time, the Sheriff stood up and walked straight toward the boys, leaving Paul and Granddaddy in the bean row.
“Is Granddaddy Lamb dead?”
“Fraid so, Son,” and he patted Skippy on the head.
“I’ve known that old man for fifty years. He was a good one.”
“Yeah, he took my warts off last year—he probably had magic—Me and Jasper and Jacky all feel like cryin’, but we’re gonna hold it in.”
“Are you sure you boys are gonna be OK?”
The trio nodded.
“I need to go see about Nellie Rose. I hear her a cryin’. You boys understand that she knows but she doesn’t know. Hope I can break it to her gentle.”
“Sheriff, what’s gonna happen to Nellie and her momma?”
“Well nobody is gonna hurt ’em, that’s for sure. I’m always around and Chunk Murray lives right next door. He could rassle a Grizzly Bear and whup it.”
“But who is gonna sit in Granddaddy Lamb’s chair?”
“You mean who is gonna take his place?”
“Yeah, we’ll miss him wavin’ at us and jokin’ us and stuff. He was always fun even if we couldn’t understand ever’ word.”
“Boys, I don’t know all the answers—all I know is that things can’t get so tough but what the Good Lord and good neighbors can handle it.”
“Thanks Sheriff—and you can come to our neighborhood anytime.”
“You bet, boys.”
Insights into “The Infidel”
Even in the buckle of the Bible Belt where there was an active church on every corner, some of our neighbors struggled with religion. The war compounded the issue.
Many were drawn to faith by the urgency of the hour while some were repelled by the fact that the demon of war was even allowed to exist.
Neighbors of faith—and neighbors without faith—lived on the small, intersecting lots. The faithful and the faithless shared the vigil of waiting, trying to make sense of the worldwide slaughter.
Mr. Marsh lived catty-cornered from Granddaddy Lamb. He always spoke but never waved at kids on bikes. His hair was a salt and pepper and his skin always turned bright red in the sun. His garden grew well, but not as large and green as the Lamb’s. He used his shiny push plow almost every day and raised big cantaloupes that he would sometimes share with the neighbors.
There was a steep embankment next to his garden where a kid could put his leg and balance his bike as the two conversed.
Through the Eyes of a Child
The Infidel
“Hi, Mr. Marsh.”
“Mornin.”
“Mr. Marsh, what’s a Infidel?”
“Is that what they call me?—cause I don’t go to church?”
“Maybe I got the wrong word.”
“Or maybe you got the right one.”
“I get stuff mixed up all the time—especially serious words.”
“Lemme tell you somethin’ about me and church—always get choked up at church—feel like I’m gonna suffocate. But ain’t tellin’ you not to go. I just got some questions. Had ’em since even before the war come along, and the war ain’t done nothin’ to answer ’em.”
“Well if you want to go, you can go with me. We sing ‘Everybody ought to go to Sunday School at our church.’”
“I know my way down there—and some of these days I may get around to it. When Thelma was down they brought food and sat up with her seven nights in a row—fact of matter—I couldn’t have made it without ’em. There is just some things I don’t understand about.”
“Well, maybe I got the wrong word.”
“I just got some questions and nobody ever asks me what I think or what I don’t understand—even when they had the big meetin’ in the tent on Johnson’s vacant lot. But one of these days I may get around to it.”
“Mr. Marsh, is a Infidel somebody that asks questions?”
“Don’t know, Son. If that’s what they call me then that’s what one is.”
“Well, see you Mr. Marsh.”
“Yeah Son, come back any time.”
Insights into “The Fall of Man”
Their name was Montgomery and they lived across the street from Skippy. They were old and had a coal-burning stove and Mr. Montgomery used a wide-mouthed spittoon. Their house smelled stale as if it had not known fresh air in a decade, kind of like their privy that Mrs. Montgomery called “the closet.”
Granddad taught Skippy to pick up kindling for the old couple soon after the boy started walking. Although the correlation between the twigs of wood and the coal stove was not entirely clear, the kindling gathering soon became a daily ritual in the winter.
Sometimes Mrs. Montgomery would give Skippy a cherry fried pie when he knocked on the door with the kindling. They had three cherry trees and several other fruit trees out by the closet, and a big apple tree right outside Mrs. Montgomery’s kitchen window.
Through the Eyes of a Child
The Fall of Man
Temptation:
The summer was hot and the lone cement step on the front porch was hard, but it made a good place to sit while the sun meandered in and out of the large green leaves of the Sycamore.
Skippy had been watching the apples grow on the big tree just outside Mrs. Montgomery’s kitchen window for weeks. The heaviness of the fruit now brought the branches low and three just-turned-red apples bounced in the wind in wild syncopation.
He could just taste the sweetness! Besides, he knew that Mrs. Montgomery lay down for a nap in mid-afternoon. And he was willing to wait for his chance.
“I can reach the first one with a jump,” he thought, and a quick dash across the street allowed him to work his plan. The first leap he touched the fruit, but the slickness of the apple’s skin made it impossible to grasp. But with another run and an even higher jump, he snared the apple in both hands and ripped it from its limb before tumbling onto the grass.
Now that the technique had been mastered, Skippy backed up farther and made an even faster run and greater leap for apple number two. But this time, he was not even close, as the wind at the very last instant bounced the fruit heavenward and out of reach. With a sigh, the boy grasped his prize, apple number one, and shoved it deep into his overall pocket.
