Summer of the Monkeys (14 page)

Rowdy seemed to be more mixed up than I was. He just couldn’t believe that a fight like that could have happened so fast and ended so fast.

I looked over to where I had dropped my net. There it was right where I had dropped it; wide open and not a monkey in it. I couldn’t believe it. How on earth could the little monkeys have gotten out of the net? My first thought was that the yellow ring had gotten tangled in a bush, and while the monkeys were flouncing and dragging the net over the ground, the net had opened.

I glanced down at the yellow ring and almost jumped out of my shoes. I saw that it had been pulled all right and it wasn’t tangled in any bush.

Mumbling to myself, I said, “Holy smokes! I’ll bet while Rowdy and I were fighting the little monkeys, the big monkey sneaked in and opened the net.”

I was still trying to figure out how the monkeys had gotten out of my net when I heard a noise from the bur oak tree. I looked up into the branches. There on a big limb stood the big monkey. He was just standing there looking as proud as a general that had won a war.

When the big monkey saw that I was looking at him, he really made a fool out of himself. Staring straight at me, he started jumping up and down on the limb and uttering those deep grunts. He threw his head back and beat on his chest with his paws; then he opened his big mouth and started laughing. He laughed so loud the bottoms rang with his monkey laughter.

This made me so mad I all but choked.

Shaking my fist at him, I yelled, “You’re not such a brave monkey. You sicked those little monkeys on Rowdy and me but you didn’t do any fighting. What’s the matter? Are you scared? If you’ll come down here, we’ll fight you all over these bottoms.”

The big monkey must have understood what I said. He stopped laughing, and with a few grunts, he started dropping down from the tree. My hair flew straight up.

“Rowdy,” I said, as I picked up my empty net, “I don’t know about you but I’ve had all the monkey fighting I want for one day. Let’s get out of here.”

I didn’t have to tell Rowdy but once. He felt about monkey fighting like I did. He was way ahead of me when we tore out down a game trail.

We hadn’t gone far when I looked back over my shoulder and saw that there were no monkeys chasing us.

“Rowdy,” I said, as I walked over and sat down on a sycamore log, “I think we can stop running now. Maybe we can’t whip those monkeys but we can sure outrun them.”

Taking my handkerchief out of my pocket, I started dabbing my monkey bites. Rowdy sat down on his rear and started licking his wounds.

“Rowdy,” I said, “if you think we’re in a mess now, you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until we go home and have to face Mama and Daisy. Mama will probably whip me and lock you up in the corn crib. If we had a little money and a few groceries, we’d just leave the country and never come back. But we don’t have any money and I don’t think either one of us could do without something to eat for very long.”

Rowdy seemed to understand what I had said because he stopped licking his wounds and looked toward the house. With a little whimper, he came over and started licking at the monkey bites on my hands.

I patted him on the head and said, “You’d better take care of yourself, boy. You’re in worse shape than I am.”

The more I thought about going home, the more I dreaded it. I thought about going to the store and seeing if Grandpa could help me in some way, but that wouldn’t have done any good. Sooner or later, I would still have to go home.

“Well, Rowdy,” I said, “I guess there’s not but one thing we can do. We’ll just have to take what’s coming to us and that’s all there is to it. But I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

I could tell by the way Rowdy’s tail dropped down between his legs that he didn’t like it either.

D
aisy must have seen Rowdy and me coming up through our fields because she was standing on the porch when we came walking up. With a frown on her face, she peered at us.

Letting out a low whistle, she said, “Holy smokes, Jay Berry, what happened to you and Rowdy? Both of you look like you’ve been run through a brier patch.”

“Aw, Daisy,” I said, “didn’t anything happen to us. We just had a little fight with those monkeys and they bit us a few times. That’s all.”

“A few times!” Daisy said. “It doesn’t look like a few times to me. It looks like those monkeys just about ate you up this time.”

Before I could say anything else, Daisy turned and hollered through the open door of the house, “Mama! Mama! Come and look at Jay Berry and Rowdy! They’re chewed all to pieces and there’s blood all over them.”

This time, Mama must have been peeling potatoes when she heard Daisy yell because she still had one in her hand when she came flying out the door—scared half to death.

“Blood!” Mama said in a quavering voice, looking at Daisy. “Who’s bleeding?”

“Jay Berry and Rowdy, Mama!” Daisy said, as she pointed with
her hand. “Look at them! They look like they’ve been run through a brier patch.”

With more scare in her eyes than I had ever seen before, Mama looked at me and said, “Jay Berry, are you all right?”

“Aw, Mama,” I said, “you know how Daisy is. She’s just trying to make something big out of nothing. I’m all right. I just got bit a few times by those monkeys—that’s all.”

Looking up toward the heavens, Mama closed her eyes and muttered something that no one could have understood.

Daisy came over, took hold of my arm, and started looking at my monkey bites. Shaking her head and making a little clicking noise with her tongue, she said, “Jay Berry, I’m scared. I’m scared half to death.”

“Scared!” I said. “What are you scared of? The monkeys didn’t bite you.”

“I don’t care,” Daisy said, “I’m scared just the same. We don’t know anything about monkeys. For all we know, they may have hydrophobia.”

I wanted to say something but I couldn’t get my mouth open. My stomach got all knotted up and I shivered a little like I was having a cold chill. I looked to Mama for some help.

Mama couldn’t help anyone right then because she was just as scared as I was. She just stood there, staring at me with her face as white as a hen’s egg. Her mouth opened and I thought she was going to say something but nothing came out.

People in the Cherokee hills were so scared of hydrophobia they didn’t talk about it in loud voices. They usually spoke about it in whispers. When news spread through the hills that a mad animal was prowling, windows and doors were locked. Everywhere the menfolks went, they carried their shotguns and rifles. Until the mad animal was taken care of, children were kept indoors and all stock was brought into the barn lot.

While hanging around my grandpa’s store, I had heard some
weird tales about animals and people that had gone mad with hydrophobia. How they had frothed at the mouth and their eyes had turned as green as cucumbers. In the dark of night, they would prowl through the country howling and moaning; and biting everything that got close to them. It was enough to scare a fellow clean out of his britches.

Daisy saw that she had me paralyzed with fear and she started carrying on again.

“Mama, there’s not but one thing we can do,” she said. “We’ll just have to chain him and Rowdy to a fence post.”

This seemed to shake some of the scare out of Mama. “Chain him to a fence post!” she said, in a loud voice. “Why, Daisy, what on earth are you saying?”

“That’s all we can do, Mama,” Daisy said. “That’s all you can do with anything that’s going mad. You have to chain them to something and watch them. If their eyes turn green and they start foaming at the mouth and biting things, then you’ll know they’re mad. It wouldn’t do any good to tie him up with a rope. If he does go mad, he would gnaw right through a rope.”

Daisy had me so scared by now that I could almost feel myself frothing at the mouth and snapping at everything that got close to me. I think I would have gone mad for sure if Papa hadn’t come walking up about that time.

Frowning, Papa looked at Mama and said, “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Before Mama could say anything, Daisy popped up and said, “It’s Jay Berry again, Papa. He’s really got himself into a mess this time. He and Rowdy had a fight with those monkeys and got bitten all over. For all we know, they may have hydrophobia.”

“Papa,” I cried, “they think I’m going mad, and they’re talking about chaining me to a fence post.”

Papa chuckled and said, “Aw, I don’t think we’ll have to do anything like that. Those monkeys belong to a circus and came in
contact with people every day. They’ve probably been vaccinated for all kinds of diseases. A big circus like that wouldn’t have taken a chance on having a bunch of sick monkeys around.”

Papa didn’t know it, but he had practically brought me back from the grave. I began to feel a little better, but not very much.

Regardless of what Papa had said, Daisy wasn’t convinced that I wasn’t going mad.

“Just the same,” she said, “I’m not taking any chances. I’m going to keep my eye on him, and I’m locking the door to my room every night. If he does go mad, I don’t want him sneaking in and biting me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mama said, “now that will be enough out of you, young lady. You shouldn’t be saying things like that.”

Papa said, “I think the best thing to do right now is to get something on those monkey bites. They could get infected.”

“I think so, too,” Mama said.

Daisy said, “Mama, you doctor Jay Berry, and I’ll take care of Rowdy. He wouldn’t bite me even if he was going mad.”

Mama went in the house and came back with some clean rags, a bottle of peroxide, and some iodine.

Every time Mama dabbed one of the bites with peroxide I would have a dancing fit. But when she started putting that iodine on me, I yipped and hopped all over the place. By the time she was through, I felt like I had been boiled in a washpot.

All the time Mama was doctoring me, I could hear Daisy cooing and talking to Old Rowdy. He was whimpering and whining, and licking Daisy’s hands, and begging her not to put that stinging, burning stuff on him.

Daisy was a little more artistic with her doctoring than Mama was. She wrapped Rowdy’s monkey bites with all kinds of bright-colored rags and tied them in bow knots. When she was through with him, he looked like a Christmas package.

Rowdy took one look at himself and was so disgusted with what he saw he scooted under the house.

I couldn’t help laughing a little.

The next morning I was so sore and stiff I couldn’t get out of bed and make it to the breakfast table. I was lying there, feeling sorry for myself, and thinking about all that money down in the bottoms hopping around in those sycamore trees when Mama, Papa, and Daisy came into my room.

Papa looked at me and asked, “How do you feel?”

“I don’t feel so good, Papa,” I said. “I’m as sore and stiff as an old hound dog that has been chasing a fox all night.”

Daisy giggled and said, “Jay Berry, if you think you’re in bad shape, you should see Old Rowdy. He’s so sore and stiff he can’t even wiggle his tail. He wouldn’t come out from under the house to eat his breakfast.”

With a concerned look on her face, Mama reached over and placed her hand on my forehead.

“Why, Jay Berry,” she said, “you have a little fever. I think you had better forget about this monkey catching and stay in bed for a few days.”

The way I was feeling, I didn’t even argue with Mama.

As if my getting eaten up by the monkeys was one of the most wonderful things that had ever happened in our family, Daisy squealed her delight and said, “Mama, if you’re going to make him stay in bed for a few days, then I’ll get to practice my Red Cross nursing on him again.”

When I heard Daisy mention that Red Cross nursing business, I started getting out of bed.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” I said, “you’re not practicing any of that stuff on me. I’m not sick enough to go through that again.”

Placing both of her hands on my shoulders, Mama pushed me back down in the bed and said, “You just stay put, young man. Somebody has to doctor you and, besides, your little sister is a pretty good nurse.”

I wanted to argue but knew that it was useless. To win an argument with both Mama and Daisy was unheard of. I figured
that the misery would last for only a couple of days and I could put up with anything that long.

This Red Cross nursing business had popped up about a year back when I had had the mumps and Daisy had read me a story about a Red Cross nurse. From the day she read that story, Daisy was bound and determined that when she grew up she was going to be a Red Cross nurse. She saved enough money to order some material that was the same color as the Red Cross nurses’ uniforms. With Mama’s help, she made a uniform, complete with an arm band and a dinky little hat.

It got to be a common sight to see Daisy fluttering around in her nurse’s uniform, doctoring everything that was sick and a lot of things that weren’t sick at all. She took care of the pigs, chickens, calves, cats, birds, Rowdy, me, and everything else you could think of. She took care of all my busted toes, scratches, stone bruises, and boils. If I came down with a bad cold or the flu, Daisy would put on her uniform and go to work. I never saw anything like it.

“Mama,” Daisy said, “do you think we could get Old Rowdy into Jay Berry’s room? If I had both of them in the same room, it sure would help a lot. That way I could watch both of them at the same time.”

Mama smiled and said, “I don’t know about that. If Rowdy is as sore and stiff as you say he is, the only way we could move him would be to carry him, and that old hound is pretty heavy.”

Daisy thought a second and said, “Mama, we could put him in the wheelbarrow and roll him in.”

“Yes,” Mama said, nodding her head, “we might be able to do that.”

I felt sorry for Rowdy, but there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do about it. I didn’t figure they could catch him anyway. But I was wrong.

It wasn’t long until I heard the screeching of our old wheelbarrow coming through the house. With Rowdy about half in the
wheelbarrow and half hanging out, they wheeled him into my room. Daisy made a pallet for him over in the corner.