As Lambs to His Fold

CHAPTER TEN

  I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go, Dear Lord....

  We had become enchanted with “Knock-knock” jokes, and would repeat the same ones over and over — to anyone who would listen to us. I particularly liked this one:

  “Knock-knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Tarzan.”

  “Tarzan who?”

  “Tarzan stripes forever!”

  And there was another one:

  “Knock-knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Boo.”

  “Boo who?”

  “What are you crying for?”

  We giggled and whooped all the way home over that one. But then I became cautious about telling “Knock-knock” jokes, after Norman Higpen got me good.

  I was passing his yard when he leaned over the fence and said, “Knock-Knock.”

  Unsuspecting, I answered, “Who’s there?”

  “John.”

  “John who?”

  “John the Baptist!” and Norman squirted me right in the mush with the hose.

  With that kind of behavior, I didn’t see how Norman could escape ending up in jail.

  __________

  On a fine June morning, we visited Brother Nickelbee again.

  We were discussing, as we walked, whether angels could play hopscotch. That would really be something to see them jumping from star to star all over the universe. But where would they get the chalk to mark off the squares?

  We didn’t realize that we were passing Sister Posey’s house. In fact, I was running a stick idly along her picket fence, when she came charging out of her house, waving her fist at us, and yelling. I dropped the stick, and we scooted.

  “She’ll never get to heaven!” I muttered.

  If encountering Sister Posey was like being hit with an ice storm, seeing Brother Nickelbee was like the warm, kindly sun shining down on us.

  “C’m in, sisters, c’m in! I’m about ta hev me some breakfast. You kin share it with me.”

  We had each consumed a large breakfast not a half-hour before; but we were not timid about tackling another. We followed our friend into the little house and saw on the kitchen table a white cloth and some flowers in a glass.

  “I’m markin’ muh birthday.”

  “Your birthday!” We surrounded him with a couple of hugs.

  “Well — ’tisn’t really muh birthday, thet’s not till next March. But I got ta thinkin’, my time o’ life, I may not see another birthday. So I reckoned ta hev it early. I’m makin’ flapjacks. You kin he’p me.”

  “What’s this?” I asked, observing a jar of something interesting and foamy.

  “Oh, thet’s muh sourdough start. Got thet years ago when I wuz freightin’ in Montana. A old miner give me thet ta make bread with. Had it ever sence. Put some in muh batter last night, let it set out, an’ now it’s ready ta make flapjacks.”

  The black iron stove was going and the griddle was hot. Leatrice and I cooked the flapjacks — we called them pancakes — while Brother Nickelbee set two more places at the table. We made big flapjacks for him, because it was his birthday, and little ones for us. How they did puff up!

  “That must be really good stuff,” observed Leatrice.

  “The sourdough start? Well, I take good kir o’ it. Soon’s I poured some in the flapjack batter last night, I added some water an’ flour so’s ta always have ‘bout the same amount.

  “What ‘tis is a kinda nat’ral yeast. You girls, your mammas go ta the store an’ buy yeast cakes. Didn’t hev ‘em in old times. I used ta hang the jar down the well out there by a rope ta keep it cool in summer. Brought it in the house in winter. Don’t hev ta be so kirful any more, since the Relief Society sisters so kindly got me a ‘frigerator. Folks hev been real good to me — ’lectric lights, runnin’ water — I owe folks a lot.”

  The flapjacks were ready, a tempting, golden brown. Brother Nickelbee poured us each a glass of milk and set butter and honey on the table.

  As we ate, he continued.

  “Women used ta hev a awful hard time keepin’ their start o’ yeast alive. If it died on ‘em, had ta go git ‘nother start frum a neighbor, mebbe miles away. Cold could kill it, er too much heat; an’ it purely hated bein’ jostled around.

  “Knew one fambly, hed a farm out in the valley. Stayed there in the summer; but come winter, they’d move ta town. Well, movin’ the fambly wa’n’t half the problem o’ movin’ thet start o’ yeast. The wife, she’d lay the baby on the floor o’ the wagon, an’ hold the yeast real kirful in ‘er lap. Declared thet if the baby got a bump, ‘twouldn’t hurt it much; but droppin’ thet yeast could be the death o’ it.”

  Then Brother Nickelbee told us a story we always loved to hear, an adventure when he was freighting up in Montana, hauling goods to the miners.

  __________

  One evening, he and his pardner had camped by a stream; and Brother Nickelbee had gone upstream to catch some fish for supper. Well, it was early spring, and the snow on the mountains was beginning to melt; and a snowslide came down and buried the wagon, and the mules. Brother Nickelbee’s pardner saw it coming and tried to run. But the snowslide caught him and buried him up to his shoulders; and Brother Nickelbee heard him screaming for help, so he came running, but didn’t have anything to dig him out with, because all their equipment was buried with the wagon.

  So, Brother Nickelbee looked around and saw a big stick poking out of the snow; so he dug, and dug, and managed to get his pardner out, but the wagon and mules were buried so deep he couldn’t rescue them; and his pardner’s arm was broken, and Brother Nickelbee had to pull on it and set it; and that was mighty painful for his pardner. Then, Brother Nickelbee didn’t have anything to wrap it with, except his shirt; so he took off his shirt and made a sort of sling for his pardner’s broken arm;

  So then they started out walking; but they didn’t have any food, or matches to light a fire; so Brother Nickelbee tried to make a fire the way he had seen the Indians do, rubbing two sticks together; but all the wood around there was damp; so Brother Nickelbee caught some fish, and they tried to eat them raw, but it just made them sick; so they hunted for berries, but the birds had eaten most of the berries; and they didn’t have a gun for protection, so Brother Nickelbee sat up all night holding a big stick to keep wild animals away.

  And the pardner’s arm was hurting him really, really bad, so Brother Nickelbee hunted until he found a juniper tree with berries on it; and he gave the juniper berries to his pardner to chew on, because juniper berries were what the Indians used to chew to get them all excited for battle, and they also helped to kill pain.

  And Brother Nickelbee and his pardner walked for three days, almost starving, until they found a mining camp; and the miners fed them, and gave them some dry clothes, and put a splint on the pardner’s arm; and Brother Nickelbee certainly thanked the Lord and the miners for that.

  __________

  Breakfast over, we washed the dishes and then went into the little front room. Brother Nickelbee sat down, clasped his hands together, and then cleared his throat as though he had something important to say.

  “I’m real glad you sisters happened by this mornin’, ‘cause ya kin hep me with somethin’. I said t’was muh birthday, but not the kind with presents, an’ a cake, an’ sech. I’m givin’ things away — don’t know how much longer I’ll need ‘em, m’se’f. So, hark to this, if ya will, sisters.”

  We were staring at our friend, wondering what this was all about.

  “Muh Book O’ Mormon wuz give ta me an’ signed by Pres’dent Brigham Young, hisse’f. I’m leavin’ it ta your grandpa. He’s been a par’ful good friend ta me.

  “This here silver pocket watch wuz give ta me by Pres’dent John Taylor, jest afore I went on a mission back east. He telled me how his life wuz saved when a bullet hit ‘nother watch o’ his, the time ‘e wuz in Carthage jail with the Prophet Joseph. Said ‘e was real sorry the watch got ruint but was real glad
it saved ‘im frum a bullet th’ough the heart. Said ‘e hoped I wouldn’t have ta put this watch ta the same test. Served me well all these years, an’ it still runs. Now, I want one o’ your daddies t’ hev it an t’other one this here gold nugget give me by a miner I done a favor fer.”

  This kind of talk from Brother Nickelbee was upsetting me. It sounded as though he planned to leave us soon. Why, he was like the mountains — always with us, always would be.

  “But, Brother Nickelbee,” interrupted Leatrice, “why are you telling us all this? Why don’t you just write it down?”

  He sighed. “Well, fact is, I cain’t write.”

  We must have looked shocked. In all the time Brother Nickelbee had been our friend, we had not know this about him.

  “Oh, I kin read. A good lady taught me after I come here. But, writin’ I never could figger out — not like some folks thet kin jest make the pen flo-o-o-w,” (he gestured), “‘crost the page. I kin print, real slow. But it’d take me ‘til muh birthday next March ta git it on paper.”

  “I’ll write it for you,” said Leatrice. She licked the end of a pencil and wrote on a piece of paper as Brother Nickelbee dictated.

  “Things in this room,” indicating with a sweep of his hand the Indian rugs and baskets, his collection of arrow heads, the little pouch of aromatic herbs given him by an Indian friend, “these ought ta be in a museum. So I’m leavin’ muh house fer thet purpose, ta be a pi’neer museum. It’s nigh on seventy-five year’ old. Built it mys’ef, with the he’p o’ friends. So you remember thet, sisters, an’ tell the Daughters o’ the Utah Pi’neers I’d like this here house ta be used as a museum.

  “The rest o’ m’ things, I’d want the Relief Society sisters ta take fer the needy. Hain’t got much ‘cept what was give me in the fust place. I’d take it kindly if I knowed it’d be put ta further use.”

  We discovered that our friend wasn’t through bestowing gifts. We followed him out into the yard, where he pointed to the roses he loved so well and over which he had toiled so earnestly.

  “Don’t want these ta be lost. I’d like ‘em ta be dug up, when the time comes, an’ give ta friends — if you sisters’ll be so kind as ta write ‘nother note.”

  And so, as Brother Nickelbee indicated, Leatrice wrote a description of each rose and the name of the recipient beside it. He wanted Grandma to have the bush with small, pink blossoms.

  “Always reminds me o’ her, ‘cause she’s jest the sweetest lady I know.”

  Of the two bushes with large, deep red blossoms, Brother Nickelbee observed, “Jest keep bloomin’ an bloomin’, and given’ an’ given’, real generous-like, never seem t’ stop. Like your mothers, allus ready ta he’p others. I’d like ‘em ta have these.”

  Last of all, he indicated the two climbing roses on the side of his house — a white one and a yellow one.

  “I want you two sisters ta hev these, ‘cause they’s jest like you: climbin’ an’ growin’ an’ raisin’ their faces ta the sky. They’re muh favorites, an’ I’m givin’ ‘em ta you.”

  That was all of Brother Nickelbees’ legacy. He printed his name slowly and carefully at the bottom of the page: John Nickelbee. We added our names.

  It hit us all at once what he was trying to tell us. We threw our arms around him.

  “Don’t go!” I sobbed.

  “Got ta.” He patted us on the back. “Thet’s the way o’ things. Ever’thin’s got ta die sometime.”

  On the way home, I said worriedly, “He can’t die yet!”

  We knew death was inevitable. It was the only way you could get to heaven. But we wanted to keep our friend around a while longer.

  “We’ll see him in the resurrection,” Leatrice said hopefully.

  We knew all about the resurrection. In fact, we had made plans for it. We intended to die at the same time and be buried side-by-side. Then, when Resurrection Morning rolled around, I’d give her a nudge and say, “Hey, Leatrice!” And we’d kick off all the dirt, and grab hands, and come whooshing up out of the ground together.

  The thought was very satisfying. But we didn’t want to die yet. And we didn’t want Brother Nickelbee to die yet, either.

  “Maybe if we hope an’ pray really, really hard,” said Leatrice, “We can keep him around.”