Hero by Irene Bushell Author Irene Bushell, a freshman at Weber, hails from the Ogden High School. As soon as she came to Weber, she again began to follow the same course that guided her efforts last year, namely, journalism. In her last year at high school she helped edit "Tiger Highlights," the school paper. She is on the 'Signpost," "Acorn" and the "Scribulus" staffs. When I was little I stepped on a bird; I didn't mean to kill it because I'd never kill anything. I didn't even see it until I felt something soft-like under my feet and heard a tiny squeak. Then I looked down and saw it a pretty little yellow thing that didn't have any white in its eyes. It scared me and I ran into the house. My Aunt Millie went out and saw it lying on the ground. She was mad because she liked birds and she said that some mean, nasty boy probably did it and all the birds in the world ought to get together and kill him. After that I stayed in the house for a long time. I would never go out alone. Finally one day my brother Bill said, "What's the matter with you? What are you afraid of?" "The birds," I told him. He laughed at me. It was a loud, harsh laugh that made me feel as if he were a giant. His wide open mouth with his tongue pressed against the bottom of it and his barely visible large white teeth peering beneath reminded me of a picture of a walrus I had once seen. I hated him to laugh at me. I didn't want to be afraid. He went in the house and told ma and pa. They laughed too. I hated all of them. I never wanted to see any of them again. I wanted to run and hide or go some place and stay forever. But there's no place around here for a fellow who is afraid of things. All there is here is just mountains and gullies and bushes and rivers. So I decided I'd better stay home. One day after that I was with Eric Shaut and we went to see his grandfather. On the way over Eric got a toad, but I didn't touch it. When his grandfather saw it he told us that toads caused warts. Eric asked him what was wrong with having warts, and he said that if you had warts you would either live to the end of the world or you would die in a fire. When I got home that night Bill said ma put a toad out in the garden. I tried to make him understand that it was dangerous for all of us. I told him what old man Shaut had said and he laughed louder than before. Bill always teased me about it. I hated him. I had to go out and get potatoes out of that same garden. One day just as I reached down to pick up a potato there was that hideous toad grinning at me. I backed up and finally it hopped away. I looked down at the place where it had been and sure enough the potato had funny burps on it. Bill just laughed when I told him about it, so I went outside and poked a stick into the potato and brought it in, but I wouldn't touch it. "Now ain't that funny," he said. "One way you hold it, it looks like a man with a funny face. I'll save it and show it to the rest of them. He did too. At supper everybody laughed at me like they always do. It was all Bill's fault. Sometime later I was out lying in the grass and a fly kept buzzing back and forth around me. I raised my hand to get it and noticed a pimple on my hand. I looked at it closer. It was a wart. It was a hot afternoon in August. The dust from the road got in my throat and the water only seemed to make me more thirsty. Usually blue, today the sky was sun-faded to a glaring impenetrable atmosphere. Everything seemed grimy and dirty. Even the river lost its lure it was so hot. I looked at my hands. Whenever I saw the wart I kept thinking that it was all Bill's fault. Bill came running over to me. He had a half-frightened, half-crazed look in his eye as he said, "Get a bucket, the barn's afire." Thoughts of burning to death crowded into my brain. I thought how it would feel to have the hair burned off your arms. I wondered if it hurt when your eyes burned out. Before I knew it I found myself right next to the burning barn. It was like the time I had gone swimming. At first I was afraid of the water, but then after I got used to it, even though I couldn't swim, I was not afraid any longer. I felt the flames dance perilously close to my half-naked body. Yet there was something about it that drew me. After hours of fighting, listening to hoarse shouts, leading horses away from the inferno, and digging the hard ground to keep the fire from spreading, we saw the last beams of the barn fall and the smoke Page Ten and fire disappear. My hands were burned and Doc Reeves bandaged them for me. It was awful going around with my hands in those new bandages like boxing gloves. Ma and pa never got well so Bill and I ran the farm. Every once in a while Aunt Millie would come over and boss us around and tell me I ought to go live with her, but even though I was afraid of Bill I couldn't forget that it was she who had suggested that the birds kill me. Bill did a lot of things that scared me. Early in the fall before the season opened he would go out and get a deer. I was afraid the warden would get him but Bill said, "What that warden can do to me is nothing compared to what I'll do to him after." After Bill had gone I thought about what he'd said. What if the warden did catch him? If they took him to jail I'd have to to go and stay with Aunt Millie. When Bill came home that night he brought a deer. It was a big buck. As we were eating supper he told me how it had jumped to meet the bullet. Somebody knocked at the door. When I opened it a short, stocky fellow in a blue denim shirt and trousers stood before me. I didn't notice his badge until I stepped aside and let him in when he said, "I want to see your brother Bill." "What do you want?" Bill said standing up. The short man laughed. "Come along, kid, we've waited for you for a long time." "You can't prove anything," Bill shouted. "That's where you're wrong this time. I followed you myself." I wanted to leave them; I was afraid they might fight. I didn't like fights, I was afraid some one would get hurt. Bill could get awful mad. Once our old spotted cow got her hoof caught between two boards in the barn. Bill got so mad trying to get her out that he got a board and beat her until she pulled her hoof off trying to get away from him. Tonight I thought of old Bessis when she lost her hoof and I shuddered. Bill looked the same way tonight as he did then. Finally I couldn't stay there any longer. I slipped out the open door and went around and sat on the porch. Before long, Bill and the warden came out. Bill didn't say anything so I went back in the house. When I thought Bill wasn't coming home I did the dishes and went to bed. The next morning Aunt Millie came over and said I'd have to go over to her house. I didn't want to go, so I told her I had chores to do so she said to come over when I had finished. I found something to keep me busy until evening and then I thought I might just as well go over. I went out in the barn to see that everything was all right. It was so quiet that I tiptoed around. I heard something moving. I jumped back and jarred a leaning board to the ground with a loud bang. It was Bill who was in the barn. He came toward me. Before I could ask him what he was doing he said, "Get out of here and don't tell anybody you saw me." I ran out of the barn and down the road. I didn't stop at Aunt Millie's house. I knew that I'd have to stay there if I did and so I kept running. Pretty soon I got to the yellow brick court house. Then I stopped to think. If I told them where Bill was and he ever got away again he'd come after me. If I didn't tell them he'd have to stay there and maybe he'd do something worse. In any event I'd have to go and stay with Aunt Miilie for awhile. I started up the steps, when the door opened and the game warden and another man came out. They were talking about Bill. "What are you doing here?" he asked me. "I thought you were with your Aunt Millie." I didn't know how to begin or what to say. I thought how angry Bill would be when he found out about me. For a minute I was going to run away. Then I said, "Bill's hiding in our barn." Then I began to cry. The man bent over and took hold of me. He talked to me for awhile and I told him (continued on page 19) Page Eleven