My brother Cleo was a few years ahead of me; so, of course, I cannot recall him as a youngster. But I remember things that my sisters have said about him when he was a little boy. Hazel said that our neighbor Eddie Salyers, who liked all of us kids, especially liked Cleo. Eddie referred to Cleo as that “little dark-eyed boy.” My sisters also have made similar remarks. Maybe Eddie and the others noticed Cleo’s brown eyes because all his older brothers had been born with blue eyes. I am not sure. But maybe that was the reason. Anyway, Hazel said that it was Eddie who took care of Cleo the night his younger twin brothers were born.
Alline remembers when he was little, Cleo, as well as the twins, loved to ride over the hill toward the spring house on a contraption called a “truck wagon”. David says he remembers that the truck wagon had wheels made of four round pieces of wood sliced from a log from a gum tree. Dad helped the boys build their wagon by heating steel bars in the stove. While the steel bars were hot, they were used to burn holes in the gum wheels for the axles. David remembers that the truck wagon had to be steered by the rider’s feet, but more than one boy could ride at a time. Mom thought David was too little at that time to ride on the contraption, and David was secretly happy because he thought his older brothers were just plain crazy to go over the hill in such a thing. Of course, Cleo and the others could not guide the wagon very well when they were heading downhill so fast, so they would hit rocks and wreck very often. But then they would drag the truck wagon back up to the top of the hill and go down all over again. They loved it.
It was Alline also who remembered that Cleo was called the “pig rider.” I think that name might have been started by our neighbor Eddie, as well. Cleo was actually able to ride pigs, and Eddie saw him do that.
Cleo had a way with other animals as well. He was most famous for training one gander that he named “Whitey.” Whitely would do whatever Cleo wanted him to do. Cleo could just point at a thing or person, and Whitey would attack. I remember observing Cleo with his favorite gander, and it was amazing to watch. Cleo would squat down to get on the gander’s level, and as Cleo would talk to Whitey, the gander would also “talk” to Cleo. It was a mutual conversation. You should have seen it. They were really buddies. I thought it would be fun to talk with Whitey that way, too. So one day, I tried. But Whitey wasn’t having any of that. He let me know by pinching me hard. Don’t laugh. When geese pinch you, they grab your skin and twist it. It isn’t funny at all. It really hurts.
To tell the truth, I didn’t think any of my brothers, except David and the oldest boys, liked me very much. But I was surprised and pleased one day when Cleo paid me a compliment. At the time, I was still in grade school, and Cleo was probably a junior or senior in high school. I was playing the antique organ that sat in the corner of the front room in the old house. Cleo was combing his hair at the mirror that hung on the wall near the window. He thought what I was playing was pretty, and he said, “When you get to Middleburg, I’m going to see that you get to take music lessons…even if I have to pay for them myself.” I knew that Cleo had no money to pay for music lessons for me. But it didn’t matter. It was just a nice thing for me to hear from an older brother.
Alline has said that the grownups in our family knew that Cleo was very smart, even when he was little. But I had not given any thought to what a scholar he was until just before he became the salutatorian of his graduating class. (The valedictorian was Sherrill Bastin, his future brother-in-law, by the way). Cleo did not always have a lot of self confidence, but I remember him being proud that he was to be the salutatorian. It was appropriate for him to feel proud. He was the only one in our family to achieve that honor.
Yet our high school was not equipped to prepare even good students in all subjects. For example, our science teachers did their best, but they could not give their students a good background in science. When Cleo went to college, he had to compete with students who had already had actual experience in science labs. I don’t understand how he did it, but when Cleo got to college, he not only caught up in the physics lab, he majored in physics. To excel even further, he got a second major in mathematics. Yep, he was smart.
The last autumn of Cleo’s life, my sisters and I came over to visit Maudine and him at their farm. It was late fall. The trees were almost all bare, and winter was about to set in, but while we were walking around outside, we noticed one young maple tree near the woodland. This little maple stood out because it still had all its foliage. Its red leaves were clinging as if they had just come into their glory and weren’t about to let go any time soon. I commented to Cleo about that beautiful tree, standing out all by itself, still in full color. He was pleased with the tree, too. He said he was going to plant more maples, and he pointed to different locations where he wanted to place more trees. Sadly, I thought, he probably would not be around to see future trees next fall. Maybe he would not even be around come the next spring. But there was something very touching in his voice as he talked about more trees and more plantings and …more promise of continued life, I imagined. Even so close to the end of his journey, Cleo’s own beautiful colors were showing; his own hope was still shining through.