Spinning Stories and Turning Time.

The Funny weight loss.

2012-08-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

A man calls a company and orders their 5-day, 10 lb. weight loss program.

The next day, there's a knock on the door and there stands before him a voluptuous, athletic, 19 year old babe dressed in nothing but a pair of Nike running shoes and a sign around her neck.

She introduces herself as a representative of the weight loss company.

The sign reads, "If you can catch me, you can have me."

Without a second thought, he takes off after her.

A few miles later huffing and puffing, he finally gives up.

The same girl shows up for the next four days and the same thing happens.

On the fifth day, he weighs himself and is delighted to find he has lost 10 lbs. as promised.

He calls the company and orders their 5-day/20 pound program.

The next day there's a knock at the door and there stands the most stunning and beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life.

She is wearing nothing but Reebok running shoes and a sign around her neck that reads, "If you catch me you can have me."

Well, he's out the door after her like a shot.

This girl is in excellent shape and he does his best, but no such luck.

So for the next four days, the same routine happens with him gradually getting in better and better shape.

Much to his delight on the fifth day when he weighs himself, he discovers that he has lost another 20 lbs. as promised.

He decides to go for broke and calls the company to order the 7-day/50 pound program.

"Are you sure?" asks the representative on the phone. "This is our most rigorous program."

"Absolutely," he replies, "I haven't felt this good in years."

The next day there's a knock at the door; and when he opens it he finds a huge muscular guy standing there wearing nothing but pink running shoes and a sign around his neck that reads, "If I catch you, you are mine!!!"

He lost 63 pounds that week.

Funny War story.

2012-08-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

The Americans and Russians, at the height of the arms race, realized that if they continued in the usual manner they were going to blow up the whole world.
One day they sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with one dog fight. They'd have five years to breed the best fighting dog in the world and whichever side's dog won would be entitled to dominate the world. The losing side would have to lay down its arms.
The Russians found the biggest, meanest Doberman and Rottweiler ------- in the world and bred them with the biggest meanest Siberian wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter, killed his siblings, and gave him all the milk. They used steroids and trainers and after five years came up with the biggest meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel bars that were three inches thick and nobody could get near it.
When the day came for the fight, the Americans showed up with a strange animal. It was a nine-foot long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for the Americans because they knew there was no way that this dog could possibly last ten seconds with the Russian dog.
When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out and wrapped itself around the outside of the ring. It had the Russian dog almost completely surrounded. When the Russian dog leaned over to bite the Dachshund's neck, the Dachshund reached out and consumed the Russian dog in one bite. There was nothing left at all of the Russian dog.
The Russians came up to the Americans, shaking their heads in disbelief. `We don't understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working for five years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler ------- in the world and the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves."
"That's nothing," an American replied. "We had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a Dachshund."

The Brass Teapot.

2011-09-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

Further tales of 'The Brass Teapot' can be found on 'The Brass Teapot' website.

The old woman running the roadside antique stand spoke with a heavy eastern accent. She skirted the table with two limping legs, hidden by loose, draping leather pants and no shoes. John couldn't help staring at the woman's black toes, as if she had once suffered frostbite.

     Everything about her seemed to have once suffered an altering cold.

     Alice and John were on their way home from visiting their oldest daughter in college. They had only stopped so John could stretch his sore back. Alice had been sleeping the entire drive, or pretending to sleep, while thinking about all of the money they had given their daughter as a loan. They had secretly had to scrap the idea of a small vacation so she could retake her algebra in the summer.

     The old woman approached John's wife. With her long fingers she pushed a brass teapot into Alice's hands. The transparent skin on her arms swung with the momentum of her tiny motions.

     "Thank you," Alice responded politely, not knowing what else to say.

     The old woman's stand consisted of one green table, overwhelmed with useless things from the past. Heavy, iron mementos.

     John rolled his eyes when his wife set the brass teapot in the backseat of their Ford Festiva. The car was noticeably struggling as they drove down the interstate, burdened by the small weight of weekend suitcases.

     On the drive home they argued about money. Wasted money. With two children in college, neither having been able to maintain their scholarships, not only was John and Alice's retirement dwindling but also their ability to make ends meet.

     There had been mention of a second mortgage.

     As the car pulled into their house each went to collect a suitcase. John slammed Alice's finger in the trunk, accidentally, before she could snatch her hand away.

     "I'm sorry...." He started to say as he took her hand to kiss it. A clanging emanated from inside the car. Like someone tapping on a brass kettle.

     When Alice's finger stopped throbbing she picked up the teapot, removed the top and saw that inside was five quarters.

     "Practically paid for itself," she remarked.

     Still, John was annoyed when she insisted on setting it on the stove.

     For days he felt disrupted by its presence in their otherwise modern kitchen. They had overhauled everything when the children moved out. They got a fridge with two doors and a self-cleaning flat-surface oven. If they had known the children were going to lose their scholarships and that Alice would be demoted, they would have never done it. In three years it would all be paid for and the warranties would simultaneously expire.

     John was most aggravated when Alice decided to make their morning coffee using the brass teapot.

     "The electric one's broken," she reported.

     John watched her, standing in her business suit; her graying hair pulled into a neat ponytail, as she clumsily boiled water and added coffee grounds.

     "I've never done it this way," she said, stirring with a plastic spoon that bent in the boiling heat. John tried to show her the right way to do it, but it was too early to be giving orders. Neither was in a good mood until they had coffee and breakfast. Kisses, hugs, any affections came after food and caffeine.

     "You've got to stir it...like this," he said. He dipped a metal spoon into the cavernous depths of the darkening teapot. She looked away, like she always did when John was correcting her.

     "No you don't!" she snapped. She pushed his hand out of the way, causing the pot to lurch and send one boiling wave cresting onto John's exposed wrist. He yelped, climbed into the kitchen chair and poked at the tender pink skin until his wife brought him an ice pack.

     "It's going to blister," she said, applying the ice. He nodded and the two didn't speak until after she'd poured the coffee and he'd set out toast for each of them.

     "What time do you think you'll be home tonight?" she asked.

     "Late," he replied. There were shipments coming in from all over the country and he alone could work the new processing system for incoming orders. There was one other person, an up-and-coming woman straight out of college, but John preferred to do it himself. If she proved her worth too quickly he might find himself out of a job.

     With his last gulp of coffee, just before he was going to stand up and kiss his wife goodbye, John found something floating in his mouth.

     "Did you wash this thing out?"

     "Of course. It's clean."

     He pulled out some paper that had adhered to the roof of his mouth. It was a two-dollar bill.

     "What the hell is this then?" he asked.

     They both bent over the kitchen table where John laid the bill out to dry. Neither of the two could explain the presence of the money except to say that Alice must have missed it somehow when she was cleaning, though she swore she had scrubbed every angle of the brass teapot.

     The two soon embraced for a long kiss, both regretting the fighting they had done over the long weekend. Alice's tongue snuck in through John's slightly parted lips. He squirmed with genuine surprise. His burned wrist brushed against his wife's cotton top as he reached to put his hand beneath it. He yelped again from the raw pain.

     A nickel dropped in the teapot.

     The two bent over and stared in wonder. John picked it out, held it up to the light.

     Alice reached over and pinched her husband's arm as hard as she could. Before he could cry out or push her hand away, there was the sound of dimes dropping in the teapot.

     "How did that happen?" John asked.

     "Hit me," she said.

     He stared at her.

     "Don't knock me out or anything. Punch me in my arm. Hard enough to leave a bruise."

     John wouldn't hit her. Instead, he picked up his briefcase and headed for the front door.

     "If I'm late they're going to let her handle the shipments. We can't afford for me to miss out on all of this overtime. We have tuition to pay in less than a month."

     He kissed Alice and closed the door behind him.

The routine was that Alice made dinner because she got home first ever since her demotion from accountant to glorified messenger. John made breakfast and handled all of the meals on the weekends. When John returned home that night, however, there wasn't the smell of any cooking in the air.

     He found his wife lying on the couch, the teapot resting on her stomach. It was late, after ten, he had told his boss that he could handle things alone and told him to send her home because she would only be in the way. Without any help, it took him hours longer than it should have to finish processing the shipments.

     John's stomach grumbled painfully at the lack of ready food. He hadn't eaten since toast at breakfast, there had been no time. The bile that churned, and had been churning everyday for months, had created an ulcer in John's stomach. His knees ached from standing for hours at a time.

     The living room was dark, except for some light flickering out of the muted television set.

     "What are you doing?" he asked, turning on the overhead light.

     She tried to hide her face with a pillow from the couch, but he saw the bruise and the swelling.

     "What happened?"

     Alice's right eye was bloated, colored a dark purple. There was only a slit that she could peer out of. He ran to the kitchen and got the ice pack out of the freezer, laid it against her eye.

     She jumped up, said it was too sensitive and asked him to wrap a towel around it first.

     "Did someone attack you? Do I need to call the police?"

     His heart beat in his ears. Beneath the worries that his wife might suffer a hemorrhage and die was the worry about the impending hospital bill. They had been forced to stop making the payments on Alice's health insurance since her company had doubled employee responsibility.

     "No," she replied.

     She handed John the teapot. He removed the lid and saw inside it three ten dollar bills.

     "I hit myself with the iron," she said. She looked ashamed but was determined to tell him the truth. "It gave me ten dollars. I did it two more times." She told him that she thought it might eventually be more.

     "We've got to get you to a hospital."

     She refused.

     "The swelling will go down." After a long, heavy breath, after resting her throbbing head on her husband's shoulder, she suggested they use the money to go out to eat.

     The thought of food, of a restaurant, which they couldn't afford anymore, was enough for John to forget the strangeness of his wife hitting herself in the face with an iron, if only momentarily.

     "I will think better on a full stomach," he ruminated.

     As they gathered their things to go out to dinner, Alice took the teapot and held it close to her stomach. He asked her to leave it behind, but she refused.

     "What if someone broke in and stole it?" she asked.

     She set it on the table at the restaurant, much to the confusion of the waiter who eyeballed John like he was an abusive husband. It was the first time anyone had ever suspected him capable of violence.

     "What do you think we're going to do with that?" he asked, after he devoured his salad. They went to the Italian place where they used to go on birthdays and holidays. It was their favorite.

     "I don't know," she admitted. Little droplets of white pus sneaked out of an opening beneath the bottom lid of her eye. John dabbed at it with his napkin after wetting it in his water glass.

     "I just know that we've got an opportunity here...."

     "Opportunity?"

     The waiter returned with their meals. John got the veal on top of pasta, Alice had a sample plate consisting of a small portion of several things on the menu. They didn't speak as they ate. At Alice's job there was no time for lunch that day either. She ran memos around a huge office building, going up stairs and down long hallways all day long. They wouldn't let her wear sneakers because of the dress code so her feet were always blistered. The pay was much less than what she had received as a full-time accountant, a job she lost because of her tendency to make mathematical errors. Reportedly, she had cost the company millions by misfiling a tax return for an important client.

     When the bill came it was over thirty dollars. The two hadn't been to the restaurant in so long that the prices had risen and they hadn't even looked at their menus.

     "We could put it on the Discover," John suggested.

     "It's maxed."

     They sat in silence. They were eleven dollars short of even being able to pay the check, much less leave a tip. The trip to see their daughter over the long weekend had eaten what was left of their checking, with gas and giving her extra money. Payday was still three days away.

     "I could write a check and...."

     "No checks," she said, pointing to a sign in the window of the restaurant. John's ulcer screamed within his stomach, no longer satisfied by the warm, nourishing food.

     After a few moments of avoiding eye contact with the waiter, John took the teapot with him into the men's room. He locked the door behind him, thankful that it was a bathroom for one person only, and he proceeded to punch his fist into the wall. At first, his tentativeness profited him only in small change, dimes and nickels. He counted after five strikes into the porcelain tiling of the wall. There was not quite three dollars, though his fingers were red and burning.

     He drove his kneecap into the sink as hard as he could make himself. The pain sent icy blood in every direction starting at his heart. Toppling over, he leered into the teapot. A five dollar bill. With every ounce of his courage he ran the water as hot as it would go, sitting on the bathroom floor to the right of the spigot, and he held his hand beneath it for twenty seconds while it burned his skin. With his eyes tightly shut, he listened to the sound of quarters dropping until he was sure that he finally had enough.

     Alice was embarrassed to pay with so much change. As they left, she tried not to look at the other diners who stared at them. She propped up her mysteriously wounded husband, searching for the front door through her one good eye.

John had passed out on the couch not long after they returned home. Alice tinkered for a bit in the kitchen. He could hear whispers of "ow" and "shit" coming from the room, followed by the sound of change sprinkling into brass.

     In the morning he realized he had overslept. Normally he would've been in his bed where the alarm was set, but in the living room all was silent. It was ten a.m. Alice was unaccounted for, as was the teapot. John rushed into work where they told him to go ahead and take the day off. They told him he looked "beat up." She could handle it on her own. She'd already proven that in less than two hours of processing shipments.

     Dejected, John returned home to find his wife also not working.

     "Why are you home?" she asked. He stared into her face. The noon sunlight made her face look even worse than it had in the restaurant.

     "Why didn't you wake me up before you left this morning?" he asked.

     She told him that she hadn't left that morning. She had accidentally knocked herself out in the garage when one of the hanging shovels had fallen on her head.

     John felt around her skull until his fingers reached the bump.

     "I'm fine," she said.

     "We have to stop this!" he shouted. He forcefully took the teapot out of her arms and put it on top of a kitchen cupboard, where she couldn't reach. Undeterred, she scooted a chair over and took it down.

     "We have an opportunity to finally get ahead!" she screamed back. This time she would not let him take the teapot from her grasp.

     "Get ahead?" He explained to her that the only way they were going to get ahead was if they both worked their overtime. "Today's already set us back...."

     "We'll never get ahead, John. We never have and we never will. The moment we get any money something breaks or one of the children...."

     They argued for an hour, Alice the entire time clutching the closed teapot. She called him a loser three times during the fight and he once, out of frustration, told her that she had been a bad mother. It was the dirtiest they had ever treated one another. When they finished, when both were hunched over in exhaustion from not having eaten breakfast, Alice lifted the lid to find the teapot filled with twenty dollar bills. There was just over four hundred dollars.

     "But how?" John asked.

     Alice reared back and spit in his face. She then told him how she came home for lunch whenever she could in hopes that the postman would be walking his route and say hello to her.

     A twenty dollar bill appeared, though John was too hunched over to see it.

     "Now you do me!" she said.

     "You're a bitch!" he said. Change clinked.

     "No! Do me for real. Tell me something that you hate about me or something awful that you've done. Something that will really hurt my feelings."

     John thought as he sat at the table, still trying to form the picture of what their postman looked like.

     "I slept with Ellen Waterson...."

     "I already know that," she interrupted.

     "I slept with her after you and I were dating," he said spitefully.

     It had been a secret. Words festering beneath John's skin for twenty years. He could smell the words at night while he was lying in bed, next to Alice. Mildewed, damp, green words under his skin but not in his blood.

     Her face was pale but a smile crept onto it as she looked in the teapot and saw a fifty dollar bill appear.

     "Keep going," she said.

     The two proceeded to tell one another everything. Things which no married couple have ever shared. John told her about the woman at work, the one who might be replacing him, and how wonderfully upright her breasts were. Alice told him about the men she had been with before him and the things she had allowed them to do that she would never allow John to do to her. They did still love one another and by the end of the day the pot had given them over a thousand dollars. More than either of them could make in a week at their job.

     They continued on the next day, after shouting at one another so furiously that they had each finally retreated to their corners and cried themselves to sleep. John got a call on the fourth day from his boss saying that he shouldn't bother coming in again. That she could handle it.

     "Fine," John replied. "I've found something else anyway." His boss was surprised at the lack of emotion. Alice, too, decided to not return to her employer. Though they were running short on secrets and genuine insults - insincere insults didn't pay a dime - they had still worked up enough money to get by for months.

     Each morning they woke up late, sometimes not until after noon, typically alone, and they met at the kitchen table where they set the teapot in between them.

     "I always referred to you as loose when we were in high school," John said.

     Clank. Clank. Clank.

     "You have never given me an orgasm," Alice replied.

     Three twenty dollar bills.

     Alice was learning to predict how much money would be in the teapot by the recoiling countenance of her husband. The insults, the beatings, the degradations were having a slightly more permanent effect on him. His face was beginning to not spring back.

     By the third month the teapot was rewarding them with less and less money each day. Alice had begun reverting to slamming her fingers in the cupboards to reach the minimum amount needed to survive. The two figured if they could get at least a hundred dollars a day from the teapot, they would be fine.

     When their eldest daughter called them that third month to inform them that she was coming home for a weekend visit, Alice tried to gently suggest that she not come. The girl wouldn't listen. She showed up on their doorstep the very next night, not expecting what she saw.

     When she entered her childhood home, things were different. The pictures that had been on the mantle were smashed. Some by fists, others by emotions. Her mother's hair was short, cropped close to the head. She told her daughter that she had wanted something different, but honestly she had been pulling it out by the fistful for money to the point where she had to shave it to get it all one even length again.

     The girl's father was the biggest surprise. His hair had gone gray and he was heavier than he'd ever been before. The two had been eating well and never getting any exercise. They never wanted to leave the teapot, to miss a moment when they might make a little money.

     As she sat on the couch, drinking a cup of tea, staring at the changed environment in wonder, she began telling them stories of her classes and her professors. Normally, they would've listened intently. They would've had questions or comments about the girl's stories, but neither spoke. Both Alice and John were thinking of the teapot which was sitting, waiting on the coffee table in front of them.

     When the girl picked it up both parents lunged at her and pulled it from her hands.

     "It's an antique," Alice commented, setting it back down gently on the coffee table.

     "What happened to your eye, Mom?" the girl asked. There were four separate scars if one looked closely, but there was one brutal gash from where she'd struck herself with the iron that was noticeable at any distance.

     "That's nothing. I fell," she said. The words in her mouth formed like "thank you" and "hello".

     Alice looked at her daughter's unpinched, uncut, unbeaten skin with greedy eyes. When she hugged her, just before climbing the stairs to go to bed, Alice pinched her daughter beneath her arms and on her back.

     "What'd you do that for?" the girl yelled. The sound of change clanging in the pot went unnoticed to her.

     "Sorry," her mother said, disappointed by the familiar sound of nickels.

     As she handed the girl her suitcase, Alice banged it into her daughter's still sensitive shin. She howled and hobbled about for a few moments while her mother apologized over the promising sound of sprinkling quarters.

     John and Alice waited for their daughter to go out with her high school friends or to go to bed at night before starting their ritual of insults and physical attacks. When the girl asked in the morning what had happened, why her mother's lip was swollen, the two remained quiet.

     The girl left on Sunday, earlier than she had planned, because her mother had tripped and accidentally pushed her down the staircase while walking behind her. Her elbow might have had a small fracture and she wanted to go home to take advantage of the college's medical facilities. She thought it was strange that neither parent offered gas money.

     "You shouldn't have done that," John said, as they smiled and waved.

     "It's fifty dollars that we're going to use to pay for her education!"

     With all of their secrets scattered about their modest home, covered in broken glass and splintered wood, the two were forced to go back to beating themselves. John called his old boss and begged for his job on his boss's voicemail, but his calls were never returned.

     The tuition bills came every three months, they were on the payment plan. In addition to that there was the electric bill, the mortgage, the water and the credit cards. Not to mention the fact that they had to take Alice to the emergency room to treat a concussion that she had given herself with one of the garage shovels.

     A policeman had visited John in the waiting room and asked him questions. He had written John's answers into a little notebook and showed John pictures of Alice's bruises.

     "She fell?" the policeman asked.

     John nodded his head and stared off in the other direction.

     At the end of each week John took a giant bucket of change to the bank to be counted out and returned in bills. The change was even diminishing. They had begun to expect four hundred dollars a week in change, but it soon dwindled to two hundred and fifty.

     "The fridge doesn't work," Alice reported.

     "What? Why not?" John asked, returning from a disappointing trip to the bank.

     "I don't know," she replied. "Maybe because you punched it a thousand times."

     Her attitude was changing with each new day. John suspected that she had given herself another concussion the week before when she'd "slipped" in the shower and he had to pull her unconscious body, dangling, crimson, wet head to the bed. She said it was an accident, but the teapot had been suspiciously in the room with her. They had found through trial and error that the teapot only worked when it was within a certain range of the person being wounded.

     "So you're blaming me for the refrigerator being broken," he asked her. "What about the car? I could blame you for the shattered windshield."

     Her skin was bluish, pale. Her eyes had no white, only red and green. Sleep deprivation gave a little bit of money, but that wasn't why she lay there awake at night. She was in pain. Her head ached endlessly but she refused to go back to the doctor, saying that they would never get ahead if they had to pay yet another hospital bill.

     When the repairman came to work on the refrigerator he informed them that their warranty didn't cover the damage. Alice exploded in the man's face. He was short, bald, heavy. On his fingers were rings, gold and silver. He wore long blue overalls with a nametag that read "Randy."

     "Miss, I don't make the rules...." he started to say.

     John, dabbing at an injury on his chin that wouldn't stop bleeding, walked in on his wife striking the man on his head with a wooden spoon. He was older, slow from his weight and had a limp in his right leg.

     "Alice!" John yelled. He pulled her off of the heavy man who was covering his face with his hands. The clank of the wooden spoon hitting his rings had played in unison with the change rattling in the teapot.

     Alice lurched at the recoiled man with her feet, John having hold of her top half. Her foot planted firmly on the man's nose, breaking it instantly. Blood roared out of his nostrils, onto his lips and eventually onto the already blood-stained floor.

     "You're crazy!" he screamed at her. "You're wife's a crazy bitch!" He covered his face with his hand.

     "She's not crazy," John responded calmly.

     John walked over to the teapot and pulled out a newly formed hundred dollar bill. He handed it to the repairman.

     "Will you fix it for this?" he asked.

     The man laughed.

     "I'm taking you to court. My nose is broken!"

     John leered at Alice. Her bluish skin basked in the kitchen light. The phone rang somewhere in the distance, but no one heard it. All anyone could hear, including the repairman, was the tearing sound of the knife Alice pushed into the repairman's stomach. Both of his hands reached to the handle, to pull it out, but Alice pushed it in farther and turned it like she had seen done in movies.

     "What the hell did you do?" John yelled.

     Immediately he started thinking about what they would do with the body. How could he protect her from this?

     The fat man's body fell to the kitchen floor in two stages. Some undead portion of his spine tried to stay upright, while his thighs and ankles wanted to lay flat and be deceased. Alice kicked him to the ground once before his heart stopped beating.

     "What the hell did you do?" John asked again.

     She got down next to him, stabbed him three or four more times, in hopes that he could still feel the pain. She then lifted herself, John standing horrified in the corner, and walked over to the teapot. She lifted the lid. A blood-spattered smile charmed across her face.

     "Look at this!" she said. She held the pot out for him to see, though he didn't look. It was full of hundreds. Stuffed full of hundreds.

     "You killed a man!" John yelled. In a panic he looked out the kitchen window. There was no one in sight. "We'll have to get his body into his work truck outside. See if you can find his keys."

     John went to grab towels out of the bathroom to mop up the blood. When he returned she was at the man again with her knife.

     "It doesn't work after they're dead," she said.

     "Can you help me?" he asked.

     He had taken out several cleaning agents.

     "We've got to do something with him before people know he's missing."

     Alice wasn't listening. She was staring into the now empty pot.

     "We could buy our way to paradise," she whispered. "There's got to be fifteen neighbors in houses right around here that trust us. Don across the street has a gun in his closet. He keeps it loaded."

     He had shown both of them on the fourth of July.

     "This is over ten thousand dollars," she said, fumbling through the unchanging faces of Benjamin Franklin. "We could buy our way to Paradise," she repeated.

The Frog Prince.

2011-09-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool spring of water with a rose in the middle of it, she sat herself down to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and catching it again as it fell.

     After a time she threw it up so high that she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled along on the ground, until at last it fell down into the spring. The princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so deep that she could not see the bottom of it. She began to cry, and said, 'Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the world.'

     Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, 'Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?'

     'Alas!' said she, 'what can you do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.'

     The frog said, 'I do not want your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off your golden plate, and sleep on your bed, I will bring you your ball again.'

     'What nonsense,' thought the princess, 'this silly frog is talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he shall have what he asks.'

     So she said to the frog, 'Well, if you will bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.'

     Then the frog put his head down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the spring.

     As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could.

     The frog called after her, 'Stay, princess, and take me with you as you said,'

     But she did not stop to hear a word.

     The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a strange noise - tap, tap - plash, plash - as if something was coming up the marble staircase, and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the door, and a little voice cried out and said:

    'Open the door, my princess dear,
    Open the door to thy true love here!
    And mind the words that thou and I said
    By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

     Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her seat.

     The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, asked her what was the matter.

     'There is a nasty frog,' said she, 'at the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning. I told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come in.'

     While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said:

    'Open the door, my princess dear,
    Open the door to thy true love here!

    And mind the words that thou and I said
    By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

     Then the king said to the young princess, 'As you have given your word you must keep it; so go and let him in.'

     She did so, and the frog hopped into the room, and then straight on - tap, tap - plash, plash - from the bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where the princess sat.

     'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess, 'and let me sit next to you.'

     As soon as she had done this, the frog said, 'Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.'

     This she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I am tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the princess, though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long.

     As soon as it was light the frog jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house.

     'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be troubled with him no more.'

     But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said:

    'Open the door, my princess dear,
    Open the door to thy true love here!
    And mind the words that thou and I said
    By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

     And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen and standing at the head of her bed.

     He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights.

     'You,' said the prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for but that you should go with me into my father's kingdom, where I will marry you, and love you as long as you live.'

     The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying 'Yes' to all this; and as they spoke a brightly coloured coach drove up, with eight beautiful horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind the coach rode the prince's servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst.

     They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince's kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great many years.

Appearance.

2011-09-05T00:22:00.000-07:00

It was during the first snowstorm of the new year. The color green was something you saw in pictures tacked to the wall or in a memory from what felt like years ago. I was living alone in a studio apartment in a shitty section of west Cleveland. Everything was the same color in that neighborhood, even in the summer. It was the kind of dirty grey that gets swept up into the air of unfinished basements and cold storage warehouses. There were no stairs to get to my apartment. I was as far down as you can get without going under. I slept in the same room as the oven, but I liked the smallness of it. When I was young my sister and I used to zip each other into suitcases. We would drag the suitcases up and down the stairs, and all around the living room, laughing hysterically.      That first morning I wrapped a scarf around my neck and lit the stove. I tripped over my shoes on my way to the sink to fill the pot. I looked down at them accusingly, as if anyone but me could have put them there. I looked up after kicking them across the room and that was when I saw him for the first time. I wouldn't find out until later that he had been there for weeks. Inches away from me as I slept. An arm's reach as I showered and dressed each morning. He sat with me while I overcooked my eggs and searched the internet for a cat to adopt, each time deciding against it because I could imagine it snowballing into two or three until I became one of those women.
     The outside world that day, and every day since I had been living there, was a white swirling mixture of ground and sky. Set against the bright seamless backdrop was the outline of a man. He was fading in and out with each gust of wind, like a Polaroid gone backwards. But I saw him. I saw the tip of one of his pink fingers poking out of a hole in his glove. His hands were up against his mouth which was covered in a thick dark beard and his breath came in a long slow billow of white smoke, like the mouth of a gutter under a frozen street. His hood was pulled up over his head which made his eyes ever brighter in the shadow. I couldn't tell what color they were, but they seemed to have a reflection inside them like the round outline of a flashbulb in the eye of a magazine model. I didn't scream. I felt nothing like adrenaline, or dread. Or that feeling when your heart beats so fast it makes you want to throw up. Nothing like that happened. If someone told me that they saw a strange man staring at them through their window I would have expected to hear them say, "And then I screamed and dropped my glass and it shattered and I ran to the phone and dialed 911 and then I ran to my front door and pulled the deadbolt across and then I hid in the bathroom with the door closed and I couldn't stop shaking." But I didn't do any of that. I stood completely still as if someone was holding me there, and I watched as the man I saw so clearly disappeared into the endless white.

     There was nothing in my apartment that anyone would want. My possessions were piled in and out of boxes and I didn't even own a real bed. I had a mattress on the floor that tripled as a couch and dining room table. I did own a laptop but I took it with me to work. I didn't own a TV, or a toaster oven, or even a decent pair of shoes. I just decided that since there was nothing for him to steal, and I was sure he figured that out if he took a good look, that I would go on about my day despite his strange appearance outside my window. It felt less like a decision to ignore it, and more like it didn't happen at all. Or like it happens all the time. And that is exactly how it ended up. Each morning while I boiled water and ladled my mug into the steaming pot, I saw him. I didn't own a tea kettle either. I didn't see why people spent money on things like that when they could function perfectly well without them. But anyway, each night when I came home from work and my apartment was dark and quiet and anyone would think that I should be scared, I wasn't. There was no one waiting for me behind the shower curtain. Nothing was ever out of place. There were never any footprints circling my apartment, or scratch marks around my doorknob. I came and went peacefully and each morning I shared a moment with a stranger whose eye brows curled up like a puppy and whose fingers were always bent across his mouth.
     It went on for about a week that way. I continued to start my car ten minutes early with the keys dangling in the ignition, so it could thaw. I guess in hindsight that was a pretty stupid thing to do in west Cleveland anyway, random man or not. But I mean I just lived my life normally, with the exception of my gloomy window friend stopping by more and more often. Once while I was watching TV late at night, something caught my eye at the window. Of course it was him. I just kept on eating my popcorn until I was full and there was still half a bowl left. I hated to waste food, and I always felt bad for the little birds that hopped over the snow, and wondered what the hell they ate in this neighborhood at twelve below. So sometimes I would throw food outside for them. Or for the squirrels. So I went to the window. I had never really…confronted the man. I stayed a room's length away from him as he peered at me sadly. But that night I guess I got brave. I got up and saw his outline like the moon must have been fat and shining right behind him, casting a line of white around his face. My eyes went to the top of the window to unhook the lock, and when they returned to him there was only the snow. He had been erased by its pale hand. I put my face into the cold, that kind of cold that feels more like fire than ice, and I looked for him. The snow was covered in a layer of glass. I threw the leftover popcorn and it rolled like dice across the ground. There were no signs of his tracks. I noticed, as I pulled the window back down, that there was no moon that night.

     The next morning I saw the white grey billows of exhaust fumes pouring out of a piece of shit station wagon in front of my apartment. I saw the woman's eyes, and they were glossy and dull. I had seen her baby basset hound eyebrows before, on the man at my window. She just stared at the door as if she was waiting for someone to come out. I came out. She drove away.
     It happened that way three times. Not all at once, but spread so far out across two weeks that I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't a déjà vu, and that yes, this had really happened before. The fourth time I decided had to be different. Something about her felt so much like the man at my window, but maybe it was just her coming and going. And her staring. And those eyebrows arching up. But her hands were not covering her mouth; they were white and exposed even in this weather, and they were gripping the steering wheel. So I could see that her lips were moving tightly against each other, and on top of each other, pulling in and out of her mouth. This fourth time she didn't drive away when I walked out onto the ice. I stood waiting for her to do it; to drive away as she always had. But she just looked ahead at the road, and then back into my face. Then I saw her hand move to the door, and the window rolled down. I walked towards her casually, not like someone who had seen her on three previous mornings, but like someone who was going to ask her if she needed directions. Or if she was alright. So I did ask her that, because I wasn't sure what else to say.
     The wind stole the words and spread them out across the trees and the pavement and the kicked over silver trash cans. She said nothing. She looked like she might drive away again. She put her hands back on the wheel and looked straight ahead. But then she turned and looked past me at my apartment. I looked back then too, like maybe I was missing something. She was looking at the right side of the house, at the space between it and the neighbor's fence, which was all of four feet. It was the space where I saw my window friend each morning standing, waiting to watch me curse at my hair for making me late.

     "Are you looking for him?" I asked. Feeling as soon as I said it, the longing to take it back. I wasn't sure what I would say if she asked "Who?" Oh, just that man who stares in my window every day. The one who for all I know could be a serial killer casing out his next victim. I know that's what people would think if I told them. But it didn't feel like that at all.
     But she didn't ask me who, she didn't say anything for about a minute, she just stared blankly back and forth between me and the apartment, and I knew that I would be late for work again. She looked like she was about to say something, her mouth kept moving and tears starting falling into it from her eyes. I remembered the landlord speaking to me in broken English, telling me how grateful he was that he didn't need to help me carry furniture. I remembered him telling me that a couple had lived there before me. And he kept saying something in Spanish that sounded like "tragic." And he kept shaking his head.
     "Do you need help?" I asked, coming a little closer to the window. She just kept crying, harder now. I squeezed my cell phone for the time and saw that I was still early. I always turned my car on too soon, and by the time I got inside it the snow was pouring from the roof like rain.
     "You can come inside and we can have some tea if you want." I said, imagining myself using a soup spoon to dish her out a ration of hot water.
     "Or maybe you just want to talk? Is that why you keep coming here?" I just kept talking. I didn't know what else to do with her.
     "What's your name? I just moved here a few weeks ago, actually I guess it's been more than a month. I don't know anyone. I work downtown at a magazine. I do graphic design." She started to calm down a little and looked at me.

     "Amy," she said quietly.
     "Hey Amy," I said, a little too cheerfully. "I'm Ellen. Is this where you used to live?" I said, pointing back at my little faded blue apartment and the trees, and the trash cans that were glued to the sidewalk now from all the ice. She stared at the apartment and nodded at it, as if it had asked her the question.
     "Well, did you want to come in for a little while? I can't stay long, I do have to go soon, but you can come in for a few minutes if you want. I know when I moved from my first house I always wanted to go back and see what they did to my old room. See if they painted it a different color or anything. I didn't paint anything yet. Maybe I will in the summer." I smiled at her, and she smiled back slowly, as if her face had forgotten which muscles it took to pull up the chapped corners of her mouth. She stared at the house, and then at me and then back at the house again, and without saying anything she unlocked her seat belt and got out of the car. We were standing there in the middle of the frozen street, her car was still running and dripping fluid, making a little puddle that was curling and flowing over the cracks in the ice and the dirty solid snow that was pushed up onto the curb.
     "Did you want to…?" I motioned to the keys hanging in the ignition. It was alright for me to leave my car running, but if hers got stolen I would feel pretty terrible.
     "Oh, yeah, thanks," she said softly. I watched her lean into her car and shut it off, pull the keys out and put them in the pocket of her coat. When she turned to face me again I smiled a sort of awkward, ok right this way, kind of smile, and turned to walk to the apartment. She followed me hesitantly and I heard her take in a deep breath. The cold air must have stung her lungs because she started coughing.

     "You ok?" I said, turning to look at her over my shoulder as I opened the door and walked in. She just nodded, and I saw her eyebrows start to go higher, and her lips start to pull into her mouth. I wasn't sure if this was such a great idea after all. What was I supposed to do with some strange sobbing woman? I remembered that I didn't have anywhere for her to sit, and it felt like an even worse idea. I took in a deep breath of the frozen air as we walked into the apartment.
     She was my first guest and I was suddenly a little self conscious about my housekeeping. I scooped up the cold soggy tea bags from the counter and threw them in the trash, and moved a few things around so I didn't look like a slob.
     "Do you want some tea? Or hot chocolate maybe? I don't have a coffee maker." I grabbed two mugs before she could answer, refilled the pot that was on the stove, and started it to boil. She didn't say anything, and I looked behind me to see her standing in what I guess had been her living room, looking around the apartment like Dorothy when she came out of her little spinning cabin.
     "I think I feel like some hot chocolate," I said, trying to break her from her daze. She stared at me as if she had forgotten where she was. "Sure," she said finally.
     I attempted small talk, mostly to myself, while the water boiled. I asked her questions and got a nod here and there. Finally I had two cups of hot chocolate and I stirred at them violently trying to get the lumps out.
     "I wish I had some of those tiny marshmallows. They're fun," I said, smiling awkwardly as I handed her the mug. It was from some rest stop in the Redwood Forrest, Paul Bunyan and his big blue Ox. I wished I would have noticed and given her the one with the Dalmatian instead. That would have seemed a little less awkward. My mom sent it to me because when I was little I loved Dalmatians. I tried to explain to her that, thanks to Disney, lots of little kids liked Dalmatians and that the phase was over, but she still kept sending me mugs and birthday cards with black spots.

     "I guess you could sit…on my bed if you want? I'm sorry, that's pretty creepy but I don't have any chairs yet." I looked around at the empty walls and the posters rolled up on the floor and told myself I would hang them up tonight. But I knew I wouldn't. She walked over to my bed and sat down on the corner. I pulled up a box full of books and sat down on it. I sipped at the hot chocolate and got a big chunk of powder. I hoped I had stirred hers a little better.
     "So, you lived here before me?" I asked quietly. Hoping not to start another round of hysterics; she had finally seemed to calm down.
     "Yes."
     "Did you live alone?" I squeezed the hot mug, already feeling like I knew the answer. She must have been part of the couple the landlord attempted to gossip with me about. Maybe it was a really bad breakup. Maybe he was still looking for her, still stalking her. I thought of the man who I guess was stalking me. But he didn't seem like he would hurt anybody. He was too sad, too cold and lonely.
     "No," she said, and then she breathed into the steaming mug, and I waited, hoping that maybe she would tell me her story so that I didn't ask the wrong question and make her cry.
     "I lived with my fiancé, Eric. He was a musician." She tried smiling. "We had rugs and towels hanging all over the walls," - she pointed to the tiny holes, the ones I never noticed - "and his friends would come over and practice."
     "Band practice in this place? That must have been crazy." She smiled bigger now. I was sure she was transporting herself back there, and I pictured four or five guys with guitars huddled around the bed where she sat and listened, maybe a drummer with his chair stuck inside the bathroom. She stopped talking and stared down into her mug. We sat in silence and then my eyes went to the window. He was back.

     Amy noticed the way I looked at the window suddenly, and she looked too, but nothing happened. She didn't see him. He walked closer to the window and cupped his hands around his face to peer inside. Then he looked sadder than he ever had. His cheeks pulled up and his forehead wrinkled like an old man. It looked like he was shaking. He put his palms flat on the window and I could see what looked like frost forming where the tips of his fingers touched the glass. I realized in that moment, what I knew I couldn't say out loud. Either I had a tumor growing in my brain that was making me see this man that she couldn't, or he was a ghost. He was her ghost. Her fiance's ghost.
     "Amy, what happened to him? To Eric." I halfway hoped she would say, "What do you mean? He's at work." But then that would mean that I had a tumor, and I couldn't afford a tumor. I didn't have health insurance.
     But she didn't say that. She just looked at me as if she didn't care how I knew, or what I knew. As if I wasn't even there. She stared into the air and her mind went somewhere else again. This time it wasn't somewhere happy at all.
     "He killed himself. Right over there." She pointed to the cramped bathroom. The yellow tiles. I pictured the man at the window, staring into the tiny mirror over the sink, with a gun inside his mouth. I thought about what questions were appropriate, if any. And what do you ask first? Why or how? I guess how was the less complicated one so I went with that.
     "Pills. He swallowed the whole cabinet full. I found him lying on the floor all curled up." She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut hard. I guess she was seeing it again. Seeing him. I looked at the window and he was squeezing his eyes shut too.
     "What was he like?" I tried changing the subject a little. I stared out the window at him as she spoke.

     "He was," she paused, "quiet. I never knew what he was going through. In his head. He just wouldn't tell me. He lost his job and they kicked him out of the band. They said they didn't need three guitar players, they said they looked stupid on stage with that many people. My parents never liked him. They didn't want us to get married. They said he looked like he belonged in a homeless shelter. But he loved that beard. I loved it..." She trailed off and looked down at her shoes, which were making a puddle on the wood floor.
     "I'm sorry, I don't know why I keep coming here. I just feel close to him here I guess. I never got to say goodbye." She sighed and looked around at the empty walls. I was sure now that the man at the window was dead. That he was Eric. That he was coming here for her. I guess it didn't sound as crazy to me as it should have.
     "I think he's been coming here too." I said, bracing myself in case she flipped out. She didn't. She just stared at me and squinted her eyes like she was trying to read the fine print across my face.
     "Someone's been coming to the window. I thought maybe he was homeless or, I'm not sure what I thought. But maybe it's him. He's there right now actually." I expected him to disappear as soon as she turned her head to look out the window, but he didn't. He stared into her eyes. She turned back to me.
     "There?" she said, confused, pointing to the frozen glass.
     "Yeah. He's looking at you. He seems really upset. Maybe he didn't mean to do it." I wasn't sure what I was doing. Being an interpreter for the dead? She looked at me at first like I was crazy, and I understood. But she didn't get up, she didn't throw the hot brown liquid in my face and run screaming for the door. I think she must have wanted this, deep down. She must have driven here needing to find something. Needing this to be real. Her face softened and she looked back at the window as she spoke. I looked back too and of course, maybe to make me look even crazier, he was gone.

     "Does he…talk?" she said, and I could hear the sane part of her trying to win out over whatever part believed it all.
     "Well he's gone now. But no, he doesn't talk. Not to me."
     She snapped her head back towards me, the fastest movement she had made so far.
     "What do you mean, he's gone?" She got up and went to the window. She looked out of it a little frantically, and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She stood there with her eyes closed for a long time. Just breathing.
     Finally she turned and looked around the apartment again, this time with the softest edge of a grin. She looked down into her mug and then up to me.
     "Thank you for this. For letting me come back."
     "You're welcome."
     "I'll let you go now. I don't want to make you late." She walked to the sink and put her mug down next to the dirty plates and cups. I followed her to the door as if it were still her apartment. The sun was so bright against the snow that I had to shield my eyes with the half empty Dalmatian mug.
     "It was nice meeting you." She said, smiling so that now I could see the row of white teeth that I never imagined existed.
     "Sure. I'm glad I could…help?" I said, searching for the words to describe or explain what just took place. She turned and walked back to her car, seeming almost a little embarrassed for having been there at all. Then to my left, from the side of the house came at first a shadow, and then a man. Eric. Now he had a name. I watched as he walked with his hands down from his face now and at his sides. He stopped and looked at me, right into my eyes, for a few seconds that seemed to stretch out longer than any other few seconds of my life. Then he walked forward again, catching up to Amy.

     "Amy!" I wanted to tell her that he was right there, he was right behind her. But I stopped. She turned to face me and she was really facing him. He was between us looking right into her face, close enough to touch her.
     "You're welcome to stop by anytime." I said, feeling like it sounded less genuine that it was. I guess I really did mean it. She got into the car and I watched as Eric got into the passenger's seat.
     "Thanks." She said, looking back at the house. I knew I would never see her again by the way she looked at it as she drove off, like she was saying goodbye.

Graduation.

2011-09-05T00:21:00.000-07:00

Just a mile outside the city limits of Council, Oklahoma, a man in dirty jeans and a soiled gray sweatshirt stood above Interstate 40 on the Route 81 overpass. It was an early November morning, the sun just becoming visible in the East, and he rubbed his hands together in an attempt to alleviate the chill in his bones. Eighteen wheelers were starting to fly by in both directions. Trucks headed east went on into Oklahoma City, from there who knows. They could meet up with I-35 and travel south to Dallas or Houston. North to Kansas City, Omaha or maybe all the way to the Twin Cities. Possibly keep driving east over to Memphis or Nashville. Might take I-44 and go straight on to St. Louis. Be there by mid-afternoon.

     He decided he'd follow the westbound road. There just seemed to be fewer options that way. Trucks heading west had to go all the way to Amarillo for a decent stop. He'd gone that far west with his family once. It was years before at the age of thirteen when an uncle was married in Dumas, Texas. That had been nice. He remembered how when they reached Amarillo they went north up into the panhandle. Even though there weren't any mountains, he could still feel them climbing into higher altitude, but when they rolled into Dumas it was just as flat as western Oklahoma. "High plains," his father said from the front seat. He hadn't thought of there being a higher kind of flat.
     Walking with his head down along the interstate, his heartbeat rose whenever he caught sight of a plastic bottle, only to be let down when it didn't contain urine. He knew truck drivers used meth to stay awake on cross country drives. Knew that many of them would rather piss in a bottle and throw it out the window than lose fifteen minutes with a truck stop. Recycled meth wasn't as pure a dose, but a batch of good urine still got him five hours once.
     He found himself picking at the scab on his left hand as he continued walking. A nervous tic that had gotten out of control. He shoved his hands into his pockets, but kept thinking about the sores on his body, causing him to bring a hand up to his face and run it over the rough patches on his forehead. He wondered what he looked like. Probably homeless, and at that point, he supposed he kind of was. His girlfriend left the week before, less than a day after they shut off the electricity. Shut the water off a few days after that.

     She had gone to stay with her folks in Hobart, which had its conditions. One, that she couldn't see him anymore – her parents never had liked the fact she was eight years younger than him. And two, that her father the cop would administer a drug test every two weeks. She was a fool. So were her parents. He knew it would end badly.
     With his headache becoming more acute, he contemplated crossing the interstate to search the other side. He thought about the dynamics of driving – how the driver was on the left side. Would they really lean across the passenger seat to toss out a bottle of piss? The stretch of grass separating eastbound and westbound was more likely.
     He was wondering if a highway patrolman would stop him for walking in the median when he caught sight of a plastic bottle lying in the grass. The unmistakable golden color was nearly concealed by the lifeless grass surrounding it. He slid down to his knees and picked up the bottle. It wasn't warm. He wondered if that mattered. With thoughts of separation and reconstitution he shook the bottle up like juice. He twisted the cap off and brought the bottle to his nose, wishing there was some way to know if it contained meth. He didn't think there was.

The Backward Fall.

2011-09-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

"Dad?" she says. "I swear, I can't remember the words to my own songs." She is sixty-two and sitting on the edge of the couch, her old acoustic guitar perched on her knee.      Her husband of forty-seven years walks into the living room from the kitchen. "What's that, Mom?" he says. For decades, ever since they had their third child together, he has called her Mom and she has called him Dad.
     "I can't remember how the second verse starts."
     "Well, what are you singing?"
     "You must be ignoring me. I've been trying to sing the same song for the last twenty minutes."
     George, her husband, looks up at the ceiling. "Well, let's see," he says, rubbing the gray stubble of his beard. "Picking Flowers in the Rain?"
     She smiles and strums the guitar with a flourish. "Lucky guess."
     "The second verse is when it starts to rain. Something about drops on the petals, I believe."
     "Of course." She nods her head once. "How could I have forgotten that?"
     She begins to play again, simple chords on a wooden guitar, and sings a song she wrote when she was much younger. It is the story of two lovers who walk in a field of wildflowers. A warm rain begins to fall, and instead of running for shelter, they pick flowers together and realize they are in love.
*
"Dad?" she says. She is sixty-four. "Will you get in that closet by the door and …"
     "What's that, Mom?" he says. He is instantly on his feet, poised to do her bidding. "What do you want me to do?"
     He sees the look on her face and lowers himself back into his chair. He hates that look, although he sees it so often it has become his old, evil friend. It is a look of confusion, one of bewildered fear.

     "I forgot what I wanted." She shakes her head, settles back into her own chair.
     "That's all right. It'll come to you."
     She stares straight ahead. Their two recliners are set up in front of the television, but she rarely watches anymore. After a few moments, she turns her head to him. "What are we going to do when I can't remember anything?"
     "The doctors said it might not get any worse. You know that."
     "But what if it does? What if one day I wake up and I've forgotten everything?"
     He reaches across the small table between them and pats her hand. "Then I'll just remind you of everything."
     She smiles at this and the evil look fades away. Above the television is a mantle full of pictures. Her entire family, from her grandparents to her own great-grandchildren, rest on that mantle. She ignores the television and stares at the pictures, even though they are too far away to really see. After a few minutes, she says, "My feet are cold. Will you get me the blanket out of the closet by the door?"

"Did you fill up the tank like I told you?" she asks. She is sixty-five. She is also forty-eight. "Once we get on the road, I don't want to have to stop for gas."
     He looks at her for a moment, bobs his head, and turns back to the television.
     "Aren't you going to answer me?"
     "I don't even know what you're talking about, Mom."
     "The tank. Did you fill up the tank?"
     Sighing, he mutes the program he is watching about ancient people in Peru. He has always wanted to see the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Several years ago, he embraced the fact that he will never go. "Why would I fill up the car? We never go anywhere but to the grocery store once a week."
     She laughs and shakes her head. "You can be so dull sometimes. The Grand Canyon!"
     "The Grand Canyon?"
     "We're leaving tomorrow."
     "Mom, we went to the Grand Canyon over fifteen years ago. Don't you remember?"
     She raises a finger to correct him, pauses, looks off into nowhere with her eyes unfocused. The finger moves to her bottom lip. "But, I …"
     He watches her for a time as her face voids of all emotion, all evidence of thought. He thinks of the Grand Canyon, which they visited shortly after he retired from the factory on disability. On his first day without a job, he cashed in almost all their chips and bought a motor home. They drove it all over the country – but first, to the Grand Canyon. They called it The Big Adventure, their three year jaunt from one ocean to the other and back again. They felt so young during that time.
     He un-mutes his program and, like he does every minute of every day, tries to breathe through the pounding of his heart.
     "I heard they have mules you can ride down into the canyon," she says. "You think that's true?"
     Her hand is resting on the table between them. He reaches over and grasps it. In his mind's eye he sees her body rocking forward and back as the mule traverses the rocky trail, her reddish-gray hair lit from behind by the desert sun.
     "I'm sure of it," he says.

A hand on his shoulder shakes him from sleep. He props himself up in bed and looks at the clock. Nearly four in the morning. "What is it, Mom? What's wrong?"

     "I need to tell you something." She is sixty-seven. She is thirty-one.
     He sits up and turns on the lamp.
     "Wendell Thurber kissed me on the mouth today," she says.

     "Wendell Thurber?"
     "We've been taking lunch together quite a bit lately and today he kissed me." She lowers her eyes to the blanket. "He did it before I even knew what was happening."
     George remembers this conversation. It was years and years ago, during a time when she worked at the factory for several months to help save for their first real house. He stares at her but says nothing.
     "Here's the thing, George," she says. "Things haven't been right with us for a long time. You don't seem to appreciate me anymore."
     "I appreciate you."
     "You don't act like it."
     At the time, he hadn't acted like it. For some reason, he'd fallen into a pattern of ignoring her, of taking her for granted, without even realizing he was doing it. This was the conversation when she had called him out.
     "I've had a crush on Wendell Thurber for awhile," she says. "Today, he showed me that he feels the same way." She clutches the blanket to her. "I'm telling you this because I love you. I just want you to know that there are other men out there who might treat me like I deserve to be treated."
     It was quite a chance she took. He could have gotten angry, called her a whore. He could have left. She bet their lives together on his reaction to a kiss from another man. And it worked. Instead of getting angry, he held her in his arms. He changed. He started being nice to her again.
     And then a wonderful thing happened. The more he was kind to her, and did things just to make her happy, the more she did the same thing for him in return. Soon, it was like a contest to see who could be the best spouse, who could give the most love.
     Smiling, he draws her into his arms. "I'll change," he says. "I promise."

"What are you talking about?" she says.

     He looks down and sees that her eyes are fixed on the clock.
     "It's four in the morning," she says. "What are you doing up?"
     "I … couldn't sleep."
     "Well, turn off the light and try harder." She lies back and turns roughly onto her side.
     He looks at her for a long moment. Then he turns off the lamp and closes his stinging eyes to the dark.

"I know you stole my ring," she says. "Where is it?" Her eyes are narrow but full of fire. She is twenty-three and sixty-eight.
     "I don't know where it is, Mom." He is standing in the kitchen, pebbles of broken glass from the coffee pot all around his bare feet.
     "You're a liar."
     "You must have hid it again. Just calm down and we'll go look for it."
     She roars, a sound he did not think she was capable of making, and picks up the fruit bowl.
     Pulling his arms up over his face, he says, "Please don't throw anything else at me, Mom."
     "Stop calling me that! I'm not your mother. You're just a dirty old man."
     "Don't you recognize me? It's me, George."
     She slams the bowl back to the counter, hard enough to crack it. "You're not my George. You're an old man. You've got me trapped here. You stole all my money, and now you took my wedding ring."
     "That's not true."
     She says nothing for a moment, breathing hard.
     "I gave you that ring," he says. "I wouldn't ever take it away from you."

     She breathes faster, nearly gasping. Tears ring her eyes and that scrapes at his heart more than anything else.
     "Please," he says.
     Suddenly, she turns and runs out of the kitchen. He hears the slam of the front screen door, and with thoughts of her in the street, missing, hurt, he steps across the broken glass and runs after her. He has not run so hard in years. His heart feels large, bloated in his chest. He brings her down in the mud by the road, his twisted fingers, gnarled by arthritis, pulling at her nightgown. She slaps his face, pounds his chest. He only has the strength to hold her where she is, writhing in the cold mud.
     Soon she ceases thrashing. Her body curls and shakes. He coaxes her to stand and then walk back to the house. When the warm water of the shower is running, he stands in the tub next to her and moves her beneath the spray. The mud rolls from her white hair and her white skin and mixes with the blood that spins in pink spirals from his feet.

She is sixteen. The old man is staring at her again, but she ignores it as she always does. She has more important things to think about than the nervous, always-crying old man.
     George is coming today. She knows he is coming to ask if he can court her. He courted her sister for a few weeks, but that went nowhere. Her sister is pretty, but George couldn't stop looking over his shoulder at the younger girl with long, dark hair. Today, he is coming for her.
     She steps out onto the front porch. A dirt path trails away from her door, down the hill into the holler, and then around a bend where it disappears into a cove of pines. On the other side of those pines is the wooden bridge that spans the Sandy River and then the railroad tracks.
     She turns her head and sees that the old man is out on the porch now, sitting with his hands crossed in his lap.

     "What do you want?" she says to him.
     Raising his hands in innocence, he replies, "Why, nothing, Mom. I'm just watching the TV."
     The old man is senile. She hardly understands a thing he says.
     She turns back to the path. And there he is, emerging from the pines, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt draped loosely over his thin but sturdy frame. He walks with an easy gait, a little bowlegged, as he makes the bend and then lowers his head for the trek up the long hill. After a time, he looks up and she waves. He acknowledges only with a dip of his head. This is a man too proud to wave, but not too proud to pick a bouquet of wildflowers which she now sees clutched in one of his fists. Those flowers make her smile, and in the back of her mind the words to a song begin to form. She knows without the slightest of doubts that this is the man she will love for the rest of her life.
     "Who are you waving at, Mom?" the old man says.
     "My husband," she says.
     "Well, I'm right over here. You're waving at the wall."
     The poor old man. He is senile, but kind. She turns and waves to him.
     Lifting his hand in return, he says, "Hello, darling."

The faces are all around her, hovering. She cannot move, but she can watch them. The faces have no names. Within her, there are no memories because she is an infant. She has a vague sense that something has been stripped from her, torn away against her will, but this does not anger her. The faces bring her comfort. For even though they have no names, she knows that they love her, and that she loves them in return.
She feels herself breathe. Slowly. In and out.
The faces eclipse her vision, one at a time. Unknown words fall from lips. Tears fall from sad eyes. She breathes in each face and it soothes her. Last is a face that feels familiar. Its shape is familiar – its gritty texture as a cheek presses against her cheek. Familiar lips touch her forehead. She watches this face and realizes that while all information has been stripped away, emotion has remained. Untouched.
The face fills her with security, and she finds she has the strength to fall backward one last time.

The House With the Golden Windows.

2011-08-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

The little girl lived in a small, very simple, poor house on a hill and as she grew she would play in the small garden and as she grew she was able to see over the garden fence and across the valley to a wonderful house high on the hill – and this house had golden windows, so golden and shining that the little girl would dream of how magic it would be to grow up and live in a house with golden windows instead of an ordinary house like hers.

And although she loved her parents and her family, she yearned to live in such a golden house and dreamed all day about how wonderful and exciting it must feel to live there.

When she got to an age where she gained enough skill and sensibility to go outside her garden fence, she asked her mother is she could go for a bike ride outside the gate and down the lane. After pleading with her, her mother finally allowed her to go, insisting that she kept close to the house and didn’t wander too far. The day was beautiful and the little girl knew exactly where she was heading! Down the lane and across the valley, she rode her bike until she got to the gate of the golden house across on the other hill.

As she dismounted her bike and lent it against the gate post, she focused on the path that lead to the house and then on the house itself…and was so disappointed as she realized all the windows were plain and rather dirty, reflecting nothing other than the sad neglect of the house that stood derelict.

So sad she didn’t go any further and turned, heart broken as she remounted her bike … As she glanced up she saw a sight to amaze her…there across the way on her side of the valley was a little house and its windows glistened golden …as the sun shone on her little home.

She realized that she had been living in her golden house and all the love and care she found there was what made her home the ‘golden house’. Everything she dreamed was right there in front of her nose!

The Midas Touch.

2011-08-31T00:37:00.000-07:00

We all know the story of the greedy king named Midas. He had a lot of gold and the more he had the more he wanted. He stored all the gold in his vaults and used to spend time every day counting it.

One day while he was counting a mysterious stranger came from nowhere and told the King that he would grant him a wish.

The king was delighted and said, “I would like everything I touch to turn to gold.”

The stranger asked the king, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” replied the greedy king. So the stranger said, “Starting tomorrow morning with the sun rays you will get the golden touch.”

The king thought he must be dreaming, this couldn’t be true. But the next day when he woke up, he touched the bed, his clothes, and to his surprise, everything turned to gold. Of course, the king was very delighted.

He then looked out of the window and saw his daughter playing in the garden. He decided to give her a surprise and thought she would be happy. But before he went to the garden he decided to read a book. The moment he touched it, it turned into gold and he couldn’t read it. Then he sat to have breakfast and the moment he touched the fruit and the glass of water, they turned to gold. He was getting hungry and he said to himself, “I can’t eat and drink gold.”

Just about that time his daughter came running and he hugged her and she turned into a gold statue. There were no more smiles left.

The king bowed his head and started crying. The stranger who gave the wish came again and asked the king if he was happy with his golden touch.

The king said he was the most miserable man. The stranger asked, “What would you rather have, your food and loving daughter or lumps of gold and her golden statue?”

The king cried and asked for forgiveness. He said, “I will give up all my gold. Please give me my daughter back because without her I have lost everything worth having.”

The stranger said to the king, “You have become wiser than before” and he reversed the spell. The king got his daughter back in his arms and the king learned a lesson that he never forget for the rest of his life.

Sometimes getting what you want may be a bigger tragedy than not getting what you want.

Chasing Meaningless Goals.

2011-08-31T00:35:00.000-07:00

A farmer had a dog who used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came he would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it.

One day a neighbor asked the farmer “Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?”

The farmer replied, “That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is what he would do if he ever caught one.” Many people in life behave like that dog who is pursuing meaningless goals.

Who Did Patrick's Homework?

2011-08-30T05:29:00.001-07:00

Patrick never did homework. "Too boring," he said. He played baseball and basketball and Nintendo instead. His teachers told him, "Patrick! Do your homework or you won't learn a thing." And it's true, sometimes he did feel like a ding-a-ling.

But what could he do? He hated homework.

Then on St. Patrick's Day his cat was playing with a little doll and he grabbed it away. To his surprise it wasn't a doll at all, but a man of the tiniest size. He had a little wool shirt with old fashioned britches and a high tall hat much like a witch's. He yelled, "Save me! Don't give me back to that cat. I'll grant you a wish, I promise you that."

Patrick couldn't believe how lucky he was! Here was the answer to all of his problems. So he said, "Only if you do all my homework 'til the end of the semester, that's 35 days. If you do a good enough job, I could even get A's."

The little man's face wrinkled like a dishcloth thrown in the hamper. He kicked his legs and doubled his fists and he grimaced and scowled and pursed his lips, "Oh, am I cursed! But I'll do it."

And true to his word, that little elf began to do Patrick's homework. Except there was one glitch. The elf didn't always know what to do and he needed help. "Help me! Help me!" he'd say. And Patrick would have to help -- in whatever way.

"I don't know this word," the elf squeeked while reading Patrick's homework. "Get me a dictionary. No, what's even better. Look up the word and sound it out by each letter."

When it came to math, Patrick was out of luck. "What are times tables?" the elf shrieked. "We elves never need that. And addition and subtraction and division and fractions? Here, sit down beside me, you simply must guide me."

Elves know nothing of human history, to them it's a mystery. So the little elf, already a shouter, just got louder "Go to the library, I need books. More and more books. And you can help me read them too."

As a matter of fact every day in every way that little elf was a nag! Patrick was working harder than ever and was it a drag! He was staying up nights, had never felt so weary, was going to school with his eyes puffed and bleary.

Finally the last day of school arrived and the elf was free to go. As for homework, there was no more, so he quietly and slyly slipped out the back door.

Patrick got his A's; his classmates were amazed; his teachers smiled and were full of praise. And his parents? They wondered what had happened to Patrick. He was now the model kid. Cleaned his room, did his chores, was cheerful, never rude, like he had developed a whole new attitude.

You see, in the end Patrick still thought he'd made that tiny man do all his homework. But I'll share a secret, just between you and me. It wasn't the elf; Patrick had done it himself!

Grow Your Own Gargoyle.

2011-08-30T05:24:00.000-07:00

Wendy clutched her Slime Sisters comic book. She saved her allowance to buy all kinds of things that were in the back of the comic. She had bought talking fish, dancing dolls, living pet rock, giant super heroes, and all kinds of other stuff.

She'd run to get the mail. "My giant super heroes are here." Wendy had opened it up, but they weren't as big as a child like in the ad. In small print were the words "not actual size."

All the other things she had sent for didn't work right either. The dolls didn't have batteries and broke after just two days. The living rock was not alive, and all the other toys and games she bought were lying twisted and broken in a heap on her bed.

She sat on the floor and frowned.

"Can I come in?" her Mom, Mrs. Delane, asked.

Wendy nodded. Mrs. Delane moved some of the junk away and sat down. She had a tiny package in her hand. "Maybe you shouldn't send for any more toys?" Mrs. Delane said, "but you have one more package."

Wendy took the package. It said "The Living Gargoyle Co."

"I forgot all about this," Wendy said. She opened the package and there were two very small gargoyles with pointy ears, and a small piece of paper.

        Grow Your Own Gargoyle

           1. Put each gargoyle in a large bowl of water. (Don't put them in the same bowl; the gargoyles need space to grow.)
           2. Wait overnight and they will have grown more than twice their size.
           3. Dry them off with a towel.

        P.S. Gargoyles are very cranky at first, so plan activities they will enjoy like picnics and tag. No, they can't fly.

"I might as well try. I think Stacy had a sponge toy like this and hers grew." Wendy smiled and removed the junk from her bed. "Mom, can you get me two bowls of water?"

"If you promise to clean your room." Her Mom said, and got her the bowls and tucked Wendy in.

Wendy went to sleep and dreamed the gargoyles grew as big as her house and were very mean looking.

She felt something wet on her ear and woke up. The gargoyles were on her bed.

Absulum the Reindeer Elf.

2011-08-30T05:21:00.001-07:00

Absulum the Reindeer Elf
worked in the reindeer barn.
He had to clean it everyday
and that was rather hard
for it was such a dirty job
to mop and slop and scour and scrape
every corner, nook and cranny
in that reindeer place.

Absulum the Reindeer Elf
had to keep the reindeer groomed.
He had to give them all a bath.
He had to feed them too.
Cook their meals, brush their fur
and fill that barn with hay
and every morning when he woke
he would have to do it all over again.

Absulum the Reindeer Elf
played nurse and doctor too.
He took care of all the reindeer
if they were sick or had the flu.
He fixed their sleigh, he mended their reins
and if they were sad he would wipe their tears.
He worked his fingers to the bone
but it seemed that no one cared.

Of course the elves in Santa's Workshop
they were such a happy lot
singing songs all day long
with that jolly happy Santa Claus.
They laughed and danced from toy to toy
as if it was such fun
while outside in the reindeer barn
was the Elf named Absulum.

Absulum the Reindeer Elf,
when he heard that happy noise,
would wish he was a Workshop Elf
making Christmas toys;
but a Workshop Elf is wise and tall
and Absulum was not
and that was why he was in that barn,
well that is what he thought.

Now, it was on a Christmas Eve
when this incident occurred,
Santa's sleigh was flying high
there was no reason for concern
until the wind came up
and the snow came down
in a blinding wall of white
and all the reindeer say
that it set the stage
for the tragedy that took place that night.

Through that snow the reindeer flew
with neither fear nor fright
but the wind grew strong
and stronger still
until a blizzard grabbed
that Christmas night.
And it shook that night,
it shook the sky
and it shook that reindeer sleigh.
The reindeer they could hardly see
so soon they lost their way.

They were tumbling twisting
turning topsy-turvy
'round and 'round.
They hit the tree tops
flipped the sleigh
and smashed into the ground.

The reindeer sleigh was broken
it was scattered everywhere.
There were parts and pieces on the ground
over here and over there.
Christmas toys torn from their wrapping,
ribbons tangled in the trees
and there upon the forest floor
lay Santa Claus, and all could see
that he was hurt from the tragic crash
but just how bad no one would ask.
For asking might be finding out
an answer no one cared to know.

The reindeer gathered 'round him
each one limping, scraped or cut
and one by one they called his name
"Oh, Santa Claus? Get up!"
But not one move did Santa make
not a flicker not a sound
and every single reindeer there thought,
"What will we do now?"

The sky was black there was no light
no moon or shining star.
The reindeer huddled close for warmth
around Santa Claus who was lying there
in such a heap of sadness
pines and twigs caught in his beard.
Then one reindeer thought out loud
"If only Absulum was here."

Then suddenly the reindeer,
well they all began to chant.
"Absulum oh Absulum
do you know where we're at?
Oh Absulum, Absulum
please come we need you now!
Absulum, Oh Absulum,"
the reindeer chanted loud.
"Absulum, Absulum
can you hear us call?
Absulum? Absulum?
Absuuuulllllummmmmm?

Suddenly a star lit up
that stormy Christmas sky
and it fell toward the Earth
and landed there at Santa's side.
The reindeer all stepped back
and gasped in wonder at the sight
of Absulum the Reindeer Elf
and the star he brought for light.

He placed that star upon a tree
and it filled the Christmas sky
then quickly down with reindeer 'round
he was there at Santa's side.

Then on his knees the Reindeer Elf
he breathed a single breath of life
into his mouth and as he did
Santa opened wide his eyes.
"Absulum?" Said Santa Claus.
"Absulum, is that you?"
but Absulum did not answer
for there was too much work to do.

He held his hand up to his mouth
and let loose the oddest scream
that echoed through the forest
through the mountains and ravines.

Now, that scream? It was a creature call,
one he learned when he was young.
It was a call that creatures answered to
and caused them all to come.
And come they did
from hovel, hole,
from cavern, nest and tree
to offer help
to a Reindeer Elf
who was in his hour of need.

Within seconds Squirrel
and Moose and Deer
were there upon the scene.
Raccoon, Fox and Bobcat came
and every bird from every tree.
And every bunny rabbit hopped
and those who had to crawled
to take part in the rescue
of the reindeer and Santa Claus.

Each part and piece of Santa's sleigh
was gathered from the wreck
and brought to Absulum the Reindeer Elf
who began to put the pieces back.
The reins were mangled, tangled torn,
the runners snapped in two
but Absulum the Reindeer Elf
knew exactly what to do.

And so, while he worked on Santa's sleigh,
the creatures all pitched in
to gather up the toys
that were scattered by the wind.
They put the toys back in their wrapping,
tied the ribbons, filled the sack.
By then that sleigh was good as new
so, they threw the sack in back.
Then they helped old Santa to his feet
and up onto the sleigh.
The reindeer they got in as well
wherever they could find a space.

Then Absulum the Reindeer Elf,
he called the creatures 'round.
He placed the reins upon them all
and said, "We're taking Santa home".
Then up into the drivers seat
that tiny elf did climb.
He took the reins
and without delay
commanded them to fly.

Well, that sleigh took off
it left the ground
and headed straight into the sky
being pulled by Moose and Bunny Rabbits
and creatures who weren't meant to fly.
But fly they did and how or why
is not an answer we need know.
You see the question most important is,
"Did they get them home?"

Well, yes they did.
They got them home
and quickly took them in.
Missus Claus fed them chicken soup
then she called to Absulum.
She said, "Absulum, look outside
there are toys still in the sleigh.
You have to get back out there
and deliver them right away."

Absulum looked at Missus Claus.
He knew she was in charge
but, instead of following her orders
he took his reindeer to the reindeer barn.
He tended to their injuries
all that night and all the next day
and as for all those toys outside
well, that is where they stayed.

Because Reindeer Elves
concern themselves
only with what's right
and when taking care of reindeer
is all you know in life
then you do what must be done
to make sure those reindeer never come to harm
and so, now you know
why Absulum works in the Reindeer Barn.

Split Cherry Tree.

2011-08-29T07:03:00.001-07:00

I don't mind staying after school," I says to Professor Herbert, "but I'd rather you'd whip me with a switch and let me go home early. Pa will whip me anyway for getting home two hours late."
"You are too big to whip," says Professor Herbert, "and I have to punish you for climbing up in that cherry tree. You boys knew better than that! The other five boys have paid their dollar each. You have been the only one who has not helped pay for the tree. Can't you borrow a dollar?"

"I can't," I says. "I'll have to take the punishment. I wish it would be quicker punishment. I wouldn't mind."

Professor Herbert stood and looked at me. He was a big man. He wore a grey suit of clothes. The suit matched his grey hair.

"You don't know my father," I says to Professor Herbert. "He might be called a little old-fashioned. He makes us mind him until we're twenty-one years old. He believes: 'If you spare the rod you spoil the child.' I'll never be able to make him understand about the cherry tree. I'm the first of my people to go to high school."

"You must take the punishment," says Professor Herbert. "You must stay two hours after school today and two hours after school tomorrow. I am allowing you twenty-five cents an hour. That is good money for a high-school student. You can sweep the schoolhouse floor, wash the blackboards, and clean windows. I'll pay the dollar for you."

I couldn't ask Professor Herbert to loan me a dolIar. He never offered to loan it to me. I had to stay and help the janitor and work out my fine at a quarter an hour.

I thought as I swept the floor, "What will Pa do to me? What lie can I tell him when I go home? Why did we ever climb that cherry tree and break it down for anyway? Why did we run crazy over the hills away from the crowd? Why did we do all of this? Six of us climbed up in a little cherry tree after one little lizard! Why did the tree split and fall with us? It should have been a stronger tree! Why did Eif Crabtree just happen to be below us plowing and catch us in his cherry tree? Why wasn't he a better man than to charge us six dollars for the tree?"

It was six o'clock when I left the schoolhouse. I had six miles to walk home. It would be after seven when I got home. I had all my work to do when I got home. It took Pa and I both to do the work. Seven cows to milk. Nineteen head of cattle to feed, four mules, twenty-five hogs, firewood and stovewood to cut, and water to draw from the well. He would be doing it when I got home. He would be mad and wondering what was keeping me!

I hurried home. I would run under the dark, leafless trees. I would walk fast uphill. I would run down the hill. The ground was freezing. I had to hurry. I had to run. I reached the long ridge that led to our cow pasture. I ran along this ridge. The wind dried the sweat on my face. I ran across the pasture to the house.

I threw down my books in the chipyard. I ran to the barn to spread fodder on the ground for the cattle. I didn't take time to change my clean school clothes for my old work clothes. I ran out to the barn. I saw Pa spreading fodder on the ground to the cattle. That was my job. I ran up to the fence. I says, "Leave that for me, Pa. I'll do it. I'm just a little late."

"I see you are," says Pa. He turned and looked at me. His eyes danced fire. "What in th' world has kept you so? Why ain't you been here to help me with this work? Make a gentleman out'n one boy in th' family and this is what you get! Send you to high school and you get too onery fer th' buzzards to smell!"

I never said anything. I didn't want to tell why I was late from school. Pa stopped scattering the bundles of fodder. He looked at me. He says, "Why are you gettin' in here this time o' night? You tell me or I'll take a hickory withe to you right here on th' spot!"

I says, "I had to stay after school." I couldn't lie to Pa. He'd go to school and find out why I had to stay. If I lied to him it would be too bad for me.

"Why did you haf to stay atter school?" says Pa.

I says, "0ur biology class went on a field trip today. Six of us boys broke down a cherry tree. We had to give a dollar apiece to pay for the tree. I didn't have the dolIar. Professor Herbert is making me work out my dollar. He gives me twenty-five cents an hour. I had to stay in this afternoon. I'll have to stay in tomorrow afternoon!"

"Are you telling me th' truth?" says Pa.

"I'm telling you the truth," I says. "Go and see for yourself."

"That's just what I'll do in th' mornin'," says Pa. "Jist whose cherry tree did you break down?"

"Eif Crabtree's cherry tree!"

"What was you doin' clear out in Eif Crabtree's place?" says Pa. "He lives four miles from th' county high school. Don't they teach you no books at that high school? Do they jist let you get out and gad over th' hillsides? If that's all they do I'll keep you at home, Dave. I've got work here fer you to do!"

"Pa," I says, "spring is just getting here. We take a subject in school where we have to have bugs, snakes, flowers, lizards, frogs, and plants. It is biology. It was a pretly day today. We went out to find a few of these. Six of us boys saw a lizard at the same time sunning on a cherry tree. We all went up the tree to get it. We broke the tree down. It split at the forks. Eif Crabtree was plowing down below us. He ran up the hill and got our names. The other boys gave their dollar apiece. I didn't have mine. Professor Herbert put mine in for me. I have to work it out at school."

"Poor man's son, huh," says Pa. "I'll attend to that myself in th' mornin'. I'll take keer o' 'im. He ain't from this county nohow. I'll go down there in th' mornin' and see 'im. Lettin' you leave your books and galavant all over th' hills. What kind of a school is it nohow! Didn't do that, my son, when I's a little shaver in school. All fared alike too."

"Pa, please don't go down there," I says, "just let me have fifty cents and pay the rest of my fine! I don't want you to go down there! I don't want you to start anything with Professor Herbert!

"Ashamed of your old Pap are you, Dave," says Pa, "atter th' way I've worked to raise you! Tryin' to send you to school so you can make a better livin' than I've made.

"I'll straighten this thing out myself! I'll take keer o' Professor Herbert myself! He ain't got no right to keep you in and let the other boys off jist because they've got th' money! I'm a poor man. A bullet will go in a professor same as it will any man. It will go in a rich man same as it will a poor man. Now you get into this work before I take one o' these withes and cut the shirt off'n your back!"

I thought once I'd run through the woods above the barn just as hard as I could go. I thought I'd leave high school and home forever! Pa could not catch me! I'd get away! I couldn't go back to school with him. He'd have a gun and maybe he'd shoot Professor Herbert. It was hard to tell what he would do. I could tell Pa that school had changed in the hills from the way it was when he was a boy, but he wouldn't understand. I could tell him we studied frogs, birds, snakes, lizards, flowers, insects. But Pa wouldn't understand. If I did run away from home it wouldn't matter to Pa. He would see Professor Herbert anyway. He would think that high school and Professor Herbert had run me away from home. There was no need to run away. I'd just have to stay, finish foddering the cattle, and go to school with Pa the next morning.

I would take a bundle of fodder, remove the hickory witheband from around it, and scatter it on rocks, clumps of green briers, and brush so the cattle wouldn't tramp it under their feet. I would lean it up against the oak trees and the rocks in the pasture just above our pigpen on the hill. The fodder was cold and frosty where it had set out in the stacks. I would carry bundles of the fodder from the stack until I had spread out a bundle for each steer. Pa went to the barn to feed the mules and throw corn in the pen to the hogs.

The moon shone bright in the cold March sky. I finished my work by moonlight. Professor Herbert really didn't know how much work I had to do at home. If he had known he would not have kept me after school. He would have loaned me a dolIar to have paid my part on the cherry tree. He had never lived in the hills. He didn't know the way the hill boys had to work so that they could go to school. Now he was teaching in a county high school where all the boys who attended were from hill farms.

After I'd finished doing my work I went to the house and ate my supper. Pa and Mom had eaten. My supper was getting cold. I heard Pa and Mom talking in the front room. Pa was telling Mom about me staying in after school.

"I had to do all th' milkin' tonight, chop th' wood myself. It's too hard on me atter I've turned ground all day. I'm goin' to take a day off tomorrow and see if I can't remedy things a little. I'll go down to that high school tomorrow. I won't be a very good scholar fer Professor Herbert nohow. He won't keep me in atter school. I'll take a different kind of lesson down there and make 'im acquainted with it."

"Now, Luster," says Mom, "you jist stay away from there. Don't cause a lot o' trouble. You can be jailed fer a trick like that. You'll get th' Law atter you. You'll jist go down there and show off and plague your own boy Dave to death in front o' all th' scholars!"

"Plague or no plague," says Pa, "he don't take into consideration what all I haf to do here, does he? I'll show 'im it ain't right to keep one boy in and let the rest go scot-free. My boy is good as th' rest, ain't he? A bullet will make a hole in a schoolteacher same as it will anybody else. He can't do me that way and get by with it. I'll plug 'im first. I aim to go down there bright and early in the mornin' and get all this straight! I aim to see about bug larnin' and this runnin' all over God's creation huntin' snakes, lizards, and frogs. Ransackin' th' country and goin' through cherry orchards and breakin' th' trees down atter lizards! 0ld Eif Crabtree ought to a-poured th' hot lead to 'em instead o' chargin' six dollars fer th' tree! He ought to a-got old Herbert th' first one!"

I ate my supper. I slipped upstairs and lit the lamp. I tried to forget the whole thing. I studied plane geometry. Then I studied my biology lesson. I could hardly study for thinking about Pa. "He'll go to school with me in the morning. He'll take a gun for Professor Herbert! What will Professor Herbert think of me! I'll tell him when Pa leaves that I couldn't help it. But Pa might shoot him. I hate to go with Pa. Maybe he'll cool off about it tonight and not go in the morning."

Pa got up at four o'clock. He built a fire in the stove. Then he built a fire in the fireplace. He got Mom up to get breakfast. Then he got me up to help feed and milk. By the time we had our work done at the barn, Mom had breakfast ready for us. We ate our breakfast. Daylight came and we could see the bare oak trees covered white with frost. The hills were white with frost. A cold wind was blowing. The sky was clear. The sun would soon come out and melt the frost. The afternoon would be warm with sunshine and the frozen ground with thaw. There would be mud on the hills again. Muddy water would then run down the little ditches on the hills.

"Now, Dave," says Pa, "let's get ready fer school. I aim to go with you this mornin' and look into bug larnin', frog larnin', lizard and snake larnin', and breakin' down cherry trees! I don't like no sicha foolish way o' larnin' myself!"

Pa hadn't forgot. I'd have to take him to school with me. He would take me to school with him. We were going early. I was glad we were going early. If Pa pulled a gun on Professor Herbert there wouldn't be so many of my classmates there to see him.

I knew that Pa wouldn't be at home in the high school. He wore overalls, big boots, a blue shirt and a sheepskin coat and a slouched black hat gone to seed at the top. He put his gun in its holster. We started trudging toward the high schoo1 across the hill.

It was early when we got to the county high school. Professor Herbert had just got there. I just thought as we walked up the steps into the schoolhouse, "Maybe Pa will find out Professor Herbert is a good man. He just doesn't know him. Just like I felt toward the Lambert boys across the hill. I didn't like them until I'd seen them and talked to them. After I went to school with them and talked to them, I liked them and we were friends. It's a lot in knowing the other fellow."

"You're th' Professor here, ain't you?" says Pa.

"Yes," says Professor Herbert, "and you are Dave's father."

"Yes," says Pa, pulling out his gun and laying it on the seat in Professor Herbert's office. Professor Herbert's eyes got big behind his black-rimmed glasses when he saw Pa's gun. Color came into his pale cheeks.

"Jist a few things about this school I want to know," says Pa. "I'm tryin' to make a scholar out'n Dave. He's the only one out'n eleven youngins I've sent to high school. Here he comes in late and leaves me all th' work to do! He said you's all out bug huntin' yesterday and broke a cherry tree down. He had to stay two hours atter school yesterday and work out money to pay on that cherry tree! Is that right?"

"Wwwwy," says Professor Herbert, "I guess it is."

He looked at Pa's gun.

"Well," says Pa, "this ain't no high school. It's a bug school, a lizard school, a snake school! It ain't no school nohow!"

"Why did you bring that gun?" says Professor Herbert to Pa.

"You see that little hole," says Pa as he picked up the long blue forty-four and put his finger on the end of the barrel, "a bullet can come out'n that hole that will kill a schoolteacher same as it will any other man. It will kill a rich man same as a poor man. It will kill a man. But atter I come in and saw you, I know'd I wouldn't need it. This maul o' mine could do you up in a few minutes."

Pa stood there, big, hard, brown-skinned, and mighty beside of Professor Herbert. I didn't know Pa was so much bigger and harder. I'd never seen Pa in a schoolhouse before. I'd seen Professor Herbert. He'd always looked big before to me. He didn't look big standing beside of Pa.

"I was only doing my duty," says Professor Herbert, "Mr. Sexton, and following the course of study the state provided us with."

"Course o' study," says Pa, "what study, bug study? Varmint study? Takin' youngins to th' woods and their poor old Ma's and Pa's at home a-slavin' to keep 'em in school and give 'em a education! You know that's dangerous, too, puttin' a lot o' boys and girIs out together like that!"

Students were coming into the schoolhouse now.

Professor Herbert says, "Close the door, Dave, so others won't hear."

I walked over and closed the door. I was shaking like a leaf in the wind. I thought Pa was going to hit Professor Herbert every minute. He was doing all the talking. His face was getting red. The red color was coming through the brown, weather-beaten skin on Pa's face.

"I was right with these students," says Professor Herbert. "I know what they got into and what they didn't. I didn't send one of the other teachers with them on this field trip. I went myself. Yes, I took the boys and girIs together. Why not?"

"It jist don't look good to me," says Pa, "a-takin' all this swarm of youngins out to pillage th' whole deestrict. Breakin' down cherry trees. Keepin' boys in atter school."

"What else could I have done with Dave, Mr. Sexton?" says Professor Herbert. "The boys didn't have any business all climbing that cherry tree after one lizard. One boy could have gone up in the tree and got it. The farmer charged us six dollars. It was a little steep, I think, but we had it to pay. Must I make five boys pay and let your boy off? He said he didn't have the dollar and couldn't get it. So I put it in for him. I'm letting him work it out. He's not working for me. He's working for the school!"

"I jist don't know what you could a-done with 'im," says Pa, "only a-larruped im with a withe! That's what he needed!"

"He's too big to whip," says Professor Herbert, pointing at me. "He's a man in size."

"He's not too big fer me to whip," says Pa. "They ain't too big until they're over twenty-one! It jist didn't look fair to me! Work one and let th' rest out because they got th' money. I don't see what bugs has got to do with a high school! It don't look good to me nohow!"

Pa picked up his gun and put it back in its holster. The red color left Professor Herbert's face. He talked more to Pa. Pa softened a littIe. It looked funny to see Pa in the high-school building. It was the first time he'd ever been there.

"We were not only hunting snakes, toads, flowers, butterflies, lizards," says Professor Herbert, "but, Mr. Sexton, I was hunting dry timothy grass to put in an incubator and raise some protozoa."

" I don't know what that is," says Pa. "Th' incubator is th' new-fangled way o' cheatin' th' hens and raisin' chickens. I ain't so sure about th' breed o' chickens you mentioned."

"You've heard of germs, Mr. Sexton, haven't you?" says Professor Herbert.

"Jist call me Luster, if you don't mind," says Pa, very casual like.

"All right, Luster, you've heard of germs, haven't you?"

"Yes," says Pa, "but I don't believe in germs. I'm sixty-five years old and I ain't seen one yet!"

"You can't see them with your naked eye," says Professor Herbert. "Just keep that gun in the holster and stay with me in the high school today. I have a few things want to show you. That scum on your teeth has germs in it."

"What," says Pa, "you mean to tell me I've got germs on my teeth!

"Yes," says Professor Herbert. "The same kind as we might be able to find in a living black snake if we dissect it!"

"I don't mean to dispute your word," says Pa, "but I don't believe it. I don't believe I have germs on my teeth!"

"Stay with me today and I'll show you. I want to take you through the school anyway! School has changed a lot in the hills since you went to school. I don't guess we had high schools in this county when you went to school!"

"No," says Pa, "jist readin', writin', and cipherin'. We didn't have all this bug larnin', frog larnin', and findin' germs on your teeth and in the middle o' black snakes! Th' world's changin'."

"It is," says Professor Herbert, "and we hope all for the better. Boys like your own there are going to help change it. He's your boy. He knows all of what I've told you. You stay with me today."

"I'll shore stay with you," says Pa. " I want to see th' germs off'n my teeth. I jist want to see a germ. I've never seen one in my life. 'Seein' is believin',' Pap allus told me."

Pa walks out of the office with Professor Herbert. I just hoped Professor Herbert didn't have Pa arrested for pulling his gun. Pa's gun has always been a friend to him when he goes to settle disputes.

The bell rang. School took up. I saw the students when they marched in the schoolhouse look at Pa. They would grin and punch each other. Pa just stood and watched them pass in at the schoolhouse door. Two long lines marched in the house. The boys and girls were clean and well dressed. Pa stood over in the schoolyard under a leafless elm, in his sheepskin coat, his big boots laced in front with buckskin, and his heavy socks stuck above his boot tops. Pa's overalIs legs were baggy and wrinkled between his coat and boot tops. His blue work shirt showed at the collar. His big black hat showed his gray-streaked black hair. His face was hard and weather-tanned to the color of a ripe fodder blade. His hands were big and gnarled like the roots of the elm tree he stood beside.

When I went to my first cIass I saw Pa and Professor Herbert going around over the schoolhouse. I was in my geometry class when Pa and Professor Herbert came in the room. We were explaining our propositions on the blackboard. Professor Herbert and Pa just quietly came in and sat down for awhile. I heard Fred Wutts whisper to Glenn Armstrong, "Who is that old man? Lord, he's a rough-looking scamp." Glenn whispered back, "I think he's Dave's Pap." The students in geometry looked at Pa. They must have wondered what he was doing in school. Before the cIass was over, Pa and Professor Herbert got up and went out. I saw them together down on the playground. Professor Herbert was explaining to Pa. I could see the prints of Pa's gun under his coat when he'd walk around.

At noon in the high-school cafeteria Pa and Professor Herbert sat together at the little table where Professor Herbert always ate by himself. They ate together. The students watched the way Pa ate. He ate with his knife instead of his fork. A lot of the students felt sorry for me after they found out he was my father. They didn't have to feel sorry for me. I wasn't ashamed of Pa after I found out he wasn't going to shoot Professor Herbert. I was glad they had made friends. I wasn't ashamed of Pa. I wouldn't be as long as he behaved. He would find out about the high school as I had found out about the Lambert boys across the hill.

In the afternoon when we went to biology Pa was in the class. He was sitting on one of the high stools beside the microscope. We went ahead with our work just as if Pa wasn't in the class. I saw- Pa take his knife and scrape tartar from one of his teeth. Professor Herbert put it on the lens and adjusted the microscope for Pa. He adjusted it and worked awhile. Then he says: "Now Luster, look! Put your eye right down to the light. Squint the other eye!"

Pa put his head down and did as Professor Herbert said. "I see 'im," says Pa. 'Who'd a ever thought that? Right on a body's teeth! Right in a body's mouth. You're right certain they ain't no fake to this, Professor Herbert?"

"No, Luster," says Professor Herbert. "It's there. That's the germ. Germs live in a worId we cannot see with the naked eye. We must use the microscope. There are millions of them in our bodies. Some are harmful. Others are helpful."

Pa holds his face down and looks through the microscope. We stop and watch Pa. He sits upon the tall stool. His knees are against the table. His legs are long. His coat slips up behind when he bends over. The handle of his gun shows. Professor Herbert pulls his coat down quickly.

"Oh, yes," says Pa. He gets up and pulls his coat down. Pa's face gets a little red. He knows about his gun and he knows he doesn't have any use for it in high school.

"We have a big black snake over here we caught yesterday," says Professor Herbert. "We'll chloroform him and dissect him and show you he has germs in his body, too."

"Don't do it," says Pa. "I believe you. I jist don't want to see you kill the black snake. I never kill one. They are good mousers and a lot o' help to us on the farm. I like black snakes. I jist hate to see people kill 'em. I don't allow 'em killed on my place."

The students look at Pa. They seem to like him better after he said that. Pa with a gun in his pocket but a tender heart beneath his ribs for snakes, but not for man! Pa won't whip a mule at home. He won't whip his cattle.

"Man can defend hisself," says Pa, "but cattle and mules can't. We have the drop on 'em. Ain't nothin' to a man that'll beat a good pullin' mule. He ain't got th' right kind o' a heart!"

Professor Herbert took Pa through the laboratory. He showed him the different kinds of work we were doing. He showed him our equipment. They stood and talked while we worked. Then they walked out together. They talked louder when they got out in the hall.

When our biology class was over I walked out of the room. It was our last class for the day. I would have to take my broom and sweep two hours to finish paying for the split cherry tree. I just wondered if Pa would want me to stay. He was standing in the hallway watching the students march out. He looked lost among us. He looked like a leaf turned brown on the tree among the treetop filled with growing leaves.

I got my broom and started to sweep. Professor Herbert walked up and says, "I'm going to let you do that some other time. You can go home with your father. He is waiting out there."

I Iaid my broom down, got my books, and went down the steps.

Pa says, "Ain't you got two hours o' sweepin' yet to do?"

I says, "Professor Herbert said I could do it some other time. He said for me to go home with you."

"No," says Pa. "You are goin' to do as he says. He's a good man. School has changed from my day and time. I'm a dead leaf, Dave. I'm behind. I don't belong here. If he'll let me I'll get a broom and we'll both sweep one hour. That pays your debt. I'll hep you pay it. I'll ast 'im and see if he won't let me hep you."

"I'm going to cancel the debt," says Professor Herbert. "I just wanted you to understand, Luster."

"I understand," says Pa, "and since I understand he must pay his debt fer th' tree and I'm goin' to hep 'im."

"Don't do that," says Professor Herbert. "It's all on me."

"We don't do things like that," says Pa, "we're just and honest people. We don't want somethin' fer nothin'. Professor Herbert, you're wrong now and I'm right. You'll haf to listen to me. I've larned a lot from you. My boy must go on. Th' worId has left me. It changed while I've raised my family and plowed th' hills. I'm a just and honest man. I don' skip debts. I ain't larned 'em to do that. I ain't got much larnin' myself but I do know right from wrong atter I see through a thing."

Professor Herbert went home. Pa and I stayed and swept one hour. It looked funny to see Pa use a broom. He never used one at home. Mom used the broom. Pa used the plow. Pa did hard work. Pa says, "I can't sweep. Durned if I can. Look at th' streaks o' dirt I leave on th' floor! Seems like no work a-tall fer me. Brooms is too light 'r somethin'. I'll jist do th' best I can, Dave. I've been wrong about th' school."

I says, "Did you know Professor Herbert can get a warrant out for you for bringing your pistoI to school and showing it in his office! They can railroad you for that!"

"That's all made right," says Pa. "I've made that right. Professor Herbert ain't goin' to take it to court. He likes me. I like 'im. We jist had to get together. He had the remedies. He showed me. You must go on to school. I am as strong a man as ever come out'n th' hills fer my years and th' hard work I've done. But I'm behind, Dave. I'm a little man. Your hands will be softer than mine. Your clothes will be better. You'll allus look cleaner than your old Pap. Jist remember, Dave, to pay your debts and be honest. Jist be kind to animals and don't bother th' snakes. That's all I got agin th' school. Puttin' black snakes to sleep and cuttin' 'em open."

It was late when we got home. Stars were in the sky. The moon was up. The ground was frozen. Pa took his time going home. I couldn't run like I did the night before. It was ten o'clock before we got the work finished, our suppers eaten. Pa sat before the fire and told Mom he was going to take her and show her a germ sometime. Mom hadn't seen one either. Pa told her about the high school and the fine man Professor Herbert was. He told Mom about the strange school across the hill and how different it was from the school in their day and time.

The Eclipse.

2011-08-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

THE eclipse of the sun, which you have requested me to describe, occurred in the summer of 1806, on Monday, the 16th of June. Its greatest depth of shadow fell upon the American continent, somewhere about the latitude of 42 deg. I was then on a visit to my parents, at the home of my family, among the Highlands of Otsego, in that part of the country where the eclipse was most impressive. My recollections of the great event, and the incidents of the day, are as vivid as if they had occurred but yesterday.
Lake Otsego, the headwaters of the Susquehanna, lies as nearly as possible in latitude 42 deg. The village, which is the home of my family, is beautifully situated at the foot of the lake, in a valley lying between two nearly parallel ranges of heights, quite mountainous in character. The Susquehanna, a clear and rapid stream, flowing from the southeastern shore of the lake, is crossed by a high wooden bridge, which divides the main street of the little town from the lawns and meadows on the eastern bank of the river. Here were all the materials that could be desired, lake, river, mountain, wood, and the dwellings of man, to give full effect to the varied movement of light and shadow through that impressive day.

Throughout the belt of country to be darkened by the eclipse, the whole population were in a state of almost anxious expectation for weeks before the event. On the eve of the 16th of June, our family circle could think or talk of little else. I had then a father and four brothers living, and as we paced the broad hall of the house, or sat about the family board, our conversation turned almost entirely upon the movements of planets and comets, occultations and eclipses. We were all exulting in the feeling that a grand and extraordinary spectacle awaited us -- a spectacle which millions then living could never behold. There may have been a tinge of selfishness in the feeling that we were thus favored beyond others, and yet, I think, the emotion was too intellectual in its character to have been altogether unworthy.

Many were the prophecies regarding the weather, the hopes and fears expressed by different individuals, on this important point, as evening drew near. A passing cloud might veil the grand vision from our sight; rain or mist would sadly impair the sublimity of the hour. I was not myself among the desponding. The great barometer in the hall -- one of the very few then found in the State, west of Albany -- was carefully consulted. It was propitious. It gave promise of dry weather. Our last looks that night, before sleep fell on us, were turned toward the starlit heavens.

And the first movement in the morning was to the open window -- again to examine the sky. When I rose from my bed, in the early morning, I found the heavens serene, and cloudless. Day had dawned, but the shadows of night were still lingering over the valley. For a moment, my eye rested on the familiar view -- the limpid lake, with its setting of luxuriant woods and farms, its graceful bay and varied points, the hills where every cliff and cave and glen had been trodden a thousand times by my boyish feet -- all this was dear to me as the face of a friend. And it appeared as if the landscape, then lovely in summer beauty, were about to assume something of dignity hitherto unknown -- were not the shadows of a grand eclipse to fall upon every wave and branch within a few hours! There was one object in the landscape which a stranger would probably have overlooked, or might perhaps have called unsightly, but it was familiar to every eye in the village, and endowed by our people with the honors of an ancient landmark -- the tall gray trunk of a dead and branchless pine, which had been standing on the crest of the eastern hill, at the time of the foundation of the village, and which was still erect, though rocked since then by a thousand storms. To my childish fancy, it had seemed an imaginary flag-staff, or, in rustic parlance, the "liberty pole" of some former generation; but now, as I traced the familiar line of the tall trunk, in its peculiar shade of silvery gray, it became to the eye of the young sailor the mast of some phantom ship. I remember greeting it with a smile, as this was the first glance of recognition given to the old ruin of the forest since my return.

But an object of far higher interest suddenly attracted my eye. I discovered a star -- a solitary star -- twinkling dimly in a sky which had now changed its hue to a pale grayish twilight, while vivid touches of coloring were beginning to flush the eastern sky. There was absolutely no other object visible in the heavens -- cloud there was none, not even the lightest vapor. That lonely star excited a vivid interest in my mind. I continued at the window gazing, and losing myself in a sort of day-dream. That star was a heavenly body, it was known to be a planet, and my mind was filling itself with images of planets and suns. My brain was confusing itself with vague ideas of magnitude and distance, and of the time required by light to pierce the apparently illimitable void that lay between us -- of the beings who might inhabit an orb like that, with life, feeling, spirit, and aspirations like my own.

Soon the sun himself rose into view. I caught a glimpse of fiery light glowing among the branches of the forest, on the eastern mountain. I watched, as I had done a hundred times before, the flushing of the skies, the gradual illuminations of the different hills, crowned with an undulating and ragged outline of pines, nearly two hundred feet in height, the golden light gliding silently down the breast of the western mountains, and opening clearer views of grove and field, until lake, valley, and village lay smiling in one cheerful glow of warm sunshine.

Our family party assembled early. We were soon joined by friends and connections, all eager and excited, and each provided with a colored glass for the occasion. By nine o'clock the cool air, which is peculiar to the summer nights in the Highlands, had left us, and the heat of midsummer filled the valley. The heavens were still absolutely cloudless, and a more brilliant day never shone in our own bright climate. There was not a breath of air, and we could see the rays of heat quivering here and there on the smooth surface of the lake. There was every appearance of a hot and sultry noontide.

We left the house, and passed beyond the grounds into the broad and grassy street which lay between the gates and the lake. Here there were no overhanging branches to obstruct the view; the heavens, the wooded mountains, and the limpid sheet of water before us, were all distinctly seen. As the hour for the eclipse drew near, our eagerness and excitement increased to an almost boyish impatience. The elders of the party were discussing the details of some previous eclipse: leaving them to revive their recollections, I strolled away, glass in hand, through the principal streets of the village. Scarce a dwelling, or a face, in the little town, that was not familiar to me, and it gave additional zest to the pleasure of a holiday at home, to meet one's townsfolk under the excitement of an approaching eclipse. As yet there was no great agitation, although things wore a rather unusual aspect for the busy hours of a summer's day. Many were busy with their usual tasks, women and children were coming and going with pails of water, the broom and the needle were not yet laid aside, the blacksmith's hammer and the carpenter's plane were heard in passing their shops. Loaded teams, and travellers in waggons, were moving through the streets; the usual quiet traffic at the village counters had not yet ceased. A farm-waggon, heavily laden with hay, was just crossing the bridge, coming in from the fields, the driver looking drowsy with sleep, wholly unconscious of the movement in the heavens. The good people in general, however, were on the alert; at every house some one seemed to be watching, and many groups were passed, whose eager up-turned faces and excited conversation spoke the liveliest interest. It was said, that there were not wanting one or two philosophers of the skeptical school, among our people, who did not choose to commit themselves to the belief in a total eclipse of the sun -- simply because they had never seen one. Seeing is believing, we are told, though the axiom admits of dispute. But what these worthy neighbors of ours had not seen, no powers of reasoning, or fulness of evidence, could induce them to credit. Here was the dignity of human reason! Here was private judgment taking a high stand! Anxious to witness the conversion of one of these worthies, with boyish love of fun I went in quest of him. He had left the village, however, on business. But, true to his principles, before mounting his horse that morning, he had declared to his wife that "he was not running away from that eclipse;" nay, more, with noble candor, he averred that if the eclipse did overtake him, in the course of his day's journey, "he would not be above acknowledging it!" This was highly encouraging.

I had scarcely returned to the family party, left on the watch, when one of my brothers, more vigilant, or with clearer sight than his companions, exclaimed that he clearly saw a dark line, drawn on the western margin of the sun's disc! All faces were instantly turned upwards, and through the glasses we could indeed now see a dusky, but distinct object, darkening the sun's light. An exclamation of delight, almost triumphant, burst involuntarily from the lips of all. We were not to be disappointed, no cloud was there to veil the grand spectacle; the vision, almost unearthly in its sublime dignity, was about to be revealed to us. In an incredibly short time, the oval formation of the moon was discerned. Another joyous burst of delight followed, as one after another declared that he beheld with distinctness the dark oval outline, drawn against the flood of golden light. Gradually, and at first quite imperceptibly to our sight, that dark and mysterious sphere gained upon the light, while a feeling of watchful stillness, verging upon reverence, fell upon our excited spirits.

As yet there was no change perceptible in the sunlight falling upon lake and mountain; the familiar scene wore its usual smiling aspect, bright and glowing as on other days of June. The people, however, were now crowding into the streets -- their usual labors were abandoned -- forgotten for the moment -- and all faces were turned upward. So little, however, was the change in the power of the light, that to a careless observer it seemed more the gaze of faith, than positive perception, which turned the faces of all upward. Gradually a fifth, and even a fourth, of the sun's disc became obscured, and still the unguarded eye could not endure the flood of light -- it was only with the colored glass that we could note the progress of the phenomenon. The noon-day heat, however, began to lessen, and something of the coolness of early morning returned to the valley.

I was looking upward, intently watching for the first moment where the dark outline of the moon should be visible to the naked eye, when an acquaintance passed. "Come with me!" he said quietly, at the same moment drawing his arm within my own, and leading me away. He was a man of few words, and there was an expression in his face which induced me to accompany him without hesitation. He led me to the Court House, and from thence into an adjoining building, and into a room then occupied by two persons. At a window, looking upward at the heavens, stood a figure which instantly riveted my attention. It was a man with haggard face, and fettered arms, a prisoner under sentence of death. By his side was the jailor.

A painful tragedy had been recently enacted in our little town. The schoolmaster of a small hamlet in the county had beaten a child under his charge very severely -- and for a very trifling error. The sufferer was a little girl, his own niece, and it was said that natural infirmity had prevented the child from clearly pronouncing certain words which her teacher required her to utter distinctly. To conquer what he considered the obstinacy of the child, this man continued to beat her so severely that she never recovered from the effects of the blows, and died some days after. The wretched man was arrested, tried for murder, condemned, and sentenced to the gallows. This was the first capital offence in Otsego County. It produced a very deep impression. The general character of the schoolmaster had been, until that evil hour, very good, in every way. He was deeply, and beyond all doubt unfeignedly, penitent for the crime into which he had been led, more, apparently, from false ideas of duty, than from natural severity of temper. He had been entirely unaware of the great physical injury he was doing the child. So great was his contrition, that public sympathy had been awakened in his behalf, and powerful petitions had been sent to the Governor of the State, in order to obtain a respite, if not a pardon. But the day named by the judge arrived without a return of the courier. The Governor was at his country-house, at least eighty miles beyond Albany. The petition had been kept to the last moment, for additional signatures, and the eighty miles to be travelled by the courier, after reaching Albany, had not been included in the calculation. No despatch was received, and there was every appearance that there would be no reprieve. The day arrived -- throngs of people from Chenango, and Unadilla, and from the valley of the Mohawk, poured into the village, to witness the painful, and as yet unknown, spectacle of a public execution. In looking down, from an elevated position, upon the principal street of the village that day, it had seemed to me paved with human faces. The hour struck, the prisoner was taken from the jail, and, seated, as is usual, on his coffin, was carried to the place of execution, placed between two ministers of the gospel. His look of utter misery was beyond description. I have seen other offenders expiate for their crimes with life, but never have I beheld such agony, such a clinging to life, such mental horror at the nearness of death, as was betrayed by this miserable man. When he approached the gallows, he rose from his seat, and wringing his fettered hands, turned his back upon the fearful object, as if the view were too frightful for endurance. The ministers of the gospel succeeded at length in restoring him to a decent degree of composure. The last prayer was offered, and his own fervent "Amen!" was still sounding, hoarse, beseeching, and almost despairing, in the ears of the crowd, when the respite made its tardy appearance. A short reprieve was granted, and the prisoner was carried back to the miserable cell from which he had been drawn in the morning.

Such was the wretched man who had been brought from his dungeon that morning, to behold the grand phenomenon of the eclipse. During the twelve-month previous, he had seen the sun but once. The prisons of those days were literally dungeons, cut off from the light of day. That striking figure, the very picture of utter misery, his emotion, his wretchedness, I can never forget. I can see him now, standing at the window, pallid and emaciated by a year's confinement, stricken with grief, his cheeks furrowed with constant weeping, his whole frame attesting the deep and ravaging influences of conscious guilt and remorse. Here was a man drawn from the depths of human misery, to be immediately confronted with the grandest natural exhibition in which the Creator deigns to reveal his Omnipotence to our race. The wretched criminal, a murderer in fact, though not in intention, seemed to gaze upward at the awful spectacle, with an intentness and a distinctness of mental vision far beyond our own, and purchased by an agony scarcely less bitter than death. It seemed as if, for him, the curtain which veils the world beyond the grave, had been lifted. He stood immovable as a statue, with uplifted and manacled arms and clasped hands, the very image of impotent misery and wretchedness. Perhaps human invention could not have conceived of a more powerful moral accessory, to heighten the effect of the sublime movement of the heavenly bodies, than this spectacle of penitent human guilt afforded. It was an incident to stamp on the memory for life. It was a lesson not lost on me.

When I left the Court House, a sombre, yellowish, unnatural coloring was shed over the country. A great change had taken place. The trees on the distant heights had lost their verdure and their airy character; they were taking the outline of dark pictures graven upon an unfamiliar sky. The lake wore a lurid aspect, very unusual. All living creatures seemed thrown into a state of agitation. The birds were fluttering to and fro, in great excitement; they seemed to mistrust that this was not the gradual approach of evening, and were undecided in their movements. Even the dogs -- honest creatures -- became uneasy, and drew closer to their masters. The eager, joyous look of interest and curiosity, which earlier in the morning had appeared in almost every countenance, was now changed to an expression of wonder or anxiety or thoughtfulness, according to the individual character.

Every house now gave up its tenants. As the light failed more and more with every passing second, the children came flocking about their mothers in terror. The women themselves were looking about uneasily for their husbands. The American wife is more apt than any other to turn with affectionate confidence to the stronger arm for support. The men were very generally silent and grave. Many a laborer left his employment to be near his wife and children, as the dimness and darkness increased.

I once more took my position beside my father and my brothers, before the gates of our own grounds. The sun lay a little obliquely to the south and east, in the most favorable position possible for observation. I remember to have examined, in vain, the whole dusky canopy in search of a single cloud. It was one of those entirely unclouded days, less rare in America than in Europe. The steadily waning light, the gradual approach of darkness, became the more impressive as we observed this absolutely transparent state of the heavens. The birds, which a quarter of an hour earlier had been fluttering about in great agitation, seemed now convinced that night was at hand. Swallows were dimly seen dropping into the chimneys, the martins returned to their little boxes, the pigeons flew home to their dove-cots, and through the open door of a small barn we saw the fowls going to roost.

The usual flood of sunlight had now become so much weakened, that we could look upward long, and steadily, without the least pain. The sun appeared like a young moon of three or four days old, though of course with a larger and more brilliant crescent. Looking westward a moment, a spark appeared to glitter before my eye. For a second I believed it to be an optical illusion, but in another instant I saw it plainly to be a star. One after another they came into view, more rapidly than in the evening twilight, until perhaps fifty stars appeared to us, in a broad, dark zone of the heavens, crowning the pines on the western mountain. This wonderful vision of the stars, during the noontide hours of day, filled the spirit with singular sensations.

Suddenly one of my brothers shouted aloud, "The moon!" Quicker than thought, my eye turned eastward again, and there floated the moon, distinctly apparent, to a degree that was almost fearful. The spherical form, the character, the dignity, the substance of the planet, were clearly revealed as I have never beheld them before, or since. It looked grand, dark, majestic, and mighty, as it thus proved its power to rob us entirely of the sun's rays. We are all but larger children. In daily life we judge of objects by their outward aspect. We are accustomed to think of the sun, and also of the moon, as sources of light, as etherial, almost spiritual, in their essence. But the positive material nature of the moon was now revealed to our senses, with a force of conviction, a clearness of perception, that changed all our usual ideas in connection with the planet. This was no interposition of vapor, no deceptive play of shadow; but a vast mass of obvious matter had interposed between the sun above us and the earth on which we stood. The passage of two ships at sea, sailing on opposite courses, is scarcely more obvious than this movement of one world before another. Darkness like that of early night now fell upon the village.

My thoughts turned to the sea. A sailor at heart, already familiar with the face of the ocean, I seemed, in mental vision, to behold the grandeur of that vast pall of supernatural shadow falling suddenly upon the sea, during the brightest hour of the day. The play of light and shade upon the billows, always full of interest, must at that hour have been indeed sublime. And my fancy was busy with pictures of white-sailed schooners, and brigs, and ships, gliding like winged spirits over the darkened waves.

I was recalled by a familiar and insignificant incident, the dull tramp of hoofs on the village bridge. A few cows, believing that night had overtaken them, were coming homeward from the wild open pastures about the village. And no wonder the kindly creatures were deceived, the darkness was now much deeper than the twilight which usually turns their faces homeward; the dew was falling perceptibly, as much so as at any hour of the previous night, and the coolness was so great that the thermometer must have fallen many degrees from the great heat of the morning. The lake, the hills, and the buildings of the little town were swallowed up in the darkness. The absence of the usual lights in the dwellings rendered the obscurity still more impressive. All labor had ceased, and the hushed voices of the people only broke the absolute stillness by subdued whispering tones.

"Hist! The whippoorwill!" whispered a friend near me; and at the same moment, as we listened in profound silence, we distinctly heard from the eastern bank of the river the wild, plaintive note of that solitary bird of night, slowly repeated at intervals. The song of the summer birds, so full in June, had entirely ceased for the last half hour. A bat came flitting about our heads. Many stars were now visible, though not in sufficient number to lessen the darkness. At one point only in the far distant northern horizon, something of the brightness of dawn appeared to linger.

At twelve minutes past eleven, the moon stood revealed in its greatest distinctness -- a vast black orb, so nearly obscuring the sun that the face of the great luminary was entirely and absolutely darkened, though a corona of rays of light appeared beyond. The gloom of night was upon us. A breathless intensity of interest was felt by all. There would appear to be something instinctive in the feeling with which man gazes at all phenomena in the heavens. The peaceful rainbow, the heavy clouds of a great storm, the vivid flash of electricity, the falling meteor, the beautiful lights of the aurora borealis, fickle as the play of fancy, -- these never fail to fix the attention with something of a peculiar feeling, different in character from that with which we observe any spectacle on the earth. Connected with all grand movements in the skies there seems an instinctive sense of inquiry, of anxious expectation; akin to awe, which may possibly be traced to the echoes of grand Christian prophecies, whispering to our spirits, and endowing the physical sight with some mysterious mental prescience. In looking back to that impressive hour, such now seem to me the feelings of the youth making one of that family group, all apparently impressed with a sensation of the deepest awe -- I speak with certainty -- a clearer view than I had ever yet had of the majesty of the Almighty, accompanied with a humiliating, and, I trust, a profitable sense of my own utter insignificance. That movement of the moon, that sublime voyage of the worlds, often recurs to my imagination, and even at this distant day, as distinctly, as majestically, and nearly as fearfully, as it was then beheld.

A group of silent, dusky forms stood near me; one emotion appeared to govern all. My father stood immovable, some fifteen feet from me, but I could not discern his features. Three minutes of darkness, all but absolute, elapsed. They appeared strangely lengthened by the intensity of feeling and the flood of overpowering thought which filled the mind.

Thus far the sensation created by this majestic spectacle had been one of humiliation and awe. It seemed as if the great Father of the Universe had visibly, and almost palpably, veiled his face in wrath. But, appalling as the withdrawal of light had been, most glorious, most sublime, was its restoration! The corona of light above the moon became suddenly brighter, the heavens beyond were illuminated, the stars retired, and light began to play along the ridges of the distant mountains. And then a flood of grateful, cheering, consoling brightness fell into the valley, with a sweetness and a power inconceivable to the mind, unless the eye has actually beheld it. I can liken this sudden, joyous return of light, after the eclipse, to nothing of the kind that is familiarly known. It was certainly nearest to the change produced by the swift passage of the shadow of a very dark cloud, but it was the effect of this instantaneous transition, multiplied more than a thousand fold. It seemed to speak directly to our spirits, with full assurance of protection, of gracious mercy, and of that Divine love which has produced all the glorious combinations of matter for our enjoyment. It was not in the least like the gradual dawning of day, or the actual rising of the sun. There was no gradation in the change. It was sudden, amazing, like what the imagination would teach us to expect of the advent of a heavenly vision. I know that philosophically I am wrong; but, to me, it seemed that the rays might actually be seen flowing through the darkness in torrents, till they had again illuminated the forest, the mountains, the valley, and the lake with their glowing, genial touch.

There was another grand movement, as the crescent of the sun reappeared, and the moon was actually seen steering her course through the void. Venus was still shining brilliantly.

This second passage of the moon lasted but a moment, to the naked eye. As it ceased, my eye fell again on the scene around me. The street, now as distinctly seen as ever, was filled with the population of the village. Along the line of road stretching for a mile from the valley, against the side of the mountain, were twenty waggons bearing travellers, or teams from among the hills. All had stopped on their course, impelled, apparently, by unconscious reverence, as much as by curiosity, while every face was turned toward heaven, and every eye drank in the majesty of the sight. Women stood in the open street, near me, with streaming eyes and clasped hands, and sobs were audible in different directions. Even the educated and reflecting men at my side continued silent in thought. Several minutes passed, before the profound impressions of the spectacle allowed of speech. At such a moment the spirit of man bows in humility before his Maker.

The changes of the unwonted light, through whose gradations the full brilliancy of the day was restored, must have been very similar to those by which it had been lost, but they were little noted. I remember, however, marking the instant when I could first distinguish the blades of grass at my feet -- and later again watching the shadows of the leaves on the gravel walk. The white lilies in my mother's flower-garden were observed by others among the first objects of the vegetation which could be distinguished from the windows of the house. Every living creature was soon rejoicing again in the blessed restoration of light after that frightful moment of a night at noon-day.

Men who witness any extraordinary spectacle together, are apt, in after-times, to find a pleasure in conversing on its impressions. But I do not remember to have ever heard a single being freely communicative on the subject of his individual feelings at the most solemn moment of the eclipse. It would seem as if sensations were aroused too closely connected with the constitution of the spirit to be irreverently and familiarly discussed. I shall only say that I have passed a varied and eventful life, that it has been my fortune to see earth, heavens, ocean, and man in most of their aspects; but never have I beheld any spectacle which so plainly manifested the majesty of the Creator, or so forcibly taught the lesson of humility to man as a total eclipse of the sun.