Hey Ma, Where’s Willie? by I. M. Bukstein

Just where Willie went, I ain’t sure. I wonder sometimes, especially around harvest because that is about the time we found Willie was missing. I should pine after him a little. He was my son, but somehow I never took a hankering toward Willie like I ought to. I got five other boys a lot smarter, bigger, and nicer to look at than Willie ever was, besides four girls that’s as pretty as they come. But when someone disappears, like Willie did, even if you don’t care particularly much you kind of wonder at times just how it came about.

Willie was near about fourteen or thereabouts. I never could remember for sure. He wasn’t the oldest and he wasn’t the youngest. But then with ten kids and ten ages to keep track of a man can’t be expected to remember. Anyhow he’d be about sixteen now, since it was two years ago that it happened.

It was a bad time for him to be skipping off, too. We were in the middle of harvest. We had corn to get in, besides which we had a bit of a scare around here with lights flashing in the hills and funny noises at night. The fellows who know call that sort of thing by some fancy name. “Mass illusionations,” I guess they’d say.

Well, one night we sat down to chow. We’d worked hard all day, so we were filling ourselves as full as we could. Ma is a right good cook when she bothers, and the girls do all right by themselves. When we finished, Joey pops up. I think it was Joey. I can’t rightly remember. When you got ten kids and ten names to keep track of you’re bound to have a hard time remembering.

Anyhow, one of the kids pops up and says, “Look, Pa! Willie’s plate is all full up with chow and no Willie.”