Demon Box

Avoiding his eyes I told him I wasn’t ready to pull stakes quite yet, but keep in touch. I walked up the slope and opened the gate for him and he drove through. He got out and we embraced and he got back in. I stood in the road and watched his rig ease out our drive. Once I thought I saw Percy’s face appear in the rear window, and I waved.

I didn’t see any waving back.

The farm lay still in the aftermath, damp with dew. It looked debauched. Paper plates and cups were scattered everywhere. The barbecue pit had been tipped over and the charcoal had burned a big black spot on the lawn. Betsy’s pole beans were demolished; someone or something had stampeded through the strings in the heat of the celebration.

The sorriest sight was the flag. The pole had leaned lower and lower until the gold braid of the hem was trailing in the wood chips and manure. Walking to it I noticed Cousin Davy passed out in the back of his station wagon. I tried to rouse him to help me go bring it down and fold it away, but he only rooted deeper into his sleeping bag. I gave up and climbed over the fence and shuffled through the wood chips to do it myself, and this is the last scene in my story:

I was on my knees and my elbows at the base of the pole, cursing the knot at the bottom pulley—“God bless this goddamned knot!”—because my fingers were too thick to manage the thin cord, musing about M’kehla’s invitation, about Percy, when all at once the sky erupted in a dazzling display of brand-new stars.

That curse had been a prayer, I realized. These stars herald heaven’s answer! The knot was blessed even as it was damned! Trumpets celebrated. Bells rang and harps twanged. I sank to the sawdust, certain that my number had been up yonder called.

In this attitude of obeisance I felt the lightning of the Lord lash me again. Ow! I recanted my recanting. Crawl off to Canada? Never! Never never and service forevermore bright with foam only forgive me all right? I heard an answering roll of thunder and turned just in time to see Him launch His final chastising charge, His brow terrible, His famous beard flying like amber waves of grain, His eye blazing like cannonfire across the Potomac.

Davy finally managed to drive him from me with a broken bean stake. He took me under the arm and helped me over to the watering trough. It was empty. We had forgotten to turn it back on. The cows were all gathered, thirsty. Davy found the valve and turned it on. I watched the crimson sparkle in the rush of water on the tub’s rusty bottom.

The cows were edged near, impatient. Behind them the calves, cautious, each with one side freshly clipped. The peacocks hollered. The pigeons banked over in a curious flock and lit in the chips.

My cousin sat down on the battered brim of the trough. He handed me his wet handkerchief and I held it to the oozing lump where I had been driven into the flagpole. Salt was stinging the scrapes on my cheek and chin. Davy turned away and watched the milling array of beasts and birds.

“Homing cows,” he reflected aloud. “Not a half-bad idea for a half-baked buckeroo.”

OLEO Demon Briefs & Dopey Ditties

Caleb Dreams

Wild wolves and panthers and bears roamed the Wisconsin woods in those days. Sometimes Laura was afraid. But Pa Ingalls preferred to live miles from his nearest neighbors. He built a snug little house on the prairie for Ma and his daughters Mary and Baby Carrie and Laura. And his son Caleb.

Pa kept a fire going all winter to keep out the cold. He taught Laura and Cal how to get things done in the wild frontier.

Laura Ingalls… Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Pa hunted and trapped and farmed. Ma knew how to make her own cheese and sugar. At night the wind moaned lonesomely but Pa just stoked the fireplace and played his fiddle and sang to his children, Laura and Mary and Baby Carrie. And young Caleb. Young Cal was much wilder than any of his sisters. He was wilder than the wolves and the panthers. Caleb Ingalls Wilder was wilder than all get out.

Yet, once you really get to know Caleb you will see that he is not really a firebug. You will understand how disappointed he is when, instead of being cast as Clean Air in the Mt. Nebo school play, he is chosen to be Litter. You’ll understand how ashamed he is when he finds he is too scared to ride the Ferris Wheel at the Lane County Fair and why he almost cries when almost no one votes for him as home room president.

Cal begins to feel he is not much good at anything and he begins to daydream during Social Studies. But what good is Social Studies? Social Studies doesn’t get things done. Social Studies doesn’t keep out the cold.

You are sure to understand that’s why he dropped the book of matches in the wastepaper basket.

Chilly Sherree