Hippomobile! (9 page)

Then Grandma Henrietta asked, “So is you two sayin' that Gottfried Schuh left Wymore to go to his
Schwester
's —I mean, his sister's—wedding and then ain't never returned back to Wymore because he hitched his wagon to a pretty little star named Kunigunde? Is that what you two is sayin'?”

Grandpa Virgil looked at Grandpa Homer. “Is that what we're saying, Homer?”

“We wasn't but little kids at the time, but that's what I always heard. Ain't it, Virgil?”

“I reckon so, Homer.”

“Thank you, boys. You've been a great help,” said Grandma Henrietta. “For a change.”

“Always a pleasure doin' business with you, Henrietta,” said Grandpa Homer. “But tell me, what are you interested in Gottfried Schuh for all of a sudden?”

“Later, Homer,” Grandma Henrietta said, and turned to us. “You kids get it, don'tcha?”

The looks on our faces must've told her we didn't.

“Then listen close,” she said. “Because accordin' to this letter you found, before Gottfried traveled back to witness the marriage of Magda Schuh and Heinrich Sonnenschein, he was gonna take somethin' he called a dingsbums out of his hippomobile. That way ain't no one could drive it while he was gone. And now accordin' to these two old fogies, Gottfried really did go to that wedding just like he wrote he was gonna. But it seems he got married himself to one Kunigunde Sonnenschein, and for reasons ain't no one knows, Gottfried never returned back to Wymore. You followin'?”

We were.

“Good,” said Grandma Henrietta. “Now hold on to your britches. Because if he really did take that dingsbums out of the hippomobile and left it at his house like he said he was gonna, that means it could very well still be there.”

Well, that was the most dramatic and sensational news we'd heard all summer. Because it meant if we could just find that dingsbums, we could make the hippomobile run again. And if we could make that happen, people from all over would wanna come and look at it. And if people came from all over to look at it—well, you get the idea.

Just then Grandpa Milton returned. He sat himself down into a chair and placed a book on the table called
How to Win at Checkers
. It had more dog-ears in it than a kennel. And he said, “Did I hear you talking about Gottfried Schuh's old house?” And once again the checkers began doing a dance.

And Grandma Henrietta said, “That's correct, Milt. You know where it is?” Because if anybody was gonna know, it was gonna be him on account of that he used to be the Wymore mailman.

“I do,” Grandpa Milton said, “But it ain't nothing but big bluestem now.”
⁵

We knew what he meant by that. “Gone?” we asked.

“With the wind,” Grandpa Milton replied. And he puffed his cheeks out and made like wind was blowing, and the sound that came out was like a long, low train whistle, and our hair even blew back some.

What Grandpa Milton was getting at was that Gottfried Schuh's house had since broken down, fallen apart, and got taken back over by nature. It was happening all the time to the houses off the square on account of how they were just made out of wood. Some of the brick buildings on the square were going that way too, if a little bit slower.

“What'cha got the frownies for?” Grandpa Milton asked.

And we said, “Because we were hopin' to find something at his house.”

Grandpa Milton said, “Well, I'm sorry to bring you bad news like that. It's just like back when I was a mailman. One day I was bringin' a birthday card; the next day it was the gas bill.”

Grandma Ida snapped her fingers. “Now, wait a second, folks. Just because his house ain't there no more, that don't mean the dingsbums ain't.”

And Grandpa Homer said, “Would someone finally like to tell us what's going on here?”

And Grandpa Virgil said, “I second that, Homer.”

But Grandma Ida went right on talking. “I reckon there's a chance that dingsbums you're lookin' for might still be there in the topsoil somewheres. Just waitin' to be dug up by a couple of kids right about your age.”

That was all we needed to hear. We had Grandpa Milton explain to us right fast where Gottfried's house used to be.

As we were making to leave, he said to Grandma Henrietta, “Now, about that rematch.”

And Grandma Henrietta said, “Oh, Milton, ain't you never gonna learn?”

And Grandpa Homer said, “Can someone please fill me in here?”

 

 

 

 

SINCE WE WERE GOING
digging, we first had to stop at the old hardware store to pick up some tools. It used to be called Pickler's and now was called Ickler's.
¹
Everyone went there to borrow whatever it was you needed so long as you brought it back soon as you were done with it. However, there wasn't much left in there now, and nothing that you could plug in and make a lot of noise with. Most of the shelves were empty except for the dust mice, but we were still hopeful about finding what we needed.

We pushed open the door, and the bell over it went
clank
instead of
ding
. We walked up and down the aisles grabbing whatever we thought might come in handy. If we hadn't found that wheelbarrow to put it all in, we don't know what we would've done. Here's just a sample of the things we took: a sprinkler, half a saw, an old jar of peanut butter that we couldn't get the lid off of, a shovel that was taller than we were, a bucket with a hole at the bottom, a bent screwdriver, one of them small claw-looking things for digging weeds with, a rusty chain about as long as a belt, a straw hat, a step stool, a light bulb we busted before we even got to where we were going, a faucet, and two paintbrushes, one for each of us.

Once we figured the wheelbarrow was heavy enough, we steered back for the door, and that's when Jimmy grabbed a ball of string.

“How's that gonna help us dig up a dingsbums, Jimmy James?”

“It ain't for diggin'. It's to pull out my tooth with!”

Secret Trick #2 on how to yank a tooth was the door trick. You tied one end of a string around your tooth and the other end around a doorknob. And on the count of three, you were supposed to slam that door shut so that it pulled your tooth clean out of your mouth in one fell swoop.

“You sure you wanna go through with this, Jimmy James?”

“Just make sure you double-knot your end.”

Once we were all knotted up, we counted with our fingers and then we slammed the door good and loud. The bell went
clank
, but ain't nothing else happened.

“Take two steps back, Jimmy James, and I'll try it again.”

And sure enough, this time something did get yanked. Except for it was the doorknob and not the tooth.

So we gave up and let the tooth stay put. We each took one handle of the wheelbarrow and pushed it out the door and walked down the street where our grandmas and grandpas were going about their everyday business.
²
And as we passed them by, they each gave us a funny look and asked us what in the name of Joseph we were up to.
³
We just told them, “Go ask Grandpa Homer. He'll tell ya.”

We pushed and took a right at the corner where the old Stop sign was laying flat on its face and left the square behind us and pushed our way down Water Street. That was the street with the giant water tower on it that was the tallest structure in town. The name
WYMORE
was printed on it in thick black letters, but on account of all the sun and the wind and the grit, the name was all faded out and looked more like
WYMORE
.
⁴

By the time we got to the next corner, our arms were already aching, and we were still only at Baker Street. We know Baker Street good as the man in the moon because that's where we used to live at back when we were little kids. Our old house has done seen its better days, though. The front porch is sagging like a belly after a good Sunday meal, and the steps leading up to it are all rotted out like teeth. The front door is so wobbly, it could be blown in by the first wolf that comes around, and the windows are all busted out like black eyes. Most of the paint's chipped off, too, and up on the roof there's a hole where the chimney must've been.

“Kinda good to be livin' at the Any, ain't it?”

“Sure is, Jimmy James.”

We each picked up our side of the wheelbarrow and marched onward. According to Grandpa Milton's directions, we still had several blocks to go, and we ain't exaggerating when we say that somehow the blocks were getting longer and longer the farther we walked on them, like they was stretching like taffy. So we tried swapping wheelbarrow sides, and we tried walking backwards, and we even traded off wearing the straw hat, but the wheelbarrow got heavier no matter what we did. By the time we reached the fork in the road we were scouting for, both of us had blisters on our hands the size of baked beans.

But we didn't stop, and soon the blacktop ran out and we hit dirt gravel. Grandpa Milton told us to keep a lookout for a rusty mailbox on our left. Said we couldn't miss it on account of that the red flag would be sticking up. And true to his word, we spotted the mailbox from far off and were happier than clams.

But soon as we got there and put down the wheelbarrow, we blew on our hands and looked around and saw what we were up against. Short of that mailbox, there wasn't anything out there except for weeds, weeds, and more weeds. There wasn't even no sign as to where exactly Gottfried's house could've stood at. There wasn't a gate, and there wasn't a porch, and there wasn't a hole in the roof on account of that there wasn't no roof. It was just like Grandpa Milton said. Nothing but wind and bluestem.

“Now what are we gonna do?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

We pulled the shovel out of the wheelbarrow, and we took the bucket and walked our way through the weeds. We were hoping we'd still maybe find a portion of Gottfried's house in there, like maybe a step or a patch of floor or even a nightstand without a bed next to it. But the only thing in them weeds was all the hoppers we were scaring up. And they jumped on our shoulders, and they clung to our shirts, and a few of them got comfy up in our hair.

We finally stopped looking and just picked what we thought was a good spot to start digging at. But it didn't take us long to determine that the dirt was harder than a day-old dinner roll. The shovel busted clean off soon as it broke ground, and we were left standing there holding the handle. So we got down on our knees, but by the time we managed to dig out our first real dirt clod, we were as wore out as a welcome mat.

“Jimmy James?”

“Yeah, Stella?”

“This ain't no use.”

“Nope. It sure ain't.”

 

 

 

 

WE WERE AS EXHAUSTED
as a tailpipe that night and couldn't hardly wait any longer for dot nine o'clock. We'd already sprinkled some water on our faces and licked down our hair and wrestled our way into our pajamas and were now sitting up on our beds. We had some time to spare, and we knew what we were supposed to be doing. The presidents were staring mean at us from up on the bulletin board. But we left them stuck there like donkey tails and wallowed some more in our misery instead.

We were mighty glad when the phone started ringing, and we jumped off our beds and picked it up and said, “Mom?”

And the voice on the line said, “Who you turkeys callin' Mom?”

“Pops!” we both shouted.

“Hey, now, go easy on my ear. I might need it again someday.”

Pops didn't call us at regular times like Mom did because he was always on the road, and that's why it was always a special treat when he did call. We'd always wanna know how many states he'd trucked through since the last time we talked, and if he blew out a tire or not, and what kinda greasy spoons he'd ate at, and if his back pain was acting up on him again, and how much he was looking forward to a Mabel's blue-plate special.