The Year of Our Discontent
By
Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird
The Year of Our Discontent
I was full of vip and vinegar when old Mrs. Shoebottom caught me and Lindy Lou down in the root cellar making out.
That was her name, Lindy Lou Shoebottom. We had just come from the creek where we netted a haul of three frogs plus a tadpole, and we went to the root cellar to get a jar to put them in. While we were down there Lindy Lou mentioned as an aside about seeing her Ma and Pa kissing quite a lot, and we decided it was worth a try. Just about time we was getting into it, old Mrs. Shoebottom decided she wanted a jar of green beans to cook for dinner, and that’s when she walked in.
Needless to say it weren’t my fault as Lindy Lou had a bulldog grip and was sucking my face, and I couldn’t get loose. Old Mrs. Shoebottom hit me with a stick hard as she was able and told me to get on back to the orphanage where kids like me belonged. Well, the truth of the matter, I didn’t feel like I much belonged there neither.
As the orphanage was only two blocks away, I knew there weren’t no need to try and slick out of going back, so I went. When I got back there, old Mr. Blumstock hit me with a stick again and sort of set my teeth on edge, and that was when the trouble started.
I was fed up with getting hit with a stick and made up my mind to leave that night. I climbed down the elm tree that night real quiet and skedaddled into the darkest alley I could find, which was the exact one that Lindy Lou Shoebottom had skedaddled to.
I was feeling my way along and we bumped into each other. After we got over the frights, she said, “What you doin’ here, James Lee? I thought you was goin’ back to the orphanage.” I told her as to how I just might not ever go back to that orphanage, and she said she allowed she would not be going back home neither. Well… the upshot of it was that we decided to light out for more friendly territory.
At first light, we took off up the main road like a cat with his tail afire. We walked along that morning when all of a sudden she asked me a question, “James Lee,” says she, “do you love me?”
“Well… what does love feel like?” says I.
She thought about it a minute. “It feels sort of squshy like you had stepped on a frog.”
“But I ain’t never stepped on no frog; they always jump out of the way.”
“Yeah, but if you was to!”
It sort of hurt my head to imagine something that seemed nigh onto impossible.
“When am I stepping on this here frog?”
“It was when we kissed.”
“Oh, that frog. Yeah, I reckon I felt just a tad squshy.”
She then asked the next dumb question. “Where will we sleep?” she says.
I says, “Girl, don’t you know nothing? We got to sleep in the woods, or somebody’s haystack, or a barn. Adventurers sleep like that; they just drop wherever they are at.”
“But what will we eat?” She says.
And there went one of them headaches again.
“I don’t know! Sort of accidental like! That’s just the way people do it what’s on a adventure!”
The grass was just starting to turn golden the summer that we both turned nine years old. It was one of those days that kinda made you lazy feeling. It just weren’t a day to rush things. Lindy Lou started skipping along and it threw my walk out of kilter, but she skipped along in spite of what I could do.
“Cain’t you walk right? What are you skipping for anyhow?”
Then she said something that surprised me a little.
“I’m skipping because I’m happy we are going to be married,” she says.
Those were things I didn’t know too much about, nor had I studied on them, so I had no opinion on it.
“Can we stop over there by that oak tree?”
I said as how I reckoned we could.
The big oak tree by the side of the road in that field looked mighty inviting as we approached the shade and sat down. She set down close to me and seeing as how I wanted to cool off I poked her in the ribs and told her to scoot over. She looked sort of miffed at me but she scooted.
“James Lee, will we always be together?”
“Why no, Lindy. We got to separate to gather firewood and stuff.
“No, I don’t mean that, I mean together like…”
A big old tear started down her face what looked like dew dropping off the end of a willow leaf and that made me feel awful bad.
“I reckon we can do that if it means that much too you.”
Then she reaches over, grabs me, and kisses me right square on the mouth again. I reckon I felt like I had stepped on another frog, and I decided it was really getting into frog season what with stepping on so many of them.
As we left the shade of the oak, I suggested that we catch a grasshopper, so we caught some.
I decided to step on mine to see the color of the grasshopper juice, and Lindy Lou objected when I done that.
“James Lee, why did you kill that poor grasshopper? He weren’t doing you no harm!”
“Well, what is the difference in stomping one and sticking him on a fishhook?”
“Well, I don’t know, but there is!” Then she went to bawling again.
I says, “Girl, what is wrong with you? It twarn’t nothing but a grasshopper!”
“I don’t know, I feel all tore up and squshy inside.” She snuffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand, then wiped it on her gingham dress. Then she took off walking faster, her yellow curls bouncing on the back of her dress, just like that! There just weren’t no figuring her out. I reckon she had stepped on another frog.
By the time we got on up the road apiece we got the walking squared away, and Lindy Lou got off of that frog and my life was once more taking on balance.
I heard the unmistakable clatter of the tinker’s wagon coming up the road behind us. We had just rounded a bend, but there ain’t no mistaking a tinker’s wagon what with all them pots and pans rattling around. We stopped and waited and sure enough, here comes old Mr. McGillacuty with his wagon load of junk.
He woed up his mule when he got up to us and inquired as to where we were heading.
“Callville,” says I.
“Does your parents know you is going all the way over to Callville?”
“Our daddy works over to the mill t’other side of Callville.” Course I lied; I didn’t have no daddy in the first place and in the second place Lindy Lou’s pappy would have whupped the pants off her if he caught up with us. Shoot, I didn’t even have no Momma that I knowed of and gathering from what Lindy Lou had for one, I didn’t want one neither.
“You is a right smart looking young man there son, what with your freckles and black hair sticking out from that straw hat. And you are as pretty as a picture girl.”
“Do you both be needing a ride, or does it suit you to walk all the way to Callville?” Mr. McGillacuty says, dripping tobacco juice off his jaw. I thought maybe he had been eating some of them grasshoppers, as it looked like the same juice, ’cept there weren’t no green in it.
“I reckon we could ride,” says I, and we climbed on the tailgate of the wagon and hung our legs over. We swung our legs and looked through the cracks in the floorboards. It made the wagon seem to go faster, although old Mr. McGillacuty’s mule was a mighty slow go. We rode side by side, not saying anything, as it weren’t no use, with all that racket the pots and pans made, no how.
When we come close to the river bridge just before we got to Callville, I motioned for Lindy Lou to jump, so we jumped off. I took off down through the cane breaks that line the river with Lindy Lou close behind.
“W
hat’ed’ you do that for, James Lee?” she said between breaths.
“Lordy girl, they will get us and send us both back. We got to hide out down here.”
I went to cutting me a cane and then stomped the ground real hard.
“Stomp the ground real hard, Lindy Lou!”
“Why do I want to stomp?”
“Why, to make the night crawlers come out, that’s why!”
We both stomped around awhile and a few night crawlers got fed up with it all and came to the top of the ground to offer themselves as fish bait.
I took the hook and line I had in my pocket and caught us a fish and a half apiece. I got a fire going and baked the fish in green leaves on the coals.
Lindy Lou remarked as to how I might make it as an adventurer yet, and we lay down to take a nap in the