Submitter’s note: This is the third and final part of a story written by William Martin “Bill” Jones. The other two pieces ran in the Jan. 20 and Feb. 3 papers.

Bummer would say to the kids breathing down his neck at the job site, “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?”

But the guy at the “other end of town” had let so-and-so borrow the all-important ditch-straightener for use over at the livery stable; and so, the afternoon hurried by as the kids raced along on their mission, red-faced from fatigue and equally shame-faced that they were letting Bummer down.

Only a stray, darting thought or two would enter their consciousness on just what did a ditch-straightener do for a ditch, or why would a livery stable or a barber shop have a need for one. But they did not have time for reflection because they had to find one for Bummer soon. They were important messengers now for some town construction work being done by Bummer, they could not return empty-handed. And when some older kids, who had been Bummerized a few years earlier shouted to them that they were “suckers!” and there was no such thing as a ditch-straightener, they hardly heard them as they sped along, for they knew better.

Finally, empty-handed for certain, they dragged their weary bodies back to the project, not noticing that some progress had been made after all without that elusive ditch-straightener. And they had to tell Bummer they had been unsuccessful in locating that special tool. And Bummer would reply that he hardly knew what they would do, but maybe they could find the ditch-straightener tomorrow; and in the meantime, they would just have “to work around it.”

Then he would thank the kids, and they would wander off toward home, tired and disappointed, to tell their folks about the great ditch-straightener hunt, while Bummer and crew would have many a belly laugh over the joke that made their hard day’s work seem a bit softer.

And the folks at home, especially the big brothers? Oh, they would tell the awful truth about the ditch-straightener; and the big brothers would make much fun of their kid brother, while dads and moms would look at each other and smile a little about Bummer’s latest trick.

But when we became older and happened to see a new and younger set of Bummer’s chasers being sent out on a hunt for that hard-to-find tool, do you think we warned the younger kids? Ha! We did not!

Bummer had added a couple of new tools to his list by that time: soap-seed and a left-handed monkey wrench. Soap-seed was needed to help make concrete better when the mixing process was being done with creek gravel, cement and water. Don’t ask me why, but Bummer said he’d need a little soap-seed, just a handful or two.

Left-handed monkey wrench? Why, surely, I do not have to explain about the need for one of them; a fellow just had to have one for certain jobs, that’s all. Bummer said so!

Bill Jones was born in 1912, the son of James M. Jones and Mildred M. Hopper Jones. He was a WWII veteran and taught in the Kokomo school system 39 years before moving to Nashville. Bill and his wife, Ada M. (Schieler) Jones, were the parents of two sons, Kerry Jones and Ross Jones. Bill and Ada were longtime members of the Brown County Historical Society, where Ada volunteered as a docent in the Pioneer Village and many other hours for various things. Ada M. Schieler Jones, daughter of John G. Schieler Jr. and Marie M. Schieler, was born Aug. 27, 1922, in Remington, Indiana. She died Jan. 2, 2021, at age 98.

— Submitted by Pauline Hoover, Brown County Historical Society Inc.