The Anything Box

So Jean showed Thaddeus how and he pulled the wagon outdoors, looking downat the handle in a puzzled way, absorbing this latest rule for acting like abig boy.
Jean was embarrassed the way parents are when their kids act normal aroundother people.
"Honest. You'd think he never saw a wagon before."
"He never did," I said idly. "Not his own, anyway." And had the feelingthat I had said something profound, but wasn't quite sure what.
The whole deal would have gone completely out of my mind if it hadn't beenfor one more little incident. I was out by the barn waiting for Dad. Mom wasmaking him change his pants before he demonstrated his new tractor for me. Isaw Thaddeus loading rocks into his little red wagon. Beyond the rock pile, Icould see that he had started a playhouse or ranch of some kind, laying therocks out to make rooms or corrals or whatever. He finished loading the wagonand picked up another rock that took both arms to carry, then he looked downat the wagon.
"Come on, Wagon." And he walked over to his play place.
And the wagon went with him, trundling along over the uneven ground,following at his heels like a puppy.
I blinked and inventoried rapidly the Christmas cheer I had imbibed. Itwasn't enough for an explanation. I felt a kind of cold grue creep over me.
Then Thaddeus emptied the wagon and the two of them went back for morerocks. He was just going to pull the same thing again when a big boy-cousincame by and laughed at him.
"Hey, Thaddeus, how you going to pull your wagon with, both hands full? Itwon't go unless you pull it."
"Oh," said Thaddeus and looked off after the cousin who was headed for theback porch and some pie.
So Thaddeus dropped the big rock he had in his arms and looked at thewagon. After struggling with some profound thinking, he picked the rock upagain and hooked a little finger over the handle of the wagon.
"Come on, Wagon," he said, and they trundled off together, the handle ofthe wagon still slanting back over the load while Thaddeus grunted along by itwith his heavy armload.
I was glad Dad came just then, hooking the last strap of his stripedoveralls. We started into the barn together. I looked back at Thaddeus. Heapparently figured he'd need his little finger on the next load, so he wassquatting by the wagon, absorbed with a piece of flimsy red Christmas string.He had twisted one end around his wrist and was intent on tying the other tothe handle of the little red wagon.
It wasn't so much that I avoided Thaddeus after that. It isn't hard for grownups to keep from mingling with kids. After all, they do live in twodifferent worlds. Anyway, I didn't have much to do with Thaddeus for severalyears after that Christmas. There was the matter of a side trip to the SouthPacific where even I learned that there are some grown-up impossibilities thatare not always absolute. Then there was a hitch in the hospital where I waitedfor my legs to put themselves together again. I was luckier than most of theguys. The folks wrote often and regularly and kept me posted on all the hometalk. Nothing spectacular, nothing special, just the old familiar stuff thatmakes home, home and folks, folks.
I hadn't thought of Thaddeus in a long time. I hadn't been around kids muchand unless you deal with them, you soon forget them. But I remembered himplenty when I got the letter from Dad about Jean's new baby. The kid was acouple of weeks overdue and when it did come—a girl—Jean's husband, Bert, wasout at the farm checking with Dad on a land deal he had cooking. The baby cameso quickly that Jean couldn't even make it to the hospital and when Mom calledBert, he and Dad headed for town together, but fast.
"Derned if I didn't have to hold my hair on," wrote Dad. "I don't think we
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hit the ground but twice all the way to town. Dern near overshot the gate whenwe finally tore up the hill to their house. Thaddeus was playing out front andwe dang near ran him down. Smashed his trike to flinders. I saw the handlebars sticking out from under the front wheel when I followed Bert in. Then Igot to thinking that he'd get a flat parking on all that metal so I went outto move the car. Lucky I did. Bert musta forgot to set the brakes. Derned ifthat car wasn't headed straight for Thaddeus. He was walking right in front ofit. Even had his hand on the bumper and the dern thing rolling right afterhim. I yelled and hit out for the car. But by the time I got there, it hadstopped and Thaddeus was squatting by his wrecked trike. What do you supposethe little cuss said? 'Old car broke my trike. I made him get off.'
"Can you beat it? Kids get the dernedest ideas. Lucky it wasn't much downhill, though. He'd have been hurt sure."
I lay with the letter on my chest and felt cold. Dad had forgotten thatthey "tore up the hill" and that the car must have rolled up the slope to getoff Thaddeus' trike.
That night I woke up the ward yelling, "Come on, Wagon!"
It was some months later when I saw Thaddeus again. He and half a dozenother nephews—and the one persistent niece—were in a tearing hurry to besomewhere else and nearly mobbed Dad and me on the front porch as they boiledout of the house with mouths and hands full of cookies. They all stopped longenough to give me the once-over and fire a machine gun volley with mycrutches, then they disappeared down the land on their bikes, heads low, rearends high, and every one of them being bombers at the tops of their voices.
I only had time enough to notice that Thaddeus had lanked out and was justone of the kids as he grinned engagingly at me with the two-tooth gap in hisfront teeth.
"Did you ever notice anything odd about Thaddeus?" I pulled out themakin's.
"Thaddeus?" Dad glanced up at me from firing up his battered old corncobpipe. "Not particularly. Why?"
"Oh, nothing." I ran my tongue along the paper and rolled the cigaretteshut. "He just always seemed kinda
different."
"Well, he's always been kinda slow about some things. Not that he's dumb.Once he catches on, he's as smart as anyone, but he's sure pulled some funnyones."
"Give me a fer-instance," I said, wondering if he'd remember the trikedeal.
"Well, coupla years ago at a wienie roast he was toting something aroundwrapped in a paper napkin. Jean saw him put it in his pocket and she thoughtit was probably a dead frog or a beetle or something like that, so she madehim fork it over. She unfolded the napkin and derned if there wasn't a biglive coal in it. Dern thing flamed right up in her hand. Thaddeus belleredlike a bull calf. Said he wanted to take it home cause it was pretty. How heever carried it around that long without setting himself afire is what gotme." "That's Thaddeus," I said, "odd." "Yeah." Dad was firing his pipe again,flicking the burned match down, to join the dozen or so others by the porchrailing. "I guess you might call him odd. But he'll outgrow it. He hasn'tpulled anything like that in a long time."
"They do outgrow it," I said. "Thank God." And I think it was a realprayer. I don't like kids. "By the way, Where's Clyde?"
"Down in the East Pasture, plowing. Say, that tractor I got that lastChristmas you were here is a bear cat. It's lasted me all this time and I'venever had to do a lick of work on it. Clyde's using it today."
"When you get a good tractor you got a good one," I said. "Guess I'll godown and see the old son-of-a-gun—Clyde, I mean. Haven't seen him in a coon'sage." I gathered up my crutches.
Dad scrambled to his feet "Better let me run you down in the pickup. I've
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gotta go over to Jesperson's anyway."