Clifford D. Simak
Idiot's Crusade
For a long time I was the village idiot, but not any longer?although they call me 'dummy' still and even worse than that.
I'm a genius now, but I won't let them know.
Not ever.
If they found out, they'd be on their guard against me.
No one has suspected me and no one will. My shuffle is the same and my gaze as vacant and my mumblings just as vague as they ever were. At times, it has been hard to remember to keep the shuffle and the gaze and mumblings as they were before, times when it was hard not to overdo them. But it's important not to arouse suspicion.
It all started the morning I went fishing.
I told Ma I was going fishing while we were eating breakfast and she didn't object. She knows I like fishing. When I fish, I don't get into trouble.
'All right, Jim,' she said. 'Some fish will taste real good.'
'I know where to get them,' I told her. 'That hole in the creek just past Alf Adams' place.'
'Now don't you get into any fracas with Alf,' Ma warned me. 'Just because you don't like him…'
'He was mean to me. He worked me harder than he should have. And he cheated me out of my pay. And he laughs at me.'
I shouldn't have said that, because it hurts Ma when I say someone laughs at me. 'You mustn't pay attention to what people do,' said Ma, speaking kind and gentle. 'Remember what Preacher Martin said last Sunday. He said…'
'I know what he said, but I still don't like being laughed at. People shouldn't laugh at me.'
'No,' Ma agreed, looking sad. 'They shouldn't.'
I went on eating my breakfast, thinking that Preacher Martin was a great one to be talking about humility and patience, knowing the kind of man he was and how he was carrying on with Jennie Smith, the organist. He was a great one to talk about anything at all.
After breakfast, I went out to the woodshed to get my fishing tackle and Bounce came across the street to help me. After Ma, Bounce is the best friend I have. He can't talk to me, of course?not actually, that is?but neither does he laugh at me.
I talked to him while I was digging worms and asked him if he wanted to go fishing with me. I could see he did, so I went across the street to tell Mrs. Lawson that Bounce was going along. He belonged to her, but he spent most of his time with me.
We started out, me carrying my cane pole and all my fishing stuff and Bounce walking at my heels, as if I were someone he was proud to be seen walking with.
We went past the bank, where Banker Patton was sitting in the big front window, working at his desk and looking like the most important man in all of Mapleton, which he was. I went by slow so I could hate him good. Ma and me wouldn't be living in the old tumbledown house we're living in if Banker Patton hadn't foreclosed on our home after Pa died.
We went out past Alf Adams' place, which is the first farm out of town, and I hated him some, too, but not as hard as Banker Patton. All Alf had done was work me harder than he should have, then cheat me out of my pay.
Alf was a big, blustery man and a good enough farmer, I guess?at least he made it pay. He had a big new barn and it's just like him not to paint it red, the way any proper barn is painted, but white with red trim. Who ever heard of paint trim on a barn?
Just beyond Alf's place, Bounce and I turned off the road and went down across the pasture, heading for the big hole in the creek.
Alf?s prize Hereford bull was way off in another corner of the pasture with the rest of the stock. When he saw us, he started coming for us, not mean or belligerent, but just investigating and ready for a fight if one was offered him. I wasn't afraid of him, because I'd made friends with him that summer I had worked for Alf. I used to pet him and scratch behind his ears.
Alf said I was a crazy fool and someday the bull would kill me. 'You can never trust a bull,' Alf said.
When the bull was near enough to see who it was, he knew we meant no harm, so he went back across the pasture again.
We got to the hole and I started fishing, while Bounce went up the stream to do some investigating. I caught a few fish, but they weren't very big and they weren't biting very often and I got disinterested. I like to fish, but to keep my interest up, I have to catch some.
So I got to daydreaming. I began wondering if you marked off a certain area of ground?a hundred feet square, say?and went over it real careful, how many different kinds of plants you'd find. I looked over a patch of ground next to where I was sitting and I could see just ordinary pasture grass and some dandelions and some dock and a couple of violets, and a buttercup which didn't have any flowers.
Suddenly, when I was looking at the dandelion, I realized I could see all that dandelion, not just the part that showed above the ground!
I don't know how long I'd been seeing it that way before realizing it. And I'm not certain that 'seeing' is the right word.
Maybe 'know' would be better. I knew how that dandelion's big taproot went down into the ground and how the little feathery roots grew out of it, and I knew where all the roots were, how they were taking water and chemicals out of the ground, how reserve food was stored in the root and how the dandelion used the sunlight to convert its food into a form it could use. And the funniest thing about it was that I had never known any of it before.
I looked at the other plants and I could see all of them the same way. I wondered if something had gone wrong with my eyes and if I would have to go around looking into things instead of at them, so I tried to make the new seeing go away and it did.
Then I tried to see the dandelion root again and I saw it, just the way I had before.
I sat there, wondering why I had never been able to see that way before and why I was able to now. And while I was wondering, I looked into the pool and tried to see down into the pool and I could, just as plain as day. I could see clear to the bottom of it and into all the corners of it, and there were lunkers lying in there, bigger than any fish that ever had been taken from the creek.
I saw that my bait was nowhere near any of the fish, so I moved it over until it was just in front of the nose of one of the biggest ones. But the fish didn't seem to see it, or if he did, he wasn't hungry, for he just lay there, fanning the water with his fins and making his gills work.
I moved the bait down until it bumped his nose, but he still didn't pay any attention to it. So I made the fish hungry.
Don't ask me how I did it. I can't tell you. I all at once knew I could and just how to do it. So I made him hungry and he went for that bait like Bounce grabbing a bone.
He pulled the cork clear under and I heaved on the pole and hoisted him out. I took him off the hook and put him on the stringer, along with the four or five little ones I'd caught.
Then I picked out another big fish and lowered my bait down to him and made him hungry.
In the next hour and a haft, I just about cleaned out all the big fish. There were some little ones left, but I didn't bother with them. I had the stringer almost full and I couldn't carry it in my hand, for then the fish would have dragged along the ground. I had to sling it over my shoulder and those fish felt awfully wet.
I called Bounce and we went back to town.
Everyone I met stopped and had a look at my fish and wanted to know where I'd got them and what I'd caught them on and if there were any left or had I taken them all. When I told them I'd taken all there was, they laughed fit to kill.
I was just turning off Main Street on my way home when Banker Patton stepped out of the barber shop. He
