Mr. Johnson's Thumb

Growing up next door to Mr. Johnson was fun. He was always nice to me, even when Mama ran me out of the house for fighting with one of my brothers. He didn't have much hair, but always pulled it over the top of his head. I asked him why he did that one time, and he said that if he didn’t, his head would get sunburned. I thought a hat would have looked better, but I didn’t tell him.

Once, he invited our whole family to come over to have homemade ice cream on his front porch. He made it out of red strawberry-flavored soda water with lots of sugar. There was not any left over because everyone liked Mr. Johnson’s strawberry ice cream so much. Mr. Johnson really knew how to do a lot of things.

I especially enjoyed it when Mr. Johnson worked in his yard. I could sit in my swing in our front yard with my dog, Luke, and watch him yank on his lawnmower. He would wrap the short rope around the engine over and over again, pulling it until it started.

One hot summer day, while Mr. Johnson was mowing his grass, he ran his mower up against our Hurricane fence, and one of the wheels got stuck. Mr. Johnson leaned over and yanked the edge of the lawn mower to get it loose, and the edge of the mower raised up like it was going to flip over.

Suddenly, the mower died, and Mr. Johnson hollered “Oooh!”

It scared me when I saw blood on Mr. Johnson’s hand, so I ran inside and told Daddy. He bolted out the front door and jumped our fence to help him.

Somehow Mr. Johnson’s hand slipped under that mower, and the blade cut his thumb off. Daddy saw his thumb laying on the ground, so he picked it up with a rag and took it to the doctor with them. There was a lot of blood. I wondered if the doctor would sew it back on when they were gone for the two hours. He didn't.

After that, I couldn’t look at Mr. Johnson's hand. That little “nub,” where his thumb used to be, made me feel funny. It stuck out about an inch and was useless. He couldn’t hold a spoon to eat his strawberry ice cream with that hand, and I saw him cranking that ice cream machine with his other hand, too. There were lots of things Mr. Johnson couldn’t do because of that missing thumb. When I asked him if it hurt, he told me, “Only when I think about it.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I nodded my head like I did.

Losing his thumb didn't seem to change Mr. Johnson much. Once I climbed up on their back porch and peeked in their back door, and I saw him putting up blackberry jelly into little Mason jars with Mrs. Johnson. That’s when I looked down at my hands. I guessed that losing a thumb wasn't that bad after all.

But I was still happy that I had both of my thumbs. I might need to hitchhike sometime.

© 2009 Tuck Mantooth All Rights Reserved