[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It would happen maybe once or twice a week--never much more. Because
things had to be just right.
For example, it had to be daytime for it to work. At night, nobody was
likely to notice the chain hanging down with the handle on the end of
it.
And naturally the victims had to be city folk. Had to be used to just
reaching up and grabbing and pulling without a thought. Because when
you stop to think about it, a chain like that in a place like that is
about the most unlikely thing in the world.
But it worked--it worked often enough to bring grins to the faces of
any men who were around at the time, and enough to make the town women
sometimes a little cool toward Charley Mason when they went in to buy
things at his store. Because it was strictly a man's joke, and he was
the man.
* * * * *
Owensville is a small town in western Pennsylvania. It sits low in one
end of a green-sided valley, just a few frame houses and stores strung
along a main street ... and that main street is on the one and only
road that leads through the valley: a road that all the maps show to be
a convenient and dependable connection between the Penn Turnpike and
several other major routes, should you be heading south.
So a lot of people drive through Owensville every week--upwards of two
hundred or so. And there's always one or two of them in the mood to
spend a little time in a restroom--the last Howard Johnson's is twenty
miles back along the Turnpike, and the road down into the valley is a
bumpy one besides, and you know what that does to your innards.
So they come driving around the bend under the trees and their car
wheels thump across the old wooden bridge across Miller's Creek--and
once in a while one of them would pull off the road into the yard
beside Charley Mason's General Store because they'd spot his
crescent-doored outhouse standing there. Charley always kept it painted
up so it'd be easier to see--clean white with a red roof--and over
the door he'd lettered, big enough to see from the bridge, PUBLIC
RESTROOM.
Then somebody'd get out of the car and go in, and a few minutes later
the chain that came up through the roof would yank down as whoever was
inside reached up and pulled the handle.
And then the big old cowbell on the roof--the biggest and noisiest
Charley'd been able to find--would dance around in the mounting he'd
made out of an angle-iron, and go _Blongle, blongle, blok!_
After a minute the door'd open and the city folk would come out,
looking puzzled and kind of sneaky. They'd give a glance up at the roof
and see the cowbell mounted there. Some of them might grin at the way
they'd been had. But mostly they'd get into their car and drive off
maybe a little faster'n they would've ordinarily.
If it was a woman, it was five times as funny. Because some of the
older men were always sitting around on the porch of Charley's store
playing pinochle, or lounging down by the bridge just talking, and
when the woman would come out they'd all grin at her and those who had
mustaches might twiddle them a bit, and she'd get redder'n a bushel of
tomatoes.
Women drove off faster'n anybody, usually.
Some townspeople said it wasn't a very good way to advertise Owensville
to passersby. But Charley said that a town of thirty-two people didn't
have to worry about advertising one way or the other--it just needed
diversion. And since it was on his property, the cowbell stayed up.
It was just a gag. It never really hurt anybody. Charley, who could
incline to philosophy when it suited him, said that the only person it
could hurt was somebody who was plain ashamed of being human. And, on
the personal side, he admitted he got a kick out of seeing them all
flustered up that way.
Probably the outhouse and the bell'd still be there, and Charley'd
still be getting his laughs, if the fat lady in the green convertible
hadn't decided to do some praying.
* * * * *
It was a late July afternoon, and plenty hot. The sun was reflecting
like yellow-green fire off the hills around, and everybody was sitting
in the shade.
Charley Mason and Sam Knudson were sitting on the store porch playing
gin, and Luke Yates was just coming up the steps, when they heard a car
approaching.
Charley and Sam paused in their game and Luke turned his gray head to
look.
"Maybe this time," Charley said.
Luke Yates studied the dust cloud moving toward town above the tops of
the trees.
"Coming pretty fast," he said. "Bet they drive right on through."
"A dollar," said Charley. "You bounce harder when you drive fast."
"It's on," said Luke.
Waiting, Charley Mason leaned back in his chair and half-closed his
eyes, a lean, bald man in shirt-sleeves, the hand holding his cards
relaxed in his lap. They could hear the murmur of the creek carrying
away the runoff from last night's rain, and the air was sweet with the
breath of the fields off down the valley.
"Rich man," said Charley, looking across the yard at his outhouse,
"poor man, beggar man, thief. In there, you're all alike in the eyes of
God, I guess."
Sam Knudson nodded thoughtfully. "In the eyes of _something_, at any
rate."
"All alike," said Luke Yates.
"Can't see your wallet from _there_," Charley said.
"Your brains either," said Luke.