The Everywhere Marshal

A few days ago I got my eighth annual spring postcard from John Hay Spiegel Jr. John Hay's handwriting has improved over the years, but his sentiments stay the same. He inquires as to my health, wishes me well and hopes we will spend another summer together. John Hay and I spent quite a remarkable summer together some years ago, and it seems to have stuck with him.

For the summer in question I was a counselor at a camp in upstate New York. The camp was called Missumsic which means hills of health in Pawnee or Paiute, I forget which. It was my first camp job, and the first few days were blurry. I don't remember much about John Hay during that early confusion, except that I sat next to him on the bus going up and he vomited just outside of Newburgh.

I had eight campers, ranging from 7 to 8, collectively called the Blackfeet. Within the week I grew to know and love Jerry Tippik, the human vegetable, who would not eat meat and subsisted on soup cadged from other children at the table; Henry Mills, who the summer before had written his mother that his counselor was using his sleeping bag and had threatened to put out his eye if he told anyone; and Stevie Durand, who hid a dead squirrel in his cubby on the first day of camp. The squirrel stayed there until Uncle Toady, the camp director, found it some weeks later. For the first few days I did not learn much about John Hay except that he wouldn't answer to anything less than John Hay.

It rained the fourth or fifth day we were at camp. I returned to the cabin at rest period to find seven Black-feet lying docile on their bunks and John Hay squatting on top of his cubby. Missumsic cubbies were tall, seven or eight feet high; we stowed our campers' gear on their shelves Navy-style, with the folds outboard. John Hay was bent over, his fold outboard. As I entered he flapped his arms up and down and went "Brack!"

"John Hay," I said. "Off of there. You wanna get hurt?"

"Away, paleface," said John Hay. "I am no longer John Hay Spiegel. I am Eagle Boy. I am roosting."

"O.K., Eagle Boy. Down. Eagle Boy roosts on his bunk like the rest of us Indians."

"Brack!" said John Hay. "One step closer, paleface, and Eagle Boy swoops."

"He means it, Uncle Paul," said Jerry Tippik, from his bunk. "Last year Uncle Lenny tried to get him down and he swooped and broke his collarbone."

"How long does he usually stay up there?"