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 himself 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.