They figured me for croaked at first, I looked so bad. But then they saw I hadn't gone under, they loaded me in the wagon, covered me in some old feed sacks and a couple of half-wet blankets, and started out of there.
That foot of mine was broke bad. The doctor came out to the Parks' place, set it, and didn't charge me a cent. He said that was on account of he owed Papa for a bushel of taters from last fall, but I knew that was just one of them friendly white lies. Doc Ryan hadn't never owed nobody nothing.
Mr. and Mrs. Parks offered me a place to stay after the funeral, but I told them I'd go back to our place and try and make a go of it there.
Johnny Parks, who used to whip the hell out of me twice a week on them weeks we both managed to go a full week to school, made me a pair of solid crutches out of hickory, and I went to Papas funeral on them.
Mama, as if there was something to my dream, wasn't never found, and for that matter, they couldn't hardly find no pieces of the house. There was plenty of barn siding around, but of the house there was only a few floorboards, some wood shingles, and some broken glass. Maybe it's silly, but I like to think that old storm just come and got her and hauled her off to a better place, like that little gal in that book The Wizard of Oz.
Mr. Parks made Papa a tombstone out of a piece of river slate, chiseled some nice words on it: HERE LIES HAROLD FOGG, KILT BY A TORNADER? AND HERE LIES THE MEMRY OF GLENDA FOGG WHO WAS CARRIED OFF BY THAT SAME TORNADER AND WASNT NEVER FOUND, NOT EVEN THE PIECES.
Beneath that were some dates on when they was born and died, and a line about them being survived by one son, Buster Fogg, meaning me, of course.
Over the protests of Mr. and Mrs. Parks, I had them take me out to our place and I set up a tent there. They left me a lot of food and some hand-me-down clothes from their boys, then they went off saying they'd be back to check on me right regular. Mrs. Parks cried some and Mr. Parks offered me some money and the loan of his mule, but I said I had to think on it.
This tent Mr. Parks gave me was a good one, and I managed to get around well enough on my crutches to gather barn siding and what tools and nails I could find, and I built a floor in it. I could have got Mr. Parks and his boys to do that for me, but I couldn't bring myself to it, not after all they'd done. And besides, I had my pride. Matter of fact, now that I think on it, that was about all I had. That and the place.
Well, it took me a couple of days to do what should have taken a few hours on account of having to pull nails out of boards and reuse them, but I got the tent fixed up real good and cozy finally. It wasn't no replacement for the house and Mama and Papa, but it was better than stepping on a tack or getting jabbed in the eye with a pointed stick.
I wished I could have turned back time some, been in our house. I'd even have liked to have heard Mama fussing over how much firewood Papa should have laid in, which was one of the few things he was always a little lazy on, and was finally glad to pass most of the job along to me. I could hear Mama telling him as she looked at the last few sticks of stove wood, "I told you so."
On the morning after I'd spent my first night on my finished floor, I got up to take a good look at things, and see at what I could manage on crutches.
There were dead chickens lying about, like feather dusters, pieces of wood and one mule lying on his back, legs sticking up in the air like a table blowed over. Didn't see a sign of the other mule or the cows.
Wasn't none of this something I hadn't already seen, but now with the flooring in, and my immediate comfort taken care of, I found I just couldn't face picking up dead chickens and burning a mule carcass.
I went back inside the tent and felt sorry for myself as that's all there was to do, besides eat, and I'd done that till I was about to pop. I wasn't such a great reader, but right then I wished I had me a book of some kind, but what books we'd had had been blowed away with the house.
About a week went by, and I'd maybe got half the chickens picked up and tossed off in the ditch by the woodlot, and gotten the mule burned to nothing besides bones, when this slick-looking fella in a buckboard showed up.
"Howdy there young feller," he said, climbing down from his rig. "You must be Buster Fogg."
I admitted I was, and up close I seen that snazzy black suit and narrow brim hat he had on were even snappier than they'd looked at a distance. The hat and suit were dark as fresh charcoal, and the pants had creases in them sharp enough to cut your throat. And he was all smiles. He looked to have more teeth than Main Street had bricks.
"Glad to catch you home," he said, and he took off his hat and held it over his chest as if in silent prayer.
"Whatsit I can do for you?" I asked. "Maybe you'd like to come in the tent, get out of this cold?"
"No, no. What I have to say won't take but a moment. My name is Purdue. Jack Purdue. I'm the banker from town."
Well, right off I knew what it was and I didn't want to hear it, but I knew I was going to anyhow.
"Your father's bill has come due, son, and I hate it something awful, and I know it's a bad time and all, but I'm going to need that money by about"-he stopped for a moment to look generous-"say noon tomorrow. Least half."
"I ain't got a penny, Mr. Purdue," I said. "Papa had the money, but everything got blowed away in the storm. If you could just give me some time-"
He put his hat on and looked real sad about things, almost like it was his farm he was losing.
"I'm afraid not, son, It's an awful duty I got, but it's my duty."
I told him again about the money blowing away, how Papa had saved it up from selling stuff during the farm season, doing odd jobs and all, and that I could do the same, providing he gave my leg time to heal and me to get the work. Just to play on his sympathy some, I then went on to tell him the whole horrible truth about how Papa was killed and Mama blowed away like so much outhouse paper, and when I got through I figured I'd told it real good, cause his eyes looked a little moist.
"That," he said, not hardly able to speak, "is without a doubt the saddest story I've ever heard. And of course I knew about it, son, but somehow, hearing it from you, the last survivor of the Fogg family, makes it all the more dreadful."
He kind of choked up there on the end of his words, and I figured I had hold of him pretty good, so I throwed in how us Foggs had pride and all, and that I'd never let an owed bill go unpaid, and if he'd just give me the time to raise the money, he'd have it in his hand before long.
He told me he was tore all to hell up about it, but business was business, sad story or not. And as he wiped some tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand, he told me he would give me until tomorrow evening instead of noon, because he reckoned someone who'd been through what I had deserved a little more time.
"But that ain't enough," I said.
"Sorry, son, that's the best I can do, and that goes against the judgment of the bank. I'm sticking my neck out to do that."
"You are the bank, Purdue," I said. "Who you fooling? It ain't me. We all know you're the bank."
"I understand your grief, your great torment," he said, just like one of the characters from some of them dime novels Papa bought from time to time, "but business is business."
"You said that."
"Yes I did, young sir." With that, Purdue turned and walked back to his buckboard. He called out to me as I stood there leaning defeated on my crutches. "I tell you, son, that is the saddest story I've ever heard, and I've heard some. Tragic. This will hang over my head like the shining sword of Damocles from here on out, right over my head," he showed me exactly where it would be hanging with his hand, "until my dying day."