Comfort by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Author:Joyce Moyer Hostetter [Hostetter, Joyce Moyer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Calkins Creek
Published: 2009-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

Hubert

March 1946

There was a brace shop at Warm Springs. Mr. Maddox, the brace maker, made all sorts of things there. Contraptions, as my daddy would say—devices to help people pick things up, hold a spoon, or use a typewriter. And of course they made braces for our legs and arms and also corsets and shoe buildups for people who needed them. I couldn’t even begin to list all the things they’d make for you.

I had already been there for my Canadian crutches and to get the clicking sound in my braces fixed. And now I was supposed to get fitted with Canadian canes. I was excited because that meant I was really improving.

Since the brace shop was down below the medical building, I was tired when I got there. So I didn’t mind waiting for the man in a wheelchair just ahead of me. It was Hubert, the Navy man who scared me with that palmetto bug the day I came to Warm Springs. Mrs. Trotter was with him.

When I come in the door he was telling Mr. Maddox about a stunt he’d pulled the night before. Evidently his practical jokes always had something to do with palmetto bugs. “Compared to the critters we saw in the South Pacific, these bugs are tiny,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I keep a few as pets.”

The way he said “these bugs” made me think he had one with him. I thought maybe I should turn around and leave.

But then he said how, just that morning, he’d sneaked one into an older girl’s handbag. “She reached in for lipstick and guess what she got?” Hubert mimicked the girl’s scream. “When that bug skittered across her hand, she threw her pocketbook so hard she nearly broke a lamp in Georgia Hall.”

Hubert was having such a good time with that story I thought he was going to bust open laughing. And Mr. Maddox too. But Mrs. Trotter had a look of pure horror on her face.

There was a wall just inside the door with a display of braces, special shoes, and other gadgets on it. When Hubert told that story, I jerked back a little and bumped the display. I knocked a heavy metal brace off its hook. It went clattering to the floor.

And I tell you what’s the truth—a body would’ve thought we went straight from a comedy play to a war zone!

Every one of us about jumped out of our britches when it fell. But Hubert? It must’ve scared him half to death. “Enemy fire!” he hollered. “They’re blowing us to smithereens!” He yelled a bunch of other things too, but I didn’t understand most of it. He ducked his head, trying to throw himself on the ground.

Only he couldn’t. He was paralyzed from polio.

Mr. Maddox just stared at him and then at me. Mrs. Trotter reached out and put her hand on Hubert’s shoulder. “It’s okay. There’s no enemy fire,” she said. “You’re safe here. You’re in Warm Springs, Georgia. You’re safe.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.