Well, last year, our coroner died, died of the flu. Ken
Beatty, that was his name. He was the coroner. So they
had to choose another man to be coroner in his place
and they picked Doc Stair. He laughed at first and said
he didn't want it, but they made him take it. It ain't no
job that anybody would fight for and what a man makes
out of it in a year would just about buy seeds for their
garden. Doc's the kind, though, that can't say no to
nothin' if you keep at him long enough.
But I was goin' to tell you about a poor boy we got
here in town—Paul Dickson. He fell out of a tree when
he was about ten years old. Lit on his head and it done
somethin' to him and he ain't never been right. No
harm in him, but just silly. Jim Kendall used to call him
cuckoo; that's a name Jim had for anybody that was
off their head, only he called people's head their bean.
That was another of his gags, callin' head bean and
callin' crazy people cuckoo. Only poor Paul ain't crazy,
but just silly.
You can imagine that Jim used to have all kinds of fun
with Paul. He'd send him to the White Front Garage for
a left-handed monkey wrench. Of course they ain't no
such a thing as a left-handed monkey wrench.
And once we had a kind of a fair here and they was
a baseball game between the fats and the leans and
before the game started Jim called Paul over and sent
him way down to Schrader's hardware store to get a
key for the pitcher's box.
HYLAND
