Nellie, the Hat Man, & Me

My baby sister Sally’s crying wakes me up. Sally is five years old and I’m 10. There are only two bedrooms in our house, so we sleep in the same room.

It’s a whimpering kind of cry. The kind of crying that a little girl does when she doesn’t get her way, not the crying she does when she’s hurt. Still, I hate to hear her cry, so I get out of bed and go over to where she’s lying. I reach out in the darkness until I feel her curly, blonde hair and stroke her head as if she was my dog, Scruffy.

“Hey, there, sissy, what’s wrong?” I whisper.

I am trying to calm her, but it don’t work. It’s like a dam bursting as she starts sobbing uncontrollably.

“It was-was-was- that old Hat Man!” she screams. She always stammers like that when she’s afraid or excited. “He-he-he was a standin’ at the foot of my- my- my bed! It’s just like they say, all I could see was-was-was- his-his-his- glowin’, red eyes! But-but-but I just know he was hear to k-k-kill me- me- me and eat me!”

Everybody here in the mountains has heard tales of the Hat Man. He shows up in the middle of the night, standing at the foot of the bed. All you can see are his eyes, like two fiery coals, and his floppy, felt hat. When you see him, it paralyzes you. He drags you out of bed, takes you away, kills you, and eats you. Of course, at my age, I’m too old to believe in such things.

“Hush, little’n,” I whisper, still stroking her hair. “You’ll wake Daddy up and he don’t git enough sleep as it is!”

Daddy works in the coal mines, second shift. He goes in at noon and gets off at midnight. Last week, he admitted to me that he has trouble sleeping sometimes.

It’s too late. The bedroom door opens and there stands Daddy, in his boxer shorts. He’s not very tall, but he has broad shoulders and a broad chest. He has big hands and feet. He keeps his hair cut short. He was in the Army and never let it grow longer after his time was up. He looks really tired as he walks over to Nellie and sits on the other side of her bed.

“What’s the matter, honey?” he asks. He’s almost whispering.

“Dad-Dad-Daddy, I seen the Hat Man. He was sittin’ at the foot of my bed! He was here to kill me and eat-eat-eat me!” Nellie’s voice was shrill and almost screaming.

“Hush, honey,” Daddy said softly. Then he glared. “Who in the world told you about the Hat Man?”

I could tell Daddy wasn’t very happy.

“It-it-it was Bo,” she whimpered.

Bo was our first cousin.

“I don’t know hwo to whup first,” Daddy says. “My halfwit nephew for tellin’ you such as that or my idiot brother and sister-in-law for letting him believe that trash!” Yeah, Daddy is mad!

“Dad-Dad-Daddy, don’t whup nobody!” Nellie wailed, “Last time you did that, they took you to jail!”

Daddy’s face gets red, not because he’s mad, but because it’s true. A few months ago, at the county fair, some rednecks made a pass at Mommy and Daddy best the tar out of them. The cops took Daddy to jail and Mommy had to borrow money from Mamaw and Papaw to bail him out. Mommy and Daddy were real embarrassed about that.

“Don’t worry, little girl,” Daddy says, “I ain’t going to jail. It was what they call a figure of speech.”

Dad closes his eyes for a second. He does that when he’s thinking really hard. Then, he speaks:

“Tell you what we’ll do. You can sleep in your big brother’s bed the rest of the night. You’ll be safe there okay? Nothing will bother you over there. You alright doing that, Jeb?”

I nod, but I don’t like that at all. Especially if any of the boys at school find out when school starts back in a few weeks. If they know something like that about a guy, they’ll start their nasty talk and won’t leave him alone all year. Joey Bivens is the worst. He’ll even hit guys along with the nasty talk. He won’t be in my class because he flunked fourth grade, but he’ll be on the playground at recess.

But I’m more worried about Nellie than what the kids at school say.

Nellie climbs out of her bed and gets into mine. She doesn’t look sad or worried any more. That makes me feel better.

I get into bed, she snuggles close to me, and Daddy turns out the lights and leaves us alone. In just a minute or two, I hear her steady breathing and know that my little sister is asleep. I fall asleep a few minutes later.

The next morning, we get up and have breakfast. After breakfast, I get bored and decide to take a walk in the woods across the road from our house. Scruffy, my dog, goes with me. Daddy bought Scruffy from a neighbor down the road. Daddy named him because he said he was the scruffiest looking dog he had ever seen. He also said Scruffy was “half beagle, half Jack Russell, and 100% mutt”. I love my little dog and consider him my best friend. He loves to go into the woods with me. Scruffy barks at whatever squirrels, coons, or possums he sees while I look for interesting things to put in the shoe box that I keep under my bed. Stuff like interesting rocks, acorns, and used shotgun shells.

Usually, we go as far as the big oak tree before we turn around and head back to the house. This is the tree where Daddy carved a heart and Mommy initials back when he was 12 years old. IT’s a special place to my family.

Something weird happens when we get close to the oak tree. Scruffy starts to growl. When I finally get there, Scruffy turns and runs away.

“What the heck is wrong with my dog?” I wonder.

My first thought is that there could be a dangerous animal up in the tree. I look up and don’t see any animal. I do see something and it scares me.

Hanging from one of the branches in the oak tree is a black, floppy hat. It’s the kind of hat that they say the Hat Man wears.

I turn and run back toward the house. As I run, I’m thinking dozens of thoughts at once. Is he still out here in the woods? Did he leave his hat out here for some reason? Should I tell my folks about it? Does he plan to come back to our house? What am I supposed to do about it?

I finally catch up with Scruffy. He’s stopped at the ditch that runs along the road that separates our house from the woods. I kneel down beside him and put my arm around him. I ran too hard and now, I need to catch my breath.

I decide against telling Daddy or Mommy. I know how things go-they would go all the way back there with me and the hat would be gone. That’s what always happens when a kid tells a grownup about something that he saw. That’s why kids keep so much self to themselves.

No, I’ll do the one thing that Mommy says I should do in times like this. I look up to the sky and start talking:

“Dear God in Heaven, I ask you to keep us safe and healthy. I ask you to protect our house. And if there is a Hat Man out there in them woods, I ask you please to keep him away from all of my family, ‘specially little Nellie. Don’t let him scare my baby sister any more. In Jesus name I pray, amen.”

I get up and dust off my the knees of my pants. From now until school starts, I’ll stay awake as long as I can and listen for anybody coming in the room. If Nellie wants to sleep in my bed, I’ll let her do it and won’t raise cain about it. If she sees him again, I’ll even ask Daddy if I can keep my hunting knife that I got for Christmas in my room and keep it under my pillow at night.

I ain’t takin’ no chances.