A Long Way From Chicago Read Online Free PDF Page A

thumbnail. Men strike a match one-handed, but you never see a woman doing that. She hid the flare of the flame with herself and touched the match to something in her other hand. It sizzled. Then she leaned down and rolled it into the invisible kitchen.
    Seconds passed. Then once more, Grandma’s house erupted in sound and light. Blue lightning flashed in the kitchen, and for a split second you could see every calendar on the wall in there. Then an almighty explosion like the crack of doom. She’d rolled a cherry bomb across the floor, and it went off right under the eight feet of the Cowgill brothers, the three big bruisers and Ernie.
    Grandma shoved me past her into the kitchen. “Pull the chain on the ceiling light,” she said, and I did. When I turned back to her, Grandpa Dowdel’s shotgun was wedged into her shoulder. I dodged out of her way, and there stood all four Cowgill brothers. They were deaf as posts and too scared to move, even before they realizedthey were looking down both barrels of the gun they’d come to steal.
    All of them wore manure-caked steel-toed boots, so that had saved their toes from being blown off. But a singed smell came from their pants. The cherry bomb had scared them witless, except for Ernie, who was witless anyway. But he was the only one who could speak. “I’m dead,” he said. “I’m dead. Oh yes, I’m dead.”
    “Skin to the church and get their maw and paw,” Grandma said briefly to me.
    “Which church?”
    “Holy Rollers,” she said. “By the lumberyard. And step on it. I’ve got an itchy trigger finger.”
    “I’m dead,” Ernie said.

    I raced like the wind through the nighttime town. I sprinted past the business block and across the tracks by the depot toward the lumberyard. Then I began to hear singing with a ragtime beat, accompanied by tambourines:
    Wash me clean of all I’ve been
    And hang me out to dry;
    Purify me, thought and deed,
    That I may dwell on high!
    The church was no bigger than a one-room schoolhouse, but it seemed to be packed to the rafters. The rail outside was thick with horses hitched to wagons. One of the wagons was from Cowgills’ Dairy Farm.
    Light and song were pouring out of the open doorway. I stood in it, remembering I didn’t know what theCowgills’ maw and paw looked like. Besides, all I could see were the backs of peoples’ heads. Then I got lucky. Mrs. Effie Wilcox sat at the end of a pew. I knew her from her hat. Her hands were high above her head, swaying in the air, and she was singing with the rest:
    Drive the devil from my soul,
    Tie him to a tree;
    Let me rise into the skies
    That I may dwell with Thee!
    I sidled down the side aisle, breathing heavy. Every minute counted, and I didn’t know how long this hymn might last. It sounded like it could have a lot of verses.
    Hate the sin, but love the sinner,
    Though let him feel the rod;
    Lift me like a little child
    That I may dwell with—
    I tapped Mrs. Wilcox on the shoulder. She jerked around. “It’s a miracle,” she hollered out. “The first Dowdel ever seen in the House of the Lord! Hallelujah, one more sinner gathered in!”
    “Listen, Mrs. Wilcox,” I said, urgent in her ear. “Where are the Cowgills? It’s kind of important.”
    “The Cowgills?” she said. “Why, they’re right here next to me. Where else would they be? They been saved, and now you—”
    “Listen, Mrs. Wilcox. Grandma blew up all four of theirboys with a cherry bomb. Now she’s got them pinned down with the shotgun.”
    Mrs. Wilcox’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

    Then all four of us, Mr. and Mrs. Cowgill, Mrs. Wilcox, and me, were in the swaying milk wagon behind the galloping horse. There aren’t any seats in a milk wagon, so we clung to the sides and each other. For somebody too nervous to live, Mrs. Wilcox stood the trip pretty well.
    The wagon bounced across Grandma’s side yard. Now we were all tumbling down and racing each other to the back door. To keep up, both