Tommy Twelve Toes

         In the time before time, there lived a young man whom I would someday call “PawPaw.” During this pre-time time, school and home were both uphill from each other and, like every young man of his day, my future grandpa was always proud to make that steep walk, come rain or shine. Of course, so copious was the rain back then that there were not many days of sunshine, and the dirt roads were usually muddy. The young man’s family was too poor to be able to buy him any shoes,so he went barefoot, with mud squishing between his twelve toes.

         Now, before you kick off your shoes and start counting, please allow me to explain. Thomas had been born with an extra pinky toe on each foot and his mother, a much feared and irascible virago, had clubbed the doctor about the head and shoulders when he offered to remove the adjunct appendages which nature had seen fit to give him. Thus young Thomas had gone home from the hospital with an extra piggy on each foot who, according to his mother, went to Rome right after the other little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home. Tommy thought it must be because the other little piggy’s squealing was so annoying.

         His mother had always insisted that the toes were a blessing and that he should be grateful that she had had the foresight to prevent the doctors from chopping them off. Well, little Thomas kind of doubted this proclamation, after all his mother had a fairly bad track record so far as he could tell; spinach did not seem to be making him strong, he ate his carrots but still had to wear glasses and hot peppers had so far failed to put hair on his chest.

         Luckily for Tommy the toes did turn out to be blessings, and very good ones at that.

         The first time the blessedness of the superfluous toes was proven occurred on a rare sunny afternoon as he trekked home from school with the obligatory twenty pounds of books held in a strap over his shoulder. His tiny extraneous toe caught itself in something buried in the mud, tripping him.

         “Not much of a blessing falling into the mud,” you say?

         Well, be that as it may, when he had blown the muck out of his nose and picked himself up, he tugged the tangle of string that had grabbed his littlest little piggy. A wet, sucking sound was followed by a muted jangling as a heavy drawstring bag came free of the mud. Even before he opened it he could tell that it was full of coins and his heart was hammering in his chest. He looked around, suddenly feeling guilty for no reason he could think of. On the side of the road he knelt and unknotted the drawstring with shaking fingers. When the mid-afternoon sun glinted from the shiny golden coins inside, young Tommy Twelve Toes had almost fallen over into the mud again.

         Tommy Twelve Toes ran all the way home carrying both the school books and the heavy leather pouch. As he sat in his room, his thoughts began to vacillate between honesty and need, and admittedly, a bit of greed. As he usually did when his brain decided to argue with itself, he spoke in soliloquy. It was a trick his father had taught him. Thoughts sound different when spoken aloud, where the ring of truth can be heard.

         “What should I do?”

         “The right thing would be to go to the sheriff.”

         “Sure, sure. That would be the right thing, but is it the smart thing?”

         “It could be the smart thing, good Karma and all that.”

          “Keeping it would mean helping my family to have a better life.”

         “Helping my family, and myself, would be good, but doing it dishonestly is an ignoble deed that would taint anything that came of it.”

         “So it’s decided then?”

         "It's decided."

         And it was. That evening young Thomas and his father took the gold to the sheriff. There were congratulations all around. First, his father was lavishly praised for raising such and honest son. Tommy was made an honorary sheriff and given a shiny badge and got to sound the siren in the sheriff’s big old black and white Ford. A news man took his picture and the next day he was on the front page, just under the forecast and above the hog futures.

         A week later the sheriff drove out to their house and gave Tommy Twelve Toes an envelope containing three things. First was a folded paper, not regular paper, but heavier, with a smooth feel to it and three impressed seals at the bottom and the word “Deed” printed in large letters across the top. The second item was a certificate for a free pair of shoes from Luigi’s, the finest men’s shop in town. Last but not least was a fine leather wallet containing fifty dollars and a note reading…

         “Thank you for your honesty, such integrity is not to go unrewarded.”

         There was no signature and when asked, the sheriff would only say that the owner of the gold wished to remain anonymous.

         The kids at school still called him Tommy Twelve Toes, but the tone was much friendlier, and they rarely saw the toes after that anyway. Tommy now wore the nicest shoes in the school and his father had been able to buy a car with the money he no longer had to spend on the mortgage. He now drove his son back and forth so that Thomas didn’t have to get his fine shoes muddy.

         The car, by coincidence, came around the time that everything stopped being uphill from everything else. As if that weren’t enough, it didn’t seem to rain as much after that either. My PawPaw always got an odd look on his face when I asked him about that and would just shake his head and mumble something about wise guys and knuckle heads.

         So, like I said, that was the first time one of his extra toes turned out to be a blessing. As for the other two occasions, well, those are tales for another time.