It was a big old black hole that was dusty and tall. It stood in the very front corner of the house. You saw it all the long way down just past the foot of the slippery steep stairs. The steps and rails were painted thickened layers of glossy black, while the risers were the white of paper gone old. There was a bulb down in the hall that was on if it needed to be. During day the only light was through the glazed pane in the front door, and the curious thin panels of red glass framing the door. When the front door was opened, it swung in just passing past the newel post and missing the stairs. In such a stance of invitation, the door hid the hole.

The tall poke of the hole was a metal that didn't have much gleam left to it. Thrusting from the hole were a variety of sticks with ornamental handles. It was a collection of the dead art of wood hand-carved for everyday use. Down inside, some were clung with bats that'd dove down in the cave and got stuck and died. I was terribly afraid to lift up the umbrellas. I didn't understand why they had such beautiful handles. Umbrellas were a race to see whether you lost them before they broke. The other sticks had heavy metal tips. Some were inlaid with ivory. One handle was gold, intricately cast and inscribed with initials I knew and a full date from a different century. I'd been eyeing that since the year I was old enough to pay attention to such things.

Grandma stepped in from the parlor on her way upstairs, and I was cornered. "Those are you great-grandpa Max's walking sticks."

I knew they were walking sticks. They clearly had no orthopaedic purpose. I knew the man was vaguely a banker. Back when the days were old. I tried to think of men wearing those very tall hats walking up and down these very stairs. My visual image, mixed in with the umbrellas, was that of Caillebotte's Rue de Paris; Temps de pluie, which I knew from the board game Masterpiece and the wall in the Art Institute. Take a look at the front of the penny and wonder why they took his hat off.

Grandma said, "He used to select one and go walk downtown. And sometimes he'd whack someone on the head with it."

+ + +

Grandma said, "You can't walk downtown without shoes on!"

We were getting ready to walk downtown and buy candy. We'd saved like fiends for months anticipating the moment. It was the clock striking an hour, a part of dividing each day. When we were way up at Grandma's for vacation, the only days we didn't tromp downtown as a tribe to buy candy at the 5&Dime was when it was pouring or when we were already too well-stocked from worrying about rain.

We looked at her like she was crazy. Shoes? What are these things called shoes? We'd been roaring around barefoot for days. The bottoms of our feet were as thick and dark as the bottom of shoes. What made her think of shoes? What made her think of not shoes? We looked like we already were wearing shoes.

We wailed back as a tribe being stripped of a totem, "Why?!!"

"Because," Grandma said, "because of all the dirty old men who walk around and spit on the sidewalks! that's why!"

Mom didn't care what we did with our feet. But she wouldn't overrule Grandma.

The street was the main street, downtown at one end, the big old houses at the other. Back before the blight, the boulevard was lined with elms. You could walk downtown in a drizzle and not get wet. Regal was the watchword, a regality unsullied.

"What dirty old men?" we demanded. What were dirty old men, we were asking. The street was awash with widows. Most the old men were already dead! Were all the old ladies cleaner? and what did they do with their spit? Swallow it all the time?

Wearing our shoes, we marched all over town, our trip to get candy now just a pretext to look for dirty old men.

The enclave was entirely surrounded by a sea of feed corn. If you leave town and drive off the road you turn into a scarecrow.

We supposed we were searching for an errant gang of renegade scarecrows. They would be sure to be old and dirty. Probably they'd all still be sopping wet from the storm the day after we'd arrived. Their cornstalk bones gone black with mildew, soggy stuffing weeping an unhealthy odor. They'd be so full of sour moisture they'd just have to spit. Their very feet would seep.

Surely if you stepped in scarecrow spit you were doomed to turn into one yourself. Even if you had your shoes on. So what did it matter if you didn't?