he had already heard about tom 's daddy , who had run off a couple of years before with a waitress , and about tom 's job as a handyman out on the norbutt farm and how , two years ago , mr. norbutt had decided tom was `` getting on well enough '' to be trusted handling an axe , and about the `` big boys '' who had jumped tom one night and how tom had `` fought em all off 'til they was just about dead , and i put one of em in the hospital with ruptures , m-o-o-n , that spells ruptures , that 's what tom cullen did , '' and he had heard about how tom had found his mother at mrs. blakely 's house and they were both dead in the living room and so tom had stolen away .