“Good morning, Grandmother Lydia,” Chrissy had walked up the hill to Johnny’s grandmother’s house and being almost five months pregnant now, she was doing a little huffing and puffing when she came in from the back porch and sat heavily in a chair by the kitchen table.-She spoke to Johnny’s mother, too.-Janet seemed completely content to be back in the home where she grew up.
“Hello, there, Chrissy.-Sure, and it’s good to see you.-And how does this fine day suit you, me darling?”-Sometimes Janet fell back into the Irish brogue she had picked up from her nearly twenty-five years of living in County Galway in Ireland.
“I’m fine as a frog hair split three ways,” Chrissy replied in her own Kentucky hillbilly twang.-“The walk up here keeps getting a little longer, though, I do believe, every time I walk it.-But I’m sure the exercise is good for me.-And how does Bruce like his new job in Owensboro?”
Johnny’s dad had accepted a position with the Johnson Depp and Quisenberry Engineering Firm (JDQ for short).-“He likes it just fine,” Janet reported.-“Bruce says they’re easy to work with and they’re doing a project in two different towns in the general area.-He’s helping design a total overhaul of the utility infrastructure for both towns.”
“If you ask me, they know a good thing when they see it.-Bruce is a real catch for them and they have sense enough to know it.”-Lydia, who hated Bruce with a passion until a little over a year ago, couldn’t find enough nice things to say about him at this point.-She realized now that Bruce was the best thing that could have happened to her daughter.-But, oh, how she had resented them both for eloping and getting married in the first place.-And then they had made their home in Ireland and that had definitely caused a real rift.-Then Johnny, their son, her grandson, had come back to Kentucky and made his home with her and from there had fallen in love with Chrissy, their neighbor.-Grandmother Lydia’s heart had finally thawed out and she was a completely different person now; and how grateful everyone was for that!
The conversation changed to talk of the two pregnancies in the family; then when the baby kicked, Chrissy grimaced.-“I do believe this one will be a football star.-He sure does kick hard.-At least he feels good and healthy.-And the obstetrician agrees with that evaluation.-Mom is doing fine, too.-Everyone was concerned for a while but she seems to be taking everything in stride now.-Mom and I have set up our appointments on Thursdays so that Andy and Candy can go to the library for story hour while we’re at the doctor’s office.-We can pick them up at school and still make our appointments.-They truly do enjoy the reading.-They’re listening to a story about Native Americans and they are so excited to find out what happens next.-Part of the storyline deals with real information.-Did you know ‘Kentucky’ is the Indian name for ‘dark and bloody ground’?”-The twins were especially proud of learning that.-Of course, Mom and I get an update every Thursday coming home from our appointments.-It’s surprising how much they retain of what they’ve heard from the book, too.-One day we asked them what they thought would happen next in the story.-Each of them had a story line going in a totally different direction.-I told Mom I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we have writers in the family.-They sure do have fertile imaginations.”
The next day was Thursday, so the kids got to go to the library again and hear the next chapter of the book.-On the way home, they were discussing the events and how they unfolded.
“Mama, the brave Shadowhawk was being chased by the posse because there had been a robbery in Linksville and they thought Shadowhawk had done it just because he was ‘different’ from everybody else in town.”
“And then,” Candy took up the tale, “the real robbers had made their escape and were looking for a place to bury the gold they had taken from the bank vault.”
“They made a map and the Liberian showed it to us.-It showed a pretty good-sized creek running beside a cliff with two twin oak trees growing close to the cliff’s edge.-The robbers carved a big ‘X’ on each tree and dug a hole eggsackly in the middle between the two trees and buried the treasure in the big hole.-The map showed a big bend in the creek just after the two big trees.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun to find a treasure?”
“But the poor Indian had to go far, far away because the sheriff was just sure Shadowhawk was the thief so he never got to see his family again.-Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard, Chrissy?”