Submitter’s note: This story was written by William Jones. This is the second of three parts.

On at least one occasion I was a Bummer victim as I leaned down to watch him trowel some concrete, a fascinating process to us who had but little experience with cement or concrete made into sidewalks, drains and so forth. So intent was my curiosity that I was right by Bummer’s side. Bummer chewed tobacco by the mouthful — and, right at what I thought was the most interesting part of the trowel maneuvering, Bummer, who probably was down on his knees, squirted out a brown stream of tobacco juice right between my bare toes on one of my bare feet.

I can feel that warm tobacco juice even now as the shock and humiliation. When I made a sound of disgust and dismay, jerking my foot back at the same time, Bummer said something like, “Oh, did I hit your foot? I must have choked.” And the rest of the work crew broke up with grins and laughter, as well as my playmates nearby who had escaped being targets.

Bummer’s face had a big grin on it as I hurried away, seeking water to wash my foot. I could hear Bummer laugh loud and long. But instead of pump water to wash my foot, I ran out into the dusty street and kicked dust on the juicy spot and kind of rubbed the shame away with the other foot.

We liked Bummer, regardless of his tricks on us. He would recite jingles as he worked, and as I later learned, many of the jingles and poems were from the old McGuffey Readers. He was always jolly and never scolding as we crowded around him so closely that he could hardly do his work. So, he just squirted a squirt or two of tobacco juice between our toes, which made us back off some!

One of Bummer’s big tricks was the errand boy joke. Bummer and his crew would be at a ditch or underground tile-laying site with kids as the gallery. With a crowd assembled, all wrapped up in the work going on, Bummer would straighten up, wipe the sweat from his partly bald head, look at one of his workmen, and solemnly announce in a loud voice, “Boys, it’ll never work that way.”

One of Bummer’s workmen, cued in from many other trick times, would ask, “What are we going to do?”

Of course, by this time, the kids were almost falling into the ditch with gnawing curiosity and much eagerness to be of help.

“Well,” Bummer would say, “we’ve got to use a ditch-straightener on this ditch, or we’ll never be able to finish the job.”

By then the kids were breathing down Bummer’s neck, and when he turned to one of them, that lucky urchin visibly swelled with pride and anticipation.

And Bummer would say, “Sonny, do you reckon you could go up to the blacksmith shop (or the funeral home, barber shop or livery stable, take your choice) and ask (and here Bummer would always specify some crony of his who would be sure to move the joke along during the course of the lazy summer afternoon) for his ditch-straightener and tell him Bummer Mobley needs it down here?”

Oh, how that boy would fly out on that errand, accompanied by several buddies who wanted in on the glory of bringing a much-needed ditch-straightener back to Bummer so the important ditch work could be completed.

And when they raced breathlessly, into the barber shop, for instance, the barber, or whoever, would inform them that, no, he had lent his ditch-straightener to so-and-so-at the other end of town, and he knew we would be able to borrow it from the person down there. And away they ran, while the barbershop gang roared at the fun they could see Bummer building up.

Submitted by Pauline Hoover, Brown County Historical Society Inc.