Out?? Miss Hilda exclaimed incredulously, Out?? She glared at the helpless shopkeeper, her face dark with threat. Eugene, a loud rap of her walking stick, Be good enough to explain to me how you can conceivably be "out" of peanut butter AND maple syrup at this time of year!
Mr. McIntyre lowered his eyes and wrung his hands together despairingly. I should have more by the end of the week, Miz Elliott, he mumbled, I'll have them delivered.
That, Eugene, will hardly be sufficient, Miss Hilda snapped and turned on her heel, stalking out, her polished riding boots clacking sharply on the sawdust covered floor and pausing only long enough to wait for one of the men playing checkers to leave the game and open the door for her. Disgraceful, Eugene! she threw back over her shoulder, Poor planning and utter ineptitiude, I should say. Disgraceful!
At the island's only other general store, Aunt Jenny had no better news, confessing that she had indeed sold her entire inventory of peanut butter and maple syrup to Willie Foot not three days before, as well as a dozen balls of twine, a set of paint brushes, a box of nails, a hacksaw and a Union Jack flag. Suspicions began to form in Miss Hilda's mind at the mention of the flag and she left, so distraught that she opened the door herself, leaving Aunt Jenny open mouthed in surprise and a half dozen old fishermen half risen off their seats.
News of the shortage spread quickly and thoroughly, the entire island community taken up with curiosity and wonder at Willie's purchases. Willie himself was nowhere to be found although a search of his ruined old house did produce the remains - a nearly empty box of nails, a lone ball of twine and several empty gallon cans of maple syrup. There was no sign of peanut butter or a hacksaw but in the back room, Uncle Len discovered a pair of wooden saw horses nearly buried in wood shavings and cut up logs. The flag, neatly sliced into strips, was tacked over one broken window. Hell's bells, Uncle Shad remarked to Uncle Len, What the blazes has that damn fool gotten up to now?
The answer came much later in the summer, on a clear Saturday evening, in the cove, just after the tide had come in. Willie Foot, his hair colored bright green and sticking out at all angles, his eyes wild with excitement appeared on the water in a makeshift raft. He was, as Uncle Shad later reported to my grandmother, Bare ass nekked and standin' at attention, polin' that green wood raft for all he was worth, takin' on more water with every stroke, but damned if he didn't make it to shore. Miz McIntyre, well, she run out there with a buncha towels, tryin' to hide her eyes and cover 'im up all at the same time!
An inspection of the raft revealed a neat layer of peanut butter carefully spread between each log, twine had been triple wrapped and tied to hold them together and each log was nailed to the next. The entire contraption had been glazed with maple syrup - top, bottom, and all four sides. After a day or so of sun and tide, it gradually broke apart and was abandoned to the salt water and the gulls. Willie salvaged a battered log - no one dared ask why - and while dragging it home he tripped on a piece of leftover twine, fell and rolled into the ditch, breaking his leg in two places. Rowena was recruited to splint the shattered leg, Uncle Len's old pickup was improvised into an emergency ambulance and the two of them carried Willie to the mainland hospital where he was greeted like an old friend. He returned several months later, courtesy of the mail car, gleeful as ever, more or less intact, and no more perpetually dazed then when he had left. He was one of their own and they were more than willing to settle in and wait for the next chapter of madness. They had no idea what it might be or when but no doubt at all that it would come.
No comments:
Post a Comment