COLD WAR
      by Henry Kuttner (1914-1958)
            Thrilling Wonder Stories, October


The third selection by the terrific Kuttners (and to some extent all they
published under whatever name after their marriage owed something to
both) is this charming tale about “just plain folks” who happen to be
mutants. “Cold War” is the last of a series of four stories about the
Hogbens, all of which appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories—”Exit the
Professor” (October, 1947), “Pile of Trouble” (April, 1948), and “See You
Later” (June, 1949). It’s a shame that they didn’t write a few more,
because they would have made a fine collection.—M.H.G.

      (When I first started to write, I attempted, in a few stories, to present
a dialect by means of specialized spelling. No doubt I wasn’t skillful
enough to carry it off, so that I found the stories embarrassing to reread
when I was done, and even more embarrassing to reread if they
happened to get pub-lished (as a few did.) Quite early in the game I
therefore stopped and had every character I dealt with speak cultured
English or, at least, correctly spelled English.

       There are advantages to dialect, however. If you tell a story in the
first person and in dialect, you make it plain to the reader that you are
dealing with a culture quite distinct from that of the American
establishment. It gives odd events and odd outlooks a greater
verisimilitude, and it also serves as a source of humor. Of two
narratives, all things being otherwise equal, the one in dialect is funnier.

      If, that is, it is done right. Henry Kuttner does it right in Cold War as
I’m sure you will very quickly decide for yourself. I couldn’t do it.—I.A.)

                                     ****

                         Chapter I. Last of the Pughs

I’ll never have a cold in the haid again without I think of little Junior Pugh.
Now there was a repulsive brat if ever I saw one. Built like a little gorilla, he
was. Fat, pasty face, mean look, eyes so close together you could poke
‘em both out at once with one finger. His paw thought the world of him
though. Maybe that was natural, seeing as how little Junior was the image of
his pappy.

     “The last of the Pughs,” the old man used to say stickin’ his chest out
and beamin’ down at the little gorilla. “Finest little lad that ever stepped.”

      It made my blood run cold sometimes to look at the two of ‘em
together. Kinda sad, now, to think back to those happy days when I didn’t
know either of ‘em. You may not believe it but them two Pughs, father and
son, between ‘em came within that much of conquerin’ the world.

       Us Hogbens is quiet folks. We like to keep our heads down and lead
quiet lives in our own little valley, where nobody comes near withouten we
say so. Our neighbors and the folks in the village are used to us by now.
They know we try hard not to act conspicuous. They make allowances.

      If Paw gets drunk, like last week, and flies down the middle of Main
Street in his red underwear most people make out they don’t notice, so’s
not to embarrass Maw. They know he’d walk like a decent Christian if he
was sober.

      The thing that druv Paw to drink that time was Little Sam, which is our
baby we keep in a tank down-cellar, startin’ to teethe again. First time since
the War Between the States. We’d figgered he was through teething, but
with Little Sam you never can tell. He was mighty restless, too.

       A perfesser we keep in a bottle told us once Little Sam e-mitted
subsonic somethings when he yells but that’s just his way of talking. Don’t
mean a thing. It makes your nerves twiddle, that’s all. Paw can’t stand it.
This time it even woke up Grandpaw in the attic and he hadn’t stirred since
Christmas. First thing after he got his eyes open he bust out madder’n a
wet hen at Paw.

      “I see ye, wittold knave that ye are!” he howled. “Flying again, is it?
Oh, sic a reowfule sigte! I’ll ground ye, ywis!” There was a far-away thump.

      “You made me fall a good ten feet!” Paw hollered from away down
the valley. “It ain’t fair. I could of busted something!”

      “Ye’ll bust us all, with your dronken carelessness,” Grandpaw said.
“Flying in full sight of the neighbors! People get burned at the stake for
less. You want mankind to find out all about us? Now shut up and let me
tend to Baby.”

      Grandpaw can always quiet the baby if nobody else can. This time he
sung him a little song in Sanskrit and after a bit they was snoring a duet.

      I was fixing up a dingus for Maw to sour up some cream for
sour-cream biscuits. I didn’t have much to work with but an old sled and
some pieces of wire but I didn’t need much. I was trying to point the top
end of the wire north-northeast when I seen a pair of checked pants rush by
in the woods.

      It was Uncle Lem. I could hear him thinking. “It ain’t me!” he was
saying, real loud, inside his haid. “Git back to yer work, Saunk. I ain’t within a
mile of you. Yer Uncle Lem’s a fine old feller and never tells lies. Think I’d
fool ye, Saunkie boy?”

    “You shore would,” I thunk back. “If you could. What’s up, Uncle
Lem?”

      At that he slowed down and started to saunter back in a wide circle.

     “Oh, I just had an idy yer Maw might like a mess of blackberries,” he
thunk, kicking a pebble very nonchalant. “If anybody asks you say you ain’t
seen me. It’s no lie. You ain’t.”

      “Uncle Lem,” I thunk, real loud, “I gave Maw my bounden word I
wouldn’t let you out of range without me along, account of the last time you
got away—”

     “Now, now, my boy,” Uncle Lem thunk fast. “Let bygones be
bygones.”

       “You just can’t say no to a friend, Uncle Lem,” I reminded him, taking
a last turn of the wire around the runner. “So you wait a shake till I get this
cream soured and we’ll both go together, wherever it is you have in mind.”

       I saw the checked pants among the bushes and he come out in the
open and give me a guilty smile. Uncle Lem’s a fat little feller. He means
well, I guess, but he can be talked into most anything by most anybody,
which is why we have to keep a close eye on him.

        “How you gonna do it?” he asked me, looking at the cream-jug. “Make
the little critters work faster?”

      “Uncle Lem!” I said. “You know better’n that. Cruelty to dumb animals
is something I can’t abide. Them there little critters work hard enough
souring milk the way it is. They’re such teentsy-weentsy fellers I kinda feel
sorry for ‘em. Why, you can’t even see ‘em without you go kinda crosseyed
when you look. Paw says they’re enzymes. But they can’t be. They’re too
teeny.”

     “Teeny is as teeny does,” Uncle Lem said. “How you gonna do it,
then?”

     “This here gadget,” I told him, kinda proud, “will send Maw’s
cream-jug ahead into next week some time. This weather, don’t take cream
more’n a couple of days but I’m giving it plenty of time. When I bring it
back—bingo, it’s sour.” I set the jug on the sled.

     “I never seen such a do-lass brat,” Uncle Lem said, stepping forward
and bending a wire crosswise. “You better do it thataway, on account of the
thunderstorm next Tuesday. All right now, shoot her off.”

      So I shot her off. When she come back, sure enough, the cream was
sour enough to walk a mouse. Crawling up the can there was a hornet from
next week, which I squashed. Now that was a mistake. I knowed it the
minute I touched the jug. Dang Uncle Lem, anyhow.

     He jumped back into the underbrush, squealing real happy.

     “Fooled you that time, you young stinker,” he yelled back. “Let’s see
you get your thumb outa the middle of next week!”

      It was the time-lag done it. I mighta knowed. When he crossed that
wire he didn’t have no thunderstorm in mind at all. Took me nigh onto ten
minutes to work myself loose, account of some feller called Inertia, who
mixes in if you ain’t careful when you fiddle around with time. I don’t
understand much about it myself. I ain’t got my growth yet. Uncle Lem says
he’s already forgot more’n I’ll ever know.

       With that head start I almost lost him. Didn’t even have time to change
into my store-bought clothes and I knowed by the way he was all dressed
up fit to kill he was headed for somewheres fancy.

      He was worried, too. I kept running into little stray worrisome thoughts
he’d left behind him, hanging like teeny little mites of clouds on the bushes.
Couldn’t make out much on account of they was shredding away by the
time I got there but he’d shore done something he shouldn’t. That much
anybody coulda told. They went something like this:

     “Worry, worry—wish I hadn’t done it—oh, heaven help me if
Grandpaw ever finds out—oh, them nasty Pughs, how could I a-been such
a fool? Worry, worry—pore ole feller, such a good soul, too, never done
nobody no harm and look at me now.

     “That Saunk, too big for his britches, teach him a thing or two, ha-ha.
Oh, worry, worry—never mind, brace up, you good ole boy, everything’s
bound to turn out right in the end. You deserve the best, bless you, Lemuel.
Grandpaw’ll never find out.”

       Well, I seen his checkered britches high-tailing through the woods
after a bit, but I didn’t catch up to him until he was down the hill, across the
picnic grounds at the edge of town and pounding on the sill of the
ticket-window at the railroad station with a Spanish dubloon he snitched
from Paw’s seachest.

      It didn’t surprise me none to hear him asking for a ticket to State
Center. I let him think I hadn’t caught up. He argued something turrible with
the man behind the window but finally he dug down in his britches and
fetched up a silver dollar, and the man calmed down.

     The train was already puffing up smoke behind the station when Uncle
Lem darted around the corner. Didn’t leave me much time but I made it
too—just. I had to fly a little over the last half-dozen yards but I don’t think
anybody noticed.

                                      ****

Once when I was just a little shaver there was a Great Plague in London,
where we were living at the time, and all us Hogbens had to clear out. I
remember the hullabaloo in the city but looking back now it don’t seem a
patch on the hullabaloo in State Center station when the train pulled in.
Times have changed, I guess.

      Whistles blowing, horns honking, radios yelling bloody
murder—seems like every invention in the last two hundred years had been
noisier than the one before it. Made my head ache until I fixed up
something Paw once called a raised decibel threshold, which was pure
showing-off.

      Uncle Lem didn’t know I was anywhere around. I took care to think
real quiet but he was so wrapped up in his worries he wasn’t paying no mind
to nothing. I followed him through the crowds in the station and out onto a
wide street full of traffic. It was a relief to get away from the trains.
       I always hate to think what’s going on inside the boiler, with all the little
bitty critters so small you can’t hardly see ‘em, pore things, flying around all
hot and excited and bashing their heads together. It seems plumb pitiable.

     Of course, it just don’t do to think what’s happening inside the
automobiles that go by.

      Uncle Lem knowed right where he was headed. He took off down the
street so fast I had to keep reminding myself not to fly, trying to keep up. I
kept thinking I ought to get in touch with the folks at home, in case this
turned into something I couldn’t handle, but I was plumb stopped
everywhere I turned. Maw was at the church social that afternoon and she
whopped me the last time I spoke to her outa thin air right in front of the
Reverend Jones. He ain’t used to us Hogbens yet.

     Paw was daid drunk. No good trying to wake him up. And I was
scared to death I would wake the baby if I tried to call on Grandpaw.

      Uncle Lem scuttled right along, his checkered legs a-twinkling. He
was worrying at the top of his mind, too. He’d caught sight of a crowd in a
side-street gathered around a big truck, looking up at a man standing on it
and waving bottles in both hands.

      He seemed to be making a speech about headaches. I could hear
him all the way to the corner. There was big banners tacked along the sides
of the truck that said, PUGH HEADACHE CURE.

     “Oh, worry, worry!” Uncle Lem thunk. “Oh, bless my toes, what am I
going to do? I never dreamed anybody’d marry Lily Lou Mutz. Oh, worry!”

      Well, I reckon we’d all been surprised when Lily Lou Mutz up and got
herself a husband awhile back—around ten years ago, I figgered. But what
it had to do with Uncle Lem I couldn’t think. Lily Lou was just about the
ugliest female that ever walked. Ugly ain’t no word for her, pore gal.

      Grandpaw said once she put him in mind of a family name of Gorgon
he used to know. Not that she wasn’t a goodhearted critter. Being so ugly,
she put up with a lot in the way of rough acting-up from the folks in the
village—the riff-raff lot, I mean.

     She lived by herself in a little shack up the mountain and she musta
been close onto forty when some feller from the other side of the river
come along one day and rocked the whole valley back on its heels by
asking her to marry up with him. Never saw the feller myself but I heard tell
he wasn’t no beauty-prize winner neither.

       Come to think of it, I told myself right then, looking at the truck—come
to think of it, feller’s name was Pugh.

                                     ****

                         Chapter 2. A Fine Old Feller

       Next thing I knowed, Uncle Lem had spotted somebody under a
lamp-post on the sidewalk, at the edge of the crowd. He trotted over. It
seemed to be a big gorilla and a little gorilla, standing there watching the
feller on the truck selling bottles with both hands.

     “Come and get it,” he was yelling. “Come and get your bottle of
Pugh’s Old Reliable Headache Cure while they last!”

      “Well, Pugh, here I am,” Uncle Lem said, looking up at the big gorilla.
“Hello, Junior,” he said right afterward, glancing down at the little gorilla. I
seen him shudder a little.

      You shore couldn’t blame him for that. Two nastier specimens of the
human race I never did see in all my born days. If they hadn’t been quite so
pasty-faced or just the least mite slimmer, maybe they wouldn’t have put
me so much in mind of two well-fed slugs, one growed-up and one
baby-sized. The paw was all dressed up in a Sunday-meeting suit with a big
gold watch-chain across his front and the way he strutted you’d a thought
he’d never had a good look in a mirror.

      “Howdy, Lem,” he said, casual-like. “Right on time, I see. Junior, say
howdy to Mister Lem Hogben. You owe Mister Hogben a lot, sonny.” And
he laughed a mighty nasty laugh.

      Junior paid him no mind. He had his beady little eyes fixed on the
crowd across the street. He looked about seven years old and mean as
they come.

      “Shall I do it now, paw?” he asked in a squeaky voice. “Can I let ‘em
have it now, paw? Huh, paw?” From the tone he used, I looked to see if
he’d got a machine-gun handy. I didn’t see none but if looks was ever mean
enough to kill Junior Pugh could of mowed the crowd right down.

      “Manly little feller, ain’t he, Lem?” Paw Pugh said, real smug. “I tell
you, I’m mighty proud of this youngster. Wish his dear grandpaw coulda
lived to see him. A fine old family line, the Pughs is. Nothing like it
anywhere. Only trouble is, Junior’s the last of his race. You see why I got in
touch with you, Lem.”

      Uncle Lem shuddered again. “Yep,” he said. “I see, all right. But
you’re wasting your breath, Pugh. I ain’t a-gonna do it.”

      Young Pugh spun around in his tracks.

     “Shall I let him have it, paw?” he squeaked, real eager. “Shall I, paw?
Now, paw? Huh?”

        “Shaddup, sonny,” the big feller said and he whammed the little feller
across the side of the haid. Pugh’s hands was like hams. He shore was
built like a gorilla.

      The way his great big arms swung down from them big hunched
shoulders, you’d of thought the kid would go flying across the street when
his paw whopped him one. But he was a burly little feller. He just staggered
a mite and then shook his haid and went red in the face.

     He yelled out, loud and squeaky, “Paw, I warned you! The last time
you whammed me I warned you! Now I’m gonna let you have it!”

     He drew a deep breath and his two little teeny eyes got so bright I
coulda sworn they was gonna touch each other across the middle of his
nose. His pasty face got bright red.

      “Okay, Junior,” Paw Pugh said, real hasty. “The crowd’s ready for you.
Don’t waste your strength on me, sonny. Let the crowd have it!”

      Now all this time I was standing at the edge of the crowd, listening
and watching Uncle Lem. But just then somebody jiggled my arm and a thin
kinda voice said to me, real polite, “Excuse me, but may I ask a question?”

     I looked down. It was a skinny man with a kind-hearted face. He had a
notebook in his hand.

      “It’s all right with me,” I told him, polite. “Ask away, mister.”

      “I just wondered how you feel, that’s all,” the skinny man said, holding
his pencil over the notebook ready to write down something.

      “Why, peart,” I said. “Right kind of you to inquire. Hope you’re feeling
well too, mister.”

      He shook his head, kind of dazed. “That’s the trouble,” he said. “I just
don’t understand it. I feel fine.”

      “Why not?” I asked. “Fine day.”

      “Everybody here feels fine,” he went right on, just like I hadn’t spoke.
“Barring normal odds, everybody’s in average good health in this crowd.
But in about five minutes or less, as I figure it—” He looked at his
wristwatch.

     Just then somebody hit me right on top of the haid with a red-hot
sledge-hammer.

     Now you shore can’t hurt a Hogben by hitting him on the haid.
Anybody’s a fool to try. I felt my knees buckle a little but I was all right in a
couple of seconds and I looked around to see who’d whammed me.

      Wasn’t a soul there. But oh my, the moaning and groaning that was
going up from that there crowd! People was a-clutching at their foreheads
and a-staggering around the street, clawing at each other to get to that truck
where the man was handing out the bottles of headache cure as fast as he
could take in the dollar bills.

     The skinny man with the kind face rolled up his eyes like a duck in
thunder.

     “Oh, my head!” he groaned. “What did I tell you? Oh, my head!” Then
he sort of tottered away, fishing in his pocket for money.

      Well, the family always did say I was slow-witted but you’d have to be
downright feeble-minded if you didn’t know there was something mighty
peculiar going on around here. I’m no ninny, no matter what Maw says. I
turned around and looked for Junior Pugh.

     There he stood, the fat-faced little varmint, red as a turkey-gobbler, all
swole up and his mean little eyes just a-flashing at the crowd.

      “It’s a hex,” I thought to myself, perfectly calm. “I’d never have
believed it but it’s a real hex. Now how in the world—”

      Then I remembered Lily Lou Mutz and what Uncle Lem had been
thinking to himself. And I began to see the light.
      The crowd had gone plumb crazy, fighting to get at the headache
cure. I purty near had to bash my way over toward Uncle Lem. I figured it
was past time I took a hand, on account of him being so soft in the heart
and likewise just about as soft in the haid.

    “Nosirree,” he was saying, firm-like. “I won’t do it. Not by no manner of
means I won’t.”

      “Uncle Lem,” I said.

      I bet he jumped a yard into the air.

       “Saunk!” he squeaked. He flushed up and grinned sheepish and then
he looked mad, but I could tell he was kinda relieved, too. “I told you not to
foller me,” he said.

     “Maw told me not to let you out of my sight,” I said. “I promised Maw
and us Hogbens never break a promise. What’s going on here, Uncle
Lem?”

     “Oh, Saunk, everything’s gone dead wrong!” Uncle Lem wailed out.
“Here I am with a heart of gold and I’d just as soon be dead! Meet Mister
Ed Pugh, Saunk. He’s trying to get me kilt.”

      “Now Lem,” Ed Pugh said. “You know that ain’t so. I just want my
rights, that’s all. Pleased to meet you, young fellow. Another Hogben, I take
it. Maybe you can talk your uncle into—”

    “Excuse me for interrupting, Mister Pugh,” I said, real polite. “But
maybe you’d better explain. All this is purely a mystery to me.”

        He cleared his throat and threw his chest out, important-like. I could
tell this was something he liked to talk about. Made him feel pretty big, I
could see.

      “I don’t know if you was acquainted with my dear departed wife, Lily
Lou Mutz that was,” he said. “This here’s our little child, Junior. A fine little
lad he is too. What a pity we didn’t have eight or ten more just like him.” He
sighed real deep.

      “Well, that’s life. I’d hoped to marry young and be blessed with a
whole passel of younguns, being as how I’m the last of a fine old line. I
don’t mean to let it die out, neither.” Here he gave Uncle Lem a mean look.
Uncle Lem sorta whimpered.

      “I ain’t a-gonna do it,” he said. “You can’t make me do it.”

       “We’ll see about that,” Ed Pugh said, threatening. “Maybe your young
relative here will be more reasonable. I’ll have you know I’m getting to be a
power in this state and what I says goes.”

      “Paw,” little Junior squeaked out just then, “Paw, they’re kinda slowing
down. Kin I give it to ‘em double-strength this time, Paw? Betcha I could kill
a few if I let myself go. Hey, Paw—”

     Ed Pugh made as if he was gonna clonk the little varmint again, but I
guess he thought better of it.

      “Don’t interrupt your elders, sonny,” he said. “Paw’s busy. Just tend to
your job and shut up.” He glanced out over the moaning crowd. “Give that
bunch over beyond the truck a little more treatment,” he said. “They ain’t
buying fast enough. But no double-strength, Junior. You gotta save your
energy. You’re a growing boy.”

       He turned back to me. “Junior’s a talented child,” he said, very proud.
“As you can see. He inherited it from his dear dead-and-gone mother, Lily
Lou. I was telling you about Lily Lou. It was my hope to marry young, like I
said, but the way things worked out, somehow I just didn’t get around to
wifin’ till I’d got well along into the prime of life.”

      He blew out his chest like a toadfrog, looking down admiring. I never
did see a man that thought better of himself. “Never found a woman who’d
look at—I mean, never found the right woman,” he went on, “till the day I
met Lily Lou Mutz.”

      “I know what you mean,” I said, polite. I did, too. He musta searched a
long, long ways before he found somebody ugly enough herself to look
twice at him. Even Lily Lou, pore soul, musta thunk a long time afore she
said yes.

    “And that,” Ed Pugh went on, “is where your Uncle Lem comes in. It
seems like he’d give Lily Lou a bewitchment quite some while back.”

     “I never!” Uncle Lem squealed. “And anyway, how’d I know she’d get
married and pass it on to her child? Who’d ever think Lily Lou would—”

      “He gave her a bewitchment,” Ed Pugh went right on talking. “Only
she never told me till she was a-layin’ on her death-bed a year ago. Lordy, I
sure woulda whopped her good if I’d knowed how she held out on me all
them years! It was the hex Lemuel gave her and she inherited it on to her
little child.”

      “I only done it to protect her,” Uncle Lem said, right quick. “You know
I’m speaking the truth, Saunk boy. Pore Lily Lou was so pizon ugly, people
used to up and heave a clod at her now and then afore they could help
themselves. Just automatic--like. Couldn’t blame ‘em. I often fought down
the impulse myself.

      “But pore Lily Lou, I shore felt sorry for her. You’ll never know how
long I fought down my good impulses, Saunk. But my heart of gold does
get me into messes. One day I felt so sorry for the pore hideous critter I
gave her the hexpower. Anybody’d have done the same, Saunk.”

     “How’d you do it?” I asked, real interested, thinking it might come in
handy someday to know. I’m young yet, and I got lots to learn.

      Well, he started to tell me and it was kinda mixed up. Right at first I
got a notion some furrin feller named Gene Chromosome had done it for
him and after I got straight on that part he’d gone cantering off into a
rigamarole about the alpha waves of the brain.

     Shucks, I knowed that much my own self. Everybody musta noticed
the way them little waves go a-sweeping over the tops of people’s haids
when they’re thinking. I’ve watched Grandpaw sometimes when he had as
many as six hundred different thoughts follering each other up and down
them little paths where his brain is. Hurts my eyes to look too close when
Grandpaw’s thinking.

       “So that’s how it is, Saunk,” Uncle Lem wound up. “And this here little
rattlesnake’s inherited the whole shebang.”

      “Well, why don’t you get this here Gene Chromosome feller to
unscramble Junior and put him back the way other people are?” I asked. “I
can see how easy you could do it. Look here, Uncle Lem.” I focused down
real sharp on Junior and made my eyes go funny the way you have to when
you want to look inside a person.

       Sure enough, I seen just what Uncle Lem meant. There was
teensy-weensy little chains of fellers, all hanging onto each other for dear
life, and skinny little rods jiggling around inside them awful teensy cells
everybody’s made of—except maybe Little Sam, our baby.
      “Look here, Uncle Lem,” I said. “All you did when you gave Lily Lou
the hex was to twitch these here little rods over that-away and patch ‘em
onto them little chains that wiggle so fast. Now why can’t you switch ‘em
back again and make Junior behave himself? It oughta be easy.”

      “It would be easy,” Uncle Lem kinda sighed at me. “Saunk, you’re a
scatterbrain. You wasn’t listening to what I said. I can’t switch ‘em back
without I kill Junior.”

      “The world would be a better place,” I said.

     “I know it would. But you know what we promised Grandpaw? No
more killings.”

       “But Uncle Lem!” I bust out. “This is turrible! You mean this nasty little
rattlesnake’s gonna go on all his life hexing people?”

      “Worse than that, Saunk,” pore Uncle Lem said, almost crying. “He’s
gonna pass the power on to his descendants, just like Lily Lou passed it on
to him.”

     For a minute it sure did look like a dark prospect for the human race.
Then I laughed.

        “Cheer up, Uncle Lem,” I said. “Nothing to worry about. Look at the
little toad. There ain’t a female critter alive who’d come within a mile of him.
Already he’s as repulsive as his daddy. And remember, he’s Lily Lou Mutz’s
child, too. Maybe he’ll get even horribler as he grows up. One thing’s
sure—he ain’t never gonna get married.”

       “Now there’s where you’re wrong,” Ed Pugh busted in, talking real
loud. He was red in the face and he looked mad. “Don’t think I ain’t been
listening,” he said. “And don’t think I’m gonna forget what you said about my
child. I told you I was a power in this town. Junior and me can go a long
way, using his talent to help us.

      “Already I’ve got on to the board of aldermen here and there’s gonna
be a vacancy in the state senate come next week—unless the old coot I
have in mind’s a lot tougher than he looks. So I’m warning you, young
Hogben, you and your family’s gonna pay for them insults.”

     “Nobody oughta get mad when he hears the gospel truth about
himself,” I said. “Junior is a repulsive specimen.”
      “He just takes getting used to,” his paw said. “All us Pughs is hard to
understand. Deep, I guess. But we got our pride. And I’m gonna make sure
the family line never dies out. Never, do you hear that, Lemuel?”

      Uncle Lem just shut his eyes up tight and shook his head fast.
“Nosirree,” he said. “I’ll never do it. Never, never, never, never—”

      “Lemuel,” Ed Pugh said, real sinister. “Lemuel, do you want me to set
Junior on you?”

     “Oh, there ain’t no use in that,” I said. “You seen him try to hex me
along with the crowd, didn’t you? No manner of use, Mister Pugh. Can’t hex
a Hogben.”

        “Well—” He looked around, searching his mind. “Hm-m. I’ll think of
something. I’ll—soft-hearted, aren’t you? Promised your Grandpappy you
wouldn’t kill nobody, hey? Lemuel, open your eyes and look over there
across the street. See that sweet old lady walking with the cane? How’d you
like it if I had Junior drop her dead in her tracks?”

      Uncle Lemuel just squeezed his eyes tighter shut.

       “I won’t look. I don’t know the sweet old thing. If she’s that old, she
ain’t got much longer anyhow. Maybe she’d be better off dead. Probably
got rheumatiz something fierce.”

      “All right, then, how about that purty young girl with the baby in her
arms? Look, Lemuel. Mighty sweet-looking little baby. Pink ribbon in its
bonnet, see? Look at them dimples. Junior, get ready to blight them where
they stand. Bubonic plague to start with maybe. And after that—”

      “Uncle Lem,” I said, feeling uneasy. “I dunno what Grandpaw would
say to this. Maybe—”

     Uncle Lem popped his eyes wide open for just a second. He glared
at me, frantic.

      “I can’t help it if I’ve got a heart of gold,” he said. “I’m a fine old feller
and everybody picks on me. Well, I won’t stand for it. You can push me just
so far. Now I don’t care if Ed Pugh kills off the whole human race. I don’t
care if Grandpaw does find out what I done. I don’t care a hoot about
nothing no more.” He gave a kind of wild laugh.
     “I’m gonna get out from under. I won’t know nothing about nothing. I’m
gonna snatch me a few winks, Saunk.”

     And with that he went rigid all over and fell flat on his face on the
sidewalk, stiff as a poker.

                                      ****

                           Chapter 3. Over a Barrel

Well, worried as I was, I had to smile. Uncle Lem’s kinda cute sometimes. I
knowed he’d put hisself to sleep again, the way he always does when
trouble catches up with him. Paw says it’s catalepsy but cats sleep a lot
lighter than that.

      Uncle Lem hit the sidewalk flat and kinda bounced a little. Junior give
a howl of joy. I guess maybe he figgered he’d had something to do with
Uncle Lem falling over. Anyhow, seeing somebody down and helpless,
Junior naturally rushed over and pulled his foot back and kicked Uncle Lem
in the side of the haid.

      Well, like I said, us Hogbens have got pretty tough haids. Junior let
out a howl. He started dancing around nursing his foot in both hands.

      “I’ll hex you good!” he yelled at Uncle Lem. “I’ll hex you good,
you—you ole Hogben, you!” He drew a deep breath and turned purple in
the face and—

      And then it happened.

       It was like a flash of lightning. I don’t take no stock in hexes, and I had
a fair idea of what was happening, but it took me by surprise. Paw tried to
explain to me later how it worked and he said it just stimulated the latent
toxins inherent in the organism. It made Junior into a catalytoxic agent on
account of the way the rearrangement of the desoxyribonucleic acid his
genes was made of worked on the kappa waves of his nasty little brain,
stepping them up as much as thirty microvolts. But shucks, you know Paw.
He’s too lazy to figger the thing out in English. He just steals them fool
words out of other folks’ brains when he needs ‘em.

      What really happened was that all the pizon that little varmint had
bottled up in him, ready to let go on the crowd, somehow seemed to r’ar
back and smack Uncle Lem right in the face. I never seen such a hex. And
the awful part was—it worked.
     Because Uncle Lem wasn’t resisting a mite now he was asleep.
Red-hot pokers wouldn’t have waked him up and I wouldn’t put red-hot
pokers past little Junior Pugh. But he didn’t need ‘em this time. The hex hit
Uncle Lem like a thunderbolt.

      He turned pale green right before our eyes.

        Somehow it seemed to me a tumble silence fell as Uncle Lem went
green. I looked up, surprised. Then I realized what was happening. All that
pitiful moaning and groaning from the crowd had stopped.

       People was swigging away at their bottles of headache cure, rubbing
their foreheads and kinda laughing weak-like with relief. Junior’s whole
complete hex had gone into Uncle Lem and the crowd’s headaches had
naturally stopped right off.

      “What’s happened here?” somebody called out in a kinda familiar
voice. “Has that man fainted? Why don’t you help him? Here, let me
by—I’m a doctor.”

      It was the skinny man with the kind-looking face. He was still drinking
out of the headache bottle as he pushed his way through the crowd toward
us but he’d put his notebook away. When he saw Ed Pugh he flushed up
angrylike.

     “So it’s you, is it, Alderman Pugh?” he said. “How is it you’re always
around when trouble starts? What did you do to this poor man, anyhow?
Maybe this time you’ve gone too far.”

      “I didn’t do a thing,” Ed Pugh said. “Never touched him. You watch
your tongue, Dr. Brown, or you’ll regret it. I’m a powerful man in this here
town.”

      “Look at that!” Dr. Brown yells, his voice going kinda squeaky as he
stares down at Uncle Lem. “The man’s dying! Call an ambulance,
somebody, quick!”

      Uncle Lem was changing color again. I had to laugh a little, inside my
haid. I knowed what was happening and it was kinda funny. Everybody’s got
a whole herd of germs and viruses and suchlike critters swarming through
them all the time, of course.

      When Junior’s hex hit Uncle Lem it stimulated the entire herd
something turrible, and a flock of little bitty critters Paw calls antibodies had
to get to work pronto. They ain’t really as sick as they look, being white by
nature.

      Whenever a pizon starts chawing on you these pale little fellers grab
up their shooting-irons and run like crazy to the battlefield in your insides.
Such fighting and yelling and swear-ing you never seen. It’s a regular Bull
Run.

      That was going on right then inside Uncle Lem. Only us Hogbens
have got a special militia of our own inside us. And they got called up real
fast.

       They was swearing and kicking and whopping the enemy so hard
Uncle Lem had gone from pale green to a sort of purplish color, and big
yeller and blue spots was beginning to bug out all over him where it
showed. He looked oncommon sick. Course it didn’t do him no real harm.
The Hogbens militia can lick any germ that breathes.

      But he sure looked revolting.

      The skinny doctor crouched down beside Uncle Lem and felt his
pulse.

      “Now you’ve done it,” he said, looking up at Ed Pugh. “I don’t know
how you’ve worked this, but for once you’ve gone too far. This man seems
to have bubonic plague. I’ll see you’re put under control this time and that
young Kallikak of yours, too.”

      Ed Pugh just laughed a little. But I could see he was mad.

     “Don’t you worry about me, Dr. Brown,” he said, mean. “When I get to
be governor—and I got my plans all made—that there hospital you’re so
proud of ain’t gonna operate on state funds no more. A fine thing!

      “Folks laying around in hospitals eating their fool heads off! Make ‘em
get out and plough, that’s what I say. Us Pughs never gets sick. I got lots of
better uses for state money than paying folks to lay around in bed when I’m
governor.”

      All the doctor said was, “Where’s that ambulance?”

      “If you mean that big long car making such a noise,” I said, “it’s about
three miles off but coming fast. Uncle Lem don’t need no help, though.
He’s just having an attack. We get ‘em in the family all the time. It don’t
mean nothing.”

       “Good heavens!” the doc said, staring down at Uncle Lem. “You
mean he’s had this before and lived?” Then he looked up at me and smiled
all of a sudden. “Oh, I see,” he said. “Afraid of hospitals, are you? Well,
don’t worry. We won’t hurt him.”

       That surprised me some. He was a smart man. I’d fibbed a little for
just that reason. Hospitals is no place for Hogbens. People in hospitals are
too danged nosy. So I called Uncle Lem real loud, inside my head.

      “Uncle Lem!” I hollered, only thinking it, not out loud. “Uncle Lem,
wake up quick! Grandpaw’ll nail your hide to the barn door if’n you let
yourself get took to a hospital. You want ‘em to find out about them two
hearts you got in your chest? And the way your bones are fixed and the
shape of your gizzard? Uncle Lem! Wake up!”

      It wasn’t no manner of use. He never even twitched.

       Right then I began to get really scared. Uncle Lem had sure landed
me in the soup. There I was with all that responsibility on my shoulders and
I didn’t have the least idea how to handle it. I’m just a young feller after all. I
can hardly remember much farther back than the great fire of London, when
Charles II was king, with all them long curls a-hanging on his shoulders. On
him, though, they looked good.

     “Mister Pugh,” I said, “you’ve got to call off Junior. I can’t let Uncle
Lem get took to the hospital. You know I can’t.”

       “Junior, pour it on,” Mister Pugh said, grinning real nasty. “I want a little
talk with young Hogben here.” The doctor looked up, puzzled, and Ed Pugh
said, “Step over here a mite, Hogben. I want a private word with you. Junior,
bear down!”

       Uncle Lem’s yellow and blue spots got green rings around their
outside edges. The doctor sorta gasped and Ed Pugh took my arm and
pulled me back. When we was out of earshot he said to me, confidential,
fixing mc with his tiny little eyes:

     “I reckon you know what I want, Hogben. Lem never did say he
couldn’t, he only said he wouldn’t, so I know you folks can do it for me.”

      “Just exactly what is it you want, Mister Pugh?” I asked him.
      “You know. I want to make sure our fine old family line goes on. I want
there should always be Pughs. I had so much trouble getting married off
myself and I know Junior ain’t going to be easy to wife. Women don’t have
no taste nowadays.

      “Since Lily Lou went to glory there hasn’t been a woman on earth ugly
enough to marry a Pugh and I’m skeered Junior’ll be the last of a great line.
With his talent I can’t bear the thought. You just fix it so our family won’t
never die out and I’ll have Junior take the hex off Lemuel.”

     “If I fixed it so your line didn’t die out,” I said, “I’d be fixing it so
everybody else’s line would die out, just as soon as there was enough
Pughs around.”

      “What’s wrong with that?” Ed Pugh asked, grinning. “Way I see it
we’re good strong stock.” He flexed his gorilla arms. He was taller than me,
even. “No harm in populatin’ the world with good stock, is there? I figger
given time enough us Pughs could conquer the whole danged world. And
you’re gonna help us do it, young Hogben.”

      “Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no! Even if I knowed how—”

      There was a tumble noise at the end of the street and the crowd
scattered to make way for the ambulance, which drawed up at the curb
beside Uncle Lem. A couple of fellers in white coats jumped out with a sort
of pallet on sticks. Dr. Brown stood up, looking real relieved.

      “Thought you’d never get here,” he said. “This man’s a quarantine
case, I think. Heaven knows what kind of results we’ll find when we start
running tests on him. Hand me my bag out of the back there, will you? I
want my stethoscope. There’s something funny about this man’s heart.”

                                       ****

Well, my heart sunk right down into my boots. We was goners and I
knowed it—the whole Hogben tribe. Once them doctors and scientists find
out about us we’ll never know a moment’s peace again as long as we live.
We won’t have no more privacy than a corncob.

      Ed Pugh was watching me with a nasty grin on his pasty face.

     “Worried, huh?” he said. “You gotta right to be worried. I know about
you Hogbens. All witches. Once they get Lem in the hospital, no telling what
they’ll find out. Against the law to be witches, probably. You’ve got about
half a minute to make up your mind, young Hogben. What do you say?”

      Well, what could I say? I couldn’t give him a promise like he was
asking, could I? Not and let the whole world be overrun by hexing Pughs.
Us Hogbens live a long time. We’ve got some pretty important plans for the
future when the rest of the world begins to catch up with us. But if by that
time the rest of the world is all Pughs, it won’t hardly seem worth while,
somehow. I couldn’t say yes.

      But if I said no Uncle Lem was a goner. Us Hogbens was doomed
either way, it seemed to me.

     Looked like there was only one thing to do. I took a deep breath, shut
my eyes, and let out a desperate yell inside my head.

      “Grandpaw!” I hollered.

       “Yes, my boy?” said a big deep voice in the middle of my brain. You’d
athought he’d been right alongside me all the time, just waiting to be called.
He was a hundred-odd miles off, and sound asleep. But when a Hogben
calls in the tone of voice I called in he’s got a right to expect an
answer—quick. I got it.

      Mostly Grandpaw woulda dithered around for fifteen minutes, asking
cross questions and not listening to the answers, and talking in all kinds of
queer old-fashioned dialects, like Sanskrit, he’s picked up through the
years. But this time he seen it was serious.

      “Yes, my boy?” was all he said.

     I flapped my mind wide open like a school-book in front of him. There
wasn’t no time for questions and answers. The doc was getting out his
dingus to listen to Uncle Lem’s two hearts beating out of tune and once he
heard that the jig would be up for us Hogbens.

      “Unless you let me kill ‘em, Grandpaw,” I added. Because by that time
I knowed he’d read the whole situation from start to finish in one fast
glance.

      It seemed to me he was quiet an awful long time after that. The doc
had got the dingus out and he was fitting its little black arms into his cars.
Ed Pugh was watching me like a hawk. Junior stood there all swole up with
pizon, blinking his mean little eyes around for somebody to shoot it at. I was
half hoping he’d pick on me. I’d worked out a way to make it bounce back in
his face and there was a chance it might even kill him.

      I heard Grandpaw give a sorta sigh in my mind.

        “They’ve got us over a barrel, Saunk,” he said. I remember being a
little surprised he could speak right plain English when he wanted to. “Tell
Pugh we’ll do it.”

      “But Grandpaw—” I said.

    “Do as I say!” It gave me a headache, he spoke so firm. “Quick,
Saunk! Tell Pugh we’ll give him what he wants.”

      Well, I didn’t dare disobey. But this once I really came close to
defying Grandpaw.

      It stands to reason even a Hogben has got to get senile someday,
and I thought maybe old age had finally set in with Grandpaw at last.

      What I thunk at him was, “All right, if you say so, but I sure hate to do
it. Seems like if they’ve got us going and coming, the least we can do is
take our medicine like Hogbens and keep all that pizon bottled up in Junior
stead of spreading it around the world.” But out loud I spoke to Mister
Pugh.

      “All right, Mister Pugh,” I said, real humble. “You win. Only, call off
your hex. Quick, before it’s too late.”

                                      ****

                         Chapter 4. Pughs A-Coming

Mister Pugh had a great big yellow automobile, low-slung, without no top. It
went awful fast. And it was sure awful noisy. Once I’m pretty sure we run
over a small boy in the road but Mister Pugh paid him no mind and I didn’t
dare say nothing. Like Grandpaw said, the Pughs had us over a barrel.

     It took quite a lot of palaver before I convinced ‘em they’d have to
come back to the homestead with me. That was part of Grandpaw’ s
orders.

      “How do I know you won’t murder us in cold blood once you get us
out there in the wilderness?” Mister Pugh asked.
     “I could kill you right here if I wanted,” I told him. “I would too but
Grandpaw says no. You’re safe if Grandpaw says so, Mister Pugh. The
word of a Hogben ain’t never been broken yet.”

      So he agreed, mostly because I said we couldn’t work the spells
except on home territory. We loaded Uncle Lem into the back of the car
and took off for the hills. Had quite an argument with the doc, of course.
Uncle Lem sure was stubborn.

      He wouldn’t wake up nohow but once Junior took the hex off Uncle
Lem faded out fast to a good healthy color again. The doc just didn’t
believe it coulda happened, even when he saw it. Mister Pugh had to
threaten quite a lot before we got away. We left the doc sitting on the curb,
muttering to himself and rubbing his haid dazed like.

     I could feel Grandpaw a-studying the Pughs through my mind all the
way home. He seemed to be sighing and kinda shaking his haid—such as it
is—and working out problems that didn’t make no manner of sense to me.

      When we drawed up in front of the house there wasn’t a soul in sight.
I could hear Grandpaw stirring and muttering on his gunnysack in the attic
but Paw seemed to have went invisible and he was too drunk to tell me
where he was when I asked. The baby was asleep. Maw was still at the
church sociable and Grandpaw said to leave her be.

      “We can work this out together, Saunk,” he said as soon as I got outa
the car. “I’ve been thinking. You know that sled you fixed up to sour your
Maw’s cream this morning? Drag it out, son. Drag it out.”

      I seen in a flash what he had in mind. “Oh, no, Grandpaw!” I said, right
out loud.

      “Who you talking to?” Ed Pugh asked, lumbering down outa the car. “I
don’t see nobody. This your homestead? Ratty old dump, ain’t it? Stay
close to me, Junior. I don’t trust these folks any farther’n I can see ‘em.”

       “Get the sled, Saunk,” Grandpaw said, very firm. “I got it all worked
out. We’re gonna send these two gorillas right back through time, to a place
they’ll really fit.”

      “But Grandpaw!” I hollered, only inside my head this time. “Let’s talk
this over. Lemme get Maw in on it anyhow. Paw’s right smart when he’s
sober. Why not wait till he wakes up? I think we oughta get the Baby in on it
too. I don’t think sending ‘em back through time’s a good idea at all,
Grandpaw.”

     “The Baby’s asleep,” Grandpaw said. “You leave him be. He read
himself to sleep over his Einstein, bless his little soul.”

      I think the thing that worried me most was the way Grandpaw was
talking plain English. He never does when he’s feeling normal. I thought
maybe his old age had all caught up with him at one bank, and knocked all
the sense outa his—so to speak—haid.

       “Grandpaw,” I said, trying to keep calm. “Don’t you see? If we send
‘em back through time and give ‘em what we promised it’ll make everything
a million times worse than before. You gonna strand ‘em back there in the
year one and break your promise to ‘em?”

      “Saunk!” Grandpaw said.

     “I know. If we promised we’d make sure the Pugh line won’t die out,
then we gotta make sure. But if we send ‘em back to the year one that’ll
mean all the time before then and now they’ll spend spreading out and
spreading out. More Pughs every generation.

      “Grandpaw, five seconds after they hit the year one, I’m liable to feel
my two eyes rush together in my haid and my face go all fat and pasty like
Junior. Grandpaw, everybody in the world may be Pughs if we give ‘em that
much time to spread out in!”

      “Cease thy chirming, thou chilce dolt,” Grandpaw hollered. “Do my
bidding, young fool!”

      That made me feel a little better but not much. I went and dragged out
the sled. Mister Pugh put up quite a argument about that.

     “I ain’t rid on a sled since I was so high,” he said. “Why should I git on
one now? This is some trick. I won’t do it.”

      Junior tried to bite me.

      “Now Mister Pugh,” I said, “you gotta cooperate or we won’t get
nowheres. I know what I’m doing. Just step up here and set down. Junior,
there’s room for you in front. That’s fine.”

      If he hadn’t seen how worried I was I don’t think he’d a-done it. But I
couldn’t hide how I was feeling.

        “Where’s your Grandpaw?” he asked, uneasy. “You’re not going to do
this whole trick by yourself, are you? Young igno-rant feller like you? I don’t
like it. Suppose you made a mistake?”

     “We give our word,” I reminded him. “Now just kindly shut up and let
me concentrate. Or maybe you don’t want the Pugh line to last forever?”

      “That was the promise,” he says, settling himself down. “You gotta do
it. Lemme know when you commence.”

     “All right, Saunk,” Grandpaw says from the attic, right brisk. “Now you
watch. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two. Look sharp. Focus your eyes down
and pick out a gene. Any gene.”

      Bad as I felt about the whole thing I couldn’t help being interested.
When Grandpaw does a thing he does it up brown. Genes are mighty
slippery little critters, spindle-shaped and aw-ful teensy. They’re partners
with some skinny guys called chromosomes, and the two of ‘em show up
everywhere you look, once you’ve got your eyes focused just right.

     “A good dose of ultraviolet ought to do the trick,” Grandpaw muttered.
“Saunk, you’re closer.”

     I said, “All right, Grandpaw,” and sort of twiddled the light as it sifted
down through the pines above the Pughs. Ultraviolet’s the color at the other
end of the line, where the colors stop having names for most people.

      Grandpaw said, “Thanks, son. Hold it for a minute.”

      The genes began to twiddle right in time with the light waves. Junior
said, “Paw, something’s tickling me.”

      Ed Pugh said, “Shut up.”

      Grandpaw was muttering to himself. I’m pretty sure he stole the words
from that perfesser we keep in the bottle, but you can’t tell, with Grandpaw.
Maybe he was the first person to make ‘em up in the beginning.

      “The euchromatin,” he kept muttering. “That ought to fix it. Ultraviolet
gives us hereditary mutation and the euchromatin contains the genes that
transmit heredity. Now that other stuffs heterochromatin and that produces
evolutionary change of the cataclysmic variety.
     “Very good, very good. We can always use a new species.
Hum-m-m. About six bursts of heterochromatinic activity ought to do it.” He
was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Ich am eldre and ek magti! Okay,
Saunk, take it away.”

                                     ****

I let the ultraviolet go back where it came from.

        “The year one, Grandpaw?” I asked, very doubtful.

        “That’s close enough,” he said. “Wite thou the way?”

     “Oh yes, Grandpaw,” I said. And I bent over and give them the
necessary push.

        The last thing I heard was Mister Pugh’s howl.

       “What’s that you’re doin’?” he hollered at me. “What’s the idea? Look
out, there, young Hogben or—what’s this? Where we goin’? Young Saunk, I
warn you, if this is some trick I’ll set Junior on you! I’ll send you such a hex
as even you-u ...”

     Then the howl got real thin and small and far away until it wasn’t no
more than the noise a mosquito makes. After that it was mighty quiet in the
dooryard.

       I stood there all braced, ready to stop myself from turning into a Pugh
if I could. Them little genes is tricky fellers.

        I knowed Grandpaw had made a turrible mistake.

      The minute them Pughs hit the year one and started to bounce back
through time toward now I knowed what would happen.

      I ain’t sure how long ago the year one was, but there was plenty of
time for the Pughs to populate the whole planet. I put two fingers against
my nose to keep my eyes from banging each other when they started to
rush together in the middle like all us Pughs’ eyes do—

        “You ain’t a Pugh yet, son,” Grandpaw said, chuckling. “Kin ye see
‘em?”
      “No,” I said. “What’s happening?”

       “The sled’s starting to slow down,” he said. “Now it’s stopped. Yep,
it’s the year one, all right. Look at all them men and women flockin’ outa the
caves to greet their new company! My, my, what great big shoulders the
men have got. Bigger even than Paw Pugh’s.

     “An’ ugh—just look at the women! I declare, little Junior’s positively
handsome alongside them folks! He won’t have no trouble finding a wife
when the time comes.”

      “But Grandpaw, that’s turrible!” I said.

      “Don’t sass your elders, Saunk,” Grandpaw chuckled. “Looka there
now. Junior’s just pulled a hex. Another little child fell over flat on his ugly
face. Now the little child’s mother is knocking Junior endwise. Now his
pappy’s sailing into Paw Pugh. Look at that fight! Just look at it! Oh, I guess
the Pugh family’s well took care of, Saunk.”

      “But what about our family?” I said, almost wailing.

      “Don’t you worry,” Grandpaw said. “Time’ll take care of that. Wait a
minute, let me watch. Hm-m. A generation don’t take long when you know
how to look. My, my, what ugly little critters the ten baby Pughs was! They
was just like their pappy and their grandpappy.

       “I wish Lily Lou Mutz could see her grandbabies. I shorely do. Well,
now, ain’t that cute? Every one of them babies growed up in a flash, seems
like, and each of ‘em has got ten babies of their own. I like to see my
promises working out, Saunk. I said I’d do this, and I done it.”

      I just moaned.

      “All right,” Grandpaw said. “Let’s jump ahead a couple of centuries.
Yep, still there and spreading like crazy. Family like-ness is still strong, too.
Hum-m. Another thousand years and— well, I declare! If it ain’t Ancient
Greece! Hasn’t changed a bit, neither. What do you know, Saunk!” He
cackled right out, tickled pink.

       “Remember what I said once about Lily Lou putting me in mind of an
old friend of mine named Gorgon? No wonder! Perfectly natural. You ought
to see Lily Lou’s great-great-great-grandbabies! No, on second thought, it’s
lucky you can’t. Well, well, this is shore interesting.”
          He was still about three minutes. Then I heard him laugh.

          “Bang,” he said. “First heterochromatinic burst. Now the changes
start.”

          “What changes, Grandpaw?” I asked, feeling pretty miserable.

      “The changes,” he said, “that show your old Grandpaw ain’t such a
fool as you thought. I know what I’m doing. They go fast, once they start.
Look there now, that’s the second change. Look at them little genes
mutate!”

     “You mean,” I said, “I ain’t gonna turn into a Pugh after all? But
Grandpaw, I thought we’d promised the Pughs their line wouldn’t die out.”

      “I’m keeping my promise,” Grandpaw said, dignified. “The genes will
carry the Pugh likeness right on to the toot of the judgment horn, just like I
said. And the hex power goes right along with it.”

          Then he laughed.

       “You better brace yourself, Saunk,” he said. “When Paw Pugh went
sailing off into the year one seems like he uttered a hex threat, didn’t he?
Well, he wasn’t fooling. It’s a-coming at you right now.”

      “Oh, Lordy!” I said. “There’ll be a million of ‘em by the time they get
here! Grandpaw! What’ll I do?”

      “Just brace yourself,” Grandpaw said, real unsympathetic. “A million,
you think? Oh, no, lots more than a million.”

          “How many?” I asked him.

       He started in to tell me. You may not believe it but he’s still telling me.
It takes that long. There’s that many of ‘em.

      You see, it was like with that there Jukes family that lived down south
of here. The bad ones was always a mite worse than their children and the
same dang thing happened to Gene Chro-mosome and his kin, so to
speak. The Pughs stayed Pughs and they kept the hex power—and I guess
you might say the Pughs conquered the whole world, after all.

     But it could of been worse. The Pughs could of stayed the same size
down through the generations. Instead they got smaller—a whole lot
smaller. When I knowed ‘em they was bigger than most folks—Paw Pugh,
anyhow.

       But by the time they’d done filtering the generations from the year
one, they’d shrunk so much them little pale fellers in the blood was about
their size. And many a knock-down drag-out fight they have with ‘em, too.

      Them Pugh genes took such a beating from the heterochromatinic
bursts Grandpaw told me about that they got whopped all outa their proper
form. You might call ‘em a virus now—and of course a virus is exactly the
same thing as a gene, except the virus is friskier. But heavens above, that’s
like saying the Jukes boys is exactly the same as George Washington!

      The hex hit me—hard.

      I sneezed something turrible. Then I heard Uncle Lem sneezing in his
sleep, lying back there in the yaller car. Grandpaw was still droning on about
how many Pughs was a-coming at me right that minute, so there wasn’t no
use asking questions. I fixed my eyes different and looked right down into
the middle of that sneeze to see what had tickled me—

                                     ****

Well, you never seen so many Junior Pughs in all your born days! It was the
hex, all right. Likewise, them Pughs is still busy, hexing everybody on earth,
off and on. They’ll do it for quite a time, too, since the Pugh line has got to
go on forever, account of Grandpaw’s promise.

       They tell me even the microscopes ain’t never yet got a good look at
certain viruses. The scientists are sure in for a surprise someday when they
focus down real close and see all them pasty-faced little devils, ugly as sin,
with their eyes set real close together, wiggling around hexing everybody in
sight.

      It took a long time—since the year one, that is—but Gene
Chromosome fixed it up, with Grandpaw’s help. So Junior Pugh ain’t a pain
in the neck no more, so to speak.

      But I got to admit he’s an awful cold in the haid.

                                     ****