From the Improvement Era, July 1941 –

Another Blue Day

By Estelle Webb Thomas

A button tinkled to the floor, but Rusty was half-way down the stairs.

He smelled oatmeal and honeysuckle and furniture polish, and saw Mamie on her knees on the diningroom floor, as he ran through to the kitchen. At sight of him, Mom hastily set out a bowl of cereal and cream on the corner of the kitchen table.

“Daddy ate by lamp-light!” she said, stooping to pull golden disks of cookies from the oven.

“Oh, it’s that day, isn’t it?” Rusty knew it was some special kind of day when Mamie came. Mamie was cross and had a sallow look and always “helped out.”

“Yes, it’s the quilting, today, for Cousin Edna. You’ll be a nice boy to Mother’s company, won’t you?”

“How nice?”

“Well — talk to them. Answer when they speak to you. You’re a big boy now!”

“What did Daddy get up so early for?” The discussion of company made him uncomfortable. He could never think what to answer when someone said brightly, “Well, Rusty!”

“The man is coming for the cattle. Daddy is out in the pasture rounding them up.”

Oh, the cattle sale! This was a day! Besides company, it was the day the man came for the beef stock Dad had been fattening all summer. Rusty didn’t like to think about what happened to them afterward. He just played they were going for a nice trip to the stock yard. He gulped his breakfast and slid to the floor.

“’Bye, Mom!”

VJn the porch, he bent solicitously over the cat’s box. The bullet-headed kittens were crawling blindly over one another and mewing dismally.

“Their mother’s been gone for an hour, and they’re driving me crazy!” said Mamie, crossly, bringing out the mop.

“Ne’mind, little kitties, I’ll be your Heavenly Father!” crooned Rusty, stroking the tiny backs with one finger.

‘’What! Why, you bad boy, don’t you know that’s sacrilegious!”

“Oh, are they too young to unnerstand religious?” Rusty was apologetic. This was a good, new day and he didn’t want to spoil it by a squabble with Mamie. “Well, anyway, here’s their mother! She can take care of them. They don’t reely need a Heavenly Father now!”

Suddenly, he staggered backward under a furry onslaught and the cat arched her back and spit angrily.

“Take that muddy dog off this clean porch!” shrieked Mamie. Tippy embraced her rapturously and tried to lick her face.

“You see he isn’t mad, Mamie!” said Rusty, forgivingly, and started down the walk, with Tippy taking occasional gay nips from his shirttail. Half-way to the gate, he turned back. Had his mother noticed what a fine day it was? Probably not, or she wouldn’t be sticking to that hot kitchen.

“What is it now, darling? I thought you went to the pasture to be with Daddy, while Mother is so busy!”

“And Ant’ny. Be with Ant’ny. Oh, I am, but — but — “ it was useless! He knew she could never understand why it was wrong for her to stand in this hot kitchen and beat eggs, while the dewy morning wore away. So, he only said, stumblingly, “I’m — I’m — Mommy, do you know what I’m full of?”

“Oatmeal?” Absently she tested the frothy whites.

“Kindness. I’m full of kindness all over!” He looked earnestly into her averted face to see if she understood what he had no words for, but she only said, briskly, “That’s fine! Now, run along, and be careful about the cattle!”

Seated on the topmost bar of the pasture gate, he watched his Dad and Ant’ny dicker with the buyer. There was some trouble about a tall rangy steer. He was not so fat as his thick-necked, pushing fellows.

“He’s put his growth into bone and muscle,” Dad asserted; “a few weeks intensive feeding and he’ll be a monster!”

“He’s not so bad, now!” said Anthony, spitting judicially. Rusty was going to spit that way, when he got as big at Ant’ny. “A little more meat on him, and he’ll dress out a good six-hundred!”

“Dress out,” murmured Rusty, chewing a blade of grass, because Ant’ny was chewing one. Dress out. He stored the expression away in his mind.

“Guess I’ll clean out the well this morning,” Ant’ny said to Dad. Ant’ny was that kind of hired man. Dad didn’t tell him to do things. He just did them.

“Good idea. They don’t need us both to help with these cattle. ‘Bye, Son!” Dad pulled Rusty up Dude’s sleek, bay side and kissed him. “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

Rusty frowned, considering. He loved the smell of horse and leather, and the feel of power about Dad and Dude, and to ride a way with Dad.
But there was Ant’ny.

“N-no. I guess I’ll be pretty busy helping Ant’ny!”

“Now, lissen, Rust!” Ant’ny boosted Rusty onto his shoulders and took hold of a leg on each side of his neck. “I’d shore like your help with that well. Me and you could have a lot of fun — I know that! But d’you remember last time you helped me clean out the well? Yore Ma — “ At the memory of that time, Rusty’s high spirits took a nose dive.

“Yeah — but maybe, if I kept awful dry, she wouldn’t know!”

“Kid, as man to man, I ast you — could you help me clean out the well and keep awful dry? You ain’t that kind of a animal!”

When Rusty made no reply, he peered around to try to catch sight of the disappointed little face above him. “Never mind, Rust, I wouldn’t give five cents for a kid that could help clean out a well and keep dry!”

“She’s awful busy. Maybe I could stay away long enough to dry out!” Rusty made this suggestion faintly, without any real hope.

“They can always tell. Women are funny thataway. Besides,” added Ant’ny, setting him down to open the gate to the home pasture, “it ain’t moral to deceive your ma. You want to be a moral man, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. Are you moral, Ant’ny?”

Ant’ny squinted down a row of corn. “Corn sure is good for this time a ‘year. Yes, on the whole, I’d say I’m fairly moral. ‘Cording to my lights, that is. ‘Course, I ain’t the education or character to be the man yore dad is. But I do my best. I ain’t no sneak, at least!”

“Well, come on, Tippy!” Rusty blinked and turned irresolutely away.

“So-long, Kid! Better run up to the house and tell yore ma you’re still alive. And git yourself a snack of something!” he squinted at the sun. “It’s gitting on for nine o’clock!”

Rusty’s downcast little face brightened. “And Tippy and me haven’t had anything since morning!”

Ant’ny grinned. Sometimes food was the only solace.

Company was arriving when Rusty and Tippy reached the house. A touring car and a pick-up parked under the cottonwood as he watched, and laughing, chattering women trouped out. In their midst, he spied a lost-looking little boy. It was Buddy Sawyer. Buddy saw Rusty and edged toward him. They stared at one another.

“That your dog?”

“Yeah.”

“I got a dog.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah— but— “

“But what?”

“But mine’s a purty dog.”

“So’s Tippy. Wanta play?”

“Yeah-but — “

“But what?”

“Mother says not to get dirty, is my Sunday close.”

“Oh, well, goodbye! Soon’s some cookies, Tippy and me’s going to dig out a gopher in the lower pasture.” He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with pockets bulging.

“Goo-by, Buddy! C’mon, Tippy!” He strode away, whistling.

“Yeah-but — “ Buddy started after him.

“Better run back, Buddy. It ain’t moral to dig out gophers in your Sunday close!” Rusty said, kindly.

“Yeah-but — I — I can watch!” protested Buddy, “I can watch — an — an— eat cookies!”

The two little boys and the dog climbed over and crawled under the fence, and walked knee-deep through blossoming clover. Golden sunshine blessed them with its buoyant warmth. Birds trilled in the orchard and cedar woods, and the clover felt cool and damp to Rusty’s bare feet. He had hung his sneakers by the strings, to the fence post. Buddy had wanted to take off his shoes, too, but Rusty was adamant on the question of morality. “Yeah — but — “ protested Buddy, weakly, and trudged along, fully shod.

“Tippy and me likes to walk up the wash in our bare feet,” said Rusty. “Yeah-but — it’s dry, isn’t it?”

“Yeah — , but the sand and mud tickles!”

Under the Big Pine they rested. Rusty looked up through the dark branches and a sense of the beauty of the day swelled his heart afresh. He felt so full of kindness it hurt his throat.

“I guess it don’t hurt to take off Sunday shoes, if your Mom didn’t say shoes!” he mentioned carelessly, tossing a pebble to Tippy.

Buddy gratefully stripped off his shoes and sox and wriggled his toes. “’Oo-ooh, that feels good!” he murmured, lying back on the grass beside Rusty and gazing up at the heavenly patches of blue.

“I know where some dead squirrels is!” Rusty said, after a time. After all, the gopher would keep.

“What they die for?”

“Ate poison grain Ant’ny put out for gophers and coyotes. Ant’ny felt bad. He said he’s going to skin them if he gets round to it, fore they smell too bad. He’s going to give me the tails.”

“Less see!”

Beside the brush fence lay the bloated little bodies of three, beautiful tree squirrels, fairy-like, tiny hands spread toward the poisoned grain they had not lived to finish. Buddy sniffed.

“They smell a’ready!”

“Yes. Maybe Ant’ny won’t get to skin them.” Rusty was silent, looking somberly at the little victims. “We shouldn’t ought to waste those tails!” he said, presently. He began laying the contents of his pockets out on the grass.

The crumbled remains of the cookies, a tangle of string, a peach pit, a bent nail, a small red rubber ball, an elastic band, two safety pins, and a knife with one rusty blade.

“We could take the tails,” he suggested, looking speculatively at the knife.

“Yeah-but — “

“I could have one and you could have one and Tippy could have one!”

“Yeah-but—“

“I’ll get off mine and Tippy’s and you can get off yours.” Rusty began sawing away at one of the tails. His little face turned white and the freckles stood out, queerly. His stomach felt strange. He wanted to quit, but he couldn’t be a quitter before Buddy.

After a long, nightmare period, the tail came off in his hand. He turned quickly away from the pitifully denuded body.

“Now you get yours.”

“Yeah-but, you haven’t got Tippy’s yet!” demurred Buddy.

“Tippy don’t need any. He’s got a tail.” Rusty, still pale, gazed resolutely toward the fragrant clover field.

“Hurry up, it’s getting dinner time!” Dinner seemed the least desirable thing on earth, at the moment, but he knew Buddy.

“Yeah-but — “ Buddy muttered, weakly, picking up the knife with undisguised reluctance.

“What we going to do with them?” he inquired fifteen minutes later, wiping his hands thoroughly on his Sunday trousers. Rusty had not thought that far, being concerned wholly with forgetting the entire incident, but he could not appear at a loss before Buddy.

“Why — why, wear ‘em!” His eyes fell upon the little heap of things from his pocket. He reached out and picked up the safety pins. “See! I’ll pin yours on, and you can pin mine on!”

“Yeah-but — “ Buddy looked bewildered, but stood up obediently. Rusty gingerly picked up a tail, and holding it against the seat of Buddy’s trousers, began stabbing away with one of the pins.

“Ouch!” Buddy leaped away.

“Come back and stand still, or you can’t even have a tail!” Rusty ordered, sternly. Buddy came meekly back.

After much nauseating effort, both tails were finally attached, and the boys started back across the field, attended by a jubilant Tippy. They washed their hands long and thoroughly, without having to be told.

“Oh, here you are, darling!” Rusty’s mother bustled out into the kitchen for another load of food; “just in time for dinner!”

“We’ll wait for Ant’ny, Mom.”

“Why, how nice of you to offer!” his mother beamed as she heaped a dish with mashed potatoes, “but there’s no need, today. Aunt Susy and Mrs. Gaspard didn’t come, so there’s just room for you and your little friend.”

“There’s a nigger in the woodpile, when kids don’t want to eat!” declared Mamie, sourly, brushing past with a platter of smoking ham. Rusty and Buddy edged quietly in behind her and slipped into the seats allotted them.

Old Mrs. Sims, on Rusty’s right, glanced sharply at him, and sniffed. On the other side of Buddy, Miss Ellen Mapes raised her eyebrows. There was a strained silence all along their side of the table. Mommy, from the further end, said brightly, “Well, Cousin Edna, your quilt is nearly done. I hope you’re going to like it!”

“Let’s hope hell like it!” giggled Martha Simpkins, looking arch.

“By the way, what does he look like?” Mom asked, passing hot biscuits.

Cousin Edna’s long, bony face lighted up. She smiled, bashfully. “Well, he — he’s kinda plump — “ she began, but Aunt Mandy, her mother, interrupted, “You mean he’s fat as a corn-fed hog! And he needs to be — marrying a bean-pole like you! But girls of Edna’s age can’t be choosy, you know, and he ain’t so bad when you get used to him!”

She laughed, and everyone else laughed, too, dutifully. Edna’s face turned a painful brick red. Aunt Mandy’s face was red, too, a full, overfed red. Edna looked like a sliver of her immense bulk. She looked down at her plate, and her lip trembled. Rusty saw her desperately winking back her tears. His little heart burned with anger toward the coarse old woman. He looked at Cousin Edna’s scarlet face and couldn’t eat his fried chicken. He wished Mom would say something kind, but she was telling Gramma Styles her recipe for Spanish pickles. He glanced anxiously round the table. All the ladies were heartlessly eating or talking; no one noticed how hurt poor Edna was.

He cleared his throat and said, very loud and suddenly, “Never mind, Cousin Edna! You’re — you’re just O K! You been building up your frame. You was fatted up — had some meat on you — why I betcha you’d dress out a good six hundred pounds!”

His brave little voice died away in a painful silence. Cousin Edna’s face was redder than before. Aunt Mandy’s looked like a turkey cock’s. Nobody said a word to break the awful silence, but Mom. She said, hurriedly, “Honey, don’t you and Buddy want to go out and see if Anthony is ready for his dinner, now?”

There was a funny feeling in Rusty’s stomach. He didn’t understand why, but his efforts to be nice to Mom’s company had not been successful. All he wanted now, was to get out of that room as quickly as possible He kicked Buddy’s bare ankle. Buddy said, “Ouch,” and looked longingly at the ice-cream Mamie was carrying in.

“C’mon!” Rusty pushed back his chair and rose, firmly grasping Buddy’s arm as he did so.

“Yeah-but — , oh, O K!” muttered Buddy, gulping a last spoonful of gravy, before being dragged away. Half way to the door, they were halted by a shriek from Mrs. Sawyer.

“Buddy Sawyer! Why, you — whatever’s that on your — -where are your shoes and socks, Buddy Sawyer?”

“In the — it’s a — yeah-but- — “ Buddy was mumbling, as Rusty dragged him away, through the door.

.t\nt’ny had just finished the well and started for the bunk house to clean himself up for dinner when they found him, He was wet and splattered with mud.

Ant’ny greeted the boys jovially. “Hello, kids! Been good boys and stayed away from temptation, eh? That’s fine! Always do the right thing; it pays, you know!”

“Wait a minute, Ant’ny!” Rusty called, after his fast disappearing friend. “How — how you going to know which one’s right?”

“Oh, your conscience! It’ll hurt if you do wrong, you know!” shouted Ant’ny, hurrying on. “A feeling inside of you!” he amplified, before turning his back on the two blank little faces. “I gotta get my shoes and stockings and put on!” muttered Buddy, soberly, after Ant’ny had disappeared into the bunk-house.

“Less go to the tank first,” Rusty suggested. “You can’t wade in the tank after you put on your shoes!”

“Yeah-but — “ Buddy murmured automatically, and this small sop thrown to conscience, followed Rusty willingly to the tank. Rusty gasped when he saw the basin-like depression of cracked and trampled mud that had been the pond.

“Why — it’s gone!” he stammered. ‘’It — it’s dried up! It uster be a good tank — lots of water!” he was almost apologetic to Buddy.

“It’s still got good mud!” conceded Buddy, generously.

“I wonder where the waterdogs and polliwogs and things went? Less look!” Rusty splashed into the thick, oozy mud and Buddy gingerly followed.

“O-oh, here they are! Here’s lots of them!” Rusty was on his knees, scooping up handfuls of the black slime.

“Poor little fellers! Did you lose your nice water? Is the nasty mud smuvvering you? Do you want Rusty to help you?” He shot an order over his shoulder, imperiously, “Bring that old bucket, Buddy!”

Carrying pounds of mud on each foot, Buddy stumped to where a tin pail was turned over a fence post.

“And that old dripper I used to play boat with!” added Rusty, dripping mud from his cupped hands. Picking the squirming tadpoles and waterdogs from the mud and depositing them in the receptacles was a tedious job. Rusty brushed back the hair from his perspiring forehead, almost plastering an eye shut as he did so, and said crossly, “Come and help!”

“Yeah-but — “

“Should they ought to die and suffer ‘cause you’ve got your Sunday close on?” Rusty demanded. “Is that the right way to do?”

“No-but — “ Buddy was thinking of his own suffering, when his mother found out, but this did not seem the time to bring that up.

It was a long and absorbing task, and the sun was far down the western sky, when two chocolate-colored little boys, oozing mud at every step, emerged from the tank, staggering under the weight of countless, squirming refugees.

“What we going to do with them?” Buddy gasped, setting down the dripper, which he felt was much the harder thing to carry. “They need water, don’t they?”

Rusty stared at him thoughtfully, through a mask of mud, “Yeah, that’s right. They sure do need water. We can’t let them die; it’s not right!” He continued to stare intently at his friend.

“I got a funny feeling in my insides!” he said, impressively.

“So have I!” Buddy put a grubby little paw on his stomach, “I guess I ate my dinner too fast — or maybe I didn’t have enough!” he added, reproachfully, remembering how he had been dragged away.

“Be still!” said Rusty, annoyed. “It’s your conscience, silly!” He gazed, trance-like at the unsavory contents of his bucket.

“Yeah, my conscience sure does hurt me!” he murmured, dreamily, then, in a brisk tone of decision, he announced, “It wouldn’t be moral to let them die — Buddy, follow me!”

He set off across the field with the light of purpose in his eye. Buddy stumbled along behind, uttering protesting “Yeah-buts,” at intervals.

After negotiating two fences — Buddy left the seat of his trousers on the top wire of one, and belatedly wise, rolled under the other — Rusty drew up at the newly cleaned well. Buddy puffed up a few minutes later, with what was left of his panful of tadpoles. He stared, round-eyed at Rusty.

“You ain’t going to — “

“Sure, I’m going to!” Rusty said, bravely. “It’s not moral to let ‘em die, is it? Don’t you want to grow up to be a moral man? I do. My dad’s moral, and Ant’ny ‘s moral, ‘cording to his lights. Is your dad moral?”

“I dunno,” muttered Buddy; “we ain’t got any polliwogs!”

“Don’t your conscience still hurt?” persisted Rusty. “Mine does!”

“I hurt all over!” Buddy said, resentfully, “Only I don’t think it’s my conscience. It scratched me when I tore my pants, and I stubbed my toe and this pan is awful heavy!”

“Well, little polliwogs, do you want a nice, new home?” cooed Rusty, dumping the contents of his pail into the well bucket. The occupants of the dripper followed. “Now don’t be scared — we’ll let you down easy!”

The rope slid through his hands and landed with a plop in the bottom of the well.

“There!” Rusty heaved a heart-felt sigh of the weary philanthropist with a real deed of well-doing to his credit. “I guess that surprised ‘em! My conscience don’t hurt any more, does yours?” he asked, happily, as they turned away.

At this moment, a shrill shriek keened across the meadow, and struck their ears with the effect of a blow.

“Bud-dee! Bud-dee Sawyer! We’re going home, now. Bud-dee!”

Buddy, casting one agonized glance at Rusty, began to run.

Women were swarming from the house toward the cars parked in the yard. From a large pink figure in the foreground, came regularly the clarion call of “Bud-dee!” and Buddy was running straight for trouble, like a lame and frightened rabbit.

W hy are we in bed, now? What have we done this time?” Tippy wriggled up from the foot of the bed, and rubbed his damp nose on Rusty’s cheek.

“We’ve been disrespectable again!” Rusty answered the mute question in Tippy’s sorrowful brown eyes. “We sassed Miz Sawyer when she spanked Buddy, and told her she ought to listen to her conscience more!”

He gazed at Tippy, thoughtfully, “I hadn’t ought to done it, Tippy. But Buddy wasn’t in a spanking condition!” He ruminated some more. “I know it wasn’t right for her to do it, ‘cause it made my conscience hurt! But I hadn’t ought to told her to quit picking on him ‘cause she was the biggest! And the worst was when I ast if she ever been spanked without any seat to her pants! That’s what made Mom mad! Tippy, I reely hadn’t ought to said that! That’s what wasn’t respectable!”

He glanced at the muddy little heap of clothing on the floor, from which an odor of decaying squirrel emanated, and rubbed his feet together with a grimace of distaste.

“Oooh, my feet feel awful! I wish Mom had told me to take a bath before she sent me to bed! But she said, ‘Go up stairs and get right in bed, Russell Brandon!’ and I done it! It ain’t moral not to mind, Tippy! You haf to do right, but sometimes it’s mizzable! And now,” he mused doubtfully, “she’ll probly be mad’ cause you got the outside of the bed full of mud, and I got the inside! But our conscience won’t hurt, ‘cause we minded, didn’t we?”

He felt uncomfortable, caked with dried mud; his clothing smelled of dead squirrel and Tippy smelled of wet dog, but he was very sleepy, and filled with content for a day well-lived. Drowsily, he thought of the polliwogs, swimming gratefully about in their cool, new home. “Heavenly Father,” he murmured, thickly, “thanks for this blue day! Thanks for — not letting me — let it — pass — yoost-luss-away! “

He sighed deeply, and was instantly asleep. Tippy signed, laid his nose on he pillow, and he too, slept.

Another blue day had slipped away.