We was at playtime. It rained cats and dogs yesterday. There was big puddles all over the yard.
Carl and Nellie was standing beside a puddle. Nellie was saying, "You ain't neither quicker'n me."
"Am too. I'll prove it. You sit down at this puddle like this." Carl showed him how to sit, on the ground with the puddle between his legs. We all stood around. In a circle.
Carl told him to get out his pocket knife. "Now I'll show you how quick I am. I bet I can take a rag and wipe all the water out of that mudhole before you can jab my hands with your knife."
"Bet you can't."
We all moved in closer. We could see Nellie upside down in the puddle with the pines around him like big green arms. It was March. The wind was moving in the treetops.
Carl took out a handkerchief and laid it down at the edge of the puddle between Nellie's feet. "OK, I'm gonna grab my rag and wipe up the water. You ready?"
Nellie stabbed with his knife, short and quick. That meant yes.
"OK, here goes."
Carl grabbed his little brother's ankles and jerked his hind end through the puddle so quick Nellie fell over and his back and head drug through the mud too. He screamed. He looked like he'd gone all over hisself. We was all dancing around laughing and hollering. He was running toward the schoolhouse bawling, "I'm telling, I'm telling."
Carl was running after him. "Don't do that, I'll let you get back at me."
He was about to catch Nellie when Mr. Barnes come out. "What's going on here?" He was wearing his long black coat.
Carl stopped cold but Nellie kept a-goin to Mr. Barnes.
"Nellie fell," Carl said.
Mr. Barnes bent over Nellie and musta glimpsed his back. He grabbed his shoulders and jerked him around so he could see. He said something to Nellie. We couldn't hear them talking. Then Mr. Barnes stood up straight again. "All you children come in now. Recess is over."
We all marched in by Mr. Barnes. He stood on the porch with his hands deep in his coatpockets.
When he came in he had one hand around his hickory switch and the other around Nellie's shoulders. Tears were running down Nellie's cheeks. "Carl, come up here to my desk."
"Mr. Barnes, I was just funning with--"
"I'm not interested in your explanation, son."
Carl shut up. We watched. He made Carl bend over his desk. "Now Nelson, how old is your brother."
"Thirteen."
"Thirteen. Thirteen. Carl, don't you think a thirteen year old boy ought to know better than to treat a nine year old child like that? And his own brother to boot?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you think one lick for each year will help you remember in the future?"
"Yes sir."
Then he hit Carl. Over and over. He snapped his wrist each time at the end--that gives it more sting. A switch makes red stripes on your butt. Carl began to cry out after the first three or four. Nellie winced each time, but he kept watching. His eyes was red and wet. When Mr. Barnes was through, he sent Carl to his seat. "Now I've got to get you cleaned up and dried off," he told Nellie.
There's a wash basin on the porch. He took Nellie out and was gone for about five minutes. Nobody said anything. Carl had his head down on his lap. When Mr. Barnes came back in, he wasn't wearing the coat. Without it he looked just like a regular person. He'd took it off and put it on Nellie. It swept the floor. He had Nellie's clothes in his hand.
"I'm going to take Nelson's clothes down to the creek to rinse them off and then bring them back to dry by the stove. I'll be gone about ten minutes. I want all of you to start copying out your spelling words for this week, and I don't want any of you to bother this boy or you'll be in for twice as much as you just saw. Is that understood?" He turned his head slow from side to side like a big owl. We all tried to shift a little in our seats so we'd be behind somebody. You could hear people breathe. "Good. Now go to your seat, son. Wade, you and Henry go out back and bring in some more stove wood while I'm gone."
Mr. Barnes went out and Nellie came through the room. We couldn't see his arms or hands or feet or legs under the black coat. We couldn't see no more brown mud. Just solid black, and his head above it like a thing that was floatin over to Nellie's place on the bench. After a minute Carl raised his head.
"What'd you have to tell for? You coulda just paid me back."
Nellie busted out crying again. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of the coat.
"Look at that!" one of us hollered. "You got snot on old man Barnes's coat. He'll whup you now."
"Yeah, you're in trouble now. You won't be the pet when he sees that."
"Rubbing it won't help. That's just spreading it around."
His face was as white as the coat was black. "Come here," said Carl, "let me help."
But Nellie ran. He ran out the door and we followed and stared after him. "Let him go," Carl said. "Looks like he's got it coming to him now." He wiped his arm across his nose.
We watched him head for home. He was black. When a cloud blows in front of the sun you can see a shadow move across the yard. He blew across the road. He blew across some plowed bottom land down the hill and scattered some crows. Then he was the only black dot in the red clay. Then he was gone.
Fiction: Holier
Than Thou | Main Map
Theory: Origins of this episode
Initial release: October 19, 1995
Last update: June 30, 1996