Uncle Hubert

It was days before we got the bulk of Uncle Hubert scraped off the kitchen table.  And it took the whole family (except Aunt Emily of course) to do it, armed with baby flame throwers, chisels, and several scrape-even type of tools.  Even then, having only managed to get the lumps off, we were left with an almost indestructible millimetre thick translucent metal varnish all over the table.  As Pop said, “Leave it kids, it’ll be a lesson to us.”  So we did.

Perhaps I should back up a bit for you.  You see Uncle Hubert wasn’t really our uncle, but we called him that because of Aunt Emily, who was … our Aunt I mean.  She’s a genius is Aunt Emily.  A real one, full of amazing ideas and able to make them real.  It was her made Uncle Hubert, a rather squat, rotund little person (we thought of him as such) with two sets of well oiled wheels and an incredible brain.

Besides being a genius, Aunt Emily has this almost insatiable curiosity about absolutely everything.  Now this, I’ll tell you straight, drove us kids to distraction.   She was forever carrying out the craziest experiments on us, usually without warning.  But we knew it was just that she couldn’t bear not knowing the answer to the questions her mind was always asking.

So she made Uncle Hubert.

She felt that with a brain umpteen times faster than hers and having no feelings to interfere he would be able to find out more, and quicker.  (So you can see how good intentions go awry.)

After months of peace and quiet with Aunt Emily working madly in the shed out back she strode into the kitchen one day with this great proud grin on her lean red face.  She paused dramatically, (good at drama was Aunt Emily), and raised an arm to point out the door.

We all crowded around and there he was, a short, round little being. My brother Buzz dubbed him at once, “Looks almighty like a Hubert, don’t he?” he says.  We agreed and so he was named.

He rolled quietly to the door, tipped his wheels somehow or other so he could climb the stairs and rolled across the kitchen floor to stand timidly behind Aunt Emily’s skirts.

It took us a while to get used to Uncle Hubert and he to us, but soon he became just like one of the family.  Now, not having grown up from scratch like the rest of us, Uncle Hubert had a lot to learn and he set about it in a logical manner.

He started small and worked up.  Bugs and things didn’t take him long to master and snakes were just a bit harder.  Sister Bitty found him one day slithering along the ground on his front-side getting dust and small stones in all his little components.  That’s how he learned that snakes aren’t real popular.  (It took Aunt Emily a full day to get him cleaned out again.)

The chickens he seemed to enjoy most and we would find him out there early in the morning flapping his arms, stretching out his neck and clucking very proudly.  We had trouble convincing him he should be mimicking Tom the Rooster.  He preferred the ladies.  ‘Though try as he would he never laid an egg, at least not then.

Next he ran and barked with the dogs, then stayed out all night with the cows until milking time.  (He never got the hang of that either.)  All the while he was filing away bits and pieces of knowledge, which Aunt Emily debriefed him on twice a week.

Then it was he started on the family, and the trouble began.

You see it was our emotions baffled him.  Aunt Emily had never realized how vital emotions were to people, but Uncle Hubert did and he set out to master them.  He learned to imitate sister Tizzy in a temper tantrum, Pop relaxing on the porch, and Ma holding her belly when she laughed.  But they were only actions, not the real feelings and this frustrated poor Uncle Hubert no end.

Until one day.

Now, in our home, like most old farm houses, the kitchen was where the family lived mostly.  And it was on the big oak table there that Uncle Hubert did his best imitations.  It was strong enough to hold him you see, and it brought him up to the older folks’ height so he could see and be seen.  Quite the showman he became.

Well, as I was saying, one day he had a breakthrough.  He had been quiet and preoccupied for a few days and we were beginning to wonder what he was up to.  Turns out things were falling into place inside his electronic brain and he was hatching a plan, (literally).  So on this day while all the family was scattered throughout the house just after dinner he put his plan into action.

Now it was storming outside, with thunder and lightning and hail too, so even Aunt Emily was somewheres about the house. 

 Then, even above the house-shaking thunder, we heard it! The most triumphant clucking and cackling I ever hope to hear.  There was a moment of dead silence (even the thunder stopped), then everyone came pouring from their niches and corners in a mad race for the kitchen.  It was just about a tie, with brother Archimedes getting there just a head before the rest of us.

And there was Uncle Hubert sitting on the kitchen table like the chickens sit on their roosts, just busting with pride.  We all stopped, stunned.  Finally Pop said, “Poor Hubert.  Had to happen I guess.  He’s blown a circuit or something,” and he shook his head sadly.  But he was wrong (Pop sometimes is).

When Uncle Hubert saw he had all our attention and the whole family was there, he stood up.  And we saw it!  

A smooth grey metallic egg laying plain as you please on the table!  Ten mouths dropped at once.  And Uncle Hubert’s clucking changed to chuckling.  Ten pairs of unbelieving eyes moved from that little metal egg to Uncle Hubert.  He was laughing!  I mean truly laughing, not mimicking.  He was holding his belly like Ma does and his shoulders were jiggling and feet bouncing like Baby Bart’s do, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

It was Archimedes got it first.

“Why Uncle Hubert!” he cries out, “you’re playing a joke!”

By now Uncle Hubert is rolling around on the table almost uncontrollable … and we all started giggling too.  And that was when it happened!   There he was, rolling around giggling and guffawing ’til we thought he would blow a fuse, and the next minute this great ball of lightning came right down the chimney, rolled across the floor, and right up onto the table.  It happened so fast he didn’t have a chance;  Uncle Hubert and his egg melted down before our very eyes and spread all across the table.

But it was a fitting end and I bet he’s still giggling.  I know for a fact that every time we sit at the table we think of his joke.

Now you’ll remember I told you we left that layer of Uncle Hubert on the kitchen table for a lesson, and it’s one we’ll never forget: If you’re a robot and you’re going to lay an egg, don’t do it in a thunder storm!