The Well House

The well on my Uncle’s farm was not the standard rock-walled, shake-roofed, cute-little-bucket type of well. It was a hole in the ground. A very deep hole filled to the brim with shimmering water and adorable little frogs.

For reasons you can probably fathom, as kids we loved that well. For reasons you can also probably fathom my uncle did not love that we loved the well. He built a building around it and put a lock on the door.

One bright summer day as my five cousins and I excused ourselves from the breakfast table and carried our plates to the kitchen, something strange happened. No one paid us any mind! My Uncle remained behind his paper. Gram and my Aunt continued to flip through recipe books. No one asked us where we were going. No one asked us what we were going to do. No one even suggested we try to behave.

That’s a good thing, too, because on the way out the back door we noticed the well house was not locked. The door was as wide as our mischievous smiles. We all came to a screeching halt on the back steps and asked one another, “Do you see that?” “Do you see that?” “Do you see that?”

We knew better than to make a beeline straight for the well house. Someone would surely see us when we passed the dining room window. Instead, we went west, down the driveway; then southeast, up over the hill; and north, down to the well house from the backside, using its bulk as cover. Cautiously we pressed up against the building and stealthily, one by one, popped around the side and through the door into the dim, damp, forbidden, frog paradise.

We busied ourselves scooping up itty-tiny frogs no bigger than the pads of our thumbs. We wanted to gather as many as we could and take them some place safe to play with them. The frogs weren’t cooperating. They kept hoping out of our hands and bouncing away.

Caution, my eldest cousin, made certain no one got too close to the edge of the well. Everyone, that is, but himself. He decided he needed a drink, so he lay down on his stomach, stuck his lips in the water and had a nice slurp.

Tattle immediately wanted to copy him. Caution was eleven or twelve years old at the time. Tattle was only five. There was no way any of us were letting her get close to the edge of the water. One of us made the mistake of saying, “No, you’re too little.”

Tattle immediately began to cry. Not soft little whimpering sobs. Oh no, that girl had a wail that would put a train whistle to shame. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!“

We all started talking at once. It was impossible to tell who was saying what. “Stop!” “Hush!” “Quiet!” “Shhhhh….!” “Knock it off!”

Tattle was easy to understand. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Make her stop!” “I can’t make her stop. You make her stop!” “We’re gonna get caught!” “Tattle, please, be quiet!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Alright! Alright! You can have a drink.”

That was Caution. We all stared at him in sudden silence — even Tattle; each of us certain our ears had short-circuited.

“No!” Angel exclaimed. “It isn’t safe. She might fall in.”

Tattle whimpered.

“No she won’t,” Rumble said quickly. “We’ll all make certain she doesn’t.”

So each of us found a secure hold on some part of Tattle’s body, as she stretched out and stuck her lips in the water just like Caution.

Slurp. Slurp. “That’s enough,” Angel said. “You’ve had your drink.”

We pulled on Tattle. “Moooore!” She shrieked. We let her drink more.

Slurp. Slurp. Glug. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

“What?!” We all jerked her away from the edge of the well and checked her body for injuries. “Are you hurt?” Grin demanded.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa!” Tattle wailed, clutching at her throat. “I swallowd a frog!”

Grin grabbed Tattle by the shoulders and demanded, “You what?” Then she looked up at the rest of us and asked, “Are frogs poisonous?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaa!” Tattle yelled even louder.

“No!” Caution snapped, “Frogs aren’t poisonous.” Then he said, “Hush, Tattle. You’re alright. The frog won’t hurt you.” But we were all looking at each other over her head, wondering.

“Get him out!” Tattle wailed. “He’s swimming around in my tummy!”

“Don’t be silly,” I told her. “He’s dead.”

“Aaaaaaaaaa!” She clutched her stomach and shriekd, “There’s a dead frog in my tummy?” She cried even louder.

“We’ve got to get her out of here,” Rumble said. We all grabbed hold of Tattle and drug her up the hill. We stopped at the tree fort. Tattle was making gagging noises. “Gaaaak! Gaaak! Gaaak!”

Caution turned Tattle to face him. “Knock it off. You didn’t really swallow a frog. You just think you did.”

“I did too swallow a frog!” Tattle wailed. “Now he’s dead in my tummy! Gaaak! Gaaak!”

“You had to tell her that, didn’t you?” Rumble rumbled at me.

“Listen, Tattle,” I said, kneeling beside her. “I’m sure Caution is right. You didn’t really swallow a frog. It was just a big gulp of water.”

“A big gulp of water with a frog in it!” Tattle continued wailing and gaaking.

We heard the back door slam down at the house. Then my aunt bellowed, each word two syllables, “Kids! Lunch!”

“I want Mama!” Tattle wailed.

“Do you want a spanking?” Caution demanded. “Because that’s what you’re going to get if they find out you went in the well house.”

We threatened and cajoled her into silence, wiped her face on Rumble’s shirt, then went down the hill to lunch.

On the way down the hill relief set in and we all had to stifle giggles, except Tattle, who still clutched her tummy and made occassional gaaking sounds. While we were at the back-porch sink washing our hands, we realized looking at each other only compounded the giggles. We filed into the dining room silently, heads down, and took our seats.

My aunt commented on our unnatural silence as she passed out bowls of soup and handfuls of crackers. Spurts of giggles escaped us, but we kept our eyes on our food.

Tattle picked up her spoon, swallowed a bite of her soup, and then, “Gaak! Gaak! Gaak!”

A grin stretched my face. Rumble and I accidently looked at each other and exploded in giggles. Angel kicked me in the ankle. It didn’t help.

“Gaak. Gaak.”

It must have been a Sunday because my uncle was still sitting at the head of the table reading the paper. Only the Sunday paper was an all morning read.

“Gaak. Gaak.”

The newspaper rustled. Rumble and I pinched ourselves silent.

“Gaak. Gaak.”

The newspaper lowered.

My uncle looked down the table at each one of us. We all met his gaze against our will while simmering in giggles and fear. His gaze came to rest on Tattle.

“Gaak. Gaak.”

“What’s the matter, Honey?” My uncle rumbled in his distant thunder voice, “Have you got a frog in your throat?”

“Yeeeees!”

Of course, Tattle tattled. We didn’t much care until later. At that moment we were all rolling on the floor in gales of laughter.

Wonder Barbie Flies

My mother, I’ve been told, loved to plant things and watch them grow. While she was still pregnant with me she planted a Bridal Veil bush along-side Gram’s house. My mother did not live to see the bush, or me, grow, but grow we each did; neither of us giving much thought to the other until we met one sunny Saturday afternoon when I was six years old.

Shortly after that day began I was sent to my room to contemplate some error I had made. I can’t remember what the error was so I obviously didn’t contemplate it long. What I did do was grab one of my many, many Barbie Dolls, dress her in her Wonder Woman costume (complete with cape), and command her to fly. She didn’t.

I sat on my bed and contemplated making the doll fly. While I was thinking my gaze dropped to my tennis shoe. Tennis shoes have shoe strings. I promptly decided that a bit of string might be just the thing to help Wonder Barbie fly. I took the laces from my shoes, tied them together and looped one end around Barbie’s waist.

It took me only a couple of swings to realize that while my idea might work well in the front yard, it wasn’t goning to “fly” inside my bedroom without doing some sort of grown-up grumbling damage. Again I perched on the edge of my bed and contemplated. I really needed to be outside …. or maybe only Wonder Barbie needed to be outside. I turned my gaze to the window. I was two stories above the ground. Beyond the glass was endless space in which Wonder Barbie could fly.

My windows opened like French doors and swung inward. The screen unlatched and swung outward to the left. I dropped Wonder Barbie out the window. She swayed back and forth at the end of the string. The flying forward part was okay, but when she reached the end of her tether she flew backward with her cape flapping over her head. It was very un-super hero-ish.

I decided my arms just weren’t long enough. This time I didn’t have to sit and contemplate. I knew the solution. I took the lamp and whatnots from my bedside table and pushed it under the window. Then I climed up, braced my stomach on the window sill and launched Wonder Barbie. She swung in a very pleasant arc — and smashed face first into the building. That was decidedly un-super hero-ish. I needed a longer reach still.

The solution was obvious. I balanced with my knees on the window sill, reeled Wonder Barbie out and swung with all my might. She flew!

Unfortunately, so did I.

Wonder Barbie hit the ground. I never did. My mother’s Bridal Veil bush caught me.
It was a mixed blessing. If you’ve never seen a Bridal Veil bush, you have missed one of nature’s lacy beauties. It has long fronds of delicate white blossoms — nestled among long thin needle sharp thorns.

I hung in the bush, head down, feet flailing at the sky, and yelling for my Gram. Gram didn’t hear me hollering. She was in the kitchen, just down the hall from my room and on the opposite side of the house. Besides, even if she did hear some kid screaming, it couldn’t have been her kid, who was safely ensconced in her own ruffly pink bedroom.

Mrs. Jay, out on her porch beating rugs, saw me fall. She called Gram. Gram hustled outside and snatched me out of that bush, giving little care to how much me she left behind. Then, much to my shock, rather than rejoicing that I was alive, she spanked me! Next she marched me into the house, scrubbed my cuts with little mercy, painted me mecurochrome orange, and ordered me to sit on the step stool beside the frige until I “grew some smarts.”

It was a long summer.

The Hole

When I was a kid there was a large gully beside our house. Our front yard was level with the street, but our backyard slopped away – we had a daylight basement, then the embankment dipped down sharply and formed a lovely huge gully full of pine trees, bushes, a bit of a bog, tall grasses and magic. It took up quite a large section of the block and was a wonderfully wild playground.

I often played in the gully with my friends, Sugar and Stinky Jays. “The Hole” as we called it, was directly between our houses, well within “hollering distance” of either home. That was important because the “stay within hollering distance” rule was enforced in every home of every child I knew.

Our favorite thing to do in the gully was make mud pies. This squishy delight had the extra benefit of causing the adults to insist we run through the sprinkler before coming inside. It also had the lovely consequence of insuring that lunch was almost always served outside on our tiny concrete slab of a back porch. Life was good.

Then a new man moved into our neighborhood and started hammering and pounding. He built a kennel about 15 yards from our backyard. He planned to keep and train guard dogs. At a public meeting held at the elementary school shortly after his arrival, dire consequences were predicted. The predictions were swiftly realized and the man didn’t stay in our neighborhood long. Although I was not badly hurt, I was the catalyst for his leaving.

My friends and I knew to stay away from those dogs – and not just because of the nasty red, black and white warning signs posted all around them. No, we stayed away because our parents had made it perfectly clear, if the dogs didn’t kill us for approaching them, the grown-ups would!

One day as Sugar, Stinky and I were making mud pies, one of the guard dogs got lose and joined us. There we were, knee deep in the mud bog facing a bristling, snarling menace, with razor teeth the size of tree trunks. Sugar told everybody not to move. Stinky started crying and did the stinky thing in her pants. I backed thigh deep into the bog. The dog growled and advanced to the edge of solid ground.

We were trapped. Behind us and to our right towered an embankment far too steep to climb. To our left was an impenetrable tangle of sticker bushes. The only path out of the mire was before us, and square in the middle of it stood death on four legs.

The stand-off lasted until the end of Stinky’s scream. She broke to the left and dove into the sticker bushes. The dog lunged after her and I broke to the right. Perhaps I held the mistaken belief that fear would give me wings, but whatever I was thinking – if thinking I was – my mortality clarified in a flash. Sharp canine teeth sunk into my knee and held.

A man appeared on the embankment above me. He shouted something in a language I didn’t understand and blew into a little sliver tube. Whatever he said made the dog release me. The man shouted and blew into the silver tube again. The dog backed away. Again the man blew into the tube. The dog snarled, then turned and bounded cross the gully. I watched it climb the embankment and lope around the outside edge. When it reached the man, he snapped a leash on the dog and lead it away. He never looked back. He never asked if we were okay.

Through all of this, I screamed. Sugar and Stinky raced to my side. They helped me up the embankment. My grandmother – hearing my siren – met us at the side of the house. “What happened?” She demanded.

Sugar answered, “She was bitten by a dog, Mrs. Weniger.”

Where!” My grandmother jerked me around and looked me over. I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a very thick coat of mud. No injuries were apparent. “Where?” Gram demanded again.

I feared Gram would think I had gone to the kennels. Despite the fact that she had never beaten me, I had been trained to believe that she would. I didn’t want to be bitten and beaten, so I answered, “Down in The Hole!”

Gram yelled again, “Where did the dog bite you?”

She didn’t believe me! I wailed again, “Down in The HOLE!”

Gram shook me and shouted, “WHERE did the dog bite you?”

What was she, deaf? I shouted back, “DOWN. IN. THE. HOLE!”

Sugar piped up quietly, but very clearly, “The dog bit her in the knee, Mrs. Weniger.”

Oh! Now why hadn’t she just asked that in the first place? Grown-ups are so silly about some things.