Chapter XXII

The queerest thing was what happened on the day after the funeral. Tar was going along a street, coming from school. School was out at four and the train with the papers did not come until five. He was coming along the street and had got past the vacant lot by Wilder’s barn and there, in the lot, were some of the town boys playing ball. Clark Wilder was there and the Richmond kid and a lot of others. When your mother dies you do not play ball for a long time. It isn’t showing the proper respect. Tar knew that. The others knew.

Tar stopped. The strange thing was that he played ball that day just as though it hadn’t happened. Well, not quite like that. He never intended to play. What he did surprised him and the others. They all knew about the death of his mother.

The boys were playing three old cat and Bob Mann was pitching. He had a pretty good out-curve and an in-shoot and lots of speed for a twelve-year-old.

Tar climbed over the fence and walked across the field and right up to the batter and took the bat right out of his hand. At any other time there would have been a row. When you play three old cat you have to field first, then hold base, then pitch and catch before you can bat.

Tar didn’t care. He took the bat out of Clark Wilder’s hands and stood up at the plate. He began to taunt Bob Mann. “Let’s see you put her over. Let’s see what you got. Go on. Whiz ’em in.”

Bob threw one and then another and Tar soaked the second one. It was a home run and when he got around the bases he took the bat right up and soaked another, although it wasn’t his turn. The others let him. They never said a word.

Tar yelled, he taunted the others, he acted crazy, but nobody cared. When he had kept it up for maybe five minutes he left just as suddenly as he had come.

He went, after he had acted like that, on the very day after his mother’s funeral, down to the railroad station. Well, the train wasn’t in.

There were some empty box cars on a railroad siding over by Sid Grey’s elevator near the station and Tar crawled into one of the cars.

At first he thought he would like to be in a car like that and be carried away, he didn’t care where. Then he thought of something else. The cars were to be loaded with grain. They stood right near the elevator and near a shed in which there was an old blind horse that went round and round in a circle, to keep the machinery going that lifted the grain up to the top of the building.

The grain was lifted up and then ran down into the cars through a chute. They could fill a car in no time. All they had to do was to pull a lever and down the grain came.

It would be nice, Tar thought, to lie still in the car and be buried under the grain. It wouldn’t be like being buried under the cold ground. Grain was nice stuff, it felt nice in the hand. It was golden yellow stuff and would run down like rain and would bury you deep down where you could not breathe and you would die.

For what seemed to him a long time Tar lay on the floor of the car thinking of such a death for himself and then, rolling over on his side, he saw the old horse in his shed. The horse was looking out at him with blind eyes.

Tar looked at the horse and the horse looked at him. He heard the train that had brought his papers come in, but he did not stir. Now he was crying so that he was himself almost blind. It was as well, he thought, to do his crying where none of the other Moorehead children or none of the boys around town could see. The Moorehead children all felt something like that. At such a time you can’t go making a show of yourself.

Tar lay in the car until the train came and went and then, drying his eyes, crawled out.

The people who had been down to meet the train were walking away up the street. Now, in the Moorehead house, Margaret would be home from school and would be doing the housework. John was at the factory. It was no special fun for John, but he stuck to his job just the same. Things had to go on. Sometimes you just had to go on, not knowing why, like the blind old horse lifting the grain into the building.

As for the people walking away up the street--it might be that some of them would be wanting a paper.

A boy, if he is any good, has to be tending up to his job. He has to get up and hustle. When they were waiting for the funeral Margaret did not want to make a show of herself, so she closed her lips tight and worked. It was a good thing Tar couldn’t be blubbering away his time lying in an empty box car. What he had to do was to bring into the family all the money he could. Heaven knows, they would need it all. He had got to tend up to his job.

These the thoughts in Tar Moorehead’s head as he grabbed his bundle of newspapers and, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand, raced away up the street.

Although he did not know it Tar was, at that very moment perhaps, racing away out of his childhood.

THE END

Transcriber’s note

This transcription reproduces the 1926 edition of the book. Simple corrections were made in consultation with the 1969 critical edition of _Tar_ (available to borrow at the Internet Archive with ID “tarmidwestchildh0000ande_f8u5”). These changes are: “John Spainard → Spaniard”; “Wellwer → Welliver”; and the replacement of two periods with question marks within quotations in the foreword.