My Daddy Comes Home in Bad Shape

We was all so happy to see my daddy when his train pulled in to the depot. He got off smiling and looked like he were his same old self. Mama were as happy as we ever could remember. But it didn't last long. Daddy got his old job back and had some trouble getting along with the fellows he worked with. He would come come at night, eat his supper without saying a word, and go sit on the front porch and smoke cigarettes. One day he stayed in bed and wouldn't get up and go to work. Before long we would catch him crying, something we ain't never saw before. Then he were crying most all the time. I don't mean a little sniffling cry, but hard, shoulder shaking weeping. Mama would ask him what were wrong and he would say it warn't nothing and he were gonna be alright. Well he warn't. He had to go stay at the state hospital for the insane where they give him what they called shock treatments. He stopped crying, but he stopped showing any feeling at all. He would just stare at you and smile. The doctors let him come home on what they called a trial visit. While we thought he were sitting on the porch smoking, he were really walking off into the woods behind the house. We never seen him again.