Free Beggars of Life by Jim Tully Page B

thunder they’d stop,” sighed Bill.
    A man walked from the other direction and stood upon the tracks. He looked about him. We watched him. The dogs stopped barking, and the wind stopped rustling the corn. It became very quiet.
    â€œIt’s the dick,” I whispered.
    â€œSh-shh-shhh,” was Bill’s answer between his teeth.
    The man stood awhile, then murmured aloud, “Damn their souls,” and walked slowly back toward the town.

CHAPTER VIII
BILL’S STORY
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    CHAPTER VIII
BILL’S STORY
    C LOUDS formed in the east and bulged upward across the sky. At first they were white and blue dots travelling in regiments of scattered wonder. The largest of them broke as it reached the moon, and trailed a foggish blue and gray mist over it. Then stars and moon seemed to travel rapidly from the clouds, until a great mountain of dark vapour appeared suddenly from the west, and spread like an ocean of ink above the inverted bowl.
    An intense darkness covered the earth. Then a tiny white opening appeared in the east, through which one star shone. A swift wind blew across the corn field, and the blades rustled as though an army marched through it. Another wind followed the first one, and whistled along the track like a gale through an empty barn.
    The white opening closed and blotted the star from view. The clouds above scattered, then merged together. A roar of thunder shook the earth, and streaks of lightning blazed jaggedly to the horizon.
    â€œWe’d better beat it down the track for shelter,” I suggested.
    â€œNope,” returned Bill, “we’ll cut through the field. I don’t like to walk along the tracks in a storm. The steel draws the lightnin’. I seen a bum git struck dead on a track once. It turned him blacker’n a Jew’s derby. He jist threw up his hands and fell ker-flop on the ties. It burned his clothes off, too.”
    We walked through an open place in the field about a hundred yards from the railroad. One gust of wind followed another, and a few large drops of rain fell. Suddenly a streak of light travelled along the fence with ripping speed. “She hit the wire fence,” said Bill. “It’s a darn good thing we moved from where we were.”
    As we came to the edge of the cornfield and observed a straw stack standing a few hundred yards away, Bill said, “Let’s beat it for there and bore in.”
    Between flashes of lightning and one thunder clap after another, we ran to the stack and succeeded in making a straw cave before a deluge of rain swept over the field.
    We slept soundly.
    When morning came, the sky had cleared and rain drops glistened on the wheat stubble under the early risen sun.
    A black rooster scratched the ground near a house a short distance away, while several white hens scrambled after the proceeds of his labour.
    â€œI see where we eat,” laughed Bill. “Let’s go.”
    As we made our way to the road, we saw a large brick building upon which was a slate roof and many lightning rods. Many smaller brick buildings surrounded the larger one. “Gosh, that looks like Pontiac, but thank the Lord it ain’t,” murmured Bill, as we walked into the yard in front of the house.
    An aged bull dog waddled toward us from near the corner of the house. It grumbled until I stroked its head. This act brought peace at once. We followed the dog around to the kitchen door.
    A heavy German woman answered our knock. Without hesitating a second, she opened the door and invited us inside.
    Seated at a table in the kitchen was a ponderous man with a bald head, a red beard, and a close-shaven upper lip. He was not to be made uneasy by the entrance of beggars, so he finished drinking the coffee out of his saucer. As the liquid disappeared, his first finger could be seen stretched in the saucer, like a log in a pond from which the water had been drained.
    Neither man nor woman was loquacious. When the man did