Daddy didn’t want Paco out of the house for about a week. The first few days, Paco wasn’t wantin’ to be nowhere but on that couch. He didn’t fuss much but you could tell that arm hurt him. But, after most of the hurt was gone, it got to be a job keepin’ him in the house. He come near to gettin’ whipped, broke arm or no, because he kept goin’ outside when he was told not to. He don’t fuss back at Daddy like I do but he just always says that he forgot what Daddy said. Daddy finally told him that if he caught him outside again, he was gonna forget somethin’ too. He was gonna forget that Paco had a broke arm. He said if Paco couldn’t remember from that cast on his arm he’d see could Paco remember from havin’ a blistered behind.
Most everyone on the Bent-Y was kind of babyin’ Paco and he was lovin’ every minute of it. Them aunts was bringin’ him cookies and Juan’s mama brought him some enchiladas and Virgil’s mama brought him some fresh baked bread and apple butter. Apple butter ain’t easy to come by in Texas so that was some treat. I didn’t get jealous of all the attention Paco was gettin’ mostly ’cause when they brought stuff to him, they give me some too. Anyway, the way he was done most of his life, he deserves folks makin’ over him. It don’t bother me none.
It didn’t bother me none but I got a surprise out of it. The one who made over Paco the most was Katy. As soon as the mornin’ milkin’ was done, she was over at our house actin’ like she was Paco’s mama. She was doin’ for him and readin’ with him and workin’ on his cipherin’ with him and I don’t know what all. Katy could still make me some mad but I think she was gettin’ better. Danny said she ain’t but I do think she’s gettin’ some easier to get along with.
Our Chinaman ain’t ..hasn’t been off the Bent-Y since he come to us so we was surprised, even Daddy was, when he asked could he go into Amarillo. He didn’t want no one to go with him, not even his brother. Daddy was some concerned because Ho Chow didn’t know English too good and if he got lost, he wouldn’t know how to tell nobody where he was tryin’ to go. There’s some folks who do Chinamen like them people in Amarillo was doin’ Paco. In fact, they even got a law that says no more chinamen come come to America. Daddy says in San Francisco, a lot of they real rough kind hate chinamen that they kill them and burn their houses or their stores. It ain’t that bad in Texas but Daddy was still afraid that he’d get lost or hurt or maybe even killed did he run into the wrong bunch of drunks. But Ho Chow kept tellin’ Daddy he could make out and that he had to start doin’ things on his own. He was tired of bein’ like a child, always dependin’ on Daddy or Ho Boy or somebody. I reckon Daddy liked that kind of talk. He let Ho Chow go.
Well, you talk about surprises. When he come back he had a China girl with him about me and Paco’s big. Ho Chow said that she was his cousin from San Francisco and she come to help out when his wife had her baby. As quick as Ho Chow brought that girl in the house, you seen fire in Daddy’s eyes. I couldn’t think why Daddy would be mad about Ho Chow’s cousin comin’ but our daddy wasn’t just a little fussed. He was fire-in-his-eyes, shakin’, talkin-real-slow mad. Ho Chow seen that and him and that China girl went real quick to Ho Chow’s rooms.
Paco asked Daddy why Ho Chow bringin’ his cousin here made him so mad. Daddy said he ain’t that dumb. “I used to live in San Francisco and I know what happens in Chinatown. The Chinese still keep many of the customs they had in China. Poor Chinese families will often sell their children and if that girl was Ho Chow’s cousin, either he or Ho Boy would have said something about her coming. Ho Chow bought that girl and you boys know how the idea of slavery riles me. That girl’s going to stay on the Bent-Y but she’s going to be treated like a daughter, not a slave. Ho Chow’s a good man and I’m willing to give him time to learn American ways in most things. But not when it comes to buying people. I will not have a slave on the Bent-Y.”
Daddy sent me and Paco out so we didn’t see none of the rest of it but he told us about it later. He called Ho Chow back and asked him straight out. Ho Chow admitted that he bought her and planned to sell her again after his wife was over havin’ her baby and could do house keepin’ again. Daddy told him that there wasn’t gonna be no sellin’ and while he expected her to have chores, she would not work any harder than any other child on the Bent-Y. She was to have time to play and she was to go to school. Ho Tau could start teaching her English and if Ho Chow couldn’t treat her like a member of the family and not a slave, he could pack up and go right now.
Our daddy hates havin’ slaves. He told us that probably a hundred times already. He gets fire in his eyes and his body gets real stiff when he talks about it. He said he wasn’t born yet when they was havin’ that war between the states but if he was, he would have fought for Mr. Lincoln. Every time he talks about that he ends up sayin’ the same thing. “People are people and no one has the right to own another person!”
Our daddy told Ho Chow that he’d get Sarah Weidacher to help when the baby came and that she’d stay until the baby was some big and the mama could do house work again. Ho Chow knew he done something real bad. He just worked real hard and didn’t say anything the rest of the day.
When it was dark and all the work was done, Ho Boy came over to talk to Daddy. He told Daddy that Ho Chow thinks Daddy is going to send him away. Ho Boy said that the girl, her name was Ching Lu, had no mama and papa. They had died on the boat comin’ from China. Ho Boy said that her relatives in San Francisco tried to take care of her but they were too poor. They didn’t hardly have nothin’ to eat for themselfs and they couldn’t feed no other girl. They just done like folks in China done. They sold her. Ho Chow just did what a lot of folks in China do. He bought her. He didn’t know he was doing something wrong. Ho Boy asked Daddy, “Please don’t send Ho Chow away.”
Daddy said he thinks that Ho Chow knew more about American ways than he wants folks to think. Why didn’t he tell anybody what he was going to do? Did he tell Ho Boy?
Ho Boy said that he didn’t but it takes a long time to decide that new ways are better than your old ways and Ho Chow just come from China hisself. He’s still got a lot of them China ways in him. He just can’t understand why you’re mad. He says that buyin’ that girl and feeding her is better than letting her starve to death or the other things that could happen to her if she stayed in San Francisco.
Daddy said he knows about them China ways but this ain’t China and there’s some China ways he just won’t stand for. Wantin’ to see that Ching Lu didn’t starve to death was fine but Daddy was sure that wasn’t the reason Ho Chow bought her. Would he have bought her if Ling Pau wasn’t gonna have a baby and didn’t need some help around the house?
Ho Boy said that Ho Chow thought that if he and Ling Pau couldn’t keep up with the work around the house, Daddy would send them away. In his thinkin’ he needed to buy that girl to keep his job. Daddy asked Ho Boy why he didn’t tell Ho Chow different. Ho Boy said he didn’t know nothin’ about what Ho Chow was gonna do.
Daddy said he wasn’t gonna send Ho Chow away but somebody had to make a family for Ching Lu. Daddy said if he had a wife, she could be his daughter but that girl needs a mama and she needs somebody who can talk to her and love her right now. She’s scared to death and Ho Chow was scared to death. He was hardly in any shape to comfort her. Anyway, Ho Chow and Ling Pau were only about twenty years old. They needed the chance to have their baby just to themselves. They didn’t need to be tryin’ to raise a girl Ching Lu’s big. Did Ho Boy think he understood what Daddy was sayin’?
Ho Boy didn’t say nothin’ but you could tell he understood and that he wasn’t sure that he liked it.
I asked my Daddy how Ching Lu come to America when no chinamen was s’posed to come. He said that all kinds of thing happen in San Francisco that ain’t s’posed to. Ain’t hard to get a chinaman in America and a lot more of then is comin’ than anybody thinks and he’s glad. He hates that law.
Ching Lu stayed in our house and she had some chores to do. When she was done with them chores, she was always lookin’ for more. Ho Chow tried to get her to go out and play but it looked like she was too shy. Rosie and Isabela come over and tried to get her to go out and play but Ching Lu acted afraid. Even when Ho Tau told her that our daddy said she had to go out and play, she wouldn’t go. Ho Tau said she told him that slaves don’t play and he was just trying to get her in trouble.
She was all the time bowin’. If our daddy cames in the room, she’s bowin’ to him. Even if me and Paco come into the room, there goes the bowin’. Ho Tau told us that’s how people in China show respect but like Daddy said, this ain’t China. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. Neither does Paco. We’re like our daddy. Folks are folks. We don’t want nobody bowin’ to us actin’ like we’re better than somebody.
Ho Boy and Ki Tuan started havin’ Ching Lu come to their house some. She’d help chore in Aunt Lydia’s and Aunt Jenny’s houses and Katy, Maureen and Rosie would try to get her to play some. Katy done real good with her and even though they couldn’t talk good to each other, you could see that Ching Lu was comin’ to trust Katy. Katy could even get her to laugh sometimes. Mostly Ching Lu looked scared and sad but when she laughed, she was some pretty.
Ching Lu started sleepin’ some at Ho Tau’s house. I didn’t know what Ho Boy was s’posed to understand that day my daddy was talkin’ to him. I just seen he knew what my daddy was talkin’ about. But it was startin’ to come to me. Daddy was tellin’ Ho Boy that he should be Ching Lu’s daddy. Ho Boy is some older than Ho Chow and he could easy be her daddy.
Finally Ho Boy come to Daddy and told him he had to think hard on it because Chinamen don’t hardly want no daughters but he seen how Daddy done with me and Paco. He said Ki Tuan said that they were American now and it’s time to stop them silly thinkins about girls not bein’ as good as boys. Ho Boy said he ain’t sure that Ki Tuan knows what she’s talkin’ about but he’s come to like Ching Lu real good. Ki Tuan lost some babies before Ho Tau was born and it looks like she ain’t gonna have no more. Ho Boy reckoned he’d been livin’ in America fifteen years and it was time to be all American. He was gonna make Ching Lu his daughter.
He did it too. Ching Lu’s chorin’ was still mostly to help Ling Pau at our house because Ling Pau was gettin’ a awful big baby belly, but she lived in Ho Boy’s house. She got so she’d laugh more and she’d even play some with the girls. When they was playin’, us boys didn’t hardly go near them. Even when she was playin’, Ching Lu still went to bowin’ when she seen any of us boys, even Ho Tau. Sometimes he would go to where she was just to make her bow till them other girls got her to understand she didn’t have to bow to no boy in America. They got her to see that Ho Tau was funnin’ on her. Seemed to me she got to be American almost too quick. She quit her bowin’ and it wasn’t too long before Ching Lu and Ho Tau was fussin’ almost like Katy and Danny. You seen they was brother and sister, all right. Ho Tau was ready to China-fight you, did you fun on Ching Lu or say somethin’ bad about her but he seen no problem with doin’ it himself. He said he liked havin’ Ching Lu for a sister. I seen why. Ching Lu took real good to havin’ Ho Tau for a little brother and she was always doin’ for him and treatin’ him like he was a king. She got to be some American in her fussin’, I reckon, but she still had a lot of China in her. Daddy says that’s how girls do boys in China.
Sometimes some of their Chinese friends would come to visit our cooks. Them other Chinamen was different. Their young ’uns wouldn’t hardly play with us but then, they couldn’t hardly talk English. Ho Tau said a lot of Chinese people want to stay Chinese and not be American. They don’t want their young ’uns learnin’ American ways so they don’t let them play with American young ’uns. Course, he said, a whole lot of them ranchers some of them Chinamen work for don’t do them like folks are done on the Bent-Y, so they’re afraid to get too friendly with white folks. They’re like anyone else. They’re not gonna put theirselfs in a place where they can be bad- mouthed or done bad, so they stay to themselves. China people love their young ’uns just like our daddy loves us and they don’t want nobody doin’ them bad. That’s why they tell them not to get too friendly with white young ’uns. So far as I know, there ain’t no Chinaman Seamus Flynn, so they can’t make folks do them right like our daddy can. Most of them Chinamen who don’t live on the Bent-Y just stay away from white folks they don’t know.
Ho Tau says that some of them other Chinamen even bad-mouth his daddy for lettin’ Ho Tau be American and not no Chinaman. Ho Tau says that’s dumb. Ain’t no more way he can stop bein’ a Chinaman than Paco can stop bein’ a Mexican but there ain’t no way that anybody can stop either one of them from bein’ American neither.
A whole lot of days, after we were done with our evenin’ chorin’, Me, Paco, Danny, Juan, Nate and Virgil would go to the shady side of the house horse barn and just sit there, leanin’ against the barn and talk. We talked about all kinds of things and we done a lot of what Daddy called braggin’. It don’t make no difference how big a story somebody told, somebody else had a bigger one. We’d talk about how brave we were. Me and Paco told about all the stories we heard about Seamus Flynn before we knew he was our daddy. We told how everybody was scared of him but that we wasn’t. That was a lie but that’s the kind of stories all us boys was tellin’. Could somebody throw a rock a long way, there was always somebody who could throw it farther. Could somebody run fast, somebody else could run faster.
Them Seamus Flynn stories surprised them boys who was livin’ on the Bent-Y all their lives. It made Danny some mad that folks would talk about his Uncle Shay that way, sayin’ he was a killer and all, but we told him what our daddy said about them stories helpin’ him. Danny felt some better but he still said did he ever hear anyone talkin’ about his Uncle Shay that way, he’d kick the shit out of them.
Mostly it was just us older boys but sometimes Spike and Ho Tau would come and tell lies with us. Ho Tau’s chorin’ was to help his daddy so he can learn to be a cook too. Them Chinamen are real good cooks and Ho Boy and Ho Chow are damn good ones.
Every time we got to tellin’ them brags, pretty soon them stories got around to La Nube Negra. We would all say the stories we knew about La Nube, how La Nube was lookin’ to steal children but we’d always end up sayin’ we wasn’t scared of no La Nube. Ho Tau said that if La Nube ever come after him, he knew them China ways of fightin’ and he’d take care of La Nube good. Paco said he don’t worry none about La Nube because all the stories folks tell say that La Nube is in Arizona or New Mexico Territory. He never heard no story about La Nube bein’ in Texas and anyway, he never heard no story about La Nube takin’ a young ’un. Them stories just said it was always lookin’. I said some stories but mostly I hardly never said nothin’ about La Nube. I just acted like that kind of talk was baby talk and I wasn’t scared of no baby talk La Nube. That’s a way of braggin’ too, you know, and we all knew we was lyin’. Some nights when you’re tryin’ to go to sleep all us boys would get to thinkin’ on La Nube and wonderin’ if there really was one and what we’d do if it come for us. We all think on that sometimes and we know it. We were just actin’ brave. That’s just what boys do when they’re talkin’ to each other.
We all got our own way of actin’ when we’re scared and we was usually scared when we got done talkin’ about La Nube. Nate almost ain’t no baby at all no more but when he’s scared if he don’t piss his britches, he gets mouthy. When Ho Tau was sayin’ about China fightin’ Nate said, “How did you learn that China way of fightin’ and why do them dumb Chinamen fight that way?”
Ho Tau got some mad and said that it ain’t no dumb way of fightin’ and if Nate thinks it’s so dumb, why don’t he try him.
Nate’s almost two years older than Ho Tau and everybody knows what’s gonna happen. Nate’s gonna whip his ass. But Ho Tau didn’t try to fight with his fists or did he try to wrestle. He moved real slow in a circle and had his hands up like he was fist fightin’ but his hands were open and he kept movin’ them in funny ways. Nate run at him and was gonna try to wrestle him down but, like it come from nowhere, Ho Tau kicked Nate right in the face and Nate went flyin’. Mostly, nobody wears boots for just bein’ around them houses or even when we’re chorin’ so Nate didn’t get hurt much from the kick but he sure ended up on his ass. That made him more mad and he come up with both arms swingin’ like he was a windmill but he never got close to Ho Tau. Ho Tau done somethin’ with Nate’s arm and Nate went flyin’ through the air and landed on his back. At first he couldn’t breathe good but he wasn’t hurt bad. He was just wonderin’ how the hell he got there.
He was done fightin’ but he wasn’t done mouthin’. He said, “How come you dumb Chinamen buy people? There ain’t s’posed to be no goddam slaves in America.”
Ho Tau said he don’t know nothin’ about slaves. If Nate was talkin’ about Ching Lu, he better shut his damn mouth and not be callin’ his sister no slave.
Nate had to have the last word and he said he thought Chinamen was the dumbest people in the world and went home with a big wet place in the front of his britches.
Now, I don’t think it’s right to sell your children, but what makes what one kind of people do better than what other people do? From what I heard, somethin’ must be workin’ right in China. Them school teachers said China’s got more people than any other place in the world. If they do something in China and it’s the right thing to do there, what makes it wrong just because you cross a ocean? Now, I got to say again, I don’t hold with nobody ownin’ nobody. But why are things right in some places and wrong in other places? Those things question me a lot.
People are always talkin’ down them Indians because they think different on some things than white folks. Some things about Indians that Paco told me, I don’t like. He said Indians think that killin’ a brave man makes you brave and that slow killin’ shows how brave was the man you killed. Now that ain’t right but I can’t figure why their different ways of thinkin’ are so bad-mouthed by white folks. When I was livin’ with my mama there were folks tryin’ to kill me. Not kill me like in my grave dead. But they was tryin’ to kill Sam Martin and put a whore’s bastard in his place. I know you can’t get hung for that kind of killin’ but in my thinkin’, it’s the same thing and there wasn’t even no reason for it like seein’ how brave I was.
Folks was bad-mouthin’ too, how Indians was immoral and how they was savages. When I was hearin’ them sayin’ them things, I didn’t know what immoral meant but I come to find out it means how Indians think it’s all right to sleep with more than one woman. I reckon I agree on some Indians bein’ savages on their thinkin’ on killin’ folks but them same men who was sayin’ them Indians was immoral was comin’ to my mama when they should have been stayin’ home with their wives. Seemed to me what they was doin’ wasn’t no different than what them Indians was doin’. The Indians were just more honest about it. Why are folks always tryin’ to make what they do look right and what other folks do, even if it’s the same thing, look bad? I still can’t think that out. Neither can Paco.
Course, Paco can’t give a lot of his thinkin’ to much but school startin’. I can’t believe what that boy did on his readin’ and cipherin’. We wasn’t here but about three months but there ain’t many words in them school books he can’t figure out. He can even say some words right that he ain’t never heard of. He can say them but he has to ask what they mean. In his cipherin’ he can do all the sums and take-a-ways and he can even carry and borrow some. I didn’t know they had as much paper in this world as he used practicin’ his letters.
I ain’t the best at times and divide but I think I can learn them quick now that I get to go to school all the time. Reckon if I said the truth, I’d have to tell you I was about as anxious for school as Paco.
The day before school was to start, them other herd and McLean spread young ’uns come to the Bent-Y. I think I told you, we have a big house just for them other herd school young ’uns. It’s got a big room in the middle where they eat and play and do their homework and such and there is a room on either side for sleepin’, one side for girls and the other for boys. They got two mamas that stay with them and when they go home every weekend, different mamas come to stay that week.
The day them young ’uns come a lot of mamas and daddys come with them. It kind of made you wonder who the hell was keepin’ a eye on the Bent-Y, so many folks was here with their young ’uns. Some of them young ’uns who was about our big looked like they was glad to be there and see friends they ain’t seen all summer. Some who was like Maureen and littler, was hangin’ onto their mamas and daddys and cryin’, thinkin’ on gettin’ left, I reckon. There was some of them other herd young ’uns called Paco “Juan” and then when they seen Juan, they got a real funny look on them, wonderin’ who the hell that other Mexican was, I reckon. Some of them had heard tell about Paco and me but seemed like most of them didn’t. A lot of them was askin’ me which herd my daddy worked. Hardly nobody asked Paco. They mostly acted like he was part of Juan’s family. Manuel didn’t have any young ’uns and the other Bent-Y cowboys who was Mexican wasn’t married.
I told you I ain’t one for fightin’ but I near about got into one that first day. When them young ’uns asked about my daddy, I didn’t think nothin’ of it. I told them. I seen pretty soon that a whole lot of them thought I was lyin’. One boy, a whole lot bigger than me—I seen when school started that he was in the eighth grade—didn’t think I should be tellin’ lies about Seamus Flynn. He said, “Folks who work on the Bent-Y think real high on Seamus Flynn. I think real high on him. When he comes to the south herd, he’s real friendly like and treats me almost like a man. He’s a hero and if you tell that lie on him again, you’ll be missin’ some teeth!”
If I’d have been livin’ in Goodnight and somebody called me a liar, I wouldn’t have thought nothin’ about it. It surprised me some at how mad I got. Folks on the Bent-Y took each other at their word and I wasn’t name-called since my mama’s funeral day in Goodnight. I was used to being treated with respect and when I didn’t get it, it made me mad. I was about to tear into him when Danny seen what was happenin’. He said, “Luke, you got a lot bigger this summer but you didn’t get no smarter. How was you thinkin’ about explainin’ to my Uncle Shay that you just kicked the shit out of his son?”
Luke knew who Danny was and he seen that what I was sayin’ was true. He didn’t say nothin’. His face got all red and he went in that young ’un’s house and I didn’t see him no more that day. Later, I got to likin’ him real good and if I’d have thought that day, it would have come to me that he was more takin’ up for my daddy than he was name-callin’ me.
All the young ’uns who lived at the main houses was busy seein’ old friends but Paco and me. We was mostly just stayin’ together lookin’ at folks. After word got around who we was, folks was…were… lookin’ at us too. There was one other good size bunch who was kind of off by theirselves. With the mama and daddy there was nine of them and the littlest one was a girl who you could tell was gonna be a first grader. She was hangin’ on to her mama and tryin’ real hard not to cry, but every so often a big tear run down her face. It come to me that they never been to this school before and I was just tryin’ to think who they might be when the biggest boy turned around. I asked Paco, “See that family over there? Who are they?”
Paco started to say, “How the hell do I know?” when it come to him too. “That’s Herman Colburn and Chester,” and he was off to talk to them like they was his oldest friends. I wondered if Paco was awake enough after Jigger got done beatin’ him to remember what Herman said when Daddy told him to carry Paco to our hotel room. If he did, he didn’t let on. They were familiar and with all them new folks, Paco was glad to see anything familiar. As far as Paco was concerned, if he seen you before, you was his friend.
Paco walked right up to Herman and said, “Have you been carryin’ any road apples in your pocket lately or have you took a likin’ to carryin’ bloody greasers?”
Herman looked real close but you seen it didn’t come to him who Paco was but Chester knew right off. You also seen that Chester knew that Paco was funnin’ and he said right back, “My daddy’s took a real likin’ to Mexicans but you got to learn if you’re gonna be workin’ for the Flynns, you don’t call them greasers. I’ve took a real likin’ to Mexicans too, ’specially them what pays their debts. I never got no tip for stabling that gray and buckskin and that bay. Are you tippin’ in dollars or pesos?”
Paco didn’t know what no tip was and I had to tell him. He thought that was the best idea he ever heard of. He was gonna see if Daddy would tip him a penny for every horse apple he shoveled out of that house horse barn. Paco said back to Chester, “I reckon I can’t do you no good on them dollars or pesos but do you take after your daddy in your likin’s, I can give you all the pocketfulls of road apples you can carry.”
By now Herman knew who we was and his face was some red but he was took by the Paco magic too. I don’t know how he thought on Mexicans now, but you could see how he thought on Paco. He put one hand on each side of Paco’s head and turned up his face so he could look at him good. “You healed up real good, didn’t you boy? How about you?” Herman Colburn was talkin’ to me.
He did me the same as he did Paco. “Left a nasty scar, didn’t it? You boys have filled out some. Looks like you took real good to ranchin’. Irene, you remember that story I told you about that first time me and Chester went to Amarillo? Well these is the boys.” Herman looked at his other children. “These is Mr. Seamus Flynn’s boys.”
I was gettin’ to know what my daddy meant by not likin’ bein’ no side show. Me and Paco wasn’t Seamus Flynn but when folks found out we was his sons, they did us like we was him. There was a girl and a boy between Chester’s old and me and Paco’s old. Then there was two girls that looked just the same. They was twins. I heard of twins but I never seen none before. Them twins was the same big as me and Paco. There was a boy about Maureen’s big and that girl that was about to choke her mama to death.
The way all them folks was lookin’ I got the same feelin’ I got when Ching Lu first come and she was all the time bowin’. I was some mad but I liked them folks too. I seen that Chester had some the same ways about him as Paco. I seen that that boy who was just some older than Paco and me was some like Virgil. He was some shy and he wasn’t cryin’ but he was about as scared of bein’ left here as his baby sister. I seen that all them Colburns needed friends and you can’t be friends with no heros. You got to have regular folks for friends. Them Colburns needed to know that’s what me and Paco was.
I ain’t as good a talker as Paco but I done pretty good that day. “Me and Paco go to bed at night and get up in the mornin’, just like you do. Your daddy and Chester can tell you we got red blood in us just like you do and I reckon sometimes we’re good and sometimes we’re ornery, just like you. We like havin’ Seamus Flynn for our daddy but him bein’ Seamus Flynn ain’t what makes him a good daddy. I seen how your daddy loves you when he talked up to my daddy, talkin’ hard for his job so he could do for you. My daddy’s a good daddy for the same cause as your daddy is. Our daddy loves us. So, we ain’t no different than you.
“When it comes to goin’ to school, me and Paco are just like you. We don’t know none of them other school young ’uns just like you don’t. We got our cousins here and some friends who live here, but, look at them. They’re all off seein’ folks they ain’t seen all summer. Looks like the Colburns and the Flynn boys need each other but me and Paco can’t be friends with nobody who’s thinkin’ we’re somethin’ special just because of our daddy.”
You seen them Colburns relax. That boy, just some bigger than me took right to me. His name was Harold and when school started, I seen that he was in the sixth grade. Them twins, Iris and Lily, took a likin’ to Paco and they was some like him and Chester. Them three was funnin’ on each other and laughin’ and playin’ tag right off. If our daddy’d seen Paco runnin’ around like that just two weeks after he got his broke arm, I reckon he’d of ended up with no more ass than he had when I first got him. It didn’t even come to me to say nothin’ to him. He was havin’ too much fun.
Once when he was runnin’ by, Paco stopped and said to Herman, “See what comes from pickin’ up bloody greasers? Before you know it, your young ’uns are playin’ with them. What the hell is this world comin’ to?”
Herman laughed and grabbed at Paco like he was gonna tickle him or hug him or somethin’ but Paco dodged away. “You ain’t never gonna let me forget I made a damn fool of myself, are you?”
I tried to get Paco to quit playin’ tag. I told him if daddy seen him runnin’ like that with that broke arm, he’d not only have a broke arm, he’d have a chili pepper ass. He yelled back at me, “If you keep your damn mouth shut, he won’t know, now, will he?” I didn’t say nothin’ more. I was some took back that Aunt Lydia didn’t say nothin’ but I reckon she was too busy seein’ to all them young ’uns gettin’ set in the school young ’uns’ house.
Irene didn’t know what to think. You seen that she wasn’t used to thinkin’ good on Mexicans but by now Harvey, he was the one Maureen’s big, was playin’ tag too and I was wantin’ to. I didn’t because I seen that shy one, Harold, needed me by him.
Could be that Irene didn’t know what to think but I did. young ’uns don’t see them differences in folks unless them grown folks teach them to, and most of these Colburns was too young to have learned too much of that kind of stuff yet. Even didn’t Irene know what to think, you could see she was learnin’. She got to lookin’ real pleased that her young ’uns had some friends. That littlest one, Daisy, even stopped tryin’ to choke her mama and fussed to be put down so she could play tag too. Rose, the biggest girl, went and stood by her mama and said, “I wish I didn’t finish eighth grade last year. I’d like to go to school here, wouldn’t you, Chester?”
Chester said, “Take a whole lot more than a game of tag to make me want any more schoolin’.”
I thought I’d never get to sleep that night. Paco was so excited about school, he was talkin’ almost as much as Spike. Just about the time I’d think he’d run out of things to say and was about to go to sleep, he’d ask me somethin’ else about what happens in school. I think he was still askin’ questions after he was sleepin’.
He didn’t hardly eat nothin’ for breakfast. Daddy said he reckoned he’d seen excitement in his day, but—Paco not eatin’ nothin’, now there was excitement.
When we got to the school a scare kind of come over him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go in. “Am I gonna do good, Sam?”
“You’re gonna do fine, Paco.”
Harold Colburn was already there sittin’ in the first grade with Daisy. You could see she’d been cryin’ and you could see that Harold almost was. I ain’t sure who was comfortin’ who. Paco seen that too and he walked up to the first grade. You seen Daisy’s face light up when she seen Paco comin’. While they was playin’ tag yesterday, Daisy got to likin’ Paco real good. Paco sit down beside her, put his arm around her and told her that he reckoned he was in first grade too since he’d never been to school before. He got to funnin’ on Daisy and pretty soon had her laughin’. He told Harold to get the hell out of the first grade and then he put his hand over his mouth and got a real scared look on his face. He looked at the teacher but it looked like she didn’t hear him. Harold come back and sit by me. Seemed like bein’ near me made him feel some better.
The teacher didn’t look much older than Sarah Whitacher. Sarah was like Rose. She finished the eighth grade and don’t go to school no more. It looked for a while like Sarah was gonna have to be the teacher ’cause the one who taught last year got married and went off to Santa Fe to live with her husband. Sarah said she thought she could do the teachin’ but she sure didn’t like the idea of tryin’ to teach her brother. She said that he ain’t learned nothin’ from her since the day he was born and she didn’t hardly reckon he was gonna start now.
It turned out that she didn’t have to find out. Uncle Brian sent a wire to a Normal School in St. Louis. I ain’t sure why they call it that, but a Normal School is where they teach folks to be teachers. I think it means that they take folks who want to be teachers and try to make them normal. From most of them teachers I come to know at Goodnight, they don’t do too good a job of it.
Anyway, them folks at that Normal School sent back a wire that said us Bent-Y folks shouldn’t worry none. Miss Tuthill was comin’.
Miss Tuthill is seventeen and she just got finished with Normal School. She’s a good teacher, not switchin’ on folks and duncin’ them like some of them teachers I had at Goodnight. Seemed like when they let me go to school there, that’s the only kind of teacher they had. Miss Tuthill’s a good teacher but we wasn’t in school hardly a month before you seen that she wasn’t gonna stay a teacher long. Them bunkhouse cowboys was always watchin’ her and talkin’ to her and pretty soon you seen that Clay Bronson was doin’ more than watchin’ and talkin’. He was courtin’ her and she was likin’ it real good. She’d get a real soft look in her eyes when she seen him. That look seemed like I feel when I see my daddy. It ain’t hard to see that she’s gettin’ to love Clay. That’s why I know she won’t be a teacher long. Them ladies get married and the next thing you know, they’re gettin’ a baby belly and can’t nobody be teachin’ and takin’ care of a baby at the same time.
Since me and Paco never had no regular schoolin’, Miss Tuthill didn’t know what grade we was in. She give us some readin’ and cipherin’ and writin’ to do and when she seen what we could do, she said I was in the fifth grade and Paco was in the fourth.
I told you he learned good. Spike was some mad because he’s in the third and he wanted his cousin to be in his grade. It was kind of dumb to be mad about that. We was all in one big room anyway.
There was a lot of huggin’ and ticklin’ and funnin’ and even a little cryin’ when we got home that evenin’. Daddy was so proud of both of us but both Daddy and me was extra proud of Paco. Paco had tears in his eyes when he said it. “Seems like only yesterday I was a skinny, bare-ass greaser who never had nothin’ he could call his own but the malnutrition, and look at me now. I’m in the fourth grade.”
Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein