All through dinner he couldn't stop talking about her.

After they had their steaks, they were thirty cents short of a hotel room, so they headed on over to Grant's Park, where they hoped to grab a sleep in one of the shacks, made out of tar paper and cardboard and a few scraps of lumber, that you could sometimes find if you were lucky; and they were lucky that night

Before they went to sleep, the kid said, as he had every night, "Tell me about where all you've been and what all you've done, Smokey."

"I told you that once."

"I know, but tell me again."

Smokey told him about the time he'd been in Baltimore and had a job at the White Tower hamburger place, and how it had been so shiny and clean you could eat right off the black and white tiles on the floor; and about the time he had been a coal miner, outside of Pittsburgh.

"You know, a lot of these fellows will eat a rat, but as for me, I couldn't do it. I've seen 'em save too many lives. Saved mine, once. Rats are the first ones to smell gas in a mine . . .

"One time, me and this old boy was deep down in this mine, picking away, when all of a sudden here comes two hundred rats running past us, going more than sixty miles an hour. I didn't know what to think, and this old colored boy throws his pick down and shouts, 'Run!'

"I did, and it saved my life. If I see one, to this day, I just let him go on about his rat business. Yes sir, they're tops in my book."

The kid, who was almost asleep, mumbled, "What's the worst job you ever had, Smokey?"

"Worst Job? Well, let's see . . . I've done a lot of things a decent man wouldn't do, but I guess the worst was back in 'twenty-eight, when I took that job in the turpentine mill down at Vinegar Bend, Alabama. I hadn't had nothing to eat but pork and beans in two months, and I was so busted that a nickel looked as big as a pancake, or I'd of never took the job. The only white people they could get to work down there were the Cajuns, and they called them turpentine niggers. That job would kill a white man; I only lasted five days and was sick as a dog for three weeks from the smell; it gets in your hair, your skin…   I had to burn my clothes . . ."

Suddenly, Smokey stopped talking and sat up. The minute he heard the sound of men running and shouting, he knew it was the Legion. In the past couple of months, the American Legion had been raiding the hobo camps, knocking down everything in their path, determined to clean up the riffraff that had descended on their city. Smokey shouted to the kid, "Let's go! Let's get out of here!" And they started running, just like the hundred and twenty-two other residents of that particular Hooverville that night. All you could hear was the sound of men crashing through the woods and the sound of the tar-paper shacks being ripped apart and struck down with crowbars and iron pipes.

Smokey ran to the left, and as soon as he hit thick underbrush, he lay down, because he knew, with his weak lungs, he could never outrun them. He went flat to the ground and stayed there until it was over. The kid could run and he'd catch somewhere down the line.

Later he went back over to the camp to see if there was, anything left standing. What had once been a little town of shacks was now just loose piles of tar paper, cardboard, and wood, scattered and smashed flatter than pancakes. He turned and was leaving when he heard a voice.

“Smokey?”

The kid was lying about twenty feet from where their shack had been. Surprised, Smokey went over to him. "What happened?”

“I know you told me not to ever untie my shoes, but they was tight I tripped."

"You hurt?"

"I think I'm killed."

Smokey squatted beside him and saw that the right side of his head had been beaten in. The kid looked up at him.

"You know, Smokey . . . I thought tramping would be fun . . . but it ain't . . .”

 Then he closed his eyes and died.

The next day, Smokey got a couple of guys he knew and they buried him out in the tramps' graveyard they had outside of Chicago, and Elmo Williams read a selection he found on page 301 of the little red Salvation Army songbook he always carried with him.

Rejoice for a comrade deceased,

Our loss is his infinite gain,

A soul out of prison released,

And free from its bodily chain.

They never did know his name, so they just put up a wooden marker, made out of a crate. It said, THE KID.

When the other men left, Smokey stayed behind for a minute to say goodbye.

"Well, pal," he said, "at least you got to see Sally Rand. That was something . . .”

Then he turned around and headed for the yard to hop a train south, to Alabama. He wanted to get out of Chicago; the wind that whipped around the buildings was so cold that it sometimes brought a tear to a man's eye.

DECEMBER 8, 1938

Beware of Blasting Caps

Tell your kids not to play out by the railroad yards where they are dynamiting. My other half tells me that when he was on his run to Nashville a few days ago, he heard tell of a fellow who bit down on a blasting cap by mistake and blew his lips off.

Opal says that there was such a rush in the shop the other day, with everyone getting ready for the Eastern Star Banquet, that a blue woman's coat was taken by mistake. So if you have it, bring it back.

A hayride was sponsored by the Baptist church and Peggy Hadley was left in the parking lot by mistake, but caught up with the gang later on.

Idgie and Ruth made a group of our kids happy last Saturday by taking them over to Avondale Park to pay a visit to Miss Fancy, the famous elephant who is so popular with young and old alike. Everyone had their picture made with Miss Fancy, and can have them as soon as they come back from the drugstore, Thursday.

Dr. Cleo Threadgoode returned home last Friday night from a visit to the Mayo Clinic, where he had taken little Albert for some tests. We are sorry he did not come home with good news for Ninny. We can only hope the doctors are wrong. Cleo will be back in his office on Monday.

. . . Dot Weems . . .

MARCH 15, 1986

Today they were busy eating Cracker Jack and talking. Or at least Mrs. Threadgoode was.

"You know, I was sure hoping I would be home by Easter, but it doesn't look like I'm gonna make it. Mrs. Otis is still having a hard time, but she did sign up for this arts and crafts class they have out here. Your mother-in-law joined up, too. Geneene said that Easter, they were going to hide Easter eggs and invite some schoolchildren to come out and look for them. That should be fun . . .

"I've always loved Easter, from the time I was a little girl. Loved everything that went with it. Back when we were kids, every Saturday night before Easter, we would all be out in the kitchen dyeing eggs. But Momma Threadgoode was always in charge of dyeing the golden Easter egg.

"Easter morning, we'd all have on new outfits and brand new Buster Brown shoes from Poppa's store. After church, Momma and Poppa would put us on the trolley car and we'd take a ride to Birmingham and back, while they hid about two hundred Easter eggs all over the backyard. There was all kinds of prizes—but the grand prize was for the one who found the golden egg.

"I was thirteen the year I found the golden egg. We'd been running around the yard for two whole hours, and not one person had found the golden egg. I was standing in the middle of the backyard, resting a minute, when I happened to glance over and saw something shiny under the seesaw. And sure enough, there it was, the golden egg, hidden in the grass, just sitting there waiting for me. Essie Rue was mad as a wet hen. She had wanted to find it, herself, that year, 'cause the grand prize was this big lemon-colored see-through china Easter egg, with the most delicate sparkle dust sprinkled on it. And if you looked inside the egg, you could see a miniature scene of a tiny little family: a mother, a father, and two little girls and a dog, standing in front of a house that looked just like ours. I could look inside that egg for hours. . . . I wonder whatever happened to that egg. I think it got sold in the porch sale we had during World War One.