When I Crossed No-Bob by Margaret McMullan Page B

waxed his mustache, but he needs to bathe.
    I think about how Miss Irene might suggest Smasher have a bath by fetching him some soap and water, and just thinking of her again makes me smile. My smiling makes Smasher smile and gets him started talking about how so many people died in the war. He talks about the difference between dying and getting killed. How getting killed was better than just dying. He thinks he's being entertaining.
    Eustace says nothing. He just chews with his mouth open and stares at me.
    Pappy tells the story about the peddler we passed and he makes them laugh.
    We eat cornbread and field peas somebody boiled good and soft.

    Pappy feels inclined to tell us all again how No-Bob came to be.
    It all started when Pappy's pa, Pappy O'Donnell, moved to this part of the country and settled and acquired a good bit of land cheap because the land flooded from the rivers when the rains came. People said the land was of inferior quality, only good for livestock, but that's why Pappy O'Donnell liked it. He said there won't ever be none of those big plantations nearby because nobody would want to live here—the rest of the world would leave us alone.
    He raised a might large family. Some say he had twenty-two children, some say twenty-eight. He tried to give all his children a home, and each of them married into another family, and that's when the bad name was given over to the O'Donnells because there was so much feuding over the dividing of the property. Pappy said they wanted to keep the land pure and full of white, Anglo-Saxon O'Donnells.
    A spider comes down on a single strand just to say hey. She's swinging in the breeze, happy just to be hanging there, when Pappy says, "Swat it down and step on it."
    I don't want to smash the spider. I look at it and whisper to it, "Get."

    Pappy comes round the table, swats the spider down, lifts his foot, then looks me in the eye when he stomps down on that spider, and I can't look at the mess on the floor.
    The men all wink at each other as they pass around the jug. Pappy drinks from the jug and then he makes a face. Why does he keep drinking that stuff when I know he doesn't like it?
    We hear a horse's hoofs with the muffled sound they have clattering across the road. Then we hear the thud of a wooden leg on the front porch.
    It is Mr. Smith. He eyes me as he sits down at the table with us. They all four of them do some special handshake and greeting. I can't help but think that it looks to be such foolish, childish business.
    Mr. Smith brings news that the sheriff of Raleigh has put out a warrant for his arrest. He stops and looks at Pappy. "They want to arrest you too, Mark. They want the both of us because we are the primary suspects. That's what they say. They won't let this one go."
    "What fer?" Smasher asks.
    "Burning the schoolhouse that killed that little darky," Mr.
Smith says. "Word in town is folks is sick of all the violence against the darkies. Sheriff is getting pressure from higher-ups." Mr. Smith smiles and says it seems that lynching and brutality has spread all over the state. Smasher laughs and Eustace claps his hands. Mr. Smith goes on to say that he heard that the governor of Mississippi telegraphed President Grant for assistance, only to be told that Mississippi had to take care of its own affairs.

    We all look at Pappy, who hasn't said a thing. A long long time ago, Pappy made up his mind he would never go to jail, not ever. He has spent many a night hiding out in Cohay swamp.
    He pats my hand. "Don't you worry none, Addy Cakes."
    The law's got it wrong. Pappy is bad, but he is not that bad.
    He starts to smile. My pappy? He smiles when he's angry, laughs when he fights.
    "Well. They gonna have to come get me first. And then, they gonna have to find me." The three of them all have a good laugh, all excepting Pappy.
    I hear Mr. Smith whisper to Pappy something about Mr. Frank. I hear him say, "And he's headed home again." Pappy winks at me as if