This here’s a story I’ve never told anyone, mostly on account of I didn’t really think anybody’d believe it. Hell, I was married to my beautiful Mae, My Little Mae-Flower, for fifty-seven years, and I never even told her this. Why? Because I knew just how unlikely it would sound.
The thing is, though, I’ve been on this here earth for eighty-seven years now and I’ve discovered that the older you get, the less attention people pay to anything you say anyway. So maybe I chose now to tell my story simply because I’m longing for a little attention, but whatever the reason, I swear on my Mae-Flower’s grave that every word is true and accurate.
Memory is a strange thing. You don’t have to take my word for it, just wait until you get to be my age and see if you don’t agree. Look at my situation— sometimes I forget what I ate for breakfast before I even get to lunch. That in itself ain’t so bad, though. At least I never get tired of the meals they serve day after day in this place. Everybody else complains to high heaven about the food here, they say it’s boring and bland, but me? Nosirree, every breakfast, lunch and dinner is a new and delightful treat as far as I’m concerned.
That said, I have a perfect recollection of the incident I’m going to relate (I know, I should stop telling you I’m going to tell you and just get on with it. All things in good time, though. I’m just glad to have a little company). Even though this thing I’m going to tell you about happened close to three-quarters of a century ago, it may as well have been yesterday, it’s that clear in my mind.
You see, I grew up in a little farming community in Kansas during the Great Depression, and let me tell you, if there’s a bigger misnomer than calling it the “Great” Depression, I can’t imagine what it might be. The Horrible Depression, sure, I could live with that, or maybe the Dirt-Poor Hardscrabble Try To Stay Alive Depression, that would cover it too, but Great Depression? No sir, not the way I remember it.
Kansas in the 1930’s was right smack in the middle of what they called the Dust Bowl, on account of the heat and lack of rain making it darn near impossible to grow a crop of anythin’ but dust. You prob’ly recall learning about the Dust Bowl in school, but if you grew up in it, like I did, I guarantee you never forgot what it was like to try and take a deep breath of fresh air and get nothin’ but hot, dry wind and dirt about choking you to death.
Anyway, that was the situation in the spring of 1934. I was fourteen years old, young and strong, working next to my daddy every day in the fields, trying to grow enough wheat so’s we could make some money and maybe have something to eat besides potatoes for dinner once in a while. Farms in them days weren’t like they are now, where everythin’s computerized and all the equipment looks like the space shuttle or somethin’, all shiny and fancy-looking.
Back in them days, the whole family worked in the fields, even little Dorothy, my younger sister, who in 1934 would have been just seven years old. Didn’t matter, she was out there pullin’ weeds while daddy and I were plowing the fields, planting wheat, or watering the crops whenever we were able.
Seemed like every day was the same in the spring and summer of 1934. We would watch the sun rise from the barn or the fields, work all day in the brutal heat, and then watch the sun set again before calling it a day. None of that bothered us, though, that’s just the way it was—if you expected to eat, you expected to have to work.
Now here’s where it starts to get interestin’. One day in, oh, I guess it was prob’ly the middle of May or so, a fine Ford automobile come motoring along the road toward Olathe. Well, we didn’t get much traffic along the narrow, rutted dirt track that ran beside our farmhouse, unless you counted the horses and pickup trucks that would pass by once or twice a day carrying supplies to the general store, so naturally we all stopped what we was doing to watch it go by.
Next thing we know, danged if it didn’t turn right into the dooryard and pull up in front of the house! No one we knew even owned an automobile, exceptin’ for one of my daddy’s distant cousins, who lived outside Chicago and made his money deliverin’ moonshine whiskey to speakeasies—clubs that didn’t even officially exist, if you catch my meanin’.
Naturally, by this time we was all mighty curious, so the whole entire family started toward the house to see what the visitor wanted. We weren’t worried about being robbed or anything, hell, we had nothin’ any self-respectin’ thief would want anyway.
Out of the Ford jumped a young man, travelin’ alone, kind of a handsome fella in a rugged-looking way. He was around thirty years of age, give or take a year or two either way, with dark, wavy hair and a ropy, sorta muscular look about him. He started across the field to meet us and promptly stepped in a rut and down he went like a sack of potatoes. That little scene struck me as funny, bein’ fourteen and all, but I could see my daddy was a little worried for the stranger. Here our visitor had hurt himself and we hadn’t even met him yet!
Well, I was the youngest, except for Dorothy of course and I could outrun her with one foot tied behind my back, so I dashed up to the stranger before the rest of my family was even close. I was breathin’ kinda heavy and the fella says, “Whoa there, son, don’t never run like that less there’s somebody chasin’ ya. There ain’t nobody chasin’ ya, is there?”
I remember I broke out into a wide grin and said, “No sir, nobody’s chasin’ me.”
“Then slow down and help me up,” he answered, giving me an arm to pull him up with.
By this time my daddy’d joined us, and helped steady the man as he wobbled, gingerly putting just a little weight on his right foot and then immediately lifting it again, wincing in pain.
“I hope that ankle ain’t broke,” Daddy volunteered. “My wife does some nursin’, she’ll have a look at it and hopefully fix you right up. Let’s get him inside,” he told me, and we stood on either side of the young man, supporting his weight as we walked him into the house.
Once we got our visitor comfortable in the kitchen, injured leg propped on the table, Mama rolled up his pant leg and started poking and prodding the limb, which was already swelling and turning interesting shades of purple. The stranger seemed oblivious to the pain it must have been causing. He chuckled and told us, “All I wanted to do was make sure I was on the road to Olathe, and here I’ve gone and disrupted your whole family’s routine.”
At that I snickered. “Mister, it’s prob’ly 120 degrees in that wheat field. You didn’t disrupt a thing as far as I’m concerned.”
My daddy pushed his straw hat back on his head. “Nah,” he said. “It won’t be 120 for at least another couple of hours. We’ll be back out there long before then.”
The visitor laughed at my expression and my daddy asked him, “What brings you to Olathe, mister…”
“JD,” he said. “My friends call me JD, and I must say I count you fine folks as friends already. The hospitality you’re showing me is something I won’t soon forget.”
“JD it is, then,” answered Daddy. “My name is Hiram, and this here nurse is my wife Lucy. You’ve met Stephen and Dorothy already,” he finished, indicating me and my sister.
The stranger nodded to us all. “To answer your question Hiram, I’m due in Olathe next week on business and I decided to drive up a little early and get the lay of the land, so to speak. You know, enjoy a little fresh air.”
“What sort of work do you do, JD?”
“I deal in paper goods.”
By this time Mama had finished her inspection of JD’s injured ankle, telling him it appeared to be no worse than a mild sprain, and that he should stay off it for a day or two and then he’d be right as rain.