The Night They Cried At The Mudville Aldermanic Board

The board of aldermen met Monday night at the usual place, usual time. There was, glory be, upwards of 30 in attendance - give or take.

The meetings always start with a preacher giving the blessing, then there's a time for delegations when Calkins almost always honors somebody. It might be some old lady who's growed a big squash or a schoolkid who's sold 100 bottles of Watkins Extract door to door. When Calkins finally stops talking, the man from the paper comes up front and lines everybody up for a picture. That showboat Calkins is always out front lugging the big squash or acting like he's swigging some Watkins. He's give away so many proclamations and keys to the city that the supplies are running short.

Whisnant despises that whole section. Calls it the "fol-de-rol." Says Calkins is playing politics pure and simple and "vote buying." Sometimes Whisnant just stays in the back til it's finally over and the delegations have come and gone.

This time there was no preacher going up to the lectern. People figured that they had forgot to notify the next one in the rotation, or the appointed one had forgot or mixed up his nights.

Then suddenly that big old door in the back - the one that creaks when it opens and then thunders shut - began to squeak. To the amazement of us all, in comes Johnny Harrington, who had suffered so awful in the war. His sweetheart Libby was beside his wheelchair, and little Johnny was close behind.

Johnny, not long after he had gone overseas, had his two legs blowed off and lost an arm. Libby had stuck with him through it all - the operations at Walter Reed, then the recupin hospitals. He had finally come back home, but our once high school football hero made himself scarce around town.  

Folks who watched him painfully push toward the podium was thinking back to that night under the bright lights not so long ago. The night when Johnny Harrington had seen an opening up the middle and wiggled past several defenders to finally reach pay dirt and beat Dog Trot 7-0 in the final minute. Libby's close neighbors was thinking, too, of how he had always leaped from his red pickup - under a night sky so bright you felt you could reach up and touch a blazin star - to pick up his beloved girl for a date at the picture show.

Johnny Harrington then gave the sweetest prayer you ever heard. He didn't complain about nothing, but told how it was such an honor to play his little role in defending our country and preserving our precious way of life. He prayed God's continued blessing on America, our state and our little town. He had the nicest things to say about his longtime friends and neighbors, who had supported him in so many ways through the ordeal. He had kind words for the mayor and all the members of the board - even that old flinthead Whisnant.

Then, to everyone's amazement, Johnny Harrington rose full length to stand erect on the artificial legs he had been working for months to get accustomed to. Then he led a Pledge to the Flag like none that had ever been said in that little assembly hall. 

When that triumph was done, well, I swan but that big old back door began to creak open again. In marched the high school band that was under the direction of Jimmy Fullington, Johnny's best friend from grammar school. Usually this band sounded just awful, but Fullington had kept them afternoons and nights just to learn this one song. They broke into a rendition of "God Bless America" that sounded like the Philharmonic.

And right at the rousing climax of that old favorite, Johnny Harrington did a slow turn and walked unassisted on his store-made legs right straight back toward the rear door. Then he disappeared into the night. He left that old iron wheelchair right where it was.

People was grabbing for handkerchiefs right and left, and even old Whisnant was blubbering.