The King is Dead (24 page)

No, I don't know why he named the third one Abel. Figured he'd keep his Biblical string running, I guess. I do remember he had no more interest in Abel than in the other two. Just had nothing to do with them. And Ellen was getting sicker, and after a while she developed a chronic whine, which was exactly what those three boys could have done without. The truth is the Bendigo boys grew up without any real love or affection, and whatever's happened to them is no surprise to me whatsoever, young fellow,
whatsoever …

MARTHA E. COOLYE

(67, Principal of Wrightsville High School.)

I'm not really
that
ancient, Mr. Queen. I was very, very young when I taught Cain Bendigo in the upper grades …

Student is hardly the word. I don't believe he stuck his nose into a book ever in his life. Certainly not while
I
taught him. I don't know how that boy got by …

Cain's forte was violence. If there was a fight at recess, you could be sure Cain Bendigo was at the bottom of the heap. If a window was broken, you checked up on Cain first. If one of the girls came to you in tears exhibiting a braid which had been dipped in an inkwell, you knew in advance who had done the dipping. If you turned to the blackboard in class and jumped at a B-B shot on your backside, you looked for the peashooter in Cain's desk …

He led the boys in everything. Except, of course, scholarship. He was ringleader of the worst boys in school. I was always having to haul him down to Mrs. Brindsley's office to be disciplined …

Athletics? Well, of course, we didn't have organized athletics in the lower grade schools in those days the way we have them today. But there was one game Cain Bendigo excelled at while
I
was his teacher, and that was the game of hookey … No, I didn't say hockey, Mr. Queen. He was the champion hookey player of the school! …

CHARLES O. EVINS

(Director, Wrightsville Y.M.C.A.)

My father, George Evins, was truant officer for the town between 1900 and 1917. He never forgot Cain Bendigo. Used to call him ‘my best customer'. He called the Bendigo boys ‘The Three Musketeers', which was funny because Abel, the youngest, was only seven when Cain graduated from grade school. I remember myself how Cain would go off with Judah and Abel after school to fool around in the Marshes, and that was unusual for a boy in the eighth grade — he and I graduated together. Usually we big boys kicked the little kids aside. Cain was the first to do the kicking, except where his little brother Abel was concerned. He fought a lot of bloody battles over Judah and Abel. Way I've figured it out, it was Cain's way of getting back at his father. He hated his father with a burning hatred, and anything his father was against, he was for. Of course, he led the younger boys around by the nose, but they never minded. To Judah and Abel, Cain was God, and whatever he said went …

I've often wondered how Cain Bendigo turned out. I know he's supposed to be a multimillionaire and all that, but I mean as a man. Even as a boy he was a contradiction …

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, July 20, 1911

(In 1911 the Wrightsville
Record
was published only once a week, on Thursdays.)

Wrightsville buzzed this week over a deed of heroism done by a 14-year-old boy.

Cain Bendigo, eldest son of William M. Bendigo, well-known High Village building contractor, risked his life last Saturday to save his brother Abel, 7, from drowning while the two boys and their brother, Judah, 12, were on a tramp through the woods in Twin Hills.

According to the young hero's account, they had gone to the rocky pool at the foot of Granjon Falls, which is a favourite ‘swimming hole' of Wrightsville's younger element. The 7-year-old boy, who does not know how to swim, was sitting at the edge of the pool watching his brothers when he somehow fell into the water, struck a jagged rock, and was borne unconscious by the fast current toward the rapids at the foot of the Falls. Cain, who was on shore, saw little Abel being swept away to certain destruction. Showing rare presence of mind for a lad of 14, Cain did not try to swim after Abel. Instead he raced alongshore and plunged in to meet his brother's body rushing towards him. In rough water and fighting the strong current, Cain managed to struggle ashore with the little boy and, exhausted as he himself was, he worked over Abel until Abel regained consciousness.

Cain and Judah then carried Abel down Indian Trail to Shingle Street, where the three boys were picked up by Ivor Crosby, farmer, who was driving his team to Hill Valley. Mr. Crosby raced the boys back to town. Medical treatment was administered by Dr. Pierce Minikin of Minikin Rd, the Bendigo family physician. Mr. Minikin said Cain did a fine job of resuscitation. Abel was taken home shortly thereafter, little the worse for his experience.

Cain Bendigo was graduated from Ridge Rd Grade School this June …

SAMUEL R. LIVINGSTON

(84, Wrightsville's elder statesman. Dean of the ‘Hill' Livingstons and all his life a power in local politics. In 1911 he was in his sixth year as First Selectman.)

The medal was ordered from a Boston house and it was a month getting here. We had the ceremony on the steps of the Town Hall. Everybody came out for it — it was like Fourth of July. They packed the Green solid and overflowed into the Square. Course, I'd picked a Saturday for it, when everybody was in town anyway, but the boy deserved it, he surely did …

That Cain Bendigo, he stood up straight as a soldier when I pinned the medal on him. The crowd called for a speech, which I thought was pretty rough on a boy of fourteen, but it didn't feaze him one bit. He said he thanked everybody in Wrightsville for the medal, but he didn't feel he really deserved it — anybody would have done the same. That made a real hit with the townspeople, I'm here to tell you, and I said to myself then and there, ‘Sam Livingston, that boy is going places.' And he surely did! …

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, August 17, 1911

… as follows: 24-jewel Waltham open-face watch with black silk fob, presented with the compliments of Curtis Manadnock, High Village Jeweller. A Kollege Klothes brand suit with new style accessories presented with the compliments of Gowdy & Son Clothing Store, The Square. Wright & Ditson tennis racquet, with press, New York Department Store. Ten-volume set of
The Photographic History of the Civil War
, Semicentennial Memorial Edition, just published by the Review of Reviews Co., New York, presented with the compliments of Marcus Aikin Book Shop, Jezreel Lane. Good-natured hilarity greeted the announcement that Upham's Ice Cream Parlour on Washington St, High Village, would present the young hero with a full month's supply of Upham's Banana Splits Supreme at the rate of one per day. An Iver Johnson bicycle, presented with the compliments of …

(From the 1911 Files of Fyfield Gunnery School.)

COPY

FYFIELD GUNNERY SCHOOL

August 15, 1911

Mr. Cain Bendigo

Wrightsville

D
EAR
M
R
B
ENDIGO

It gives me the greatest pleasure to inform you that, for manifesting the high qualities of manly character which are prerequisite to matriculation in Fyfield Gunnery School, the Scholarship Board at a special meeting has voted to present you with a full four-year tuition scholarship, to take effect at the opening of the Fall Term next month.

If you will present yourself with your parent or guardian during Registration Week, September 8—15, with proof that you have duly completed your grade school requirements as prescribed by the laws of the State, arrangements for your immediate enrolment at Gunnery will be concluded.

With warmest good wishes, I remain,

Yours very truly,

(Signed) M
ELROSE
F. E
STEY

MFE/DV
Principal

BEN DANZIG

(54, prop. High Village Rental Library and Sundries.)

Cain Bendigo was certainly the big squeeze in Wrightsville the rest of that summer before he went off to Gunnery. I remember the rush he got from the girls, and it made the rest of us boys, who'd graduated from the Ridge school with him and were going on to just Wrightsville High, kind of jealous. But there was one kid in town who'd have got down on his hands and knees and licked Cain's shoes if Cain had let him, and that was his little brother Abel. I never saw such worship. Why, that kid just followed Cain around all over like a puppy …

Judah? Well …

EMMELINE DUPRÉ
:

(52, better known as the Town Crier. Teaches dancing and dramatics to the youth of the Hill gentry.)

Where was Judah during the accident? Why didn't
he
help save Abel's life? Those were the burning questions of the day, Mr. Queen. There was one boy in our class — I was in Judah's class, so I'm in a position to discuss this
intelligently
— this boy, his name was Eddie Weevil, rather a nasty boy as I recall, it wasn't long before he was being seen down in Polly Street and that sort of thing, but he did say he'd seen it, and after all even a chronic liar can tell the truth some time, don't you agree, Mr. Queen? Well, Eddie was going around telling the boys in the seventh grade — that was just after Cain went off to Gunnery — that he'd been up around Granjon Falls that day and just happened to witness the whole incident. Eddie Weevil said Judah didn't do
anything
. Didn't even
try
. The pure craven. Eddie said Judah was
closer
to Abel than Cain and could have fished him out easily if he'd had half the spunk of a ground hog, but that he ran away and cried like a baby and let Cain do the whole thing all by himself …

Well, yes, he
was
asked that, but Eddie said the reason he didn't come forward with his story at the time was he didn't want to get Judah Bendigo in trouble. Of course, I don't know, the Weevil boy may have made the whole thing up just to call attention to himself, but it
was
funny, don't you think, that Judah didn't have a word to say about his part in the rescue, and Cain didn't either? …

REVEREND ALAN BRINDSLEY

(52, Rector, First Congregational Church on West Livesey St.)

I occupied the seat next to Judah Bendigo in the seventh grade. I think I was probably the only boy in the class Judah trusted. He never said much about himself, though, even to me. I do know that he suffered horribly during the first few months after the rescue incident. Somehow the rumour spread that he had funked the chance to save his little brother and had run away instead of helping, or something of the sort. Even if it had been true, it was unfair to condemn a twelve-year-old boy as a coward, as if physical bravery were the highest good. Not all of us have what it takes to be a hero, Mr. Queen, and I'm not sure it would be a good thing if we had. Judah was a highly intelligent, sensitive boy who'd been branded from birth with surely the wickedest name ever given a child, I mean his given name, which was Judas …

It got to the point where it was too much for me to bear. Some of the boys began to call him ‘coward' to his face, rough him up in front of the girls, dare him to fight, challenge him to ‘swimming' races — you can imagine. Judah merely hung his head. He never replied. He never struck back. I used to beg him to come away, but he would stand there until they were through, and only then would he turn his back. I realize now what courage — what truly great courage — this must have taken …

Dr. PIERCE MINIKIN

Judah as a boy was what the fancy fellows these days would call a masochist. He enjoyed punishment …

REVEREND ALAN BRINDSLEY

It subsided eventually. It took about six months, I'd say. Then the whole thing was forgotten. By everyone, I'm sure, but Judah. I'm sure he remembers that Golgotha to this day. You say you've seen him recently. Does he brood? Is he lonely still? What's happened to him? I always detected something Christ-like in Judah. I was sure he would leave the world a little better than he had found it …

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
. November 28, 1912:

BENDIGO'S 4 TOUCHDOWNS

CRUSH HIGH 27—0

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, June 12, 1913

BENDIGO'S HOMER IN 9TH

BEATS SLOCUM 6—5

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, April 30, 1914

GUNNERY TAKES TRACK-FIELD

MEET WITH 53 POINTS

Big Ben Breaks 3 Marks
,

Scores 29 Points

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, February 11, 1915:

KANE BENDIGO KO'S JETHROE IN 4TH

Gunnery Star Takes State

Junior Light-Heavy Title

‘
DOC
'
DOWD

(76, Director of Athletics at Fyfield Gunnery School 1905—1938; retired, now living in Bannock.)

Kane Bendigo was the finest all-round athlete produced by Gunnery in the thirty-three years I directed the school's athletics

PRINCIPAL WHEELER
(
OF FYFIELD GUNNERY
)

I'm sure my memory can't be that much off, Mr. Queen …

I'm astonished. Graduated forty-ninth in a class of sixty-three! I could have sworn the records would show he stood far, far higher than that. Of course, Gunnery's scholastic standards have always been extremely stringent …

WRIGHTSVILLE
Record
, July 1, 1915

SEN. HUNTER CONSIDERING

WRIGHTSVILLE APPOINTEE TO U.S.

MILITARY ACADEMY

If Kane Bendigo Named, Will Be First

Wrightsville West Pointer Since