Chapter 11: Cyclone

About a year or so after Pa's final disaster in the kitchen the skies began clouding up. Then the winds changed and instead of coming from their usual northerly direction they blasted up through from the south.

The great black clouds that covered up the sun turned out to not be storm clouds. They were dirt clouds instead, carrying tons of Texas real estate blowing to the north, burying us under a thick blanket of what had been days or even hours earlier Texas topsoil. The sparrows that lived in the twelve oak trees surrounding our house were nervous as they chirped away at each other.

Big Boy, our Percheron stud walked through the fence and led all the other horses up into the yard. He came in under the oak trees and displayed his nervousness as he continually shuffled his big platter sized hooves. The cows, which almost always stayed in the lower end of the south pasture, had begun to move toward the barn. It was instinctive for them to go to a place they considered safe.

Our flock of chickens were all cowered inside the hen house with our big brave rooster huddled in their midst. For a brief moment I smiled at what I thought of as his cowardice. I remembered how, on the bright and sunny days he strutted and preened as he crowed at all his rooster accomplishments.

"Martha," Pa told her, even though he didn't need to, "You better stay in the house. There's a twister comin' this way, for certain." His face showed his worry. Cyclones were no laughing matter when you lived in what some eastern newspaperman dubbed "Cyclone Alley," which consisted of a hundred mile wide path up through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and ended up in northern Minnesota close to the Canadian border.

"Come with me, Davy, we better close the shutters. Martha, make certain the fire is out in the stove," he told her, again. I realized he didn't really need to tell her what to do. It was his way of expressing his worry for her. Ma understood.

We hurried outside to bar all the heavy storm shutters pa had made to protect the windows. Then we secured the seldom used front door from the outside with the two heavy two by four drop bars. Almost the instant we stepped outside, Big Boy came up and nudged Pa with his massive head. He was scared and wanted reassurance everything was all right. Pa rubbed his big jaw and scratched him behind the ears and talked soothingly to him. The big horse quieted right down. The mares saw Big Boy lose his nervousness and calmed themselves. I was on the first window so Pa went to the second one just as I finished up the first.

We barely got things closed up tight when we heard the moaning "who-o-o" sound so much like a train in the distance. Pa and I looked at each other and nodded. The nearest train was twenty miles away in Woodman. The sound we heard was the sound of a twister moaning its destructive way through the countryside.

The air became so dust filled I had taken my old bandana from my hip pocked and tied it across the lower half of my face outlaw style. I remember being thankful I hadn't blown my nose on it. I looked over at Pa and saw he had done the same.

Then we heard a car come clattering up the driveway from the road. A new looking Oldsmobile hissed to a stop, as steam shot out of its radiator. I noticed the radiator fins were packed full of dirt. A man who was perhaps two years or so younger than Pa called, "Oh I say, could you put us up until this blasted wind dies down?"

Pa looked him up and down, taking in his knickers, white sweater and beret. He nodded and answered, "You're welcome to our hospitality. But you better drive your car around on the north side of the house. There's a twister coming."

The man nodded and did as Pa directed. He came back around leading a beautiful young woman and two children not quite my age, a boy and a girl. Without saying a word, Pa led them to the kitchen door and gestured for them to go on in. They were hesitant as they entered. Ma had put out the fire in the stove and doused the kerosene lamps. The day was so dark from the dust clouds, we needed a lamp to see inside the house. Many a house has been set fire by a lamp, which fell or was blown over during high winds.

We crowded in behind the strangers just as the black funnel came down from somewhere high in the air and landed in the middle of the west field. It tore up an out building full of alfalfa where it touched down. It then bounded into the air and came back down headed straight toward us.

Pa jerked the heavy storm door shut and barred it. "Get down on the floor!" he yelled. The howling wind raged against the trees surrounding the house and we all lay flat on the floor, afraid to stand. If a door blew open, anyone standing was in danger of being sucked right out into the jaws of the storm.

Slowly the train whistle sound wailed off into the distance. I heard Pa get up and open the back door. He fumbled in the dark with the cross bar and opened the door up wide to let the dusty air into the house, along with the tepid sunlight. Then it started to rain. In minutes, the dust settled and Pa and I went about the task or uncovering all the windows and unbarring the front door.

As we came back in to where our unexpected guests were looking around our kitchen in amazement. "Oh my word," the pretty young woman exclaimed, "You people are civilized."

Ma looked at her in amazement. Pa did a double take and stared at her open mouthed. The woman blushed prettily and apologized. "Please forgive me my gaucherie. Normally I am not so tactless. But President Roosevelt informed us we were going to be living in the midst of people barely a half step up from total primitivism. You have a refrigerator and books."

"Ah yes." Ma had trouble to not laugh at this presumptuous person.

"Well, I'm afraid we have had to make do with limited access to Aristotle, Kant and only a couple of Henry James novels. But with Sam Clemens, Tom Payne and a few contemporary writers, we have been able to rough it and make do."

It was all Ma could do to keep a straight face. In truth, out living room had one wall completely covered with bookshelves. Ma had begun to teaching me from Payne's "Age Of Reason." It was not so much she agreed with his theology mind you, however she admired the heart and spirit and intellect of the man.

"I have every book Zane Grey and Edgar Rice Burroughs have ever written," I piped up, speaking more to the two young guests. "Ma says books are food for the mind and great thoughts the desert."

"I don't need to read books," the boy said, "We're rich." I turned away from the snotty brat.

"Please forgive my previous outburst. But cousin Franklin seems to be quite misinformed about the residents of this state. We were led to expect some rather rough and uncouth persons when we got to Woodman. Then we got lost and ended up here. I ... we are so grateful you were here to extend your hospitality to us, so very grateful."

Pa told the man, "Let's see what shape your automobile is in. It sounded a bit peaked as you rattled into the yard. The rain has pretty much let up."

"Oh, I'll be glad to pay you for any services you render," the man told Pa.

"Mister, you are a guest in my home, not a customer. I do not charge guests for helping them." The man looked a bit nonplussed as he followed Pa outside.

Ma said, "Our customs of hospitality are a bit different from what you are accustomed to back east. If you intend to be here for any length of time it might behoove you to learn our somewhat different ways." The woman, looking a bit chastened, nodded in silence.

"Hey!" I yelled at the boy, "Get away from that gun." He had wandered over and taken a double-barreled twelve gauge shotgun off the wall pegs. I grabbed it by the middle of the barrel and deflected it to the side just as it went off and barely missed his sister. As it was, a half dozen books got blown off the wall. His mother screamed as I wrestled the gun away from him and carried it to the kitchen. I was angry and breathing hard.

Just as I broke the gun open and removed the other shell, Pa came blasting through the back door, almost knocking it off its hinges. "What happened in here, everyone all right?"

"This dumb kid tried to play with your shotgun, Pa. I had to take it away from him. He almost shot his sister." I took the cleaning rod from the pantry where it was stored, grabbed a rag and mineral oil. I cleaned out the recently fired barrel, carefully reloaded it and silently carried it back in and hung it where it belonged.

"Leave it alone," I ordered the boy gruffly.

"You can't talk to me like that," he said indignantly.

"Yes I can," I replied. "I just did. Now you don't go grabbing things in other people's houses. It's not polite and it's dangerous."

"Now I say," the man tried to start talking, probably to protest the way I talked down to his precious junior and ordered him around.

"Henry shut up," his wife told him in a no nonsense way. "Stop being a such a pretentious, posturing fool. Arnold knows better than to handle other people's property, but he has been mimicking you, his father and with almost fatal results. Arnold nearly shot Suzanne! Can you get that through your head?"

"But, but we always keep our guns locked up and away from the children," he tried to argue with his wife. The man had to be a muddle head if he couldn't see the obvious, I thought. I kept a close watch on his bratty son.

"Henry, instead of treating their son like he was a brainless little animal, these people taught him responsibility. From this day forward, this is the way our children shall be taught, in a like manner. Say no more." Ma gave a little nod and turned away to pick up the now loose pages of books and scraps of paper.

"Please let me help you," the lady said. "An apology is so inadequate and I am helpless to do more right now. If you can give me a list of what was destroyed, we shall replace them."

Ma patted her shoulder and smiled at the lady who was in a situation where she felt so helpless. Ma told her gently, "Hush, let us be thankful books were the only casualties. They can be replaced if need be much easier than a child." She turned to me and said, "You did well, David." I felt proud when Ma complimented me in front of others. I shrugged and grinned and followed Pa as he went back outside.

Pa took a bucket of water and a stiff brush and began working the dirt and mud out of the car's radiator. He took his time and removed everything he could. Then he checked the water level and replaced what had boiled away. Next he checked the oil level and poured more in to bring it up to the proper level. The man stood helplessly by. The last thing Pa did was to make certain the man had adequate gasoline to reach Woodman.

"Here," the man said and tried to press a twenty dollar bill into his hand.

Pa turned his hand over, palm down and let the bill flutter to the ground. He gave the man a look of pure contempt and said pointedly, "Your car should start and run well enough to make it into town." He walked away and went to assess the damage to the hen house and check on the flock. Then was one of the few times I ever saw my father act intentionally rude toward anyone.

Henry rounded up his wife and children and herded them into the car. "Thank you again for your hospitality," his wife told Ma. Your son David is one any mother would be proud to claim. We shall see you in church this coming Sunday. It 's so kind of you to invite us." Henry said nothing as they drove away, not acknowledging Pa, Ma or me. He looked as if he wanted to pout.

"What is this?" Ma asked and picked up the now soggy twenty-dollar bill off the wet ground.

I explained how the man tried to shove a twenty-dollar bill into Pa's hand, "And you should have seen the way Pa looked at him. Now I know what disgust looks like."

Ma smiled, tucked the bill in the sleeve of her dress and said, "Well, I'll just drop it in the offering plate Sunday." We did what chores we could for the rest of the day. I saw how Pa kept looking at the southern sky. The weather worried him.