I know,” he said. “Ain’t you the Hogben boy?”

“That’s me. Saunk Hogben.”

“I heard tell ’bout you Hogbens. All witches, ain’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“I heard what I heard. Whole neighborhood’s buzzing. Hexers, that’s what. You get outa here, go on, git!”

“I’m a-going,” I said. “I just come by to say it’s real unfortunate you couldn’t chaw up your own kin if’n you was a critter like in that there picture.”

“Ain’t nobody big enough to stop me!”

“Maybe not,” I said, “but they’ve all gone to glory.”

When he heard this, old Yancey started to cackle. Finally, when he got his breath back, he said, “Not them! Them varmints have gone plumb smack to perdition, right where they belong. How’d it happen?”

“It was sort of an accident,” I said. “The baby done kilt seven of them and Grandpaw kilt the other, in a way of speaking. No harm intended.”

“No harm done,” Yancey said, cackling again.

“Maw sent her apologies, and what do you want done with the remains? I got to take the wheelbarrow back home.”

“Take ’em away. I don’t want ’em. Good riddance to bad rubbish,” old Yancey said, so I said all right and started off. But then he yelled out and told me he’d changed his mind. Told me to dump ’em where they was. From what I could make out, which wasn’t much because he was laughing so hard, he wanted to come down and kick ’em.

So I done like he said and then went back home and told Maw, over a mess of catfish and beans and pot-likker. She made some hush puppies, too. They was good. I sat back, figgering I’d earned a rest, and thunk a mite, feeling warm and nice around the middle. I was trying to figger what a bean would feel like, down in my tummy. But it didn’t seem to have no feelings.

It couldn’t of been more than a half hour later when the pig yelled outside like he was getting kicked, and then somebody knocked on the door. It was Yancey. Minute he come in, he pulled a bandanna out of his britches and started sniffling. I looked at Maw, wide-eyed. I couldn’t tell her nothing.

Paw and Uncle Les was drinking corn in a corner, and giggling a mite. I could tell they was feeling good because of the way the table kept rocking, the one between them. It wasn’t touching neither one, but it kept jiggling, trying to step fust on Paw’s toes and then on Uncle Les’s. They was doing it inside their haids, trying to ketch the other one off guard.

It was up to Maw, and she invited old Yancey to set down a spell and have some beans. He just sobbed.

“Something wrong, neighbor?” Maw asked, polite.

“It sure is,” Yancey said, sniffling. “I’m a real old man.”

“You surely are,” Maw told him. “Mebbe not as old as Saunk here, but you look awful old.”

“Hey?” Yancey said, staring at her. “Saunk? Saunk ain’t more’n seventeen, big as he is.”

Maw near looked embarrassed. “Did I say Saunk?” she covered up, quick-like. “I meant this Saunk’s grand-paw. His name’s Saunk too.” It wasn’t; even Grandpaw don’t remember what his name was first, it’s been so long. But in his time he’s used a lot of names like Elijah and so forth. I ain’t even sure they had names in Atlantis, where Grandpaw come from in the first place. Numbers or something. It don’t signify, anyhow.

Well, seems like old Yancey kept snuffling and groaning and moaning, and made out like we’d kilt his eight boys and he was all alone in the world. He hadn’t cared a mite half an hour ago, though, and I said so. But he pointed out he hadn’t rightly understood what I was talking about then, and for me to shet up.

“Ought to had a bigger family,” he said. “They used to be two more boys, Zeb and Robbie, but I shot ’em one time. Didn’t like the way they was looking ory-eyed at me. The point is, you Hogbens ain’t got no right to kill my boys.”

“We didn’t go for to do it,” Maw said. “It was more or less an accident. We’d be right happy to make it up to you, one way or another.”

“That’s what I was counting on,” old Yancey said. “It seems like the least you could do, after acting up like you done. It don’t matter whether the baby kilt my boys, like Saunk says and he’s a liar. The idea is that I figger all you Hogbens are responsible. But I guess we could call it square if’n you did me a little favor. It ain’t really right for neighbors to hold bad feelings.”

“Any favor you name,” Maw said, “if it ain’t out of line.”

“ ’Tain’t much,” old Yancey said. “I just want you to split me up into a rabble, sort of temporary.”

“Hey, you been listening to Medea?” Paw said, being drunk enough not to know no better. “Don’t you believe her. That was purely a prank she played on Pelias. After he got chopped up he stayed daid; he didn’t git young like she said he would.”

“Hey?” Yancey said. He pulled that old magazine out of his pocket and it fell open right to that purty picture. “This here,” he said. “Saunk tells me you kin do it. And everybody round here knows you Hogbens are witches. Saunk said you done it once with a feller named of Messy.”

“Guess he means Cadmus,” I said.

Yancey waved the magazine. I saw he had a queer kind of gleam in his eye.

“It shows right here,” he said, wild-like. “A feller steps inside this here gimmick and then he keeps coming out of it, dozens of him, over and over. Witchcraft. Well, I know about you Hogbens. You may fool the city folk, but you don’t fool me none. You’re all witches.”

“We ain’t,” Paw said from the corner. “Not no more.”

“You are so,” Yancey said. “I heard stories. I even seen him” — he pointed right at Uncle Les — “I seen him flying around in the air. And if that ain’t witchcraft I don’t know what is.”

“Don’t you, honest?” I asked. “That’s easy. It’s when you get some—”

But Maw told me to shet up.

“Saunk told me you kin do it,” he said. “An’ I been sitting and studying and looking over this here magazine. I got me a fine idea. Now, it stands to reason, everybody knows a witch kin be in two places at the same time. Couldn’t a witch mebbe git to be in three places at the same time?”

“Three’s as good as two,” Maw said. “Only there ain’t no witches. It’s like this here science you hear tell about. People make it up out of their haids. It ain’t natcheral.”

“Well, then,” Yancey said, putting the magazine down. “Two or three or a whole passel. How many people are there in the world, anyway?”

“Two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and nineteen,” I said.

“Then—”

“Hold on a minute,” I said. “Now it’s two billion, two hunnerd fifty million, nine hunnerd and fifty-nine thousand, nine hunnerd and twenty. Cute little tyke, too.”

“Boy or girl?” Maw asked.

“Boy,” I told her.

“Then why can’t you make me be in two billion whatever it was places at the same time? Mebbe for just a half a minute or so. I ain’t greedy. That’d be long enough, anyhow.”

“Long enough for what?” Maw asked.

Yancey give me a sly look. “I got me a problem,” he said. “I want to find a feller. Trouble is, I dunno if I kin find him now. It’s been a awful long time. But I got to, somehow or other. I ain’t a-gonna rest easy in my grave unless I done paid all my debts, and for thutty years I been owing this feller something. It lays heavy on my conscience.”

“That’s right honorable of you, neighbor,” Maw said.

Yancey snuffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“It’s a-gonna be a hard job,” he said. “I put it off mebbe a mite too long. The thing is, I was figgering on sending my eight boys out to look for this feller sometime, so you kin see why it’s busted me all up, the way them no-good varmints up and got kilt without no warning. How am I gonna find that feller I want now?”

Maw looked troubled and passed Yancey the jug.

“Whoosh!” he said, after a snort. “Tastes like real hell-fire for certain. Whoosh!” Then he took another swig, sucked in some air, and scowled at Maw.

“If’n a man plans on sawing down a tree and his neighbor busts the saw, seems to me that neighbor ought to lend his own saw. Ain’t that right?”

“Sure is,” Maw said. “Only we ain’t got eight boys to lend you.”

“You got something better,” Yancey said. “Black, wicked magic, that’s what. I ain’t saying yea or nay ’bout that. It’s your own affair. But seeing as how you kilt off them wuthless young ’uns of mine, so’s I can’t do like I was intending — why, then it looks like you ought to be willing to help me in some other way. Long as I kin locate that feller and pay him what I owe him, I’m satisfied. Now, ain’t it the gospel truth that you kin spilt me up into a passel of me-critters?”

“Why, I guess we kin do that, I s’pose,” Maw said.

“An’ ain’t it gospel that you kin fix it so’s every dang one of them me-critters will travel real fast and see everybody in the whole, entire world?”

“That’s easy,” I said.

“If’n I kin git to do that,” Yancey said, “it’d be easy for me to spot that feller and give him what he’s got coming to him.” He snuffled. “I allus been honest. I’m skeered of dying unless I pay all my debts fust. Danged if’n I want to burn through all eternity like you sinful Hogbens are a-gonna.”

“Shucks,” Maw said, “I guess we kin help out, neighbor, being as how you feel so het up about it. Yes, sir, we’ll do like you want.”

Yancey brightened up considerable.

“Promise?” he asked. “Swear it, on your word an’ honor?”

Maw looked kind of funny, but Yancey pulled out his bandanna again, so she busted down and made her solemn promise. Right away Yancey cheered up.

“How long will the spell take?” he asked.

“There ain’t no spell,” I said. “Like I told you, all I need is some scrap iron and a washbasin. ’Twon’t take long.”

“I’ll be back real soon,” Yancey said, sort of cackling, and run out, laughing his haid off. Going through the yard, he kicked out at a chicken, missed, and laughed some more. Guess he was feeling purty good.

“You better go on and make that gadget so’s it’ll be ready,” Maw told me. “Git going.”

“Yes, Maw,” I said, but I sat there for a second or two, studying. She picked up the broomstick.

“You know, Maw—”

“Well?”

“Nothing,” I said, and dodged the broomstick. I went on out, trying to git clear what was troubling me. Something was, only I couldn’t tell what. I felt kind of unwilling to make that there gadget, which didn’t make right good sense, since there didn’t seem to be nothing really wrong.

I went out behind the woodshed, though, and got busy. Took me ’bout ten minutes, but I didn’t hurry much. Then I come back to the house with the gadget and said I was done. Paw told me to shet up.

Well, I sat there and looked at the gimmick and still felt trouble on my mind. Had to do with Yancey, somehow or other. Finally I noticed he’d left his old magazine behind, so I picked it up and started reading the story right under that picture, trying to make sense out of it. Durned if I could.

It was all about some crazy hillbillies who could fly. Well, that ain’t no trick but what I couldn’t figger out was whether the feller that writ it was trying to be funny or not. Seems to me people are funny enough anyhow, without trying to make ’em funnier.

Besides, serious things ought to be treated serious, and from what our Perfesser feller told me once, there’s an awful lot of people what really believe in science and take it tremendous serious. He allus got a holy light in his eye when he talked about it. The only good thing about that story, it didn’t have no girls in it. Girls make me feel funny.

I didn’t seem to be gitting nowheres, so I went down to the cellar and played with the baby. He’s kind of big for his tank these days. He was glad to see me. Winked all four of his eyes at me, one after the other. Real cute.

But all the time there was something about that magazine that kept nagging at me. I felt itchy inside, like when before they had that big fire in London, some while ago. Quite a spell of sickness they had then, too.

It reminded me of something Grandpaw had told me once, that he’d got the same sort of skitters just before Atlantis foundered. ’Course, Grandpaw kin sort of look into the future — which ain’t much good, really, on account of it keeps changing around. I cain’t do that myself yet. I ain’t growed up enough. But I had a kind of hunch that something real bad was around, only it hadn’t happened quite yet.

I almost decided to wake up Grandpaw, I felt so troubled. But around then I heard tromping upstairs, so I clomb up to the kitchen, and there was Yancey, swigging down some corn Maw’d give him. Minute I looked at the old coot, I got that feeling agin.

Yancey said, “Whoosh,” put down the jug, and wanted to know if we was ready. So I pointed at the gadget I’d fixed up and said that was it, all right, and what did he think about it?

“That little thing?” Yancey asked. “Ain’t you a-gonna call up Old Scratch?”

“Ain’t no need,” Uncle Les said. “Not with you here, you little water moccasin, you.”

Yancey looked right pleased. “That’s me,” he said. “Mean as a moccasin, and fulla pizen. How does it work?”

“Well,” I said, “it sort of splits you up into a lot of Yanceys, is all.”

Paw had been setting quiet, but he must of tuned in inside the haid of some perfesser somewheres, on account of he started talking foolish. He don’t know any four-bit words hisself.

I wouldn’t care to know ’em myself, being as how they only mix up what’s simple as cleaning a trout.

“Each human organism,” Paw said, showing off like crazy, “is an electromagnetic machine, emitting a pattern of radiations, both from brain and body. By reversing polarity, each unit of you, Yancey, will be automatically attracted to each already existent human unit, since un-likes attract. But first you will step on Saunk’s device and your body will be broken down—”

“Hey!” Yancey yelped.

Paw went right on, proud as a peacock.

“—into a basic electronic matrix, which can then be duplicated to the point of infinity, just as a type face may print millions of identical copies of itself in reverse — negative instead of positive.

“Since space is no factor where electronic wave-patterns are concerned, each copy will be instantly attracted to the space occupied by every other person in the world,” Paw was going on, till I like to bust. “But since two objects cannot occupy the same space-time, there will be an automatic spacial displacement, and each Yancey-copy will be repelled to approximately two feet away from each human being.”

“You forgot to draw a pentagram,” Yancey said, looking around nervous-like. “That’s the awfullest durn spell I ever heard in all my born days. I thought you said you wasn’t gonna call up Old Scratch?”

Maybe it was on account of Yancey was looking oncommon like Old Scratch hisself just then, but I just couldn’t stand it no longer — having this funny feeling inside me. So I woke up Grandpaw. I did it inside my haid, the baby helping, so’s nobody noticed. Right away there was a stirring in the attic, and Grandpaw heaved hisself around a little and woke up. Next thing I knew he was cussing a blue streak.

Well, the whole family heard that, even though Yancey couldn’t. Paw stopped showing off and shet up.

“Dullards!” Grandpaw said, real mad. “Rapscallions! Certes, y-wist it was no wonder I was having bad dreams. Saunk, you’ve put your foot in it now. Have you no sense of process? Didn’t you realize what this caitiff schmo was planning, the stinkard? Get in the groove, Saunk, ere manhood’s state shall find thee unprepared.” Then he added something in Sanskrit. Living as long as Grandpaw has, he gits mixed up in his talk sometimes.

“Now, Grandpaw,” Maw thunk, “what’s Saunk been and done?”

“You’ve all done it!” Grandpaw yelled. “Couldn’t you add cause and effect? Saunk, what of the picture y-wrought in Yancey’s pulp mag? Wherefore hys sodien change of herte, when obviously the stinkard hath no more honor than a lounge lizard? Do you want the world depopulated before its time? Ask Yancey what he’s got in his britches pocket, dang you!”

“Mr. Yancey,” I said, “what have you got in your britches pocket?”

“Hey?” he said, reaching down and hauling out a big, rusty monkey wrench. “You mean this? I picked it up back of the shed.” He was looking real sly.

“What you aiming to do with that?” Maw asked, quick.

Yancey give us all a mean look. “Ain’t no harm telling you,” he said. “I aim to hit everybody, every durn soul in the whole, entire world, right smack on top of the haid, and you promised to help me do it.”

“Lawks a-mercy,” Maw said.

“Yes, siree,” Yancey giggled. “When you hex me, I’m a-gonna be in every place everybody else is, standing right behind ’em. I’ll whang ’em good. Thataway, I kin be sure I’ll git even. One of them people is just bound to be the feller I want, and he’ll git what I been owing him for thutty years.”

“What feller?” I said. “You mean the one you met up with in New York you was telling me about? I figgered you just owed him some money.”

“Never said no sech thing,” Yancey snapped. “A debt’s a debt, be it money or a bust in the haid. Ain’t nobody a-gonna step on my corn and git away with it, thutty years or no thutty years.”

“He stepped on your corn?” Paw asked. “That’s all he done?”

“Yup. I was likkered up at the time, but I recollect I went down some stairs to where a lot of trains was rushing around under the ground.”

“You was drunk.”

“I sure was,” Yancey said. “Couldn’t be no sech thing — trains running underground! But I sure as shooting wasn’t dreaming ’bout the feller what stepped on my corn. Why, I kin still feel it. I got mad. It was so crowded I couldn’t even move for a mite, and I never even got a good look at the feller what stepped on me.

“By the time I hit out with my stick, he must of got away. Never knew what he looked like. Might have been a female, but that don’t signify. I just ain’t a-gonna die till I pay my debts and git even with everybody what ever done me dirt. I allus got even with every dang soul what done me wrong, and most everybody I ever met did.”

Riled up a whole lot was Yancey Tarbell. He went right on from there:

“So I figgered, since I never found out just who this feller was what stepped on my corn, I better make downright sure and take a lick at everybody, man, woman, and child.”

“Now you hold your hosses,” I said. “Ain’t no children could have been alive thutty years ago, an’ you know it.”

“Makes no difference,” Yancey snapped. “I was a-thinking, and I got an awful idea: suppose that feller went and died. Thutty years is a long time. But then I figgered, even if he did up and die, chances are he got married and had kids fust. If’n I can’t git even with him, I kin get even with his children. The sins of the father — that’s Scripture. If’n I hit everybody in the world, I can’t go fur wrong.”

“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

^ »

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.

“I never seen such a do-lass brat,” Uncle Lem said, stepping forward and bending a wire crosswise. “You better do it thataway, on account of the thunderstorm next Tuesday. All right now, shoot her off.”

So I shot her off. When she come back, sure enough, the cream was sour enough to walk a mouse. Crawling up the can there was a hornet from next week, which I squashed. Now that was a mistake. I knowed it the minute I touched the jug. Dang Uncle Lem, anyhow.

He jumped back into the underbrush, squealing real happy.

“Fooled you that time, you young stinker,” he yelled back. “Let’s see you get your thumb outa the middle of next week!”

It was the time-lag done it. I mighta knowed. When he crossed that wire he didn’t have no thunderstorm in mind at all. Took me nigh onto ten minutes to work myself loose, account of some feller called Inertia, who mixes in if you ain’t careful when you fiddle around with time. I don’t understand much about it myself. I ain’t got my growth yet. Uncle Lem says he’s already forgot more’n I’ll ever know.

With that head start I almost lost him. Didn’t even have time to change into my store-bought clothes and I knowed by the way he was all dressed up fit to kill he was headed for somewheres fancy.

He was worried, too. I kept running into little stray worrisome thoughts he’d left behind him, hanging like teeny little mites of clouds on the bushes. Couldn’t make out much on account of they was shredding away by the time I got there but he’d shore done something he shouldn’t. That much anybody coulda told. They went something like this:

“Worry, worry — wish I hadn’t done it — oh, heaven help me if Grandpaw ever finds out — oh, them nasty Pughs, how could I a-been such a fool? Worry, worry — pore ole feller, such a good soul, too, never done nobody no harm and look at me now.

“That Saunk, too big for his britches, teach him a thing or two, ha-ha. Oh, worry, worry — never mind, brace up, you good ole boy, everything’s bound to turn out right in the end. You deserve the best, bless you, Lemuel. Grandpaw’ll never find out.”

Well, I seen his checkered britches high-tailing through the woods after a bit, but I didn’t catch up to him until he was down the hill, across the picnic grounds at the edge of town and pounding on the sill of the ticket-window at the railroad station with a Spanish dubloon he snitched from Paw’s seachest.

It didn’t surprise me none to hear him asking for a ticket to State Center. I let him think I hadn’t caught up. He argued something turrible with the man behind the window but finally he dug down in his britches and fetched up a silver dollar, and the man calmed down.

The train was already puffing up smoke behind the station when Uncle Lem darted around the corner. Didn’t leave me much time but I made it too — just. I had to fly a little over the last half-dozen yards but I don’t think anybody noticed.

Once when I was just a little shaver there was a Great Plague in London, where we were living at the time, and all us Hogbens had to clear out. I remember the hullabaloo in the city but looking back now it don’t seem a patch on the hullabaloo in State Center station when the train pulled in. Times have changed, I guess.

Whistles blowing, horns honking, radios yelling bloody murder — seems like every invention in the last two hundred years had been noisier than the one before it. Made my head ache until I fixed up something Paw once called a raised decibel threshold, which was pure showing-off.

Uncle Lem didn’t know I was anywhere around. I took care to think real quiet but he was so wrapped up in his worries he wasn’t paying no mind to nothing. I followed him through the crowds in the station and out onto a wide street full of traffic. It was a relief to get away from the trains.

I always hate to think what’s going on inside the boiler, with all the little bitty critters so small you can’t hardly see ’em, pore things, flying around all hot and excited and bashing their heads together. It seems plumb pitiable.

Of course, it just don’t do to think what’s happening inside the automobiles that go by.

Uncle Lem knowed right where he was headed. He took off down the street so fast I had to keep reminding myself not to fly, trying to keep up. I kept thinking I ought to get in touch with the folks at home, in case this turned into something I couldn’t handle, but I was plumb stopped everywhere I turned. Maw was at the church social that afternoon and she whopped me the last time I spoke to her outa thin air right in front of the Reverend Jones. He ain’t used to us Hogbens yet.

Paw was daid drunk. No good trying to wake him up. And I was scared to death I would wake the baby if I tried to call on Grandpaw.

Uncle Lem scuttled right along, his checkered legs a-twinkling. He was worrying at the top of his mind, too. He’d caught sight of a crowd in a side-street gathered around a big truck, looking up at a man standing on it and waving bottles in both hands.

He seemed to be making a speech about headaches. I could hear him all the way to the corner. There was big banners tacked along the sides of the truck that said, PUGH HEADACHE CURE.

“Oh, worry, worry!” Uncle Lem thunk. “Oh, bless my toes, what am I going to do? I never dreamed anybody’d marry Lily Lou Mutz. Oh, worry!”

Well, I reckon we’d all been surprised when Lily Lou Mutz up and got herself a husband awhile back — around ten years ago, I figgered. But what it had to do with Uncle Lem I couldn’t think. Lily Lou was just about the ugliest female that ever walked. Ugly ain’t no word for her, pore gal.

Grandpaw said once she put him in mind of a family name of Gorgon he used to know. Not that she wasn’t a goodhearted critter. Being so ugly, she put up with a lot in the way of rough acting-up from the folks in the village — the riff-raff lot, I mean.

She lived by herself in a little shack up the mountain and she musta been close onto forty when some feller from the other side of the river come along one day and rocked the whole valley back on its heels by asking her to marry up with him. Never saw the feller myself but I heard tell he wasn’t no beauty-prize winner neither.

Come to think of it, I told myself right then, looking at the truck — come to think of it, feller’s name was Pugh.

Chapter 2

A Fine Old Feller

« ^ »

NEXT THING I knowed, Uncle Lem had spotted somebody under a lamp-post on the sidewalk, at the edge of the crowd. He trotted over. It seemed to be a big gorilla and a little gorilla, standing there watching the feller on the truck selling bottles with both hands.

“Come and get it,” he was yelling. “Come and get your bottle of Pugh’s Old Reliable Headache Cure while they last!”

“Well, Pugh, here I am,” Uncle Lem said, looking up at the big gorilla. “Hello, Junior,” he said right afterward, glancing down at the little gorilla. I seen him shudder a little.

You shore couldn’t blame him for that. Two nastier specimens of the human race I never did see in all my born days. If they hadn’t been quite so pasty-faced or just the least mite slimmer, maybe they wouldn’t have put me so much in mind of two well-fed slugs, one growed-up and one baby-sized. The paw was all dressed up in a Sunday-meeting suit with a big gold watch-chain across his front and the way he strutted you’d a thought he’d never had a good look in a mirror.

“Howdy, Lem,” he said, casual-like. “Right on time, I see. Junior, say howdy to Mister Lem Hogben. You owe Mister Hogben a lot, sonny.” And he laughed a mighty nasty laugh.

Junior paid him no mind. He had his beady little eyes fixed on the crowd across the street. He looked about seven years old and mean as they come.

“Shall I do it now, paw?” he asked in a squeaky voice. “Can I let ’em have it now, paw? Huh, paw?” From the tone he used, I looked to see if he’d got a machine-gun handy. I didn’t see none but if looks was ever mean enough to kill Junior Pugh could of mowed the crowd right down.

“Manly little feller, ain’t he, Lem?” Paw Pugh said, real smug. “I tell you, I’m mighty proud of this youngster. Wish his dear grandpaw coulda lived to see him. A fine old family line, the Pughs is. Nothing like it anywhere. Only trouble is, Junior’s the last of his race. You see why I got in touch with you, Lem.”

Uncle Lem shuddered again. “Yep,” he said. “I see, all right. But you’re wasting your breath, Pugh. I ain’t a-gonna do it.”

Young Pugh spun around in his tracks.

“Shall I let him have it, paw?” he squeaked, real eager. “Shall I, paw? Now, paw? Huh?”

“Shaddup, sonny,” the big feller said and he whammed the little feller across the side of the haid. Pugh’s hands was like hams. He shore was built like a gorilla.

The way his great big arms swung down from them big hunched shoulders, you’d of thought the kid would go flying across the street when his paw whopped him one. But he was a burly little feller. He just staggered a mite and then shook his haid and went red in the face.

He yelled out, loud and squeaky, “Paw, I warned you! The last time you whammed me I warned you! Now I’m gonna let you have it!”

He drew a deep breath and his two little teeny eyes got so bright I coulda sworn they was gonna touch each other across the middle of his nose. His pasty face got bright red.

“Okay, Junior,” Paw Pugh said, real hasty. “The crowd’s ready for you. Don’t waste your strength on me, sonny. Let the crowd have it!”

Now all this time I was standing at the edge of the crowd, listening and watching Uncle Lem. But just then somebody jiggled my arm and a thin kinda voice said to me, real polite, “Excuse me, but may I ask a question?”

I looked down. It was a skinny man with a kind-hearted face. He had a notebook in his hand.

“It’s all right with me,” I told him, polite. “Ask away, mister.”

“I just wondered how you feel, that’s all,” the skinny man said, holding his pencil over the notebook ready to write down something.

“Why, peart,” I said. “Bight kind of you to inquire. Hope you’re feeling well too, mister.”

He shook his head, kind of dazed. “That’s the trouble,” he said. “I just don’t understand it. I feel fine.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Fine day.”

“Everybody here feels fine,” he went right on, just like I hadn’t spoke. “Barring normal odds, everybody’s in average good health in this crowd. But in about five minutes or less, as I figure it—” He looked at his wristwatch.

Just then somebody hit me right on top of the haid with a red-hot sledge-hammer.

Now you shore can’t hurt a Hogben by hitting him on the bald. Anybody’s a fool to try. I felt my knees buckle a little but I was all right in a couple of seconds and I looked around to see who’d whammed me.

Wasn’t a soul there. But oh my, the moaning and groaning that was going up from that there crowd! People was a-clutching at their foreheads and a-staggering around the street, clawing at each other to get to that truck where the man was handing out the bottles of headache cure as fast as he could take in the dollar bills.

The skinny man with the kind face rolled up his eyes like a duck in thunder.

“Oh, my head!” he groaned. “What did I tell you? Oh, my head!” Then he sort of tottered away, fishing in his pocket for money.

Well, the family always did say I was slow-witted but you’d have to be downright feeble-minded if you didn’t know there was something mighty peculiar going on around here. I’m no ninny, no matter what Maw says. I turned around and looked for Junior Pugh.

There he stood, the fat-faced little varmint, red as a turkey-gobbler, all swole up and his mean little eyes just a-flashing at the crowd.

“It’s a hex,” I thought to myself, perfectly calm. “I’d never have believed it but it’s a real hex. Now how in the world—”

Then I remembered Lily Lou Mutz and what Uncle Lem had been thinking to himself. And I began to see the light.

The crowd had gone plumb crazy, fighting to get at the headache cure. I purty near had to bash my way over toward Uncle Lem. I figgered it was past time I took a hand, on account of him being so soft in the heart and likewise just about as soft in the haid.

“Nosirree,” he was saying, firm-like. “I won’t do it. Not by no manner of means I won’t.”

“Uncle Lem,” I said.

I bet he jumped a yard into the air.

“Saunk!” he squeaked. He flushed up and grinned sheepish and then he looked mad, but I could tell he was kinda relieved, too. “I told you not to foller me,” he said.

“Maw told me not to let you out of my sight,” I said. “I promised Maw and us Hogbens never break a promise. What’s going on here, Uncle Lem?”

“Oh, Saunk, everything’s gone dead wrong!” Uncle Lem wailed out. “Here I am with a heart of gold and I’d just as soon be dead! Meet Mister Ed Pugh, Saunk. He’s trying to get me kilt.”

“Now Lem,” Ed Pugh said. “You know that ain’t so. I just want my rights, that’s all. Pleased to meet you, young fellow. Another Hogben, I take it. Maybe you can talk your uncle into—”

“Excuse me for interrupting, Mister Pugh,” I said, real polite. “But maybe you’d better explain. All this is purely a mystery to me.”

He cleared his throat and threw his chest out, important-like. I could tell this was something he liked to talk about. Made him feel pretty big, I could see.

“I don’t know if you was acquainted with my dear departed wife, Lily Lou Mutz that was,” he said. “This here’s our little child, Junior. A fine little lad he is too. What a pity we didn’t have eight or ten more just like him.” He sighed real deep.

“Well, that’s life. I’d hoped to marry young and be blessed with a whole passel of younguns, being as how I’m the last of a fine old line. I don’t mean to let it die out, neither.” Here he gave Uncle Lem a mean look. Uncle Lem sorta whimpered.

“I ain’t a-gonna do it,” he said. “You can’t make me do it.”

“We’ll see about that,” Ed Pugh said, threatening. “Maybe your young relative here will be more reasonable. I’ll have you know I’m getting to be a power in this state and what I says goes.”

“Paw,” little Junior squeaked out just then, “Paw, they’re kinda slowing down. Kin I give it to ’em double-strength this time, Paw? Betcha I could kill a few if I let myself go. Hey, Paw—”

Ed Pugh made as if he was gonna clonk the little varmint again, but I guess he thought better of it.

“Don’t interrupt your elders, sonny,” he said. “Paw’s busy. Just tend to your job and shut up.” He glanced out over the moaning crowd. “Give that bunch over beyond the truck a little more treatment,” he said. “They ain’t buying fast enough. But no double-strength, Junior. You gotta save your energy. You’re a growing boy.”

He turned back to me. “Junior’s a talented child,” he said, very proud. “As you can see. He inherited it from his dear dead-and-gone mother, Lily Lou. I was telling you about Lily Lou. It was my hope to marry young, like I said, but the way things worked out, somehow I just didn’t get around to wifin’ till I’d got well along into the prime of life.”

He blew out his chest like a toadfrog, looking down admiring. I never did see a man that thought better of himself. “Never found a woman who’d look at — I mean, never found the right woman,” he went on, “till the day I met Lily Lou Mutz.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, polite. I did, too. He musta searched a long, long ways before he found somebody ugly enough herself to look twice at him. Even Lily Lou, pore soul, musta thunk a long time afore she said yes.

“And that,” Ed Pugh went on, “is where your Uncle Lem comes in. It seems like he’d give Lily Lou a bewitchment quite some while back.”

“I never!” Uncle Lem squealed. “And anyway, how’d I know she’d get married and pass it on to her child? Who’d ever think Lily Lou would—”

“He gave her a bewitchment,” Ed Pugh went right on talking. “Only she never told me till she was a-layin’ on her death-bed a year ago. Lordy, I sure woulda whopped her good if I’d knowed how she held out on me all them years! It was the hex Lemuel gave her and she inherited it on to her little child.”

“I only done it to protect her,” Uncle Lem said, right quick. “You know I’m speaking the truth, Saunk boy. Pore Lily Lou was so pizon ugly, people used to up and heave a clod at her now and then afore they could help themselves. Just automatic-like. Couldn’t blame ’em. I often fought down the impulse myself.

“But pore Lily Lou, I shore felt sorry for her. You’ll never know how long I fought down my good impulses, Saunk. But my heart of gold does get me into messes. One day I felt so sorry for the pore hideous critter I gave her the hexpower. Anybody’d have done the same, Saunk.”

“How’d you do it?” I asked, real interested, thinking it might come in handy someday to know. I’m young yet, and I got lots to learn.

Well, he started to tell me and it was kinda mixed up. Bight at first I got a notion some furrin feller named Gene Chromosome had done it for him and after I got straight on that part he’d gone cantering off into a rigamarole about the alpha waves of the brain.

Shucks, I knowed that much my own self. Everybody musta noticed the way them little waves go a-sweeping over the tops of people’s haids when they’re thinking. I’ve watched Grandpaw sometimes when he had as many as six hundred different thoughts follering each other up and down them little paths where his brain is. Hurts my eyes to look too close when Grandpaw’s thinking.

“So that’s how it is, Saunk,” Uncle Lem wound up. “And this here little rattlesnake’s inherited the whole shebang.”

“Well, why don’t you get this here Gene Chromosome feller to unscramble Junior and put him back the way other people are?” I asked. “I can see how easy you could do it. Look here, Uncle Lem.” I focused down real sharp on Junior and made my eyes go funny the way you have to when you want to look inside a person.

Sure enough, I seen just what Uncle Lem meant. There was teensyweensy little chains of fellers, all hanging onto each other for dear life, and skinny little rods jiggling around inside them awful teensy cells everybody’s made of — except maybe Little Sam, our baby.

“Look here, Uncle Lem,” I said. “All you did when you gave Lily Lou the hex was to twitch these here little rods over thataway and patch ’em onto them little chains that wiggle so fast. Now why can’t you switch ’em back again and make Junior behave himself? It oughta be easy.”

“It would be easy,” Uncle Lem kinda sighed at me. “Saunk, you’re a scatterbrain. You wasn’t listening to what I said. I can’t switch ’em back without I kill Junior.”

“The world would be a better place,” I said.

“I know it would. But you know what we promised Grandpaw? No more killings.”

“But Uncle Lem!” I bust out. “This is turrible! You mean this nasty little rattlesnake’s gonna go on all his life hexing people?”

“Worse than that, Saunk,” pore Uncle Lem said, almost crying. “He’s gonna pass the power on to his descendants, just like Lily Lou passed it on to him.”

For a minute it sure did look like a dark prospect for the human race. Then I laughed.

“Cheer up, Uncle Lem,” I said. “Nothing to worry about. Look at the little toad. There ain’t a female critter alive who’d come within a mile of him. Already he’s as repulsive as his daddy. And remember, he’s Lily Lou Mutz’s child, too. Maybe he’ll get even horribler as he grows up. One thing’s sure — he ain’t never gonna get married.”

“Now there’s where you’re wrong,” Ed Pugh busted in, talking real loud. He was red in the face and he looked mad. “Don’t think I ain’t been listening,” he said. “And don’t think I’m gonna forget what you said about my child. I told you I was a power in this town. Junior and me can go a long way, using his talent to help us.

“Already I’ve got on to the board of aldermen here and there’s gonna be a vacancy in the state senate come next week — unless the old coot I have in mind’s a lot tougher than he looks. So I’m warning you, young Hogben, you and your family’s gonna pay for them insults.”

“Nobody oughta get mad when he hears the gospel truth about himself,” I said. “Junior is a repulsive specimen.”

“He just takes getting used to,” his paw said. “All us Pughs is hard to understand. Deep, I guess. But we got our pride. And I’m gonna make sure the family line never dies out. Never, do you hear that, Lemuel?”

Uncle Lem just shut his eyes up tight and shook his head fast. “Nosirree,” he said. “I’ll never do it. Never, never, never, never—”

“Lemuel,” Ed Pugh said, real sinister. “Lemuel, do you want me to set Junior on you?”

“Oh, there ain’t no use in that,” I said. “You seen him try to hex me along with the crowd, didn’t you? No manner of use, Mister Pugh. Can’t hex a Hogben.”

“Well—” He looked around, searching his mind. “Hm-m. I’ll think of something. I’ll — soft-hearted, aren’t you? Promised your Grandpappy you wouldn’t kill nobody, hey? Lemuel, open your eyes and look over there across the street. See that sweet old lady walking with the cane? How’d you like it if I had Junior drop her dead in her tracks?”

Uncle Lemuel just squeezed his eyes tighter shut.

“I won’t look. I don’t know the sweet old thing. If she’s that old, she ain’t got much longer anyhow. Maybe she’d be better off dead. Probably got rheumatiz something fierce.”

“All right, then, how about that purty young girl with the baby in her arms? Look, Lemuel. Mighty sweet-looking little baby. Pink ribbon in its bonnet, see? Look at them dimples. Junior, get ready to blight them where they stand. Bubonic plague to start with maybe. And after that—”

“Uncle Lem,” I said, feeling uneasy. “I dunno what Grandpaw would say to this. Maybe—”

Uncle Lem popped his eyes wide open for just a second. He glared at me, frantic.

“I can’t help it if I’ve got a heart of gold,” he said. “I’m a fine old feller and everybody picks on me. Well, I won’t stand for it. You can push me just so far. Now I don’t care if Ed Pugh kills off the whole human race. I don’t care if Grandpaw does find out what I done. I don’t care a hoot about nothing no more.” He gave a kind of wild laugh.

“I’m gonna get out from under. I won’t know nothing about nothing. I’m gonna snatch me a few winks, Saunk.”

And with that he went rigid all over and fell flat on his face on the sidewalk, stiff as a poker.

Chapter 3

Over a Barrel

« ^»

WELL, WORRIED as I was, I had to smile. Uncle Lem’s kinda cute sometimes. I knowed he’d put hisself to sleep again, the way he always does when trouble catches up with him. Paw says it’s catalepsy but cats sleep a lot lighter than that.

Uncle Lem hit the sidewalk flat and kinda bounced a little. Junior give a howl of joy. I guess maybe he figgered he’d had something to do with Uncle Lem falling over. Anyhow, seeing somebody down and helpless, Junior naturally rushed over and pulled his foot back and kicked Uncle Lem in the side of the haid.

Well, like I said, us Hogbens have got pretty tough haids. Junior let out a howl. He started dancing around nursing his foot in both hands.

“I’ll hex you good!” he yelled at Uncle Lem. “I’ll hex you good, you — you ole Hogben, you!” He drew a deep breath and turned purple in the face and— And then it happened.

It was like a flash of lightning. I don’t take no stock in hexes, and I had a fair idea of what was happening, but it took me by surprise. Paw tried to explain to me later how it worked and he said it just stimulated the latent toxins inherent in the organism. It made Junior into a catalytoxic agent on account of the way the rearrangement of the desoxyribonucleic acid his genes was made of worked on the kappa waves of his nasty little brain, stepping them up as much as thirty microvolts. But shucks, you know Paw. He’s too lazy to figger the thing out in English. He just steals them fool words out of other folks’ brains when he needs ’em.

What really happened was that all the pizon that little varmint had bottled up in him, ready to let go on the crowd, somehow seemed to r’ar back and smack Uncle Lem right in the face. I never seen such a hex. And the awful part was — it worked.

Because Uncle Lem wasn’t resisting a mite now he was asleep. Red-hot pokers wouldn’t have waked him up and I wouldn’t put red-hot pokers past little Junior Pugh. But he didn’t need ’em this time. The hex hit Uncle Lem like a thunderbolt.

He turned pale green right before our eyes.

Somehow it seemed to me a turrible silence fell as Uncle Lem went green. I looked up, surprised. Then I realized what was happening. All that pitiful moaning and groaning from the crowd had stopped.

People was swigging away at their bottles of headache cure, rubbing their foreheads and kinda laughing weak-like with relief. Junior’s whole complete hex had gone into Uncle Lem and the crowd’s headaches had naturally stopped right off.

“What’s happened here?” somebody called out in a kinda familiar voice. “Has that man fainted? Why don’t you help him? Here, let me by — I’m a doctor.”

It was the skinny man with the kind-looking face. He was still drinking out of the headache bottle as he pushed his way through the crowd toward us but he’d put his notebook away. When he saw Ed Pugh he flushed up angrylike.

“So it’s you, is it, Alderman Pugh?” he said. “How is it you’re always around when trouble starts? What did you do to this poor man, anyhow? Maybe this time you’ve gone too far.”

“I didn’t do a thing,” Ed Pugh said. “Never touched him. You watch your tongue, Dr. Brown, or you’ll regret it. I’m a powerful man in this here town.”

“Look at that!” Dr. Brown yells, his voice going kinda squeaky as he stares down at Uncle Lem. “The man’s dying! Call an ambulance, somebody, quick!”

Uncle Lem was changing color again. I had to laugh a little, inside my haid. I knowed what was happening and it was kinda funny. Everybody’s got a whole herd of germs and viruses and suchlike critters swarming through them all the time, of course.

When Junior’s hex hit Uncle Lem it stimulated the entire herd something turrible, and a flock of little bitty critters Paw calls antibodies had to get to work pronto. They ain’t really as sick as they look, being white by nature.

Whenever a pizon starts chawing on you these pale little fellers grab up their shooting-irons and run like crazy to the battlefield in your insides. Such fighting and yelling and swearing you never seen. It’s a regular Bull Run.

That was going on right then inside Uncle Lem. Only us Hogbens have got a special militia of our own inside us. And they got called up real fast.

They was swearing and kicking and whopping the enemy so hard Uncle Lem had gone from pale green to a sort of purplish color, and big yeller and blue spots was beginning to bug out all over him where it showed. He looked oncommon sick. Course it didn’t do him no real harm. The Hogbens militia can lick any germ that breathes.

But he sure looked revolting.

The skinny doctor crouched down beside Uncle Lem and felt his pulse.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said, looking up at Ed Pugh. “I don’t know how you’ve worked this, but for once you’ve gone too far. This man seems to have bubonic plague. I’ll see you’re put under control this time and that young Kallikak of yours, too.”

Ed Pugh just laughed a little. But I could see he was mad.

“Don’t you worry about me, Dr. Brown,” he said, mean. “When I get to be governor — and I got my plans all made — that there hospital you’re so proud of ain’t gonna operate on state funds no more. A fine thing!

“Folks laying around in hospitals eating their fool heads off! Make ’em get out and plough, that’s what I say. Us Pughs never gets sick. I got lots of better uses for state money than paying folks to lay around in bed when I’m governor.”

All the doctor said was, “Where’s that ambulance?”

“If you mean that big long car making such a noise,” I said, “it’s about three miles off but coming fast. Uncle Lem don’t need no help, though. He’s just having an attack. We get ’em in the family all the time. It don’t mean nothing.”

“Good heavens!” the doc said, staring down at Uncle Lem. “You mean he’s had this before and lived?” Then he looked up at me and smiled all of a sudden. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Afraid of hospitals, are you? Well, don’t worry. We won’t hurt him.”

That surprised me some. He was a smart man. I’d fibbed a little for just that reason. Hospitals is no place for Hogbens. People in hospitals are too danged nosy. So I called Uncle Lem real loud, inside my head.

“Uncle Lem,” I hollered, only thinking it, not out loud. “Uncle Lem, wake up quick! Grandpaw’ll nail your hide to the barn door if’n you let yourself get took to a hospital. You want ’em to find out about them two hearts you got in your chest? And the way your bones are fixed and the shape of your gizzard? Uncle Lem! Wake up!”

It wasn’t no manner of use. He never even twitched.

Right then I began to get really scared. Uncle Lem had sure landed me in the soup. There I was with all that responsibility on my shoulders and I didn’t have the least idea how to handle it. I’m just a young feller after all. I can hardly remember much farther back than the great fire of London, when Charles II was king, with all them long curls a-hanging on his shoulders. On him, though, they looked good.

“Mister Pugh,” I said, “you’ve got to call off Junior. I can’t let Uncle Lem get took to the hospital. You know I can’t.”

“Junior, pour it on,” Mister Pugh said, grinning real nasty. “I want a little talk with young Hogben here.” The doctor looked up, puzzled, and Ed Pugh said, “Step over here a mite, Hogben. I want a private word with you. Junior, bear down!”

Uncle Lem’s yellow and blue spots got green rings around their outside edges. The doctor sorta gasped and Ed Pugh took my arm and pulled me back. When we was out of earshot he said to me, confidential, fixing me with his tiny little eyes:

“I reckon you know what I want, Hogben. Lem never did say he couldn’t, he only said he wouldn’t, so I know you folks can do it for me.”

“Just exactly what is it you want, Mister Pugh?” I asked him.

“You know. I want to make sure our fine old family line goes on. I want there should always be Pughs. I had so much trouble getting married off myself and I know Junior ain’t going to be easy to wife. Women don’t have no taste nowadays.

“Since Lily Lou went to glory there hasn’t been a woman on earth ugly enough to marry a Pugh and I’m skeered Junior’ll be the last of a great line. With his talent I can’t bear the thought. You just fix it so our family won’t never die out and I’ll have Junior take the hex off Lemuel.”

“If I fixed it so your line didn’t die out,” I said, “I’d be fixing it so everybody else’s line would die out, just as soon as there was enough Pughs around.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Ed Pugh asked, grinning. “Way I see it we’re good strong stock.” He flexed his gorilla arms. He was taller than me, even. “No harm in populatin’ the world with good stock, is there? I figger given time enough us Pughs could conquer the whole danged world. And you’re gonna help us do it, young Hogben.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no! Even if I knowed how—”

There was a turrible noise at the end of the street and the crowd scattered to make way for the ambulance, which drawed up at the curb beside Uncle Lem. A couple of fellers in white coats jumped out with a sort of pallet on sticks. Dr. Brown stood up, looking real relieved.

“Thought you’d never get here,” he said. “This man’s a quarantine case, I think. Heaven knows what kind of results we’ll find when we start running tests on him. Hand me my bag out of the back there, will you? I want my stethoscope. There’s something funny about this man’s heart.”

Well, my heart sunk right down into my boots. We was goners and I knowed it — the whole Hogben tribe. Once them doctors and scientists find out about us we’ll never know a moment’s peace again as long as we live. We won’t have no more privacy than a corncob.

Ed Pugh was watching me with a nasty grin on his pasty face.

“Worried, huh?” he said. “You gotta right to be worried. I know about you Hogbens. All witches. Once they get Lem in the hospital, no telling what they’ll find out. Against the law to be witches, probably. You’ve got about half a minute to make up your mind, young Hogben. What do you say?”

Well, what could I say? I couldn’t give him a promise like he was asking, could I? Not and let the whole world be overrun by hexing Pughs. Us Hogbens live a long time. We’ve got some pretty important plans for the future when the rest of the world begins to catch up with us. But if by that time the rest of the world is all Pughs, it won’t hardly seem worth while, somehow. I couldn’t say yes.

But if I said no Uncle Lem was a goner. Us Hogbens was doomed either way, it seemed to me.

Looked like there was only one thing to do. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes, and let out a desperate yell inside my head.

“Grandpaw!” I hollered.

“Yes, my boy?” said a big deep voice in the middle of my brain. You’da thought he’d been right alongside me all the time, just waiting to be called. He was a hundred-odd miles off, and sound asleep. But when a Hogben calls in the tone of voice I called in he’s got a right to expect an answer — quick. I got it.

Mostly Grandpaw woulda dithered around for fifteen minutes, asking cross questions and not listening to the answers, and talking in all kinds of queer old-fashioned dialects, like Sanskrit, he’s picked up through the years. But this time he seen it was serious.

“Yes, my boy?” was all he said.

I flapped my mind wide open like a school-book in front of him. There wasn’t no time for questions and answers. The doc was getting out his dingus to listen to Uncle Lem’s two hearts beating out of tune and once he heard that the jig would be up for us Hogbens.

“Unless you let me kill ’em, Grandpaw,” I added. Because by that time I knowed he’d read the whole situation from start to finish in one fast glance.

It seemed to me he was quiet an awful long time after that. The doc had got the dingus out and he was fitting its little black arms into his ears. Ed Pugh was watching me like a hawk. Junior stood there all swole up with pizon, blinking his mean little eyes around for somebody to shoot it at. I was half hoping he’d pick on me. I’d worked out a way to make it bounce back in his face and there was a chance it might even kill him.

I heard Grandpaw give a sorta sigh in my mind.

“They’ve got us over a barrel, Saunk,” he said. I remember being a little surprised he could speak right plain English when he wanted to. “Tell Pugh we’ll do it.”

“But Grandpaw—” I said.

“Do as I say!” It gave me a headache, he spoke so firm. “Quick, Saunk! Tell Pugh we’ll give him what he wants.”

Well, I didn’t dare disobey. But this once I really came close to defying Grandpaw.

It stands to reason even a Hogben has got to get senile someday, and I thought maybe old age had finally set in with Grandpaw at last.

What I thunk at him was, “All right, if you say so, but I sure hate to do it. Seems like if they’ve got us going and coming, the least we can do is take our medicine like Hogbens and keep all that pizon bottled up in Junior stead of spreading it around the world.” But out loud I spoke to Mister Pugh.

“All right, Mister Pugh,” I said, real humble. “You win. Only, call off your hex. Quick, before it’s too late.”

Chapter 4

Pughs A-Coming

« ^

MISTER PUGH HAD a great big yellow automobile, low-slung, without no top. It went awful fast. And it was sure awful noisy. Once I’m pretty sure we run over a small boy in the road but Mister Pugh paid him no mind and I didn’t dare say nothing. Like Grandpaw said, the Pughs had us over a barrel.

It took quite a lot of palaver before I convinced ’em they’d have to come back to the homestead with me. That was part of Grandpaw’s orders.

“How do I know you won’t murder us in cold blood once you get us out there in the wilderness?” Mister Pugh asked.

“I could kill you right here if I wanted,” I told him. “I would too but Grandpaw says no. You’re safe if Grandpaw says so, Mister Pugh. The word of a Hogben ain’t never been broken yet.”

So he agreed, mostly because I said we couldn’t work the spells except on home territory. We loaded Uncle Lem into the back of the car and took off for the hills. Had quite an argument with the doc, of course. Uncle Lem sure was stubborn.

He wouldn’t wake up nohow but once Junior took the hex off Uncle Lem faded out fast to a good healthy color again. The doc just didn’t believe it coulda happened, even when he saw it. Mister Pugh had to threaten quite a lot before we got away. We left the doc sitting on the curb, muttering to himself and rubbing his haid dazed like.

I could feel Grandpaw a-studying the Pughs through my mind all the way home. He seemed to be sighing and kinda shaking his haid — such as it is — and working out problems that didn’t make no manner of sense to me.

When we drawed up in front of the house there wasn’t a soul in sight. I could hear Grandpaw stirring and muttering on his gunnysack in the attic but Paw seemed to have went invisible and he was too drunk to tell me where he was when I asked. The baby was asleep. Maw was still at the church sociable and Grandpaw said to leave her be.

“We can work this out together, Saunk,” he said as soon as I got outa the car. “I’ve been thinking. You know that sled you fixed up to sour your Maw’s cream this morning? Drag it out, son. Drag it out.”

I seen in a flash what he had in mind. “Oh, no, Grandpaw!” I said, right out loud.

“Who you talking to?” Ed Pugh asked, lumbering down outa the car. “I don’t see nobody. This your homestead? Ratty old dump, ain’t it? Stay close to me, Junior. I don’t trust these folks any farther’n I can see em.

“Get the sled, Saunk,” Grandpaw said, very firm. “I got it all worked out. We’re gonna send these two gorillas right back through time, to a place they’ll really fit.”

“But Grandpaw!” I hollered, only inside my head this time. “Let’s talk this over. Lemme get Maw in on it anyhow. Paw’s right smart when he’s sober. Why not wait till he wakes up? I think we oughta get the Baby in on it too. I don’t think sending ’em back through time’s a good idea at all, Grandpaw.”

“The Baby’s asleep,” Grandpaw said. “You leave him be. He read himself to sleep over his Einstein, bless his little soul.”

I think the thing that worried me most was the way Grandpaw was talking plain English. He never does when he’s feeling normal. I thought maybe his old age had all caught up with him at one bank, and knocked all the sense outa his — so to speak — haid.

“Grandpaw,” I said, trying to keep calm. “Don’t you see? If we send ’em back through time and give ’em what we promised it’ll make everything a million times worse than before. You gonna strand ’em back there in the year one and break your promise to ’em?”

“Saunk!” Grandpaw said.

“I know. If we promised we’d make sure the Pugh line won’t die out, then we gotta make sure. But if we send ’em back to the year one that’ll mean all the time between then and now they’ll spend spreading out and spreading out. More Pughs every generation.

“Grandpaw, five seconds after they hit the year one, I’m liable to feel my two eyes rush together in my haid and my face go all fat and pasty like Junior. Grandpaw, everybody in the world may be Pughs if we give ’em that much time to spread out in!”

“Cease thy chirming, thou chilce dolt,” Grandpaw hollered. “Do my bidding, young fool!”

That made me feel a little better but not much. I went and dragged out the sled. Mister Pugh put up quite a argument about that.

“I ain’t rid on a sled since I was so high,” he said. “Why should I git on one now? This is some trick. I won’t do it.”

Junior tried to bite me.

“Now Mister Pugh,” I said, “you gotta cooperate or we won’t get nowheres. I know what I’m doing. Just step up here and set down. Junior, there’s room for you in front. That’s fine.”

If he hadn’t seen how worried I was I don’t think he’d a-done it. But I couldn’t hide how I was feeling.

“Where’s your Grandpaw?” he asked, uneasy. “You’re not going to do this whole trick by yourself, are you? Young ignorant feller like you? I don’t like it. Suppose you made a mistake?”

“We give our word,” I reminded him. “Now just kindly shut up and let me concentrate. Or maybe you don’t want the Pugh line to last forever?”

“That was the promise,” he says, settling himself down. “You gotta do it. Lemme know when you commence.”

“All right, Saunk,” Grandpaw says from the attic, right brisk. “Now you watch. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two. Look sharp. Focus your eyes down and pick out a gene. Any gene.”

Bad as I felt about the whole thing I couldn’t help being interested. When Grandpaw does a thing he does it up brown. Genes are mighty slippery little critters, spindle-shaped and awful teensy. They’re partners with some skinny guys called chromosomes, and the two of ’em show up everywhere you look, once you’ve got your eyes focused just right.

“A good dose of ultraviolet ought to do the trick,” Grandpaw muttered. “Saunk, you’re closer.”

I said, “All right, Grandpaw,” and sort of twiddled the light as it sifted down through the pines above the Pughs. Ultraviolet’s the color at the other end of the line, where the colors stop having names for most people.

Grandpaw said, “Thanks, son. Hold it for a minute.”

The genes began to twiddle right in time with the light waves. Junior said, “Paw, something’s tickling me.”

Ed Pugh said, “Shut up.”

Grandpaw was muttering to himself. I’m pretty sure he stole the words from that perfesser we keep in the bottle, but you can’t tell, with Grandpaw. Maybe he was the first person to make ’em up in the beginning.

“The euchromatin,” he kept muttering. “That ought to fix it. Ultraviolet gives us hereditary mutation and the euchromatin contains the genes that transmit heredity. Now that other stuff’s heterochromatin and that produces evolutionary change of the cataclysmic variety.

“Very good, very good. We can always use a new species. Hum-m-m. About six bursts of heterochromatinic activity ought to do it.” He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Ich am eldre and ek magti! Okay, Saunk, take it away.”

I let the ultraviolet go back where it came from.

“The year one, Grandpaw?” I asked, very doubtful.

“That’s close enough,” he said. “Wite thou the way?”

“Oh yes, Grandpaw,” I said. And I bent over and give them the necessary push.

The last thing I heard was Mister Pugh’s howl.

“What’s that you’re doin’?” he hollered at me. “What’s the idea? Look out, there, young Hogben or — what’s this? Where we goin’? Young Saunk, I warn you, if this is some trick I’ll set Junior on you! I’ll send you such a hex as even you-u. . . .

Then the howl got real thin and small and far away until it wasn’t no more than the noise a mosquito makes. After that it was mighty quiet in the dooryard.

I stood there all braced, ready to stop myself from turning into a Pugh if I could. Them little genes is tricky fellers.

I knowed Grandpaw had made a turrible mistake.

The minute them Pughs hit the year one and started to bounce back through time toward now I knowed what would happen.

I ain’t sure how long ago the year one was, but there was plenty of time for the Pughs to populate the whole planet. I put two fingers against my nose to keep my eyes from banging each other when they started to rush together in the middle like all us Pughs’ eyes do— “You ain’t a Pugh yet, son,” Grandpaw said, chuckling. “Kin ye see ’em?”

“No,” I said. “What’s happening?”

“The sled’s starting to siow down,” he said. “Now it’s stopped. Yep, it’s the year one, all right. Look at all them men and women flockin’ outa the caves to greet their new company! My, my, what great big shoulders the men have got. Bigger even than Paw Pugh’s.

“An’ ugh — just look at the women! I declare, little Junior’s positively handsome alongside them folks! He won’t have no trouble finding a wife when the time comes.”

“But Grandpaw, that’s turrible!” I said.

“Don’t sass your elders, Saunk,” Grandpaw chuckled. “Looka there now. Junior’s just pulled a hex. Another little child fell over flat on his ugly face. Now the little child’s mother is knocking Junior endwise. Now his pappy’s sailing into Paw Pugh. Look at that fight! Just look at it! Oh, I guess the Pugh family’s well took care of, Saunk.”

“But what about our family?” I said, almost wailing.

“Don’t you worry,” Grandpaw said. “Time’ll take care of that. Wait a minute, let me watch. Hm-m. A generation don’t take long when you know how to look. My, my, what ugly little critters the ten baby Pughs was! They was just like their pappy and their grandpappy.

“I wish Lily Lou Mutz could see her grandbabies. I shorely do. Well, now, ain’t that cute? Every one of them babies growed up in a flash, seems like, and each of ’em has got ten babies of their own. I like to see my promises working out, Saunk. I said I’d do this, and I done it.”

I just moaned.

“All right,” Grandpaw said. “Let’s jump ahead a couple of centuries. Yep, still there and spreading like crazy. Family likeness is still strong, too. Hum-m. Another thousand years and — well, I declare! If it ain’t Ancient Greece! Hasn’t changed a bit, neither. What do you know, Saunk!” He cackled right out, tickled pink.

“Remember what I said once about Lily Lou putting me in mind of an old friend of mine named Gorgon? No wonder! Perfectly natural. You ought to see Lily Lou’s great-great-great-grandbabies! No, on second thought, it’s lucky you can’t. Well, well, this is shore interesting.”

He was still about three minutes. Then I heard him laugh.

“Bang,” he said. “First heterochromatinic burst. Now the changes start.”

“What changes, Grandpaw?” I asked, feeling pretty miserable.

“The changes,” he said, “that show your old Grandpaw ain’t such a fool as you thought. I know what I’m doing. They go fast, once they start. Look there now, that’s the second change. Look at them little genes mutate!”

“You mean,” I said, “I ain’t gonna turn into a Pugh after all? But Grandpaw, I thought we’d promised the Pughs their line wouldn’t die out.”

“I’m keeping my promise,” Grandpaw said, dignified. “The genes will carry the Pugh likeness right on to the toot of the judgment horn, just like I said. And the hex power goes right along with it.”

Then he laughed.

“You better brace yourself, Saunk,” he said. “When Paw Pugh went sailing off into the year one seems like he uttered a hex threat, didn’t he? Well, he wasn’t fooling. It’s a-coming at you right now.”

“Oh, Lordy!” I said. “There’ll be a million of ’em by the time they get here! Grandpaw! What’ll I do?”

“Just brace yourself,” Grandpaw said, real unsympathetic. “A million, you think? Oh, no, lots more than a million.”

“How many?” I asked him.

He started in to tell me. You may not believe it but he’s still telling me. It takes that long. There’s that many of ’em.

You see, it was like with that there Jukes family that lived down south of here. The bad ones was always a mite worse than their children and the same dang thing happened to Gene Chromosome and his kin, so to speak. The Pughs stayed Pughs and they kept the hex power — and I guess you might say the Pughs conquered the whole world, after all.

But it could of been worse. The Pughs could of stayed the same size down through the generations. Instead they got smaller — a whole lot smaller. When I knowed ’em they was bigger than most folks — Paw Pugh, anyhow.

But by the time they’d done filtering the generations from the year one, they’d shrunk so much them little pale fellers in the blood was about their size. And many a knock-down drag-out fight they have with ’em, too.

Them Pugh genes took such a beating from the heterochromatinic bursts Grandpaw told me about that they got whopped all outa their proper form. You might call ’em a virus now — and of course a virus is exactly the same thing as a gene, except the virus is friskier. But heavens above, that’s like saying the Jukes boys is exactly the same as George Washington!

The hex hit me — hard.

I sneezed something tumble. Then I heard Uncle Lem sneezing in his sleep, lying back there in the yaller car. Grandpaw was still droning on about how many Pughs was a-coming at me right that minute, so there wasn’t no use asking questions. I fixed my eyes different and looked right down into the middle of that sneeze to see what had tickled me— Well, you never seen so many Junior Pughs in all your born days!

It was the hex, all right. Likewise, them Pughs is still busy, hexing everybody on earth, off and on. They’ll do it for quite a time, too, since the Pugh line has got to go on forever, account of Grandpaw’s promise.

They tell me even the microscopes ain’t never yet got a good look at certain viruses. The scientists are sure in for a surprise someday when they focus down real close and see all them pasty-faced little devils, ugly as sin, with their eyes set real close together, wiggling around hexing everybody in sight.

It took a long time — since the year one, that is — but Gene Chromosome fixed it up, with Grandpaw’s help. So Junior Pugh ain’t a pain in the neck no more, so to speak.

But I got to admit he’s an awful cold in the haid.