Biggest Toad in the Puddle

By Bill Page Ph.d.

Two brothers create constant problems for the main characters. An incident of racism and finding evidence of drug dealers present problems that are revealed to the town as Patrick, his brother Bobby, and Darius, the only African American boy in town unveil their discoveries. The boys and girls, along with their teacher’s guidance, improve the quality of life in their hometown of Marion. Tenets of life are subtly made known to the reader as the many characters share camping, hunting, scouting, and trapping adventures while probing the wonders of nature. Campfire and historical stories offer enhancements to the basic content. Schoolwork, girlfriends, and pets are included in the activities as they combine efforts to enrich the environment. The boys become town heroes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796037678

Bill Page Ph.d.

Bill Page is a graduate of Marion, Iowa High School, Iowa State Teachers College, (Northern Iowa University), Michigan State University and St. Louis University He has attended many other colleges and universities that prepared him for a career in education. Dr. Page has been a teacher of all levels of education, elementary school and graduate school. During his career, he has been a teacher in Manson and Marion, Iowa, and Lincoln Park, Michigan. He has been an education administrator as principal of elementary and special needs schools and community education coordinator in Rockford, Illinois. He served as assistant superintendent for the department of student service in the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, followed by serving as the superintendent of schools in Whitehall, Michigan, from which he retired. He later served as interim Dean of Students of Muskegon Community College. During some of this time, he was an adjunct professor for Western Michigan University. He has been a Boy Scout and Cub Scout Master and a Sunday School teacher. Devotion to the improvement of life for all children is his guiding principle. His motto is--- CHILDREN COME FIRST

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Like, Who Knows

M AN, WHAT A day! Patrick Oxley shouted as he burst out of the middle school door. It was the last day before summer vacation. The police had been everywhere. Even the teachers were looking out the school windows. It was easy to see that it was because of that high school druggie, Dewey Andres. Maybe this was the start of something bigger.

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Patrick’s muscular legs tightened as he jumped over four steps to the sidewalk below. He was no athlete, but he was as quick and agile as a squirrel. His small size was a drawback for most sports except track. Patrick often wished that he was taller and bulkier and thought to himself, Just ’cause Dad is short, why do I have to be? His grandpa often joked about being short. He said that he was going to sue the city for building the sidewalks too close to his ass. Just thinking about his grandpa made Patrick smile.

Patrick nearly always smiled when he met someone. The girls and most teachers seemed to like him. A little too much, he thought. He was always smiling like Grandpa. His light complexion gave him a slightly baby face, but pimples were becoming a problem. Appearing younger than his fifteen years was something he liked. When he went to the movies, he was often asked to pay a child’s price because he looked younger than fourteen. He did not think that was cheating. I always tell the truth whenever I’m asked, he told himself.

*     *     *

I beat you out of the school today, horse face! a familiar voice yelled from the other end of the building. Patrick and his friends were often pretty noisy. This voice belonged to Darius Foitle, the son of the only African American family in town.

Did not, Bestess! I was so far ahead, the door slammed shut behind me. I heard it, Patrick replied.

Maybe so, but there’s another door, you know. I came out the door at the other end of the building. I looked your way, and you had just stepped outside after I was out all the way.

Sure, easy for you to say. It doesn’t count ’cause you didn’t tell me. I didn’t have a chance to check you out.

Are you calling me a liar?

No. You know I wouldn’t do that not to your face anyhow. You’re bigger than me.

Okay, Darius grinned, we’ll call it a draw. I’ll get you for sure next time.

Yeah? You’ll have to wait until next year.

Now, there is a very happy thought, Darius said.

As any kid knows, the last day of the school year is one happy day. Darius was Patrick’s best friend. The bestess of the best, Patrick said once. Since then, Patrick’s occasional nickname for Darius had been Bestess. Nicknaming was a characteristic of their town. It had been carried on for generations. Even some of the stores had nicknames. Dicky’s was called Dicks. The Standard gas station was called Walt’s after the owner. Many of the kids had nicknames. The most memorable happened at football practice. The players were standing while listening to the coach’s instructions when a little dog ran up to one of them and peed on his leg. He was given the name Stump. Fire hydrant might have been better except that calling across the room to Fire Hydrant wasn’t as easy as calling out Stump. Ellis Roberts was called Ellie because of his young looks. Another had been called Bull who, when out fishing, had stepped into a cow pie. Then Steve had been visiting Greenfield Village outside Detroit. He was diabetic and always carried a sugar cube in his breast pocket in case he felt a seizure coming on. He was nicknamed Horse after a horse at one of the farm scenes walked up and bit his pocket and got a little flesh at the same time. He wasn’t hurt, but he was pinched.

The girls weren’t left out. One had the last name of Dumbolton and called Dump. Another was Debbie Biddle called Woody. Her dad owned the lumberyard.

Marion was a town of about five thousand people, smaller than it once had been. A couple of generations earlier, not long before Patrick was born, it was a thriving town with a large railroad yard. Many of the older buildings in town had been built in the late 1800s. They still showed signs of soot that had been blown all over town from the smoke of the coal-fired steam engines. Coal was the same kind of fuel used in most home furnaces. Eating snow was a dare even if it wasn’t yellow.

The railroad industry, in town, had been so large that it even had its own roundhouse. The building was actually round with a diameter wide enough to hold big steam engines. Outside the building, the coal cars sat on a designated track. The engineer would drive the train into the roundhouse, and the brakeman in the roundhouse would turn an engine around without going anywhere. They drove their engine onto a section called a turntable, sort of like a lazy Susan only bigger and without canned vegetable on it. Huge steam engines turned the gears that moved the turntable very slowly to change the engine’s direction. This was the only way an engine could turn around; it didn’t have a steering wheel.

Boys had a saying they learned from the older men. They used it to tease the girls. Run for the roundhouse, Mabel. They can’t corner you there. Everyone in town knew that old joke.

Many of the older streets in Marion had been paved with cinders* from coal-fired furnaces during the years freight trains traveled across the country. Other streets were paved with red bricks produced in the town’s once prosperous brick factory. Street bricks didn’t have holes in them as did the building bricks for houses. Bricks that were not used in Marion were loaded on to the railroad cars and delivered all over the country. The brick factory died off even before the railroads had.

For many years the sixty-foot smokestack stood by itself. In those days, they didn’t have the sophisticated demolition system, so it had to be torn down piece by piece. Long after the brick factory was gone, there was not much work for the adults other than tourism and antique shops, so any job available was soon scooped up. In the case of the smokestack demolition, an inexperienced, unfortunate man who finally got a job fell and was killed. The stack stood many years longer.

The population drop left the schools with fewer kids. Then things changed gradually. New highways built of cement after World War II allowed trucks to travel closer to town on the bypass. New people came from Lincoln, the large city that was about thirty miles away. To get away from the bad influences, some of them said. The Marion police thought that they were the bad influence.

The interstate highway* system had not been intended to kill off the train service, but that was what happened. President Dwight Eisenhower had the highway system built because when he was General Eisenhower leading the soldiers during World War II, he saw how important large highway systems were to German troop movement in Europe. He realized that if the United States ever had a war in its own country, the old highway system would hinder U.S. troop movement. He believed in the Boy Scout motto Be Prepared. He had the large highways built to protect us.

CHAPTER TWO

Accident

R AILROAD SERVICE WAS not the only thing that died because of the construction of the interstate highways. Many small towns all over the country almost died. Two of which were South English and Kalona where the boy’s parents grew up and where their grandparents live. South English has less than fifty houses today while Kalona has thrived because the new highway went close by and also because of the industrious heritage* of the Amish* and Mennonite* people who live in the area and because of the bull.

A religious sect of Mennonites from Swiss heritage was formed. They adhered to strict religious guidelines as did the Amish. But apparently a group of people did not like the way the Mennonites interpreted the Bible. Consequently, the people who didn’t agree with the Mennonites broke off and formed their own sect. They called their group the Amish. The Mennonites drive cars, use electricity, and tractors as well as other forms of power equipment. That life was not simple enough to conform with the Amish people’s beliefs. They did not use electricity or other conveniences of modern life. They plowed their field with horse-drawn plows drove horse buggies on the roads and streets. Both men and women wore handmade clothes. The Amish men did not shave and were always seen wearing broad flat-brimmed hats as did many Mennonites. Their clothes were generally black or gray. The women wore blue dresses that hung to the ground and wore prayer bonnets all the time.

One of Patrick’s aunts had been a Mennonite, left that religion, became Amish, left that too to join the United States Army at the start of World War II. She met his uncle Cliff for the first time while both were in the army. They were from Kalona.

It was by accident that Patrick developed an Amish boy as a friend, a real accident. The Oxley family was driving home from Kalona and had just passed a family horse and buggy when he heard a horrible scream from behind. Pat looked back as he saw a car going like a bat out of hell just after hitting the loaded buggy. The scream was from the horse as it was thrown into the ditch. As the car went by gaining speed, the driver’s and Pat’s eyes locked for a few seconds as the driver drove off, accelerating speed. Pat saw a few letters of the license plate. It was a hit-and-run.

Mr. Oxley slammed on the brakes and ran back to the horrendous scene of blood and horse guts while calling 911. When he got there, the two adults were lying on the highway bleeding badly. He tried to stop the bleeding on the farmer’s leg—it wouldn’t be enough. The woman was dead. The boy had been knocked out and was lying against the buggy frame. The little girl was in the ditch screaming her head off.

The county sheriff arrived, and after calling the ambulance and morgue, he began asking the Oxleys what they had seen. Pat gave description of the man, the car—a blue Cadillac—and the partial license plate number. After calling in the accident to the headquarters, the sheriff discussed the situation with the Oxleys. He warned that there could be repercussion because Pat had seen the man and the man probably saw him and his dad. An all-points bulletin was put out on the airways, announcing the descriptions the Oxleys provided.

The boy was being consoled by Mrs. Oxley. He had his head buried in her skirt, sniffling uncontrollably. Many of the Amish people arrived on the scene, which was the characteristic thing for them to do. At any time for any reason when help was needed, they gathered to offer assistance and sympathy. After introductions and offering help, Mr. Oxley left his address and phone number with one of the elders before they left the dreadful scene.

A few evenings later, they got an odd phone call. I know where you live. That was it.

Within a week a Mr. Swartzentruber was at the front door asking if he might enter. He had heard about the phone call. It was the talk among many people in town and had reached the Amish folks. He asked if there was anything they could do to help.

Mr. Oxley replied, I have called the sheriff about it, and they said we should just be diligent.

Mr. Swartzentruber said, That is the reason I am here. I am being diligent on the part of my people. There has been a blue automobile driving slowly behind our carriages. Did your son see anything like that?

Why yes, he saw a blue Cadillac with the partial number of an Iowa license PDQ, Mr. Oxley answered.

Mr. Swartzentruber left them with a polite bow and thank you.

A few weeks later, the two men met on the street while the Oxleys were in town. In friendly conversation, they discussed the blue car.

Mr. Swartzentruber said, My friends and I carefully watched the car go by one afternoon, and that has been the last of it.

Did you tell the sheriff?

Yes, he thanked us, said they had all the state looking for him and that we must have scared him out of town.

While the dads were talking, Patrick started talking with the man’s grandson, the boy whose parents had been killed. Pat introduced himself. Pat said, My grandparents used to live here, but Grandpa died of a heart attack while alerting the town to a lumberyard fire. Grandma died last year. She jumped off the English River bridge. We come back to see Dad’s relatives every once in a while.

My parents were killed in a buggy crash, the boy said.

Yes, I know, I was in the car just ahead of them, Pat said. My name is Patrick Oxley. I’m really sorry about your parents. Is your little sister okay?

Yeah, she’s okay. My name is Joseph Swartzentruber.

Dad, is it okay if I treat Joe to an ice cream cone? Patrick asked.

Yes, it is fine with me if Mr. Swartzentruber doesn’t mind. After a few words between the two men, Mr. Oxley replied, He said it’s okay with him. Go ahead. We might join you.

Sitting in the drug store eating ice cream cones, Patrick asked how Kalona got its name. "Was it someone’s family name,