Under the Covers

The cat under the covers stirs, yawns and gives me an enthusiastic bite on the ankle. I yelp and kick and the small brown dog wakes and pounces on my ear. Soon everyone joins in and there's no choice but to dive deeper beneath the quilts and subject myself to relentless attacks of the loud and hungry or surrender and get up. My animals are persistent, anxious to start their day, they know I'm awake and will be merciless until I surrender so there's really no option. They want food, they want out, they want attention. I raise the white flag and throw back the covers.

The house is chilly on this clear January morning and as I listen to the mixed chorus of canine and feline voices all with a common theme, I'm grateful for each one of them. But for the responsibility of their welfare I suspect I'd have given up. But for them, there's no reason to get up at all. The cats gather on the counter and swirl around each other tempermentally - what they lack in harmony, they compensate for in volume - and the dogs dance impatiently around the back door, scratching and barking, not able to stand the confinement of the house another moment. They hit the deck together and race for the back fence at full speed, shattering the Monday morning quiet like double shotguns. I reach for the aspirin and the can opener at the same time and the cats yowl in stereo'd discontent. This little symphony plays every morning and I know it by heart. After a bit everyone settles down with empty bladders and full bellies - they find their morning sunspots and nap without a care in the world while I shower and dress and envy their uncomplicated and worry-free lives.

I myself am weary of these purposeless days spent trying to keep busy and maintain some pretense of normalcy. The bitter isolation of unemployment is more draining and exhausting than any job and I have a sense of futility that grows in strength daily. I fight it but seem to make no progress - it becomes almost comfortable to slip into hopelessness and inactivity. It's simply easier and less risky not to try. Self pity becomes a habit that fits well and requires no maintainance - effort and optimism call for energy and effort. With a nagging contempt for my own attitude, I realize that I want someone to wake me when it's over.

This, I tell the face in the mirror, definitly will not do. She agrees with me but offers no solutions except to keep on getting up every morning and wait it out.

Out of the Fog

It was the 10th day of dense, clinging, wet fog and my grandmother was at her wits end. She had exhausted all her options to keep us entertained and out of her way - we were weary of card games and dominoes, cribbage and monopoly, books, even paper dolls and toy soldiers. It was like being completely enveloped in wringing wet cotton, suffocating and dull. Sounds came out of the fog - we heard footsteps and voices, the cautious noise of vehicles as they navigated the curve, the cries of gulls and the boat engines and the incessant foghorn, but sound was all we had. Nana had tied a rope from the back door to the woodshed and we followed it back and forth to fill the woodbox but otherwise things were put on hold, the mail went uncollected and the washing undone. My mother and grandmother sniped at each other morning to night and tempers flared for the smallest of reasons. Even the dogs were impatient for a clear day, sitting listlessly at the back door and whining, noses pressed unhappily against the screen, too sad to bark, too edgy to sleep.

At first, the arrival of our New York relatives was a welcome diversion - my grandmother's sister and her husband, their daughter and son-in-law, my two cousins, and an ill tempered, yappy chihuahua promised new blood, new voices, new alternatives. Soon, however, it was clear that all these related women confined under one roof was going to spell trouble, the mother-daughter and sister-sister dynamics were competitive, snippy, a passive aggressive battle for control and authority. No one could agree on anything and each wanted their own way. By week's end, the women were civil to each other but there was frost in the air and children and husbands were keeping clear of any female combination. Only the disagreeable chihuahua seemed at ease, driving my grandmother to distraction by nipping at her heels and being constantly underfoot. The clacking of the tiny dog's nails on the wood floors echoed through the house night and day and by the end of the second week, Nana's nerves succumbed and she exploded, flinging a cast iron skillet in the dog's direction ( she missed ) and threatening him with "being beaten into next week".

In an icy voice, she called for a house meeting to clear the air and lay down new rules. In no uncertain terms, she explained that she was the legal owner of the house and we were all guests at her discretion and come hell or high water we were going to start behaving as such or else. Effective immediately, we were all going to get along, follow orders, be courteous with each other and pleasant to her, be on time for meals, make our own beds and stop quarreling. The chihuahua, she emphasized, was to be kenneled at night and reined in during the day or there would be dire consequences. There was, she warned, to be no discussion or challenge to her decision and anyone who disagreed could pack his or her things and leave. For a moment, no one spoke, then her startled relatives began protesting. She raised one finger to silence them, her expression grim and her eyes like steel and the chattering died away. With a menacing last glare at the chihuahua, she turned and walked away.

As if even nature respected her rules, the fog lifted and the sun came out the following day.

Mardi Paws

On a beautiful and almost warm January afternoon, I pack my cameras and drive to the riverfront for the annual Mardi Paws parade - the once a year opportunity for pet owners to show off their pets in style and high fashion.

There are well over 2,000 people and twice that many dogs and cats - it always surprises me how little friction there is among all the animals - they mix and socialize and rarely as much as growl at each other. It's so crowded there's barely room to walk and owners and animals are decorated to the hilt. There are dogs in wagons, rabbits in cages, a calico cat in the arms of her owner, a goat I remember from last year - one middle aged lady sits with a blanket full of daschound puppies - and there is music and laughter and much tugging at leashes. Overcast skies turn sunny and the plaza is a sea of purple, green and gold feathers, beads and wild costumes. Great Danes go nose to nose with tiny chihuahuas, boxers and bulldogs meet and greet terriers and yorkies - tails wag and between the rounds of applause for the obedience trained there is thunderous barking, fierce but harmless. A well known local priest takes the stage for the Blessing of the Animals and for a few moments it falls mostly quiet. Children with dogs in their arms bow their heads and listen intently to the prayer while their parents hide smiles.

I think there's a lesson here about harmony and peace on earth.

Sparrow's Song

The old man with one eye reached for his can of snuff and nonchalantly jammed a wad between his cheek and gum before replacing the round can back in his pocket and giving us a wink. Filthy habit, he advised us, cain't say I recommend it a'tall. Wide eyed, we watched him wipe tobacco juice from his chin with an old checked bandanna and then spit with precision and true aim. A half empty quart bottle of Molson sat beside him, a nondescript hound of unknown ancestry lay at his feet in the warm sun, and a shotgun leaned precariously on the rickety railing. This was Old Sparrow - part Indian, part Acadian, full time philosopher and story teller, legendary drunkard, decorated war hero, ex-husband of four island women and one on the French Shore, father of sixteen children that he would admit to, and former bootlegger. If any home on the island was off limits, Sparrow's topped the list - Nana had called him a "reprobate" and a "scallywag" while my daddy claimed he was "colorful" and "not a man to sit across the poker table from". My mother dismissed him as a "lecherous, old womanizer and who knows what he does with those sheep".

Sparrow kept a few chickens, a dozen or so sheep, and one old milkcow. He whittled knickknacks for tourists and received a "guv'ment" check monthly, sold what milk and eggs he didn't use himself, and sheared the sheep for their wool. He was a man of simple wants, he told us, snuff and Molson's, a good pair of boots and a warm quilt for the winter and he had everything he needed. According to local folklore, he had come to the island as a young man, a seiner with a pretty young wife and been seduced into staying by the sunsets and lack of law enforcement.

Bootlegging was more reliable and paid far better than fishing and by his own admission, he could shoot a flea off a dog's back at 50 paces, so he hunted during the winter and stockpiled all he needed for an entire year. He built the little cabin on the hill himself and commenced to begin filling it with children until the war came when he was sent to France. He fought well, losing an eye to a carelessly thrown grenade, but returning home to resume his life, he discovered that he was bored and discontent after being a soldier. The pretty young wife abandoned him and he took to the sea where he tried his hand at piracy and treasure hunting, lumberjacking in the 'States, oil rigs off Alaska, brothel running in the Carribean and a year as a mercenary in Spain. When he exhausted the wanderlust, he returned to the island, took a second wife and settled in again, this time for good - his fortune had been made and his thirst for adventure quieted. Several wives later with all the fortune spent, he found he was ready to porch sit and tell his stories while he watched the world go by like a sleepy old dog who had finally found his way home.

The night of Sparrow's song was clear and warm with fireflies darting everywhere in the darkness and a mild breeze drifting up from the ocean. We were supposed to be at the picture show but instead had slipped out as soon as the lights had gone down and made our way to The Point, keeping to the shadows and dodging into the ditches at approaching cars. When we reached Sparrow's, we saw a light in the window and heard the singing.

it filled the air like dust in sunlight, floating and wavering and all around us - Genevieve, oh, Genevieve - a deep, resonating voice, clearly understandable and articulated - The days may come, the days may go- we stopped in astonishment, realizing that it was Sparrow. There wasn't a hint of drunkeness in his voice and he was alone on the porch, not even the old dog keeping him company. Without knowing why, we understood that his song was about regret, about what he had lost and what had been taken from him, about what he would never have again.

We crept away in the darkness and let him sing.

Later that night as I lay in bed I could still hear his voice through my open window. When my daddy came in to tell me goodnight, I told him what we had heard and he read me an obituary from the weekly paper about the death of a woman on the French Shore, Marie Geneieve Landrieu Sparrow who had died unexpectedly a few days before. It wasn't singing you heard, he told me gently, it was mourning.

Brighter Days

Every new year, Nana used to say, is like a new book with blank pages. Fill them well.

She was taking down the Christmas decorations, coiling up lights for storage and packing each little piece of her treasured Christmas village in cotton. The tree sat forlornly on the sidewalk but the house still smelled of fir and chocolate chip cookies. She poured left over eggnog into small sherry glasses for one last holiday toast, then we began carrying boxes to her well organized and spotless attic. No one I knew except my grandmother routinely cleaned and dusted their attic but Nana couldn't abide the thought of disarray, not even in a lonely and forgotten third floor room where no one ever went. Even the tiny windows were windex'd to a clear shine and the January sun poured through and over the neatly arranged shelves stacked with suitcases, hat boxes, fur coats in plastic zipper bags, books, abandoned lamps and file boxes of old Christmas cards. There were several stacks of old Life magazines, an egg beater complete with a set of mixing bowls, a trunk of linens, an old timey, free standing radio, photo albums, a pair of rocking chairs, several footstools with delicately embroidered tops. In one corner there was a mannequin wearing a black, low cut formal dress and a single strand of pearls. The room reeked of past lives and different times, of years when my grandmother was young and turning up her nose at sensible shoes and nostalgia filled attic rooms. This was a place of buried treasures and memories, a lost and found of brighter days, Glenn Miller recordings, a small jewelry box with a rusty clasp containing a bracelet made of heartshaped blue stones. Come, Nana told me with a tug on my sleeve, It's time for lunch. Leave this.

Over grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at the tiny kitchen table, she was silent, almost thoughtful, but when I asked if anything was wrong she shook her head and reminded me to finish my milk. I left her sitting there with her coffee and Kent 100's and a faraway look. It was hard to imagine her as anything other than what she
was - a sturdy, stocky white haired matron in an apron and bifocals - efficient, demanding, unsentimental and practical to the final degree with a disdain for self pity or self indulgence. I assumed she had come into the world that way with her brighter days behind her and had never considered the possibility that she might've been young or carefree or in love and filled with promise.

Never give up on the hope of better and brighter days.

Stray Thoughts

The black cat had been soundly sleeping in the basket on the dining room table when she suddenly woke and with a growl leaped to the floor and raced out of the room. My daddy, half asleep himself in his recliner, opened his eyes briefly and then closed them again after rearranging his newspaper. Just another stray thought, he told me with a slight grin, Happens all the time.

He had, so he claimed, no use at all for the cat, but would often fall asleep with her in his lap, one hand resting on her back, the other stroking under her chin. She nuzzled and purred and he refused to disturb her, all the while telling her in a soft voice that she was of no value, that she was foolish, that he preferred dogs, that she was lazy and good for nothing. She would stretch and roll over on her back and he would cradle her, scratch her belly and stroke her ears until she was asleep, then nod off himself. The old orange tomcat would sit silently watching on the arm of the recliner, and when he judged both occupants to be asleep, would ease himself into the space between my daddy's hip and the chair and begin to purr loudly. Eyes still closed, my daddy would free one hand to rub the old tomcat's battered ears and shift his weight to make room for him. And so would pass another warm Sunday afternoon.

My grandmother watched all this with disapproving eyes but said nothing, focusing on her knitting while the television droned on and my mother began putting together the makings of an early potluck supper. Nana didn't favor animals all that much, especially cats which she deemed arrogant, troublesome and far too independently-minded and she considered our tolerance of them a foolish indulgence. When the old orange tom expressed an interest in her knitting basket, she shooed him with a sharp Scat! but his interest in the bright balls of yarn was piqued and he slyly snagged one with his paw and batted it across the room. This immediately caught the attention of the black cat and in a matter of seconds the game was on - both cats racing madly after the loose ball of yarn while my grandmother held desperately to her knitting needles, trying to salvage her afghan and her dignity at the same time. My daddy roused from his nap, took in the scene and began laughing while my mother stood in the kitchen doorway in stunned helplessness, a jar of yellow mustard in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other. Nana looked from the cats to each of my parents in disgust, cursed with a most definitely un-grandmotherly word, and hurled her knitting to the floor. Take it then, you devils spawn! she snapped, causing my daddy to double over and laugh even harder until his eyes filled with tears. Nana stood, hands on her hips, too angry to spit as my Uncle Eddie used to say, but not able to maintain it and she finally stalked out of the room to the deck where she crossed her arms and stood stoically staring out toward the water until my daddy composed himself enough to rescue the yarn, set both cats out the back door, and cautiously approach her with an apology. It took several minutes and all the self control he possessed to coax her back inside while staying serious and the cats were exiled to the deck for the remainder of her visit. They sat on the other side of the sliding doors and yowled pitifully but Nana held her ground, barely looking their way and then only to glare.

After supper, she gathered her things to leave, all but her knitting which she pointedly left behind. When my mother tried to hand it to her, she shook her head. The cats seem to like it, she said, and I can always make another afghan. And you should let them in, it's chilly. And head held high, she walked briskly to her car without a backward glance.

Pinestraw and Warm Winds

On a warm January morning, the dogs play in the pinestraw on the back deck, happily chasing their tails and ambushing each other in the morning sun. It's an odd feeling to step outside this time of year and be able to sit with a warm breeze in my face. The small brown dog runs full speed into the wind and it blows her hair back making her look like a small werewolf while the black dog runs manic circles around a pile of fallen leaves, crouching and barking non-stop. A pair of squirrels dart across the top of the back fence and both dogs give instant chase, vocalizing at the top of their lungs and moving at racehorse speed across the yard - other dogs join in and soon the entire street is alive with a chorus of howling and yipping, all in different tones and timbres and it becomes a Sunday morning symphony, each dog knowing his part and joining in with a canine kind of harmony.

Every time you leave a dog, my daddy told me, it thinks you're never coming back. That's why they're always so happy to see you. True or not, it was a heartbreaking thing to think about and it worried me for years. We had two dogs then - a rotund black and tan daschound named Fritz and a petite, trim, energetic boxer named Lady.

They were inseparable and the best of friends, both gently good natured and playful, affectionate animals full of life and love. One grim October night at supper, a nurse from the old age home two doors down rang our doorbell to tell us that Fritz had been hit by a car. My daddy raced outside, stopping only long enough to forbid me to follow. That moment is still frozen in my memory, partly because I knew in my heart that Fritz was dead, and partly because I remember nothing else after except crying myself to sleep that night and many others. Lady never quite recovered and refused to be comforted. For months she prowled the house, whining softly when she came upon his scent and relentlessly searching each room over and over again. She grieved restlessly and for a very long time, becoming old before her years and never fully accepting the loss.

There are times when I know exactly how she felt.

Star Counting

It was a clear night and every star seemed low in the sky and sharply defined, as if they were close enough to touch. My daddy and I were sitting on the side porch, listening to the tide coming in. We could hear the water slapping over the rocks and up against the breakwater. A hoot owl called softly from under the eaves and we could hear nightbirds rustling in the blackberry patch. From inside the house, a Red Sox game played on the tinny little radio and above it we could hear my mother and grandmother arguing over a game of gin. Lamplight from the sunporch spilled across the front and side yards making wavy yellowish patterns in the tall grass and the halyard on the flagpole clicked randomly making sharp metal-on-metal sounds. My daddy's week of vacation was over and come morning he would drive to the mainland and then on to Yarmouth and the airport and be home by day's end while we stayed for the remainder of the summer. I missed him already - his calm presence and intervention, his quiet nature and good humor - all helped smooth over the constant sparring and squabbling between the two women playing cards, the endless sniping of my brothers, the tension that seemed to drive the family. Even the dogs were less restless, seeking him out and curling up at his feet.

Friends had been in and out most of the day to say goodbye and wish him well and Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl had come for supper, bringing fish chowder, fresh bread and sweet corn. Nana had made a blackberry cobbler that morning and we'd walked up the hill and back for ice cream - the sweetness of it had made my teeth hurt - and we'd stayed at the table longer than usual, not ready to let the meal end. My normally strict grandmother had even served second helpings of cobbler and didn't scold when we drank the melted ice cream straight from the bowls and when the Peter's Island lighthouse flashed on at precisely eight o'clock, we were granted an extra hour respite from bedtime, unheard of except when my daddy was there.

So we sat on the old whitewashed sideporch, he and I, wrapped in silence and salt air, filled with quiet thoughts and counting the stars.

Snuff and Nonsense

Miss Nelda was a collector.

She lived with her invalid husband in a small house up island, grew vegetables and tobacco, and acted as part time postmistress. She collected shells, driftwood which her husband turned into lamps for sale on the mainland, and though unintentionally, cats.

It had begun with a small infestation of mice. Saw me a mouse in the outhouse, her husband told her casually one morning over breakfast, might want to set out a trap. But Miss Nelda believed in the sanctity of life and one mouse in the outhouse didn't merit much notice on her part. When, however, the mouse multiplied and set up housekeeping in the attic, things rapidly spiraled out of control. The scratching and gnawing kept her awake at night, she began finding tiny mouse droppings on the window sills and in the kitchen cabinets and stirring a pot of greens early one morning, she noticed a hole in the ceiling above the old wood stove and with no advance warning, down tumbled a mouse, directly into her greens. This, in Miss Nelda's opinion, crossed the line and constituted a declaration of war, so she pulled on her muddy snake boots and armed with a broom and her old scatter gun, she mounted the stairs to the attic, determined to dispatch the mouse menace once and for all. So,

my grandmother said, trying to hide a smile, how did it turn out? Miss Nelda shook her head and added sugar to her iced coffee, Mice are tricky creatures, Alice, she said sorrowfully, but it's not over by a long shot.

In the following weeks, Miss Nelda set traps and poison, she left lanterns burning all through the nights, she scoured every room in the small house with her scatter gun cocked and ready but succeeded only in blowing a few holes in the walls and setting her husband's teeth on edge. One fine August morning, she harnessed up her pony and trap and went to see her sister, Miss Rowena, who gratefully gave her the loan of two barncats called Stuff and Nonsense, but Miss Nelda had become slightly hard of hearing - One too many shotgun blasts will do that, my grandmother allowed to me - and the cats became Snuff and Nonsense from that day on. Miss Nelda set them loose among the mouse infested house and in record time she was mouse-free. Cats being cats though, she was soon overrun with kittens and kittens who had more kittens until the little house was awash in felines. Cats in the attic, cats in the barn, cats on the porch and under the bed, she told my grandmother, why, I could line them up end to end the very length of this island! Nana patted her shoulder and refilled their coffee cups, surreptitiously adding a capful of brandy to Miss Nelda's cup. There, there, dear, she said calmly in a comforting tone, cats are far more noble creatures than mice, drink up. And she winked at me.

The following weekend my grandmother rounded up a posse of island men and boys and they descended upon Miss Nelda's and after several hours managed to capture and contain every last cat. Snuff and Nonsense were allowed to remain after what Nana called a "mind changing" surgery on the mainland, the rest were relocated, some to farms, some back to Miss Rowena's, some to an animal shelter in Yarmouth for adoption. Peace and quiet were restored once again.

The Caretaker

The years had not been especially kind to the man who cared for the horses.

He was called Dusty and lived in a tiny room attached to the stable on a farm owned by the banker's son. He was tall and dangerously thin, always in need of a shower and shave, dressed in threadbare clothes and old work boots. The veins on his hands seemed about to break through the skin as he mucked out stalls and pitched hay or worked leather cleaner into the harnesses and saddles from a three legged stool in the stall doorway. Cigarette smoke drifted around him in a blue haze and there was always a whiskey bottle in his back pocket. When he spoke at all it was only to the children or the horses - my daddy said he had been in the war and was naturally economic of speech so if you wanted to know what he thought, you had to learn to read his eyes and his expressions. Watch his face when he works with the horses, my daddy told me, See the way he handles them, pay attention to his eyes.And so I watched. Dusty rarely as much as acknowleged my presence but he never sent me away and sometimes would produce a sugar cube or carrot from his overalls and slip them into my hand then nod towards one of the horses. I sat beside him as he repaired and cleaned the old leather reins and came to love the sweet smell of saddle soap. I watched him shoe the horses and massage away lameness, saw him treat their cuts and bruises with liniment and warm bandages. I learned that they knew him and would whinney at his scent and nuzzle toward his chest in seach of a treat.

I watched his eyes and their's and saw the reflections of love and trust in both. There were no bad horses in Dusty's world - he cared for them, trained them, treated them, even brought some into the world and he believed that each had a place and a purpose and a reason to be. He walked with them through the pastures and the woods and the fields, even led them across the cove at low tide, leaving twin trails of foot prints and hoof prints, side by side in the soft mud. He fed them and watched over them while they slept and when one died, he alone dug the grave and managed the burial. When the rendering plant on the mainland sent an agent to see him, Dusty heard him out and then struck him and broke his jaw before ordering him off the farm.

No one ever knew what started the stable fire - the old timers said it was a freak lightning strike,

the banker's son suspected arson, my daddy thought it had been an accident - but what we did all know was that Dusty had sent each and every horse into the safety of the corral before the stable went up in flames. Not a single one was lost or even harmed. Dusty's body was found face down in the ashes and debris, the remains of a bridle in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other. He was buried next to the graves of the animals he had loved and cared for his entire adult life with only children and horses as mourners.

The years had not been kind to the man who cared for the horses but when the stables were rebuilt, the bankers son had a plaque placed over the stalls that read simply For Dusty and those he loved.

.

Cause and Effect

The voice on the telephone was tentative, almost timid and though she sounded shaky I could hear an undercurrent of determination and strength. I recognized her name at once - when she had married my ex-husband her picture had been in the paper - a slight, darkhaired girl, considerably younger than her new husband and with the same name as his daughter from his first marriage. At the time, it had struck me as curious, but now, hearing her voice and her words, it seemed sinister and twisted. She told me a story of love at first sight followed very soon by marriage which turned almost instantly to emotional and physical abuse. She had had him charged with assault and battery, gotten a restraining order, had him jailed. He had threatened her children and beaten her, raped her in a drunken rage, broken her jaw and attacked her oldest child with a knife. She'd filed for divorce while he was in jail and when he was released he'd fled, she thought maybe back to his first wife but she wasn't sure.

She sounded young and fearful, broken and lost and guilty and I could hear myself in her words. I had no idea why she had sought me out or what she expected of me so I just listened with resignation and sadness but no real surprise. The litany of abuse and violence was painfully familiar - she was confused and hurt, searching desperately for answers and explanations of what had gone wrong, why she hadn't seen it coming, what she had done to bring it all about. She needed to understand how she could possibly have made such a mistake in judgement, where had she not paid attention, how to get over putting herself and her children at risk. Every question she asked I had asked myself a dozen times over only to discover that there are no answers because there is no logic in addiction, no cause and effect, no fault to assign, only victims. I tried to explain this to her but could tell she wasn't ready so I simply suggested she find an Al Anon group and give it a try. She thanked me and hung up in tears.

In a funny kind of way, the idea that we can actually drive someone to drink or drug is prideful if tempting. Truth is that none of us have that kind of power - I learned early on that the why's of alcoholism are meaningless, that no matter where we lived, how money money we earned, how good life was, no matter how irrational it seemed, no matter what the exuse was, a drunk will drink. There simply are no rational equations to be found in a disease that manifests itself through behavior, where a relapse is a symptom, where there is no cure. We like to put blame in its proper place and move on. We don't demand that cancer explain itself, don't imagine that we can treat it with love or by covering it up and we don't blame its victims yet we can be quick to condemn an addict for his choice to drink, as if it really were a choice. Free will isn't much of a weapon against illness, especially an illness we often suspect is self-inflicted. Cough up blood and we'll rush to your side - cough up a curse and we'll spit in your face and demand an apology.

I hope she found her answers and some peace of mind. I hope she knows that it wasn't her fault and that she couldn't have saved him, only herself.

Buddy and the Barncat

The first time Buddy nearly died was the night he was born.

He was eleven weeks premature and his mother, a hired girl who had refused to as much as acknowledge his existence, gave birth in a stall in the barn on Lily and Eli's farm then quietly bled to death. A surprised and shocked hired hand found her and the newborn later that evening while milking the cows and Buddy's small life was miraculously saved, although under protest, by the local midwife who felt that the child's deformities were a curse for his mother's sin. The baby was one legged, his right leg ending in a stump below his knee and his right arm cruelly twisted and misshapen. Lily and Eli were good people and immediately took the child in and refused to give him up although the midwife whispered dire warnings through the village, predicting all manner of retribution and tradgedy. When she approached Miss Hilda with her vicious fortune telling, the proper British lady slapped her sharply and ordered her to come to her senses at once, Hold your tongue, you old crone, Mis Hilda snapped, and mind what vile nonsense you spread about that child or you'll answer to me and my stick!

Under Eli and Lily's care, Buddy survived and even thrived. He leaned to walk with the aid of a crutch Eli fashioned and Uncle Shad made a sort of leather harness for his malformed hand - once braced to the crutch, Buddy could move independently and as he grew, new crutches and harnesses were made every year. That boy is a walking
miracle, Nana told Miss Hilda one evening at the post office. Indeed, Miss Hilda nodded, His body may be wrecked but he's quick witted with an agile mind. He has something to teach us all about overcoming adversity.

The second time Buddy nearly died was the summer I was ten or so. He was driving the vegetable cart back from the square late one Friday afternoon when for reasons no one ever discovered, the old cart horse spooked and ran,

the harness snapped and the Buddy was thrown and pinned under a wheel of the overturned cart. On his way to collect the evening mail, Eli came across the horse and mounting the protesting old mare, raced up island where he found Buddy, unconscious and half dead from shock and blood loss. The old mare carried both man and boy back to the farm where Lily laid the boy out on a bed and covered him until Miss Hilda and Miss Rowena arrived. The shattered leg healed and Buddy recovered through the process was long and painful. Mark my words, Miss Hilda told my grandmother, God is watching that boy.

The next year Buddy found the barncat at the edge of the woods, both back legs broken and mangled. Wolf, maybe,

Eli allowed, we'll put her out of her misery. But Buddy fought for the old cat and persuaded Eli to make a sling then carried her to Miss Rowena's. Rowena shook her head but Buddy pleaded and wore her down, certain that she could heal the damaged animal, more certain that she should. Somebody has to save her, Miss Rowena, he begged her, you can't give up on her. And the old lady doubtfully agreed to try, knowing it would take all her skill, all her gifts, and that the odds were against her. She tended the old cat all that summer, splinting the back legs and force feeding her, keeping her warm in a basket next to the fire and teaching Buddy how to change the bandages, how to help her relearn to walk. She would never be straight or fast again, never be much of a mouser again, never walk without a limp, but she would survive and return to the old barn where Buddy had been born, to the same stall where he had nearly died, and she would live out her life in the sweet, dusty hay. His eye, Miss Rowena reckoned, really is on the sparrow.

The Hillside

I dreamed of the hillside where we used to go sledding. It was steep and covered with fresh snow, and we hauled our fliers up one side, lay down on our bellies and screaming with terror and joy, went like the wind to the bottom of the hill. The high school kids built snow forts at the bottom by the frozen pond and had ferocious snowball fights, often catching the innocent younger children in the crossfire. Snowmen were erected and decorated with carrots, bright colored scarves and old hats and someone's mother usually arrived with steaming cardboard cups of hot chocolate.

In spring, we converted the old dead tree at the top of the hill into a sailing ship and climbed the limbs to raise flags. Wild asparagus grew on the hillside along with daisies and dandylions. A storm had uprooted and overturned a huge tree at the edge of the water and it lay on its side with its root system exposed - it made for a perfect cave - and we fought fiercely against the older kids for possession of it. Defeated, we withdrew but often returned to raid their stashes of cigarettes and beer and then run for our lives.

Come fall, the grass would begin to turn brown and we collected debris and fallen branches to build bonfires. An adult was always on the sidelines during the fires, watching without interfering, there just as a precaution. On Indian summer afternoons we would often do our homework in the shadow of the old tree with small fires burning below us and the smell of smoke thick on the air. Squirrels and chipmunks played hide and seek, chattering as they ran through the underbrush and trees, unhappy at the intrusion and furious when someone's dog tagged along.

The seasons came and went steadily and the faces of the children changed as the years passed. A subdivision was eventually built and the hillside was leveled and paved, the trees cut up and hauled away, the wild asparagus and flowers cemented over. Much of the pond was dredged, filled in and fenced off - even the old uprooted tree disappeared, chain sawed and packed off in a logging truck one fine fall afternoon. The root system was so deep they'd had to use a small dynamite charge and the blast had sent a shockwave across the pond, sending a surprised flock of ducks into flight and several children into tears. A chorus of neighborhood dogs began to bark wildly and my hearing was muffled for several minutes, as if I was underwater. When the smoke cleared, the old overturned tree had been reduced to splinters and my daddy put his arm around me shoulders and walked me home.