Level Ground

It was one of those clear, pure summer days when you were glad to be alive.

My grandmother had shooed the dogs out to get some fresh air and they were curled up together, peacefully sleeping in the warm sun, occasionally twitching at flies. The Monday wash was hanging neatly on the line, I could smell the brown bread Nana was baking and now and then hear snatches of laughter from the fishermen laying out salt fish on the drying racks next door. Greedy gulls were flying overhead hoping for scraps and some kind of engine was chug-a-lugging in the distance. It was a funny rat-a-tat-tat sound, like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle, only hollower and duller.

I was watching the slow moving, 3D like clouds and lazily imagining them to have faces and shapes when Aunt Jenny dropped Ruthie off for the day. Uncle Len had made her a pair of stilts for her birthday - Aunt Jenny awkwardly hauled them out from the back of the pickup truck and sternly reminded us to be careful and stay on level ground - waved to my grandmother and drove off in a spray of gravel. Nana appeared at the back door and gave us a worried look.

Mind you don't fall and break your damfool necks! she warned us with a shake of her head, I got too much to do today to be runnin' a pair of wild Indians to the doctor!

We each dragged one stilt to the side porch and somehow or other negotiated the steps. Ruthie went first, warily climbing on while I steadied the wood against the house. I was remembering that she'd also gotten a croquet set and thinking that all things considered, it might be a better choice when she gave a yell and took her first steps. I think it was actually two because almost immediately she lost her balance, gave a frantic war whoop, and jumped clear.

My grandmother, surreptitiously watching from the sunporch, rapped sharply on the window.

Level ground! I heard her shout, Keep on level ground!

Determinedly, we dragged the stilts back up the path, looking around for something that we could steady and climb, and eventually deciding on the raised threshold of the woodshed door.

Ruthie tried again, this time precariously maintaining her balance for all of four or five steps before one stilt slipped on the gravel and again, she let go and jumped clear.

You try, she said sullenly when I laughed.

I had serious reservations about the whole thing but then she did the unthinkable and double dared me. I made it up on the first try, took several small, shaky steps and then remarkably

found my center and the hang of it all at the same time.

It's not so hard! I crowed to her.

Oh, yeah? she shot back, Then let's see you git down, Miss Smarty Pants!

I hadn't thought of that. But I was a stubborn child and a proud one and I rarely outdid Ruthie so I carefully navigated a wide turn back to the woodshed, held on for dear life until I reached it, and then triumphantly climbed down.

Ain't that much fun anyway, Ruthie muttered, Let's play croquet.

We never told Uncle Len but the stilts eventually ended up as firewood. It was the lesson of keeping to level ground that would stay with us.  We do our best when we learn the secret of balance.