OCR Text |
Show page 211 Miss L i l l i e climbed in her pickup truck and drove away. Hutch let his pots simmer, sat for a long time trying to think of some way to keep the bird. When he heard Songster McClain's voice from the creek bridge, he xiralked out to the road, leaned against a walnut t r e e , chewed a piece of sour grass and waited. Songster rode a proud jenny and sported clean gallused overalls winter and summer, but he seldom took a bath. He pretended to know words of wisdom. Maybe he did. He always had an odor about him that was as strange as could be; perhaps this odor was part of wisdom. Owls began to fly away, out of range of Songster's voice. Under layers of mist Hutch saw Songster's bare feet swinging beneath the jenny's b e l l y . Then the mist parted and Hutch could see - and smell - a l l of him. Songster wore a multi-purpose fuzzy hat, a hat he used to gather eggs i n , feed his cats in, and most important of a l l , to place on the sidewalk xvhen he joined Red Eye and Tator Reynolds, up-the-road neighbors, for their Saturday sidewalk singing in town. Just the threat to gather and sing was highly profitable to the t r i o ; merchants often paid them t o stay away, complaining of t h e i r singing and also t h a t none of them shaved or bathed regularly. Hutch saw that Songster was packing a bulging gunny sack. Songster was reared back, his throat oiled, about to bust out with another song, x«7hen Hutch hailed him. Songster pulled to with a "Whoa, Rebecca," looked Hutch's way and said, "You're a sight for crying eyes, Hutch, and crying eyes are what I got for t h i s bag of onions." |