He looked like Baby Huey in the comics and he was about as smart, but Leroy was my cousin and in a dumb way I loved him. We’d been sent out there to get potato bugs, but the sun was high and we were both tired of our chores. The grown-up women were in the house, and the men were off working. That was the summer of 1956, and we were in such bad shape that we had to live with the Denmans in Shiloh. I didn’t know we were in bad shape; besides I liked being out there with Leroy, Ted and all the animals. Leroy was eleven, same age as me. He was the same height only fat; I was skinny. Ted, Leroy’s brother, was thirteen and his voice was changing. Ted worked down at the Esso station so Leroy and I were stuck with the potato bugs. “Molly, I don’t wanna pick bugs no more. We got two jars full, let’s go on down to Mrs. Hershener’s and get a soda.” “Okay, but we got to go down by the gully where Ted wrecked the tractor or my mom will see us and make us get back to work.” We crawled through the gully, past the rusty tractor and out the drainpipe to the other side of the dirt road.
