My Great-grandfather Turns Twelve Today
(c) 2003 Bill Dodds
Chapter 13
"We lose the farm!" Aunt Mary said and now she really looked
scared.
"If we don't pay the money," Uncle Peter said.
"We lose the whole farm just because of that money?" Pat asked.
"Those are the terms of the loan agreement," his father said.
"Mr. Braxton was willing to bend the rules a little because he knew we
would pay him back in the fall. Apparently, Mr. Meyer isn't."
"Oh, that Julius!" Aunt Mary said.
"So," Uncle Peter said, "the family will just have to make an
extra 150 dollars in the next 10 days."
"But we can't..." Aunt Mary began.
"But we shall," Uncle Peter said and laughed. "Come on."
He led us all outside. By now all the clouds had disappeared and it was starting
to warm up.
"It's beautiful after an early summer rain shower, isn't it?" he
asked. "So fresh and clean."
"Washes away all the smog," I said.
"Washes away all the what?" Pat asked.
"Frogs," Charlie said. "There's not a frog to be seen."
We left the small yard, passed a horse tied up to a post and walked into the
barn.
"You have gold hidden away in here, Peter Farrell?" Aunt Mary asked.
"Better than gold," he said, taking a step up a ladder made by
2-by-4's that had been nailed to one wall. "I have walnut."
He easily climbed up the ladder and disappeared through a square hole in the
ceiling. "Come on," he shouted back down to us. "I can't believe
I've been able to keep this a secret."
Sean clambered up the ladder, then Charlie, then the rest of us, even little
Francis who was only about 2 years old.
"Papa?" he called out, as his mom helped him up the wooden rungs.
"Papa?"
"Come on up, Frank," his dad answered. "See what Papa's
got."
The second floor of the barn was about three-fourths the size of the main floor.
It was a loft, stored with hay and farm equipment.
"Watch the edge, children," Aunt Mary said, pointing to one side that
was open to the ground floor.
"That's so you can throw hay down to the animals, huh?" I asked
Charlie and he nodded.
It was pretty dark up there until Uncle Peter lit a kerosene lantern. That
helped some. "Back here," he said, handing the lantern to Sean. He
pulled away an old tarp and there was the most beautiful piece of furniture I
had ever seen.
"Peter, what...?" Aunt Mary started to say.
"A sideboard," Uncle Peter said. "I'm making it with lumber we
had cut from that old walnut tree that blew down three years ago."
"The walnut?" Aunt Mary said. "But you were saving that wood for
something special."
"This is special," he said. "It's being specially made for the
Widow Dixon."
"The old rich lady?" Charlie asked.
"Elderly," his mother said.
"The very same," said Uncle Peter. "She has a dining room set of
the finest walnut. It's been in her family for years but somewhere along the
line the sideboard was lost or misplaced or stolen or ruined. In any case, she's
asked me to make her a new one."
"What's a sideboard?" I whispered to Charlie.
"What?" Uncle Peter asked.
"He said 'What's a sideboard?'," Sissie answered.
"A sideboard is a cabinet for the dining room," he told me. "For
the finest dishes and sterling silver."
"It's beautiful," Aunt Mary said. "It's so beautiful."
She was right. It was about eight feet long and two and a half feet wide. The
top of it stood about four feet off the ground. There were three long drawers in
the center and open shelves at each end.
"These will be covered," Uncle Peter said as he pointed at the
shelves. "I'm just finishing the second door."
He bent down and picked up a piece of wood that was leaning against the side of
the sideboard. It was two feet wide and would cover the shelves completely.
There was an intricate design -- three pine cones and the branch of a pine tree
-- carved into the center of it. It matched the carving that had been done on
the front of each of the drawers.
"This was the hard part," he said. "The drawers and this door are
all done and I'm just about done with the other door. But by a week from Monday
it will be all stained and varnished and polished and ready for delivery. Cash
on delivery."
I wondered how much.
"How much?" Sean asked, speaking for all of us.
"You've been working on this for months," Aunt Mary said. "All
those afternoons when you said you were out here fixing a harness or tinkering
with a wagon's axle or... or..."
"Or anything else I could think of," Uncle Peter said and laughed.
"Then I'd cover it all up and slide it safely back behind the hay where no
young lad coming up to pitch hay down to the animals would see it. Oh, I'm a
sneaky one."
"How much?" Sean asked again. He seemed much more serious than Pat or
Charlie.
"One hundred and seventy-five dollars," Uncle Peter said.
"Saints preserve us!" Aunt Mary exclaimed.
"Fortunately," he said, "Mr. Braxton let me know in the spring
that he could allow us to fall a little behind in our mortgage payments but he
might not be the one holding the note by the time the crops came in."
"How come so much money for one piece of furniture, Pa?" Pat asked.
"The wood and the design match the set the Widow Dixon already has,"
he said, "but it was the carving that she was really interested in, and
willing to pay for."
"But it's such a shame you have to give it away," Aunt Mary said.
"I'm not giving away anything," he reminded her. "What I'm
doing is keeping our house and our farm."
"How are you going to get it down, Papa?" Sissie asked. "It's too
big to go down the ladder."
"Oh, no!" he said and he smiled. "I guess then we'll have to wrap
it all up in blankets and then put some ropes around it and lower it right down
over the edge of the floor there. Right down into the wagon and out the big door
and into Culver City."
"That's a good idea!" the little girl squealed.
"And now if all of you will excuse me," Uncle Peter said, "I have
some carving to do."
"Let's go, children," Aunt Mary said.
"Pa?" Charlie asked.
"Mmm?" his dad answered.
"Can Michael and I go swimming?"
"May Michael and I go swimming," Aunt Mary corrected him.
"May Michael and I go swimming?"
"I guess some boys will do just about anything to get out of a Saturday
night bath, won't they?" he asked and then he nodded his head. "Don't
either one of you swim alone," he said.
"No, sir," Charlie answered.
The girls went down the ladder first and then all the boys except Charlie and
me. Uncle Peter had pulled out the other door, set it up on some sawhorses and
was getting out some wood chisels that looked really sharp.
"You do know how to swim, don't you?" Charlie asked me.
"Uh huh," I said, "but I'm going to need to borrow a swim
suit."
"A what?"
"A bathing suit. I didn't exactly pack one with me."
"You don't need a bathing suit," he shook his head and said.
"You're going to be naked."
Go to Chapter 14.
