Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing Read Online Free PDF Page B

something odd about Kehoe’s cargo. It looked like old wheels and assorted scrap, not the everyday items farmers normally packed into their machines.
    “You don’t suppose he is junking his tools?” Lulu asked her husband. 27

    A good deal of work was necessary before Ellsworth could open his filling station. In the process of setting up a temporary air compressor, Ellsworth realized he needed some pipe fittings.
    Kehoe was so handy; just a year or so ago he’d helped Ellsworth with a troublesome boiler. Ellsworth figured his neighbor might have some pipe fittings to attach the compressor. It was the right assumption. They talked a bit about the work Ellsworth was doing on the filling station and an upcoming mechanical adjustment that would be necessary. “I’m doing it in about a week or so,” Ellsworth explained.
    “When you get ready to do that,” Kehoe said, “come down if you need any tools. Yes, and I will help you.”
    Ellsworth thought this was a nice neighborly offer. 28
    Saturday happened to be the Kehoes’ fifteenth wedding anniversary. With Nellie in the hospital once more, Kehoe didn’t do much in the way of celebration. Rather, he spent the afternoon settling accounts with some of his creditors. Paying the mortgage was not on this list. 29
    On Sunday, May 15, he planned to pick Nellie up from the hospital, explaining to her sisters that she would be staying in Jackson with some friends. But someone from the hospital called that morning; it was a rainy day and would he mind coming tomorrow so as not to aggravate Nellie’s lung condition. Kehoe agreed, saying he would check Nellie out of the hospital on Monday, May 16. 30

    David Harte heard through the grapevine that Kehoe wanted to sell one of his horses. He contacted a friend in Lansing, a fellow by the name of Seymour Champion, who was interested in acquiring a horse. Champion stopped by Harte’s house on Monday afternoon and inquired about the animal. “Don’t think Kehoe’s in,” Harte said. Champion disagreed, saying he’d just seen Kehoe carrying a bundle of straw into his henhouse.
    When the two men went over, Kehoe was indeed working in the chicken coop. He came out to greet his visitors.
    Harte introduced Champion, then asked how Nellie was feeling. Much better, Kehoe told him, saying that his wife was in Lansing with her sisters. Kehoe went into the farmhouse to wash his hands. After cleaning up, the bargaining began.
    It was the same horse Kehoe had offered McMullen. Kehoe said he’d sell Champion the horse for a hundred dollars. No, said the potential buyer; it was too high a price for an old, one-eyed horse.
    As Kehoe and Champion haggled back and forth, Harte noticed a pair of thin copper wires on the ground. The wires reached from the henhouse to a toolshed and back to the henhouse. Looks like Kehoe is preparing for the Consumers Power men, bringing electrical wiring to the area, Harte thought.
    Ultimately there was no deal on the horse. Champion later told Harte that he’d have bought the horse for sixty dollars. He also got the feeling that Kehoe was a “funny man.”
    Harte, long used to Kehoe’s eccentricities, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in his neighbor’s behavior that day. 31

    Late in the afternoon, Kehoe picked up his wife. They spent the evening with Nellie’s sisters in Lansing. The Kehoes were jovial company, happy that Nellie was out of the hospital. When the visit was over, the couple bade the Price sisters good-bye and went home to Bath. 32
    After the Kehoes returned to the farm, the telephone rang. It was Blanche Hart, the fifth-grade teacher. Having heard that Nellie was out of the hospital, she was calling to see how Nellie was feeling.
    “She is getting along fine,” Kehoe told Hart. “I have got her home here with me, and she is fussing around.”
    Hart thought that was good news, what with Nellie having been sick for so long. 33
    On Tuesday, May 17, a few days after their shooting