Holding Wonder

"Like Vannie," said Mrs. Quinlan, crinkling secretly at me, now.
"Oosh!" Mr. Powdang's eyes lit with a turquoise comprehension and he reeled off a string of syllables that stopped my pen in mid-air. "One or two will do," I said. "Spell them, please."
Mrs. Quinlan said quickly, "I think we had figured out Vanseler Oovenry. It shrinks somewhat in translation."
I was afraid to meet her eyes since my mirthbox had been upset already and so I just quaked quietly as she spelled it out to me. I had just tailed the y when we were all startled by the ungodly screech of brakes that announced the fact that Stringler was trying to bring his pickup truck to a roaring stop from a blistering thirty-five miles an hour.
"Oh, oh!" I said, sliding away from the desk. "We might as well get it over with now. I'll go drop a few preparatory hints."
I ducked into the store through the back door. Stringler was tromping up and down the room, gouging his heels into the planks at every step, dust dancing out of the cracks of the floor and flouring off his faded Levis. For the skinny little old half-pint he is, he's the world's most unquiet man. Since he is the school board president, we have some pretty loud meetings from time to time.
I leaned into his first blast of speech. "If yer gonna keep a store, Bent,
keep one! Don't go gallivanting off to see the school marm all the time!"
I think Stringler's mother was marked by reading a western before his birth. He always sounds like it, anyway.
"What can I do you for today?" I asked.
"Outa color film," he said. "Frost's hit our upper ranch. Color like crazy, up Sycamore Canyon. Missed it last year on account of that gol-dang rain we had. Gonna get it this year or bust!"
"This is a fresh shipment," I said, fishing his account pad out of the drawer next to the cash register. "How many?"
"Half a dozen, I reckon." He pushed his battered hat back on his head. "Oughta last me a spell."
"We have a problem, this morning," I grunted as I made out the sales slip. "School business. There's a new kid-" "Why bother me?" Stringier stacked the film. "That's Mrs. Quinlan's business."
"Might be school board business 'fore it's through," I said. "Public opinion-" I settled myself for his roar.
"Public opinion! We got rules and regulations to run our school by. That there public opinion put us in office to see that they're stuck to. Anything come inside them rules and regulations thur ain't no question about. Stick to the rules and regulations!"
"But this is different. These foreigners-"
"Since when are you a foreigner hater!" It's incredible the volume that could come from such a scrawny old frame. "I thought you had a little sense!" He roared twice as loud because he knew and I knew that he resented "foreigners" fiercely-so fiercely that he was always compelled to defend them.
I ventured one dangerous phrase closer. I had to forewarn him, at least a little.
"But their color-" And dodged. Three minutes later I shook my ringing head and tried to gouge a little of the noise out of my left ear with my little finger. I had heard it all before, but never so passionately. He must have had another letter from his brother who still lives back where color matters so much that it breeds a sickness.
"Well, come and see them," I said, putting his account pad away. "Then no one can accuse me of abrogating the duties of the president of the board."
He yanked the makin's from his pocket and yanked the tobacco sack shut with his teeth as he glared at me. He began to thum down from his monumental wrath to the lesser grievance of my big words.
"Abrogating!" he muttered as he let the back door slam behind him.
It was a dirty trick, I know, but I let him walk in cold. After all, I had tried! He lapsed into a state of horrified petrifaction during Mrs. Quinlan's introduction and automatically put out an answering hand. He suddenly became conscious of the fact that he still held his cigarette in that hand-and they did look quite combustible. He waved the cigarette wordlessly and fled
outdoors. I followed him, sincerely worried for fear he might have a stroke.
"Gaw-dang-amighty, Bent!" he gasped, leaning against the porch post. "We can't let nothing like that into our school! What'll people say! Purple!" he gasped. "Purple and fuzzy!"
"We have to," I said, feeling my mirth-quake beginning again. "Rules and regulations. Closest school. Color doesn't count. Residents, school age-"
"Art you sure! Are you sure!" He clutched me with shaking hands. He was shook to the core of his being by this extreme testing of his stand on color. "Lessee that registration card."
"We haven't finished it yet," I said. "We had just started it when you got here."
"There'll be something," he prayed. "There's gotta be something. You know me, Bent. Not a prejudiced bone in my body. Why, I bend over backward-"
Yes, I knew. Bent over backward, impelled by the heavy hand of conscience that forced him to accept what he had been taught to mistrust and abhor. And all his loud championing was loud to try to cover up the unadmitted fact that he had never managed to erase that same mistrust and abhorrence.
"But this is different," he pleaded. "This ain't the same at all! You've got to admit it! There's a difference between-between that and any other-"
"A child is a child," I said. "All of one blood. No respecter of persons. Neither East nor West, bond nor free-" I meanly set all his familiar rallying quotes out in a little line across his conscience and his conscience stiffened itself-I thought it would-and his sleeve wiped his forehead. Thank God for people who are willing to be uncomfortable for what is right.
"Rules and regulations," he said, starting back indoors. "If they meet with the rules and regulations then that's all there is-" He sat, his forearms on his knees, his battered Stetson rimming around and around his fingers. He tried to keep from looking, but his eyes kept straying until he jerked them back to his hat. You could almost see his ears prick up at each question on the registration card.
Name-Vannie Powdang Parent's name-Vanseler Oovenry Powdang Sex-
Mrs. Quinlan colored briefly across her forehead. "Put it down F," she said.
"Put it down? Ain't it so?" snapped Stringier.
"Vannie hasn't decided yet," she said a bit primly. "She has until she's of age to decide."
"But-" Stringler's jaw dropped.
"F," I said. "Though there's nothing that says they have to be either one."
"Birthdate?" There was a hurried consultation between the parents and a quick glance through a pocket chart of some kind.
"Month?" I asked.
"Doshug-October," said Mrs. Powdang. "What date in October and what year?" "The twelfth," she answered, "1360."
"1360!" Stringler's mouth was getting ready for an explosion.
"Yes," sighed Mrs. Powdang fondly. "Just think! Vannie's 599 years old. They grow up so fast!" Vannie hid herself out of sight against her mother.
"Now Vannie!" said her mother, emitting her again, "Don't be so shy!"
"It says right there!" cried Stringier, his finger stabbing at the Rules and Regulations. "It says six years old by December 31!"
"To start school," I said. "And there's nothing about any maximum-" I wrote it down, October 12, 1360.
"And anyway, the equivalent comes out only five years old," said Mrs. Quinlan. "It's a sort of 100 to one ratio:"
"There!" cried Stringler. "Not six yet!"
"Birthday in October," I said serenely. "Nationality?"
The parents looked at one another then swung their marbleround eyes-all eight of them-back to me.
"American," they said in smiling chorus, "Vannie's American."
"American!" Stringier got up and started tramping the floor. He couldn't bear sitting any longer. The crampedness of the area hampered him so that he seemed more to whirl distractedly instead of pacing as he dug down deep into his despised big words. "That's pure and unadulterated misrepresentation!"