Since last Monday was Hester’s first day of school and she was highly excited about it, she got up at a quarter after six. School starts at 8:30. I guess it was a good thing, though, as many different outfits as she tried on. She went to school at 8:00 so as to get a good locker--and discovered most of her classmates already there. They must have all been excited about the first day of school.
(Either that, or they all wanted the same locker.)
When Larry came home from work Tuesday, he asked if I wanted to drive the Suburban to Ashland while he drove his Jeep; he thought he might trade it for some sort of enclosed cargo trailer that he planned to make into a combination camper/bike hauler. Caleb and Victoria came, too.
He looked at the trailer...decided it was what he wanted...and left the Jeep behind, planning to come back soon to get the trailer, since it was a fifth-wheel, and we would need the pickup to pull it.
Thursday Teddy went to Lincoln to get a china hutch somebody had advertised in the paper. It’s pine, but stained just the right color to match the oak table and chairs they got at Nebraska Furniture Mart. He is going to give it to Amy for her birthday October 5th. (If he can wait that long.)
Thursday night I really was quite sure I set my alarm...I remember doing so, quite clearly. But...I knew nothing at all until I suddenly awoke in the middle of the morning.
I flew out of bed, dashed down the stairs, and knocked on Hester and Lydia’s door. Lydia sleepily answered, and told me that Hester had gone to school in plenty good time. I peeked into Teddy’s room, saw that Teddy was gone, Caleb sleeping soundly... I rushed to Joseph’s room, hoping Teddy had taken Joseph to work--
No such luck. There was Joseph, sawing logs, dead to the world.
“Joseph!” I cried, “Get up! It’s late! Didn’t you set your alarm?!”
“Doesn’t work,” he muttered groggily, sitting up and peering at it.
Then, realizing I was telling the truth and it was late, he leaped from his bed and began putting in his contacts even before his eyes were fully opened.
I raced upstairs, packed his lunch, and had it ready as he ascended the stairs, grabbed it, and headed for the door.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I asked Larry that evening when he got home from work.
“Because you still had two minutes to sleep before your alarm went off,” he responded logically.
I found out from Hester why Teddy didn’t awaken me; he was later than he’d wanted to be, himself, and was all in a frenzy getting himself ready to go to work.
What about Hester? She’d crept stealthily into my room to retrieve her forgotten shoes, leaving behind her stinky socks...and snuck back out, being very careful not to step on the spot in the floor that creaks.
“But why didn’t you wake me up??!” I exclaimed, exasperated, when she reported this bit at noon.
“Because I thought you must want to sleep!” she replied.
“But what about Joseph?!” I asked.
She shrugged, eyebrows up innocently. “I thought maybe Daddy took him...or Teddy was going to...”
“Aaacccckkk!” I responded befittingly, “Daddy never takes him; he has to be to work half an hour earlier; and you should have known Teddy wasn’t taking him, because he was already late!”
“Hmmmmmm,” said Hester with appropriate meekness.
I sighed. It really does no good to rant and rave when, first, the deed is already done; it’s too late to remedy it; and, second, it is just as much one’s own fault as someone else’s.
I wandered off with a fresh mug of coffee to accomplish some good at my sewing machine.
At 2:31 the phone rang. It was Dorcas, telling Lydia that the mothers with their kindergarten children were arriving at the little house down the block where kindergarten is going to be held this year, and she wondered if I remembered.
NO! I hadn’t remembered! Surely that was someone else’s fault, because Victoria had been given the note at church one Sunday night when I was staying with Mama, and nobody remembered to tell me about it until another evening when we were in a gigantic hurry to go somewhere... And then the time and date had been changed because some important furniture for the kindergarten had not yet arrived...and, once again, Victoria had been given the note on a Sunday night. Larry had the note in his Bible for a couple of weeks, and then, finding it suddenly a week and a half ago in the middle of a church service, he handed it to me.
I took it and read it: Open house. 2:30 Friday. And down at the bottom, ‘Victoria’.
I looked at Larry, puzzled. But it was neither the time nor the place to be worrying over whatever that was about, and I hastily collected my wits and put my brain back on track with the sermon. And I totally forgot to ask him about it afterwards. And he forgot to tell me.
It was only a chance remark of Dorcas’ a couple of days later that clued me in to what that note was all about...
So I can’t say I didn’t know, because I did know.
But...I shouldn’t be blamed for forgetting, because I almost didn’t know. That ought to count for something.
Well, Lydia had no sooner relayed Dorcas’ information to me than a mad scurry erupted as we tried to find Victoria’s sandals.
But there were no sandals to be found. None! Not even one! Usually we can at least find one. Or at the very least, two unmatched ones. Furthermore, we couldn’t even find some decent tennis shoes for her.
I gave up in short order, grabbed her white leather sandals for church, and wedged them on her feet with more haste than care, griping the whole while about kids who don’t take better care of their things, and put their shoes in their closet where they belong.
By the time I was done with the lecture, finished putting the shoes on the child, and headed out the door, the poor thing had a pale face and a red nose, giving every sign that if her mother didn’t hush with the harangue, she might very possibly burst into tears. And Victoria doesn’t burst into tears easily.
I closed my mouth and ceased the diatribe.
Victoria had nearly recovered by the time we got to the end of the block, where the little schoolroom is. She was conducted to a seat beside Jamie, which would have been her first choice in any case, and June put her nametag down on the table in front of her.
Victoria beamed. Just a nametag...but it could have been the Pulitzer Prize, so honored was she.
June had made butter honey cookies, mildly flavored with cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Mmmmm, good! She gave each child cold, distilled water to drink out of a ‘cute little glass’, as Victoria said later, although it was nothing but a small, clear, disposable plastic cup.
There are twelve children in the class, and no less than four of them are Victoria’s cousins, three from the Walker side of the family, and one from the Jackson side. Victoria got to sit between Jamie, her best little friend (and cousin) from just down the block, and Amanda, another cousin.
By Friday evening, I was almost finished with Hester’s jacket. I sewed in the lining, all but a small hole at either side of the bottom through which I turned jacket right side out--and then I realized I had forgotten to put in the shoulder pads. Sooo...I weaseled the forgotten shoulder pads in through the little holes in the bottom, then hand-sewed the holes shut. I put black trim around collar, cuffs, and jacket hem, too.
Dorcas made us spaghetti/tomato soup for supper. Mmmmm...it was good. She used an old-fashioned recipe that both my Grandma Swiney and my Grandma Winings used to make. Mama hadn’t had it for a long time, and was pleased that Dorcas made it.
After Larry came home, he, Joseph, Victoria, and I went to Ashland to get the trailer he’d traded the Jeep for.
We picked Victoria up from the playground and headed off, planning to stop in Bellwood to replenish coffee, juice, pop, and gum. But Bellwood was ten miles away, and Victoria was dying of thirst. I decided a small sip of my lukewarm coffee wouldn’t hurt her, and might very well keep her from expiring. (Or from thinking she was going to expire.)
I handed her my mug, and she took a drink.
“MMMmmm, that was good!” she said, grinning.
She tucked the mug back into the holder and settled back in her seat.
Three minutes later, she popped up and informed me, “That stuff was good for a minute, but after a while, it was rotten.”
haha Those aftertastes’ll getcha, if ya don’t watch out.
Let me tell you what this trailer originally was: it was the box with over-the-cab area on a one-ton pickup for U-Haul. This, he wants to make into a camper??!
(I told him not to sell the pop-up camper any time soon.)
Its double axles are set way back at the rear of the trailer, rather like a loon’s legs, so that it looks entirely ungainly on land. I wonder if Larry would complain if I backed the thing into Lake North, just to see if it can swim as well as a loon can?
Halfway home, there was a sudden ker-WHAMMM!!!--and then a whole lot of loud WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAPs.
“What in the world!” exclaimed Larry, braking to a fast halt on the shoulder.
I jumped out and, smelling burnt rubber, took a look at the tires. I saw that there was shredded rubber around the front tire, but, wonder of wonders, it was still inflated.
Joseph had gotten out, too, and, turning to say something to him, I suddenly noticed a big collie sitting right behind him, looking up at him, big tail wagging in friendly fashion. It was mostly white, with tan markings, and would have been a most beautiful dog, had it not been so snarled and matted. We petted it...and then I badly wanted water and a bar of soap with which to wash the doggy smell off my hands.
The dog loved all our administrations; when I stopped petting him, he proceeded to jump on me. I knocked him down rapidly with my knee. “Down!!” I ordered. “That’s bad!”
The poor thing was terribly apologetic. It didn’t jump on me again, but leaned on my legs so hard I could hardly keep my balance. Its fur was so matted, it felt like it had spare ears behind the first couple.
Larry decided to try limping to a better place to change the tires around, thinking he would exchange front and rear, since the spare had recently made threats to go to bits and pieces, and he had deflated it. (Be sure, the moment one does such a thing, one will have a tire go bad. It’s Murphy’s Law #208, I think.)
As we headed off down the road at 25 mph, emergency lights flashing, I recommended that we call Teddy and ask him to bring us a tire. I knew there was practically no hope at all for that tire to last all the way home, approximately 45 miles farther. Larry handed me his phone, and I placed the call.
An hour and ten minutes later, we had made it the thirty miles to David City, were parked at a closed gas station, and Teddy was pulling in with a couple of tires.
While Larry struggled to get the very stuck--and deflating--old tire off, Teddy told us about an exciting episode he’d just had on his way home from Amy’s house after his date:
He stopped at a Casey’s convenience store about three blocks from home to get himself a snack. He pulled up to the front of the store, and, with the engine still running, reached for his wallet.
At that moment, the door of Casey’s burst open and two boys dashed out, each carrying a carton of beer. They fled for their lives, as the woman who works there ran after them till she got to the door, then yelled, “The police are already on their way!”
Teddy, never one to sit idly by while a crime is being perpetrated, promptly stomped hard on his accelerator and took off like a shot after the boys. They ran down the driveway, into the street, and turned left, with Teddy hot on their heels, tires squalling.
Suddenly deciding they simply could not ditch him, the boys discarded of their beer and split, one running between houses to his right, the other disappearing into yards on the left.
Teddy brought his pickup to a stop near the side of the road--and suddenly realized that the vehicle parked along the shoulder right next to him, the one that he was, in fact, penning in, was occupied by one young male. A young male who indeed looked extremely nervous. And his car was running.
Teddy rolled down his window and looked into the boy’s open passenger window. “Did you see where those kids went?” he asked, wondering what that boy was doing there.
“Uh, NO!” exclaimed the boy. “I think they went, uh,” he looked this way and that, “that way!” and he pointed straight down the street.
“No, they didn’t,” said Teddy, knowing that the kid knew better than that. He pulled forward a bit, on the off chance that he might take it into his head to try to squeeze out of his tight parking space between Teddy and the next parked car. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh!” he replied, “I’m waiting for my girlfriend!”
“Did you see that beer” Teddy gestured at it “those kids threw down?”
“Yeah, NO!” The boy looked anxiously in his rearview mirror. “Where?!”
“Where does your girlfriend live?” asked Teddy.
“Oh, um, at that second house, down there!” he replied, motioning vaguely.
Teddy wondered what to do. He was convinced that those boys had fully intended to jump into this car with their buddy, but he didn’t know if he had the right to hold the boy there until the police arrived--if they indeed ever found him there. And of course he hadn’t once given his own safety a single thought.
“Let’s go look for them,” suggested Teddy, and the kid gladly agreed, “Yes, let’s!”
“Okay,” said Teddy, “You go one way, and I’ll go the other. Hang on a minute; let me turn around.”
So saying, he turned around so fast, the boy never had a chance to move--and stopped with his headlights shining right on the kid’s license plate. He quickly memorized it, then pulled away.
The boy took off like a shot--and Teddy wheeled around abruptly and followed him. The boy slowed down, trying to act nonchalant...but the farther they went, the more panicked the boy seemed, until finally he was going at a good clip, well over the posted speed limit.
Teddy slowed down, let him go, and returned to Casey’s.
The police were there by then, standing just outside the front door talking to the clerk. Teddy pulled in near his original parking place, turned off his lights, and shut off the engine.
That’s when he noticed that the lady was pointing excitedly in his direction. “That’s him!” she exclaimed, “That’s him!!!”
Oh, brother, thought Teddy, climbing out of his pickup and walking toward them.
The officers took a look at him and recomposed themselves. One smiled; he knew Teddy from taking his vehicle to Precision Uni-Body, where Teddy works, to have his windshield fixed.
Besides, Teddy doesn’t look like a thief. Particularly not a beer-stealing thief.
So Teddy told his story, giving them the license number, and even making the lady clerk laugh before he was through.
He’d no sooner returned home than the phone rang--and it was his mother, telling him about the ruint tire, and the fact that the vehicle was even then limping along at 25 mph, and could he please bring a good tire to replace the bad.
So off he went again to Precision Uni-Body to find us a tire. He picked two, just in case...and it was a jolly good thing, for the one he thought surely would fit--didn’t.
He was not long in arriving at David City. Larry had loosened the lugnuts so as to quickly remove the old tire and put on the new; but, as I said, it was stuck. So, while Larry beat and pounded and kicked at the tire, Teddy told us his story.
We had parked under some bright lights, the better to see what we were doing...and, as you have doubtless noticed, bright lights attract myriad bugs. Flying bugs, leaping bugs, hopping bugs, creeping bugs...bugs of all sorts, and all of them creepy.
Furthermore, when you are standing directly under bright lights wearing a bright white sweater, said bugs get it into their bug brains that you are a light, too, and they start swarming around you. Auuugggghhhh! I plucked a big black beetle off my neck, brushed a long, thin brown beetle off my back, dodged and ducked when a sphinx moth decided he liked the scent of my floral hairspray, and fled into the relatively bugless dark.
Before long, Larry had the tire changed and we were ready to head for home.
“Can I ride with Teddy?” queried Victoria.
Teddy looked pleased and said she could. His mother instructed him to refrain from driving like a maniac, and away they went, with us trundling out of the parking lot behind them.
We had no sooner started down the road than I felt a bug crawling on my neck again. I snatched at it, aggravatedly giving it a squeeze before flinging it to the floor, where I stomped it good and proper.
And then I realized my mistake: it was a stinkbug.
OOoooooooo, do those things ever stink. My hand stank. My neck stank. My shoe stank. The floor stank. The entire pickup cab stank.
I grabbed a piece of Kleenex, scooped up the bug, and heaved the hideous thing out the window, after which the whole world stank.
Unable to bear the malodor, I jerked a bottle of suntan lotion out of my purse and gave myself a liberal application, after which I reeked of Stinkbug Extract and suntan lotion, both.
By this time, the dog dander had evolved into fleas, which were scampering around all over my back, and I had a definite case of head lice, for my head itched fiercely, and every time I scratched, the odious little bugs hopped gleefully to a new patch. Ear mites ravished my auditory canals and tried to peregrinate into the cochlea and the eustachian tubes. Furthermore, the stinkbug juice had metamorphosed into a formidable combination of West Nile Virus and tarantula eggs, which were hatching at an alarmingly rapid rate, the hatchlings skittering merrily up and down my arms.
Traveling once again at a normal pace, it only took us twenty-five minutes to get home. Teddy had already headed for the feathers. Caleb and Victoria were waiting up for us, Victoria all a-giggle on account of having long beat us home. (Had Teddy driven like a maniac?) (“Oh, no,” she defended her idolized big brother, “He drives fast real careful.” After further consideration, she added, “It was more like an idiot than a maniac.”)
I took a bath, taking care to use boiling water and to scour the entire epidermis clean off.
I am now a non-epidermoid.
But neither do I have fleas, head lice, ticks, West Nile Virus, ear mites, Essence of Stinkbug, tarantulas, bubonic plague, or Purple Skin Leprosy.
Saturday I finished sewing the buttons on Hester’s jacket and let her try the entire suit on.
It fit.
Whew, that’s a relief; I was afraid it was going to be too small. She’s growing like a weed; just the other day when she was frantically searching for a dress to wear to church, I pulled one out of my own closet and handed it to her, telling her that if it fit, she could have it.
It was too small.
Imagine that!--my five-pound baby is outgrowing me! (Well, not much; the dress is a bit too tight for me, too.)
Sooo...if and when Hester grows out of this suit I just made, I believe I shall cabbage onto it, myself. (But I might have to lose five pounds to look decent in it.)
I started sewing Victoria’s black blouse, but supper came along and interrupted me.
I am typing this letter from Mama’s house. I just related to her the story of Teddy’s escapade at Casey’s, and she is still laughing over her impetuous grandson who, although he is timid in most circumstances, cannot seem to keep from throwing himself into the middle of a fracas, if he happens to spot one happening nearby.
“Don’t you dare ever pull that sort of thing in Omaha!” I ordered him.
He grinned at me.
(Thank goodness we don’t live in Omaha.)
“It’s really not even safe here,” I added.
Teddy nodded agreeably. But he’d probably do the exact same thing next time.
And now here is Dorcas to stay the night with Mama, and it is time for me to go home.
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