that no one else’d taken into consideration. While he was leaning over the garbage pail, taking out and sifting through the heap, I noticed his hide, and, as you can see, there was no fur. He was shivering in the morning air, his breath misting down from his nose. This thing needs heat, I told myself.’ Inside the cage Ernie hadn’t taken his eyes away from Ansel. Ansel’s hands twitched unconsciously.
“‘So where could he be safe and warm? I wondered. It was winter and I began looking. I knew the thing would be too stupid to burn wood itself, and would have to use the heat of people. So I knew it would be in an attic somewhere, half sleeping in the daytime, watching through a window for dogs and danger.’ Ansel sat down and waited for the end of this. The barker continued talking with no regard for time.
“‘I couldn’t find him. I knew he was in an attic somewhere, but I supposed that he had several to choose from, and people weren’t overly friendly about letting me into their houses. So what I was finally forced to do was rent an old place near the woods, jack the heat up, and wait in a darkened corner of the attic. Nothing, for a long time. Then I heard him early one evening scrambling up the side of the house like a spider. I saw his head looking in through the window. Then he was gone again. I knew he’d be back and sat quietly, wrapped in a wool blanket, eating dried fruit. I’d been there for so long by then that the rats and mice roamed freely across the attic floor. Later that night he came back again for another look and I saw his head outside the window because it was dark against the sky. Then he scrambled back down the side.
“‘The next time, opening the window by sliding his fingers in through the crack and flipping the latch open, he came onto the floor without making the slightest noise. The rats fled into the walls. He left the window open and began walking cautiously in a circle along the walls, covering the room. I think by the time he was almost to where I was he knew something was wrong, but by then it was too late and I had the net over him. Nearly as strong as two men, he was.’ The barker stopped talking.
“‘You got to let him go.’
“‘I might be persuaded to sell him,’ said the barker. ‘But I’ll never just let him go . . . though this would be fine country for him.’
“‘He can understand words,’ said Ansel. ‘He can think. He’s a man.’
“‘No, he isn’t. That’s crazy. Have you ever seen anyone else like him? Look at his feet. Look at his organ, man.’
“‘He may have been distorted, by birth, or by chance . . . but to keep him like this is against God.’
“‘Even if what you say is true—about the birth—even so, after something’s been that twisted it’s no longer the same thing as it might have been if everything had turned out normally.’
“‘But he understands,’ said Ansel. ‘Nothing should live like that. Turn him loose. Let him stay with me.’
“The barker thought of the few coins in his pocket. He coughed. ‘It’ll cost you money,’ he said. ‘Of course you can get some of it back, though, here and there. People will pay.’
“Ansel did not press to insist that this was immoral. ‘How much?’
“‘Three hundred.’
“‘Too much.’
“‘For a human being!’ said the barker indignantly. ‘Too much for a human being! How can a man be not worth three hundred dollars? That’s not much money for a human life.
“This line of reasoning presented your grandfather with some problems. He left, and when he returned, groups of two and three people were slowly coming into a much larger group in the dust outside the sideshow. This gathering at first was timid, brought together by accidental interest. But some of the men who’d gone into the show began talking, and then the group decided that something would be done. Though unsure of what that would mean, they were generally becoming hostile. One woman suggested that a fire be set to the canvas, for fun, and as the momentum of the idea was being drawn into actuality your grandfather stepped out into the dust, the creature stepping so carefully beside him, the chain gone. The barker, watching them from inside, counted three hundred dollars out in ones and fives and silver—collection-plate money. The crowd moved back and was quiet. They made a passageway and your grandfather walked between them with Ernie glowering up at their faces from his some four feet, thick, dark marks on his neck. Some of the people followed them nearly home, watching at a distance. Before the two stepped up onto the front doorstep of the house on Everett Street, where they lived before moving here, he’d been named, and Ansel introduced him to C and Sam and your grandmother as Ernie. And he lived with them.
“Actually, he didn’t live with all of them, because your grandmother left shortly after that, never to return. Can you imagine a man with principles like that?”
Glove sat and listened, becoming very interested.
“So then there was this man (this was a little later) Johnie Fotsom, who I think lived—It doesn’t matter. He started writing these novels about your grandfather, true stories, and sold some copies, and it came out in a cheaper edition and sold some more. The Holy Man, Man of Faith, The Broken Lantern. Critics hated them. All men of learning—any learning—deplored them. Young people hated them. Atheists found them ‘cheap sensationalism’ and ‘hocus-pocus sentimentality.’ But still they sold. There was one scene in Man of Faith where Ansel was pictured walking toward town during the Depression with seventeen cents in his pocket and a starving family at home when a freshly, cleanly killed rabbit falls out of the sky at his feet. He looked up, expecting a large hawk or eagle, and saw nothing. There are several then about how close to God he was and how God would purify the impure people around him—one account of how Dr. McQueen lost a hand to an exposed window fan that he had forgot about being behind him as he reached for a piece of billiard chalk on the ledge. One where a man’s wife hangs herself. And so almost overnight Ansel received a fairly immense sum of money from Johnie Fotsom for the use of his name and his life. Ansel took the money and everyone in his church thought he shouldn’t have, because a lot of money . . . for nothing! No honest work. Of course everyone knows writers are a seedy lot, but to accept money from one, especially a not very good one, and be glorified in the public eye . . . Whatever, there was a surge of resentment against your grandfather (spearheaded by Rabbit Wood’s father) and some talk of ousting him from the ministry of the First Friends Church. Many in the congregation were afraid of him, because they couldn’t understand saintliness, and most felt that Ernie was an affront to the community.
“But before a real confrontation could arise, a half-dozen carpenters imported from Cedar Rapids—strong, hard-eyed men that never talked while they were together—began working on this house; and even before the foundation was set, it was obvious to everyone that it was going to be a building of giant size, much bigger than many of the rural people had ever seen, and bigger than any Christian man could ever use. The town people, at noon, stood back and watched as our front porch went up, as the studs for the walls climbed up three stories.”
“Wait a minute,” said Glove, showing signs that his mother recognized, signs of becoming very upset, his hands twitching nervously. “So someone begins to build a house, on his own land—his own place! What business is it of anyone else? What can it possibly matter to them? Why can’t people just mind their own lives?”
“I don’t know,” said Cell, sitting up straighter in the chair. “C could tell you. He’s been to college, and that’s what’s the main thing of education—showing you what’s your business and what’s somebody else’s.”
“Still,” said Glove. “It was none of their
