Читать книгу Drink We Deep - Arthur Leo Zagat - Страница 6

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Letter from Jethro Parker, farmer:

Dear Mr. Zagat:

I have just come home from the Grange meeting and Martha had told me you been here and she promised you I would write down what happened the night of August 15th two years ago. I would rather plow fifty acres than do this chore, but Martha will not leave me, send back the ten ($10) you left to pay me for my trouble, so I guess I will have to.

Nurse Horne from Camp Wanooka was here that night to massage Martha’s leg for the rheumatics and we were in the kitchen having a snack when all of a sudden there was a thundering big crash from way up the road. Miss Horne and I jumped up and ran across my corn lot to where the noise came from.

We got near where the camp road comes out on the highway and I saw a car on its side, crumpled up against the telegraph pole that’s there. I heard a kind of moan and then I saw a girl in the dirt.

She was on her knees and she was holding on to a man’s leg with both hands. Blood was spraying up between her fingers like it was a busted water pipe she was holding on to. I could not figure out to this day how she had the gumption to do that, specially shaken up as she was and maybe bad hurt for all she knew.

Well, Miss Horne got right down on her knees alongside the girl and first thing I knew she was tearing a piece from her dress and tied it around the man’s leg.

I helped the girl stand up and I see that she is not hurt bad. Her dress is all torn and bloody, but she was the prettiest female I ever saw.

“Get a car,” she said. “Quick. We’ve got to get them to a hospital.”

I had not seen no one else. “Them?” I asks, puzzled like.

She pointed into the dark further back. I made out what I thought was a big bundle of rags. It heaved a little and I saw it was a tramp lying there. Except for his arm moving just a little bit I would have thought he was dead, the rest of him was so still.

“Hurry, Jethro,” Nurse Horne said.

I ran back through the corn lot to my barn, cranked up my flivver and drove back to the crossroads. When I got there the girl was helping the man with the hurt leg to sit up, and I saw it was Mr. Lambert from Camp Wanooka. Miss Horne was busy over the tramp. I could not see what she was doing because the thick trees made it so dark back there.

Well, sir, between the three of us we made out to get both the hurt men in the back of the flivver. The nurse got in back with them and the other girl got in alongside of me and I started off down the mountain.

I heard Mr. Lambert say, “Where are we going?”, and I heard Miss Horne answer him, “To the Albany Hospital.”

Mr. Lambert said, “If you take me there they will keep me for weeks and I must get back to camp. How about Doc Stone? You used to work for him. Don’t you think he can take care of us at his house?”

“I guess so,” Nurse Horne answered. “He has all the equipment and it is lots nearer too. Jethro, it is the big white house on New Scotland Road just before you get to the city line.”

“I know,” I said. “I used to take my neighbor Elijah Fenton there to have his neck dressed before he got drowned in Lake Wanooka last winter.”

“Please go faster,” the girl beside me said. “Oh please. He must not die.”

I was already going like a drunken bat so I looked around at her and I saw her mouth was blue and trembling. I was scared she was going to have hysterics so I started to talk to her to get her mind off her excitement.

“Elijah was drowned,” I said, “the time the ice broke on Lake Wanooka and two score of the Four Corners Church moonlight skating party went through it. It is so deep there we did not get back any of the bodies, but every time I see Jeremiah Fenton I get cold all over. Jeremiah is Elijah’s twin and like as two peas from the same pod. When he came walking in to memorial services there was three women fainted. I—”

“Stop!” she screamed. “Oh, stop it!” Now ain’t females funny? I never could make them out.

Well, Mr. Zagat, Martha’s been reading this over my shoulder and she says that this is all you want me to tell about, so I will stop. Hoping this is satisfactory, I am,

Yours truly,

Jethro Parker.

P. S. There is something been bothering me ever since that night, but I don’t know just how to write it down. Next time you are up this way will you please drop in to visit me and I will tell you about it? Come to noon dinner and sample Martha’s chicken dumplings.

Parker.