Other Titles by Keith R. Rees
The Brazilian – FICTION
Legend Upon the Cane – FICTION
Quill and Ink - POETRY
Shaking the Tree
By
Keith R. Rees
For my wife, Jessica
Chapter 1
I don’t know why I wanted to tell you about this or why I decided to start writing it down in the first place. Maybe I’m just getting old and more sentimental. Maybe that’s a bunch of bull and there isn’t reason why at all. For whatever reason, I got to thinking about the days back when I was twelve and growing up in rural Mississippi. I wasn’t a bad kid or anything, but when you’re that young, you never take the time to appreciate what’s going on in the world around you, or the people that come in and out of your life.
Havens Farm, which was named for our family, was out in the middle of nowhere in eastern Mississippi. Sure, we were a few miles outside of Clara, and maybe an hour or so from Laurel. After that, though, we were at least two hours from anything else.
Oh, before I forget, I didn’t even introduce myself. My name is Nicholas Smedley Havens, but everyone calls me Nick. My parents named me Nicholas because when I was born, I weighed just a shade over nine pounds. I had a round, plump belly and a bright, shiny red nose, as if I had a little sunburn before even my fist glimpse of sunlight. They said I looked just like a baby-sized version of St. Nicholas, without the beard. I was Santa Claus, can you believe that? My dad always joked that Mom had to have a couple shots of whiskey after I was born. Now that I’m grown, I’m tall and lanky. And the red spot on my nose, well, it comes and goes, mostly in the winter time when it’s cold.
As far as my middle name, well, I won’t even get into that. Let’s just say that family name was passed down for generations. My dad’s middle name is Smedley, his dad’s middle name was Smedley and so on and so on. And, I was the next poor soul to be blessed with it. That name was the sole reason I had to learn, and very quickly I might add, the wonderful gift of self-defense. That name taught me how to fight quicker than any prize fighter. But, despite being surprisingly light on my feet, I was still often just a punching bag in my after-school fights.
In the fall of 1964 and I was twelve years old, living on a farm and getting nowhere slowly. Much to my sister’s delight, earlier that year, the Beatles “invaded” America with an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. To my chagrin, she hadn’t stopped raving about them and their stupid hair. I couldn’t stand them myself and thought she was a traitor particularly since we were from Mississippi. There was only one king of rock and roll, and that was Elvis and the Four Mopheads (as I used call them, just to get her goat) couldn’t hold a candle to The King. My mother loved Elvis Presley, too. She’d always have the kitchen radio turned on and it was never too long before an Elvis song would come on. Good ol’ Elvis. Now, there was a one-of-a-kind guy.
From our little farm house, there was a dirt road that wandered east until it split off one way towards Clara. The other way led to the dirt lane where all the colored folks lived. They worked the many farms in the area. Past the lane, just beyond a small hill, stood a large grove of pecan trees that had been growing there for nearly a century. An old wooden sign painted in faded green letters pointed out the pecan grove to any passerby. The sign read Havens Trees.
That pecan grove was one of the few things that my grandpa was proud of after all his years of hard work. He farmed it just as his father did before him. Now, it belonged to my folks, Sally and Joe Havens.
Ol’ Sally and Joe. Now, there’s a story for you. My folks had never lived anywhere else but this area. My mother grew up in Clara and my father lived on the farm all his life. They both grew up simply but with a strong family bond, just like it had always been in the South. My mother was the daughter of the banker who ran the only bank in town. Her name was Sally Jo Dawson back then. Ol’ Sally Jo, they called her. As a kid, her favorite thing to do was to hand out pieces of candy to the other kids down at the bank, sitting next to her father as he helped customers at the window. When she married my father, everybody said, “Well, that figures. It was Sally Jo then, and its Sally and Joe now.” So, ever since then, anyone within thirty miles of here had always known my folks as ol’ Sally and Joe.
When I was twelve my grandpa’s mind wasn’t as sharp as it used to be. Or, that was what he would have you believe. He was always saying outlandish things, but I guessed he wasn’t crazy. He would spend hours sitting under the only magnolia tree in our yard. He was always fond of birds, so he liked to sit and watch the purple martins that arrived each spring. In the middle of the yard between the magnolia tree and the barn we had a tall pole with a martin house perched at the top. I tell you, Grandpa could sit for hours watching those martins. And you could always hear when he was out there too, because he would yell at the squirrels and mockingbirds if they got near the martin house. “Damn mockers!” is what he would always yell, shaking his cane in the air at them.
He always said the funniest and rudest things but, if you ask me, it was all an act. I’d seen him wink a time or two after making one of his out-of-the-blue remarks. One day, he told Mom that he was the Prime Minister of England and demanded to be served kippers for breakfast instead of eggs and toast. After Mom threw her hands in the air for the umpteenth time, I saw a little smile creep over his face. I couldn’t prove it at the time, but I think he was just having fun with everybody.
On some days after my chores were done, I liked to stand on the small hill that overlooked our farm. From there you could see the dusty road, the barn, our farm house and even the pecan grove in the distance. When I got the chance, I liked to stand there and watch the sun set. To me, there was never a better sunset than on that hill.
One evening that year after another great sunset, I walked into the house to find Grandpa sitting in is his usual chair tucked away in the corner of the family room. He was listening to the radio intently. We had a perfectly good black and white but since Grandpa hated watching television we hardly ever turned it on. He always said, “If you lose your imagination, you’ve lost everything.”
Dad sat across from him, as he did every evening, reading the morning paper he hadn’t had a chance to look at all day. Mom always saved the paper for him because he was always up at the crack of dawn doing chores. Of course, we were all up at the crack of dawn because Dad had the loudest alarm clock this side of the Mississippi. You could hear that racket three counties over, but somehow Grandpa could sleep right through it. I never knew how he did it either. Grandpa was an early riser all his life but as soon as he quit farming, he was instantly able to start sleeping in. You could jump up and down on the bed and he wouldn’t wake up.
“You take care of my trees for me, Nicky?” Grandpa whispered from his chair, briefly turning down the volume on the radio. He was always asking me or my sister if we had done certain things for him. It was a routine I had grown accustomed to, but usually it meant more work.
I gave him a puzzled look. “Um, sure Grandpa,” I answered, hoping to put the subject to rest. He turned the volume up again, smiling satisfyingly as he began to rock in his chair.
I had a sick feeling in my stomach of what was about to happen. I tiptoed my way past, hoping to escape the family room before the inevitable. I didn’t make it.
Lowering his paper, my dad gave me a quick glance, “I want you to start helping out in the grove tomorrow morning. It’s time you learned how to take care of those trees.”
He started reading his paper again, knowing that my sentence had been handed down successfully.
I gasped to myself and nearly crumpled to the floor before the couch broke my fall. I landed on the cushion like an old pile of laundry. Not the grove! I had been dreading this day. The last thing I wanted to do was waste my entire Saturday picking up pecans that were shaken to the ground. There were always tons of them! Why couldn’t the good Lord have made pecans just a little easier to harvest?
Just then, Mom emerged from the kitchen. She had just finished cleaning up after dinner, a task she always insisted on doing herself. The kitchen was her domain. My dad always bragged of being a good cook, but we never knew because Mom would never let him in there. Mom always politely insisted on doing the cooking. That is, of course, until Phoebe (that’s my sister) started getting old enough, when Mom was more than delighted to pass her skills on to her daughter, much to Phoebe’s dismay.
Phoebe was the only person allowed in our kitchen. But, she was the only one that didn’t want to be in there. She liked cooking and cleaning dishes about as much as I liked picking up pecans. She would much rather be drawing or painting something.
My sister was a great artist and by the time she was six, she could draw like a pro. She had an innate gift. Her problem it so happened was that there was never a sheet of paper or tablet large enough to satisfy her imagination but I’ll get to that in a moment.
Anyway, as I sat sulking on the couch as Mom walked in. I looked up hoping to get out of my death sentence. “I can’t believe this, it’s not fair,” I said, staring at the floor.
My dad didn’t even look up from his paper. “I don’t want to hear it, son. I want you out there at six A.M. sharp, you hear? I stopped in at the grove earlier today, the shucks are split now. It’s time to get those nuts down. Gonna be a good yield this year, so we need to get movin’ on it.” He looked over the edge of his paper straight at me. “Go down to the lane, first thing, and look for Mr. Malloy. He’ll get you started.”
And that was it. He never looked up from his paper again. I was doomed.
“You’d better get cleaned up and ready for bed now, hon,” Mom said, circling the table. “You’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
I agonized some more out loud, “Aw, Mom! I just got in here!”
“Don’t talk back, son,” my dad answered quickly. “Do what your mother told you to do.”
“Yes, sir,” I said hunched over my knees.
My mom just smiled. She knew she didn’t have to tell me twice.
Stalling for time, I asked “hey, what about Phoebe? Why doesn’t she have to go to the grove, too, hmm?”
“She’s nine, son,” Dad said without looking up. “Now, get up there!”
“Don’t you worry about her,” Mom added. “She’s helping me in the coop tomorrow. Besides, she’s too young to be around all that pullin’ equipment. She’ll help me get some eggs from the hens in the morning. We’ll have a nice omelet for you at dinner tomorrow night.”
I’m sure that’s going to thrill her, I thought to myself. But it did soften the blow. If there was one thing I loved, it was Mom’s ham and cheese omelets.
“Now, get upstairs and get ready for bed,” Mom reminded me. “And, tell your sister the same. I don’t want to hear any racket when I get up there.”
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’,” I said, sliding off the couch and heading for the stairs. My mother had successfully bribed me once again with omelets.
I trudged up the staircase, unbuttoning my shirt as I reached the top and then dragging it behind me down the hallway. As I approached the doorway to my sister’s room, I heard a quick scurrying sound and a chair being dragged across the floor. She obviously heard my footsteps. I walked past and gave her room a quick glance, then froze in my tracks. I leaned back to peer inside, finding her tiny frame perched on a desk chair. She had a guilty-as-sin look on her face staring at me with her big brown eyes.
“What are you doin’, Phoebs?” I asked in a tired voice, knowing I had busted her. I noticed she had draped her school jacket over the back of the chair.
“Nothing,” she said innocently.
“What’s the chair doing at the foot of the bed like that? What are you hidin’?”
“Nothing, get out of my room!” she said, turning her head away. “I was just…moving my furniture around.”
A light went off in my head. “Oh no, don’t tell me!” I exclaimed and walked in, grasping for what was behind her jacket.
“Hey! Don’t look behind there!” she gasped in desperation. It was too late. With Phoebe still sitting on it I lifted the chair back to see her latest masterpiece, neatly drawn on the wall.
“You’re drawin’ on the wall again?” I blurted out. “You better cover that up, Phoebs, or Mom’s gonna kill you.”
“Not so loud!” she hissed. “Of course I was. What did you think I was doing, stupid? Dancin’ the cha-cha?”
Such a quick-witted kid. Suddenly, I was proud of her. Nothing like a good dose of sarcasm, I always thought. She learns fast.
“Geez, why can’t you draw on a tablet like a normal kid, Phoebe?” I asked, letting her chair down.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. They’re too small.”
That part was true so I sympathized with her. The tablets she was given were rather puny. Mom couldn’t help it though. It was all they sold down at the general store in those days. But still it was not a good reason to draw on the walls.
“Mom said to get ready for bed,” I repeated, as if she didn’t know that already. She slid off her chair and began pulling back her covers. I headed to my room, but thought I’d get in one last dig. “Oh, and Dad wants you to pick up pecans at six A.M!” I yelled over my shoulder.
“Yeah. Nice try, horse-face.” She stuck her head out into the hallway. “Have fun in the grove tomorrow!” Then she shut her door behind her.
I hollered back at her, “Ya old mule!”
It was still dark outside in the early morning. I couldn’t sleep, awake thinking about how much I didn’t want to pick up pecans. I was always like that. I could never sleep too well when I knew I had to do something that I dreaded. The weird thing was I don’t even know why I dreaded it so much.
Picking up pecans wasn’t that hard. Also it was kind of neat to watch them shake the trees with those long cables, watching all the nuts falling to the ground in a flurry of leaves.
In the fall, when I was just a little boy, no more than four or five, Dad would take to the side of the road next to the grove. I used to love sitting in his truck watching them shake the trees. I have to admit it was fascinating to watch. A man would climb the tree holding only a long cable secured to a tractor on the other end. Once he got up to a large enough branch, he would swing the cable around it and throw the slack to the ground. Another man would secure that end to the tractor. The tractor was actually just a heavy foundation for a device called the “boom shaker.” The boom shaker was a small machine fastened to the side of the tractor. When the line was pulled taut and the boom shaker was turned on, I tell you, that thing would shake like the dickens, vibrating the ground like an earthquake. All the while, the cable was pulled back and forth across ball bearings, which would shake the tree. Sometimes, if the men picked the right part of the tree to fasten the cable, it would only take one shake to get every pecan off the limbs. Men below the tree would spread out large tarps on the ground to collect the pecans. Then they would gather the tarps and throw the pecans in the back of a hauling trailer.
As I got older, the work itself became not nearly as fascinating as it had looked to a four year-old. It was hard work, and it wasn’t just one tree. It was ten acres of trees. Grandpa once told me when the grove was first planted, they had about thirty trees on each acre. But, as the trees grew larger, they had to thin out the smaller, less productive trees. Now, each acre had about fourteen trees.
For a twelve year-old, I was accustomed to work on the farm though because I was so young, Dad didn’t make me do all the h
ard stuff that the hired folks did. And, maybe it was those guys were a little rough around the edges, but now he must have thought I was ready for them. I didn’t think so. That’s probably why I didn’t get much sleep the night before. I was afraid of working with those roughnecks. I was just a little kid.
The world’s loudest alarm clock went off right on time at 5:15. The clock sounded like it was on top of my head. Mom and Dad were up immediately. I heard Mom stick her head inside Phoebe’s room and tell her to get up.
I waited for Mom’s footsteps to approach my door. Soon she peered inside and whispered, “Time to get up, Nicky.”
I shook the sleep from my eyes though I was already awake. “I’m up, Ma,” I answered unenthusiastically.
I stumbled down the stairs and plopped down at the table. Mom had put out milk and cereal on the table, but it was clear Dad had already eaten his breakfast and was out in the dark somewhere doing his morning chores. Phoebe appeared dragging a blanket behind her and collapsed in her chair across from me. Using her arm as a pillow, she rested her head on the table and yawned with her eyes closed. She reached for the box of corn flakes and clumsily poured some in her bowl. I stared at her and shook my head. She was a zombie.
The kitchen door flung open and Mom came rushing in. I tell you, the woman never stopped from sunup to sundown. Her routine was the same every day. First she gets breakfast ready for Dad then for me and Phoebs. While we eat, she heads straight upstairs to fix the beds all except for Grandpa’s as he’s usually still asleep. I can’t remember the last time the five of us sat down together for breakfast. I’ve also always wondered when she ate her breakfast. I swear, one day, I was just going to grab her arm and say, “Mom, please sit down and have breakfast with us.” As she tore around, I could tell by the look in her eyes that this was not one of those days. She was clearly in the zone.
“Phoebe, get your head off the table, young lady,” Mom shouted as she whizzed by. Phoebe lifted herself up a bit, but then quickly leaned on her elbow as she continued shoveling corn flakes into her mouth. “And off of your elbow too!” Mom never missed a thing. You had to love her for it. Mom disappeared upstairs and Phoebe and I sat and stared at one another blankly, trying to wake up.
Neither one of us were morning people. It was probably the quietest time when Phoebe and I were in the same room together. At any other time we’d be bantering like a pair of wild hyenas, as my Dad would often say, but not in the mornings. I didn’t want to talk to her and she didn’t want to talk to anybody. I felt sorry for the poor guy who was going to be unlucky enough to marry her someday. His mornings were going to be the pits.
All of a sudden, I was amazed to see Grandpa appear already fully dressed and was heading for the door to go outside.
“Grandpa, you’re awake!” I said with some unusual surprise in my voice.
He shuffled along with his cane, mumbling to himself. Even Phoebe turned to see him come in. And believe me, it took a lot to distract her from her cereal.
“Wow, Grandpa, I can’t believe you heard the clock ringing,” I said again.
Grandpa kept shuffling along, working hard to get to the door. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said finally.
“The clock, Grandpa, it could wake up people in China! You must have heard it.”
“You don’t know nothin’,” Grandpa answered assuredly. Phoebe smiled coyly, probably feeling as I did about Grandpa. He was a hoot.
He stopped at the door and gave a quick glance at Phoebe. “You take care of my wildflowers for me?”
“I’m workin’ on it, Grandpa,” Phoebe answered.
“Well, good then,” he said, walking outside onto the porch.
Grandpa knew how much Phoebe loved wildflowers. Ever since she was seven, she would save for weeks and weeks to go with Mom whenever she made a trip to Bailey’s General Store. Several miles down the dirt road, past the cemetery, it was the only store around for miles. Fortunately, Bailey’s had everything from soda and groceries to hardware and chicken feed and from time to time, they would even sell wildflower seed. Phoebe would try to buy a sack every time we went to Bailey’s but if they didn’t have any in stock, Phoebe just held onto her money and wouldn’t spend it on anything else.
There was one thing she and I both couldn’t resist. Growing up, we rarely drank soda, but, when we went to Bailey’s Mom would actually loosen her grip on us a little and let us by a bottle. With our own money, of course, but it was still a treat. It was only a dime, but to me, it was the best dime you ever spent especially on those hot summer days when you were sweating bullets. What I liked to do was get the coldest bottle they had and drink it right there on the front porch of the store. I’d place the cold bottle against my forehead and relax and sigh in relief. There was nothing like a cold soda on a hot day. That was one thing Phoebe and I agreed on. We loved to drink soda.
They kept the empty bottle racks right outside along the wall, so after I finished every drop, I would plunk the bottle in the rack before Mom was even finished with her shopping. Phoebe would save hers, though. She’d put hers in with the groceries until we got home and put it in the icebox for later.
Phoebe’s mission was never different each time we went to Bailey’s. As soon as we got there, she would make a bee-line for the seed and pore over the selection of wildflower seed usually picking the heaviest bag she could find. It was funny to watch her struggle with a huge bag all the way to the counter. The cashier, Mrs. Bailey, always gave Phoebe a huge smile when she came to the counter with her bag of wildflower seed.
“One bag of wildflower seed? Will there be anything else, Ms. Phoebe?” Mrs. Bailey would always ask her in the friendliest voice.
“One soda, please,” was the usual reply from Phoebe. Then, she lugged her sack of wildflower seed back to the truck.
On the way home, Phoebe didn’t sit in the cab with us, instead sitting in the bed of the truck, with trowel in hand. You would think she would plant her seeds all around the house or start a wildflower patch nearby. Alas, her idea of fun was to throw the seed out the back of the truck as we slowly drove down the dirt road. She would throw seed one quick shovelful at a time. It was funny to watch, but we’d all gotten used to it. It was like watching gophers throw dirt around in the bed of a moving truck. Mom and Dad had tried and tried to explain to her that the seeds needed to be planted in the dirt, not on top of it but she wouldn’t listen. She just liked to throw the seed alongside the dirt road as we drove home, all the way home. She hurled the seed as far as she could and the sack would be empty by the time we reached the house.
Each spring, Phoebe was always eager to see if her seeds had sprouted but every spring she was always disappointed to see that nothing had grown. To her credit, she never gave up. She’d try again each time we went to Bailey’s and they had wildflower seed for sale. She was their best customer. Come to think of it, she was probably the only reason they kept it in stock.
At any rate, Grandpa knew about Phoebe’s quest for wildflower supremacy. That’s why he would always ask her, “You take care of my wildflowers for me?”
Grandpa made his way out to the bench in the yard past the magnolia tree. He walked slowly to the end of the dirt drive that led to our house and stood leaning on his cane under a huge oak tree. The sun was just starting to appear on the horizon. He stared longingly at his treasured pecan grove, though he could barely make out the tops of the trees in the darkness. Nodding in approval, he continued to look at the grove.
“Today’s as good as any,” he said to himself.
Suddenly, he heard a voice come from the cover of the oak tree.
“Mornin’, Mr. Havens.”
From the cover of the tree limbs appeared a tall colored man who looked to be in his early sixties. He was dressed in khaki pants and a faded red shirt and wore an old ball cap. He walked with a slight gait in his stride.
Grandpa smiled as
his old friend came and stood alongside him.
“Hey there, old timer, good to see you,” Grandpa said, extending his hand. The man shook Grandpa’s hand and smiled broadly, his pearly white teeth shining in the early morning light. “Thanks for coming over to meet me.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mr. Havens,” the man said politely. He took his cap off and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was early morning but it was humid already. “How you gettin’ along?”
“Oh, you know, can’t complain too much, I suppose,” Grandpa responded. “The whole house thinks I’m off my rocker, but you know me.”
“Mmm-hm, I sho do,” the man chuckled.
“It just hasn’t been the same since Helen passed on, you know. I can’t get around as well either. I want to help out as much as I can, but it’s just no good anymore.” The man nodded but he knew he didn’t have to answer. “Those youngsters though, if it weren’t for them, I don’t know what I’d do. They keep me goin’, you know what I mean? Little Phoebe is so full of life. She can draw like the dickens. But, that Nicholas, I don’t know what to say about him. He’ll be a good man one of these days, but right now he just ain’t got no direction.”
The man nodded in agreement with him.
“How they look this year? Gonna be a good yield?” Grandpa said.
“It sho is, Mr Havens. Mmm-hm. Gonna be real good this year,” the man said with confidence.
“Good, good,” Grandpa answered him. As he straightened as best he could on his cane, his expression grew serious. “You’ve always done wonderful work, Theo. You’re the only one I trust with my trees. There’s nobody around that I trust more than you. Not only that, you’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had. I just wanted you to know that. I thank you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to thank me, Mr. Havens,” Theo replied. “You’ve always been good to me. Me and Bea both. You know what I always say?”
“I know, I know. There’s no other place you’d rather be,” Grandpa chuckled. Theo laughed with him.
“Yep. That’s sho right.”
“I wanted to ask you a favor. I wanted to see if you could look after the boy today. Can you do that for me?”Grandpa grew serious again. “He’s a good boy and he works hard, but he’s not used to those characters in the fields. He just has a mind of his own. You’ll keep an eye on him won’t you?”
“I sho will, Mr. Havens.”
“You teach him everything you know, alright? His Pa is so busy all the time, he never spends time with the boy,” Grandpa said, shaking his head. Theo listened to him intently. “I guess he gets that from me. I wasn’t all that much of a father either when Joseph was that age. He should be taking Nick to the grove today and showing him the ropes. I’d go myself if I wasn’t so damn old. You understand, don’t you? “
“I sho do, Mr. Havens,” Theo replied. “Don’t you worry. He won’t get into no trouble, Mr Havens. And, he’ll learn them trees good. I’ll make sho of that.”
Grandpa patted him on the back. “You’re a good man.” He turned to make his way back to the house. He leaned over his shoulder and said to Theo, “Don’t forget, if you need anything…”
Theo finished the rest of the sentence for him, “I know, just give ya a holla.” Grandpa smiled and nodded to him before shuffling away.
I had finished my cereal but still sat at the table trying to delay the inevitable. I was curious about where Grandpa had gone so I leaned back in my chair and pulled the curtains aside to see if I could make out anything in the early morning light. Sure enough, Grandpa was sitting out on his favorite bench under the magnolia tree.
“I know why you’re still lolly-gaggin’ around,” Phoebe said, without looking up from her cereal.
“Did I say you could talk?” I snapped at her sarcastically.
“You might as well get out there and get it over with,” she continued. “Besides, I agree with Mama, it’ll do you some good.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Is that so? You just wait little sister.”
All of a sudden, a loud yell echoed through the house. “Phoebe Elizabeth Havens!” Mom yelled at the top of her lungs. Phoebe stopped shoveling cereal in her mouth and her eyes popped open wide.
“Uh-oh,” she mumbled with a mouth full of cereal.
“What is John Lennon doing on your bedroom wall?” Mom screeched again from atop the staircase. “Get up here, young lady!”
“That’s what you were drawing on the wall last night?” I asked with little surprise. “One of those stupid mophead Beatles?”
“No, silly,” she answered. “They’re not stupid and it’s not John Lennon. It’s George Harrison.”
“Boy, you are crazy. George Harrison? Ha!” I laughed, as I got up from the table.
“I think he’s cute,” she said sheepishly.
“Well, you’re dead now. Might as well get up there and get it over with,” I laughed.
“Phoebe!” Mom yelled again.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Phoebe said, as she reluctantly sliding out of her chair and moped upstairs. I watched with a smile as she disappeared up the staircase.
“Dead girl walkin’!” I called out to her, just to get in the last word. Mom had already set my lunch on the chair next to the patio door, so, I grabbed it and headed outside.
“See any squirrels yet, Grandpa?” I asked, walking past him. He didn’t say a word, just leaning forward and resting on his cane.
Our old flop-eared mutt dog, Mosey, came bounding out from under the house to greet me. “Hey boy, whatcha doin’?” I said, scratching the back of his ears while he happily tried to lap at my face. “Stay here now, boy. I’ve got work to do.”
I kept procrastinating. Tucked behind the chicken coop, I kept a long, firm piece of wood that I liked to use as a bat. Every chance I got, I’d toss a rock in the air and try to hit it with the stick aiming for the side of the barn, or at least at ol’ Gray.
Gray was our old plowing mule that Dad had used since before I was born. We had a real plowing tractor now, but old Gray was still around, stubborn as ever. Every darn time I went into his pen to feed him, he’d try to kick me. I could’ve sworn that old mule had it in for me. Maybe it was due to the fact that I always aimed rocks at him, I don’t know.
At any rate, every time I tried to hit a rock with the stick, I’d just swing mightily at the air and the rock would land in front of me with a thud. I couldn’t hit that darn rock to save my soul. This time was no different. I tossed the rock in front of me and took a quick swing. Whiff! “Dang it!” I shouted in frustration. Mosey barked as I flipped the stick back in its place against the coop. Gray neighed at me as I quickly trotted past his pen.
“Survived another bombardment, eh ol’ Gray?” I said. “I’ll try again tomorrow. We’ll see who’s laughin’ then ya darn old mule.” I couldn’t delay any longer.
Grandpa sat on his bench, paying little attention to me. I took a long deep breath, before heading off to my doom.
“See you later, Grandpa,” I called out to him as I headed towards the grove.
I finally trudged towards the hillside that led to the pecan grove. Looking back, I saw Grandpa watching with a hint of pride on his face as I made my way to my first pecan harvest.