My Great-grandfather
Turns Twelve Today
(c) 2003 Bill Dodds
Chapter 14
"I'm going to be what?" I asked but Charlie was already
scampering down the ladder.
"You boys be home for chores," Uncle Peter called out.
"Yes, Pa."
"Charlie!" I hurried down after him. Everyone else was gone.
"What did you mean when you said..."
"Warming up, ain't it?" he asked me and he headed out the main double
doors. "Going to be right hot this afternoon."
"Wait up," I said.
"One way or another," he said, "I'm going to have to get wet
today and I figure I'd rather do it swimming in some nice cool water than
sitting in some old bath tub in the summer kitchen."
I walked along beside him. Down the driveway and out to the road.
"There was a bath tub in your kitchen?" I asked. "I didn't see
it."
"Well, it wasn't there during dinner," he said. "Never is.
Usually on Saturday after supper Sean or Brigid will fetch it from the summer
kitchen and bring it on in but during the summer it just stays out there."
"Bring it on in where?"
"Into the kitchen," he said. "Isn't that what we're talking
about?"
"And instead it stays where?" I asked.
"The summer kitchen," he said.
"What's a summer kitchen?"
"You don't have a summer kitchen?" Charlie asked and I shook my head.
"How do you keep your house cool with your wood stove going?"
Wood stove? I figured he meant the fireplace insert. "We don't use a wood
stove in the summer," I said. "We use an air conditioner."
"A what?"
"A machine that cools the air. It make the house cool in the summer."
"Oh, go on with you," he said and laughed. "And if you don't
light your stove all summer then how does your ma cook or bake anything?"
"She uses the stove," I said.
"I bet she does."
"She just turns it on."
"She just does what?"
"So what's a summer kitchen?" I asked, going back to something he had
said earlier.
"That's the room built on out back where Ma and Brigid cook meals during
the summer."
"Really?"
"Yeah, really. You mean you've never heard of a summer kitchen?"
"Huh uh," I said, "and could you slow down a little."
"I'm talking too fast for you?" Charlie asked.
"No," I said, "you're walking to fast for me. How far is it
anyway."
"About three miles."
"Three miles!" I said. "Why didn't your mom or dad drive
us."
He really laughed at that one. I ignored him and I thought about what he had
said a little earlier. "So in the winter," I said, "you would
just take a bath in the kitchen? I mean the regular kitchen."
"Yep."
"Why?" I asked.
"Why? Because that's where the water is heating up, that's why. The kettle
is on the stove."
"Everyone would take a bath there?"
"Of course they would. Not all at the same time. One at a time. From
Francis on up to Sean. Then, when we're all in bed, Ma takes hers and goes to
bed and Pa comes back downstairs and takes his and dumps out the water."
"You don't each get fresh water?"
"Fresh water?" he asked, sounding puzzled. "We each get a little
hot water added."
"But isn't the water all dirty from soap and shampoo and conditioner?"
I asked.
"Soap and shampoo and what?"
"Never mind."
We walked along for quite a while with neither of us talking. I took off my
jacket and carried it. We passed farmhouses and barns every once in a while.
Sometimes a dog would start barking at us and Charlie would call out its name
and tell it to hush. There was a man in one field with a team of animals pulling
a plow.
"You still use horses for everything?" I asked.
"Those are mules," he said.
We kept walking.
"That's my schoolhouse," he said at one point, gesturing toward a
small, one-story building.
"How many in your class?" I asked.
"Three."
"Three?"
"Thirty-seven in the whole school. First through eighth grade."
I wiped the sweat off my forehead. "I don't suppose this swimming place
we're going to is indoors, is it?" I asked.
"No," he said, "most rivers are outside."
"We're going to a river?"
"Fair Brook," he said. "It's not really a river but it's too big
to be a stream." Then suddenly he stopped and turned to me. I stopped, too.
"I'm not supposed to know a lot about the future," he gushed,
"but I just gotta ask. Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to sail the
oceans on some big ship. See the world, you know? I just gotta know: Do I ever
do that?"
"You..." I began.
"No!" he said. "Don't tell me."
"Okay," I said. We walked about 10 feet.
"Tell me," he said.
"I..."
"No, don't tell me."
We walked another 10 feet.
"All right," he said and he stopped one more time. "I give up. I
don't care what we're supposed to do or we're not supposed to do. I just have to
know. Do I sail around the world on some big ship?"
He looked up at me and I could tell he was a afraid I was going to say no.
"I... I..." I stumbled over my words. "I don't know," I
honestly said.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I don't know what you did."
"Aren't I your great-grandpa?"
"Yes," I said. "But... I don't really know what you did for a lot
of your life."
"How could you not know?" he asked, sounding so puzzled.
"I guess I never asked you," I said.
"You never asked me!"
"No," I apologized, "I always just sort of say hello and then
stand there and say good-bye after a while."
"You never even asked me," he said, stomping away.
I chased after him. "But you're different later on," I said.
"What do you mean I'm different?" He kept walking.
"You're... old."
The road had led into a small grove of trees. It was cooler in the shade.
"I know I'm old," he said. "I'm a hundred. But I'm still me,
aren't I?"
"Well, yeah," I said, "but..."
"Bucky is crazy," I heard another boy say and I looked over toward
some bushes to the left and there was a black kid about our age. "Bucky is
just plain touched in the head," the boy said.
Go to Chapter 15.
