Hands Essay, Research Paper
The story ?HANDS? relates to an individual loved by every school boy in a small town
of Pennsylvania. This personage known as Adolph Myers, one of the most gentle, lovable
?teachers of youth? ever encountered by the young boys at school. Myers had a unique
way of expressing the love he felt towards humanity. At times he would walk with one of
the boys down the schoolhouse steps, using his hands to caress the shoulders and hair of
the lad. It seemed there was a type of message that the teacher was trying to deliver into
the mind of the young boy. Unfortunately for Myers the young innocent mind of the lad
caused him to become enamored.
As infatuated as he was with the teacher, the school boy unconsciously triggered an
outburst of rumors relating his feelings and dreams to the townspeople. Initially there were
doubts in the minds of the townsmen concerning Myers behavior. The townies questioned
every boy who attended the schoolhouse, each one trembling with scare revealing that
Myers would at times ?places his arm about me while his fingers always played with my
hair.? Suddenly all doubts were galvanized into beliefs and it was not long before the
teacher encountered his biggest dilemma. Myers was brutally attacked by his antagonist
Henry Bradford and other men who latter arrived the scene.
Soon after, Myers was able to run away from what seemed to be his death mark. It did
not matter how much the men ran after him, they only caused his small white body to run
further away from town. Finally the angered footsteps of a desperate chase came to seize.
By this time Myers was already across town near eastern Ohio, here he lived for twenty
years with the name of Wing Biddlebaum. ?Keep your hands to yourself,? was the phrase
that could not seem to vanish from his mind and although he did not understand what
happened in Pennsylvania, he felt his hands had to be blame.
Ever since his last experience Biddlebaum felt that due to his hands he would never be
part of another society.