Johnny Mack Brown

Glen View, WV

1958

I was delivering my newspapers late one dusky evening when I heard a woman’s voice shouting, “Johnny, come home. It’s getting dark.” The woman was Mrs. Brown. She and her family lived in one of Virgil Gunther’s “three little houses”, as we called them. Mrs. Brown asked me if I had seen her son, Johnny. I told her I hadn’t. She asked if I would help her hunt for him.

I walked up into the woods behind her house and began looking around. I stopped for a rest, and heard a faint whimper. It sounded like the sound a wet, half-starved kitten might make. I couldn’t see anything that would make a noise like that. The sound appeared to be coming from a large log lying on the ground.

I walked up to the log and saw Johnny hiding behind the log. I was not ready for the sight and smell of Johnny. He had fallen through the hole in the outhouse. He had about a gallon of what I’ll call “outhouse gook” smeared on him. It was in his hair, on his face, on both hands, on his feet, and on his clothes. He was miserable. He didn’t want to go home because he knew his mother would not be happy. I told him he couldn’t stay in the woods all night. He agreed to go back home.

Johnny’s mother was happy to see her son, but unhappy with the chore ahead of her. I did not envy her or Johnny.

I can remember Johnny’s name because he was named for a cowboy movie star. From the accounts I read in the newspapers, Little Johnny became a juvenile delinquent and a career criminal. Falling into the toilet probably didn’t have much effect on his sense of right and wrong.