I remember the first time he told me about people hating other people who are different.
"Why do the kids call me Crazy Joe and laugh at me?" I asked him.
"Well, you see," Gramp said slowly, "your Daddy worked for Uncle Sam in a big place where they make things that the government won't tell anybody about. Then your Daddy got sick from something in the big place. After a long time he went up to stay with God. Then God took Mommy too, when He gave you to her. And now you're our little boy, mine and Gramma's. And because you're a very special kind of little boy, the other children are jealous. So I wouldn't play with them any more if they tease you. Just don't let them see you're afraid of them. You'll always be Gramp's Little Joe."
I love Gramp very much....
We kept walking until we came to Fayette. We went into Carl Van Remortal's store. Gramp sat on a chair by the big iron stove and I sat on his knee on his good leg. The stove must be real old, because it's got 1926 on its door in big iron letters.
"Tell me the pictures you see in Mr. Van's mind," Gramp whispered in my ear, "but don't let him hear you."
"He's making pictures of the fishing boats coming in," I said. "In the pictures he's talking to Jack La Salle and giving him some money for his fish.... The pictures are getting all mixed up now. He's putting the fish in ice in boxes, but other pictures show him in church. Jack La Salle is in the church too, and Mr. Van's sister Margaret is dressed in a long white dress and standing alongside him."
"He's thinking that Jack La Salle will be marrying Margaret pretty soon," Gramp said. "What else is he thinking?"
"The pictures are coming so fast now that I can't name them all," I said.
Mr. Lawrence St. Ours came into the store, and Gramp told me to read what he was thinking. I looked inside his head.