The Project Gutenberg eBook of "Hey Ma, Where's Willie?", by I. M. Bukstein.

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Just where Willie went, I ain't sure. I wonder sometimes, especially around harvest because that is about the time we found Willie was missing. I should pine after him a little. He was my son, but somehow I never took a hankering toward Willie like I ought to. I got five other boys a lot smarter, bigger, and nicer to look at than Willie ever was, besides four girls that's as pretty as they come. But when someone disappears, like Willie did, even if you don't care particularly much you kind of wonder at times just how it came about.

Willie was near about fourteen or thereabouts. I never could remember for sure. He wasn't the oldest and he wasn't the youngest. But then with ten kids and ten ages to keep track of a man can't be expected to remember. Anyhow he'd be about sixteen now, since it was two years ago that it happened.

It was a bad time for him to be skipping off, too. We were in the middle of harvest. We had corn to get in, besides which we had a bit of a scare around here with lights flashing in the hills and funny noises at night. The fellows who know call that sort of thing by some fancy name. "Mass illusionations," I guess they'd say.

Well, one night we sat down to chow. We'd worked hard all day, so we were filling ourselves as full as we could. Ma is a right good cook when she bothers, and the girls do all right by themselves. When we finished, Joey pops up. I think it was Joey. I can't rightly remember. When you got ten kids and ten names to keep track of you're bound to have a hard time remembering.

Anyhow, one of the kids pops up and says, "Look, Pa! Willie's plate is all full up with chow and no Willie."

Ma looks down the row and tallies them up. Sure thing, nine kids and no Willie. I kind of wondered why Willie wasn't around. He's usually the first to eat and the last to stop. Ma looked worried.

"Well," I says. "Pass his plate. Don't want any food to go to waste." So, the plate is passed down to me. By the time it goes down the line of kids there's one porkchop left. I eat the porkchop and forget about Willie for a while.

"So," I says. "Willie wasn't home last night. Where's breakfast?" Ma looks worried. Like I say Ma always liked Willie.

"OK, Ma," I pipes up. "We'll ask the neighbors. It'd be easy to spot Willie anywhere." That's what I figured. Even though I hate to say it about my own son, Willie was plumb peculiar to look at. He had a head that looked like it belonged on a man a hundred pounds heavier. It sat like a knob on the end of a scrawny, skinny body. A body too scrawny to be much use in farming.

He sure was dumb too, that Willie. If you put him out to plow a straight line, he'd plow a circle. If you wanted him to plow a curve, he'd plow a zig-zag line. He wasn't like the other boys. Willie got kicked out of school when he was eight. Not that the other boys finished school, but he got kicked out real disgraceful-like. Now Bennie, he set fire to the teacher's chair; Joey burned down the whole school building. But Willie, guldurn Willie, he read all the books he could get ahold of till he knew more than the teacher: so of course, the teacher had to kick him out to save her face. Take Willie to pull a trick like that. Asked her such fool questions that she had to close the school for a couple months to take a rest cure. That was Willie for you.

Sometimes I wonder myself why Willie don't mean as much to me as some of the other kids do. Maybe it's because I wasn't around when Willie was born. Just happened the draft, the war draft that is, called my number. That was for the second world war. Well anyhow they didn't want me. I guess the government didn't want to support my kids. Don't blame them though.

I go to the city and two weeks later I come back and there is Willie. He's just an ordinary baby, no hair and no teeth.

"Kinda homely," I says to Ma. But she doesn't seem to care, so I figure I don't care either.

Willie grew up and Willie kept getting in the way. Asked all kinds of silly questions. Sure, the others always wanted to know why the grass is green; but not Willie. Willie asks some silly question about "the relative merits of transistor amplifiers as compared to vacuum tubes." That ain't all the questions he asked. But you get the idea. Willie always acted kind of big for his breeches.

Ma always seemed to encourage him too. Keeps saying Willie ain't my son. I know she's kidding, of course. I reckon she means sort of like, in spirit he ain't my son. In that respect, I agree with her. Willie sure ain't my son. Some of the kids titter when Ma says that. Especially Ellie, or was it Sue? We had another one of those "mess of illusionations" about that time. Sue kept talking about funny looking men, with funny looking heads, wearing funny looking clothes. She said they jumped out of a coffee saucer or something like that. Just a baby, you know, with crazy notions. I never do pay any attention to these crazy ideas the kids bring up. I once read a book or something, or maybe someone told me, kids always see things that aren't there. Just humor them and don't say nothing, so I don't say nothing.

We had a couple more kids after Willie. Three I think it was. All nice strong babies. I remember once Willie asked where they came from. That was the only near normal question Willie ever asked. He found out quick enough without any help from me. Willie was like that. He found out all kinds of goofy things from Lord only knows where. Even kept telling me that it didn't matter at all what time of moon I planted the crops. Just a punk kid too big for his breeches. Been farming all my life and he's telling me.

To get back to the facts, we asked the folks around here if any of them had noticed the whereabouts of Willie. Someone said they'd seen him in the cornfield near the Weston farm. At least, what used to be the Weston farm. The same night Willie disappeared someone or something rooted and burned his whole corn patch.

On the whole most people were too interested in the lights and noises they were seeing and hearing to pay any attention to Willie's getting lost. Ma missed Willie at first. He used to keep her company quite a bit. He was too scrawny to do outside work, so he used to help Ma in the house. But soon even Ma got used to the idea. Now she don't mention him no more.

Don't know why I'm telling you this. Maybe it's because you're new around here and I thought you might be interested.

About Willie now, it might be the time of year that makes me think about him. It's harvest time you know. The time Willie disappeared. Hey Ma, tell those kids to cut the noise out there. Can't hear myself think. Now where were we? Come to think of it, the kids are all in bed by now. Hard day harvesting.

Maybe I'd better check on the noise. Want to come along? Watch your head as you go out. The stoop is kind of low. I always bang my head if I don't stop to think about it.

Hey you! What you doing in my corn? Guldurn flying saucer or no guldurn flying saucer, that guldurn thing is ruining my crop! Hey, there's some people or what look like people. Say, they remind me of Willie, big heads and scrawny bodies. Well, what do you know? It's Willie! Willie, where you been and where'd you get that get up? Tell those things you're with to get the saucer thing off my corn. Just wait till your Ma sees you. She's been worried sick. Fine thing! Leaving us in the middle of harvest. Hey Ma! It's Willie!

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"HEY MA, WHERE'S WILLIE?"

By I. M. Bukstein