"OK, Ma," I pipes up. "We'll ask the neighbors. It'd be easy to spot Willie anywhere." That's what I figured. Even though I hate to say it about my own son, Willie was plumb peculiar to look at. He had a head that looked like it belonged on a man a hundred pounds heavier. It sat like a knob on the end of a scrawny, skinny body. A body too scrawny to be much use in farming. * * * * * He sure was dumb too, that Willie. If you put him out to plow a straight line, he'd plow a circle. If you wanted him to plow a curve, he'd plow a zig-zag line. He wasn't like the other boys. Willie got kicked out of school when he was eight. Not that the other boys finished school, but he got kicked out real disgraceful-like. Now Bennie, he set fire to the teacher's chair; Joey burned down the whole school building. But Willie, guldurn Willie, he read all the books he could get ahold of till he knew more than the teacher: so of course, the teacher had to kick him out to save her face. Take Willie to pull a trick like that. Asked her such fool questions that she had to close the school for a couple months to take a rest cure. That was Willie for you. Sometimes I wonder myself why Willie don't mean as much to me as some of the other kids do. Maybe it's because I wasn't around when Willie was born. Just happened the draft, the war draft that is, called my number. That was for the second world war. Well anyhow they didn't want me. I guess the government didn't want to support my kids. Don't blame them though. I go to the city and two weeks later I come back and there is Willie. He's just an ordinary baby, no hair and no teeth. "Kinda homely," I says to Ma. But she doesn't seem to care, so I figure I don't care either. Willie grew up and Willie kept getting in the way. Asked all kinds of silly questions. Sure, the others always wanted to know why the grass is green; but not Willie. Willie asks some silly question about "the relative merits of transistor amplifiers as compared to vacuum tubes." That ain't all the questions he asked. But you get the idea. Willie always acted kind of big for his breeches. Ma always seemed to encourage him too. Keeps saying Willie ain't my son. I know she's kidding, of course. I reckon she means sort of like, in spirit he ain't my son. In that respect, I agree with her. Willie sure ain't my son. Some of the kids titter when Ma says that. Especially Ellie, or was it Sue? We had another one of those "mess of illusionations" about that time. Sue kept talking about funny looking men, with funny looking heads, wearing funny looking clothes. She said they jumped out of a coffee saucer or something like that. Just a baby, you know, with crazy notions. I never do pay any attention to these crazy ideas the kids bring up. I once read a book or something, or maybe someone told me, kids always see things that aren't there. Just humor them and don't say nothing, so I don't say nothing.