The Lone Goose #T

  

The cry of a lone goose pierced the sky, the haunting notes singing the tale of a bird separated from his family.  It was late April.  This Blue had somehow lagged behind, was left behind and now it is plaintively seeking its kind.  As the sun drops behind the horizon, the goose hears  the clucking and cackling of poultry far below as their keeper is spreading grain for the evening feed.  The goose circles, descends.  In a large open yard it espies two dozen or so common chickens.  Though the birds are not its kind, they are birds.  Blue lands on the periphery of the yard and the hens go ballistic.  The goose assumes submissive posture, offers no threat.  The chickens calm down and the goose cautiously walks toward them.  Finally, it is close enough to peck at the grain on the ground.  Blue joins the chickens for dinner. 

Blue has assumed the role of guardian of the property and protector of the flock.  Even the rooster has accepted this interloper as a part of his family, and all is well in Birdland. 

September comes, as September will.  On a bright clear morning Blue hears a familiar sound approaching from the north.  A flock of its own people-- snow geese!  Nature stirs the whatever within the creature that impels it to rejoin its own kind.  Blue starts down the lane, runs down the lane, flaps its wings and leaps to launch itself into the air! 

Blue gets about three goose-heights off the ground, sails a few yards and crashes headlong into the dirt.  The poor bird has been much too-well fed, its body now heavy with surfeit.  Its sole exercise for months has been waddling around the chicken lot; its pinions are atrophied and too weak to support flight. 

The flock, hundreds strong, soars overhead while Blue honks a feeble "Good-bye, good-bye."*

 *There is a moral in here somewhere but I shall refrain from pointing it out.  If I could see it, and I did, I know that you can as well.

+©2017  David W. Lacy

Watch Goose and Camaraderie #T

Darlene: "Ardella came over and told me the cops brought you and Clifton to school this morning.  What happened?  Did he beat on you?"

Darren:  "Not any more than I beat on him!"

Darlene:  "Ooh, I'll get him now!"

Darren: "No you won't.  It is all settled; Clifton and I are good."

And so they were.  The two lads even started hanging out together during lunch time and afternoon recesses.  Darlene was not amused, but she is the loyal sister.  She spent more of her time stirring up difficulties amongst the girls.

One afternoon about two weeks after the fight, Clif (the boys were now "Clif" and "Dare") said, "Come on over to my house.  You can see our chickens and stuff.  And we have a watch goose."

"A what?  A watch goose?"

"Yeah.  We have this goose-- Ma says it's a blue goose-- that came in and started living with the chickens.  He guards them and watches over the place.  No one, but I mean no one, steps foot on our property without a big ruckus from Blue.  He's better than a watch dog.  He'll scare the bejabbers out of you, too, and run you off if you don't stand your ground."  Goose won't let the chickens out of the yard, either.  Haven't had one cross the road since he got here."

"Cool!  But how do I get on your place if the goose attacks me?"

"Oh, he won't attack you if you stand still and make yourself as big as you can--  raise your arms up and spread your feet apart.  He will run toward you honking, but he will stop when he sees how fierce you are.  Then you take two steps toward him.  He will back up two steps.  Then stomp your foot and step toward him again.  He'll turn and run."

And that all happened just so..

While Clif and Dare were checking out the hen house, Louie came out.  "Hey," he said.  "You're the kid that looks just like his sister.  She tried to beat me up.  I oughta clobber you just for being related to her."

"Did beat you up," Darren sassed.

"Why you-- I'll beat you up just because you are a little smart aleck."

"No," interjected Clifton, "you won't.  Dare is my buddy now and you'll have to beat us both up."

"I could do that."

"No, you won't.  Remember, blood is thicker than water, or something like that."

"Yeah, yeah.  Well, have fun."  Louie headed back to the house.

Darren knew a world more about poultry and how he got his eggs for breakfast by the time he left for home.


 ©2017  David W. Lacy

Altercation in Pineville #T

Inevitably the day came.  Darlene had a bad case of the sniffles, a sore throat, and every good excuse to stay home from school.  But Darren had to get ready and head out by himself.  Darren turned the corner at the end of the block, walked the half-block to the alley, and there behind the lilac bush was Clifton lying in wait.

"Ha!  Gotcha!  Where's Miss Piggy?  Piggy-tails, I mean."

And here Darren's "erudition" got him into serious trouble.  For some inexplicable reason his recent reading had been centered around nineteenth century American history.  Nine years old and already looking as though he'd be a lawyer or worse, a politician.  Or both.

"Sir," Darren cried, "I perceive that thou art a foul Whig!"

There was but one word of the sentence that Clifton understood and what he heard was "fowl."  He instantly concluded that he was being called a chicken, or worse depending upon what "whig" meant.

He flew with unrestrained fury at his antagonist.  Darren dodged and Clifton overshot his mark.  Both boys turned and the fight began.  I will spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that when Hans Freylingheusen drove up in his police cruiser the boys were rolling in the crushed limestone surface of the alley, both covered with the white powder of the recently-laid material, each flailing at the other, screaming and hollering.  Hans stopped the car, leisurely hoisted himself from the vehicle and ambled over to the combatants.

"Hey!"  Only upon hearing him speak did the boys turn to see a pair of black jack-boots and blue striped trousers beside them.  Only then did the beating and smacking stop.  The officer took a shoulder in each hand and lifted the guys to their feet.  "Get in the car.  In the front seat.  You're not under arrest."

They complied and Hans walked around and got into the car as well.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"  No answer.  "I asked you a question."

"Yes, sir."  Feebly.  "Yes, sir."  Also feebly.

"Now I am going to drive you over to the station.  You can't show up at school looking like that."  In the locker room each boy was given a towel and washcloth.  "You want to beat each other?"  Freylingheusen said.  "Knock that dust and dirt off each other.  And don't get carried away; the fight is over.  Then get washed up."

Hans got the boys back into the cruiser and drove them to school.  The three of them went up the walk together.  Not in the best interests of Darren and Clifton was the fact that the third-graders were  on the playground.  The officer took the lads to the principal, Miss Garst.  "I hope you will excuse their tardiness.  These boys ran into a bit of difficulty but everything is all right now.  Right, fellas?"

"Right."

 "Right.  Thank you, sir."


 ©2017  David W. Lacy

Pineville Retribution #T

Clifton was a bully but he was not without a crude and shrewd intelligence.  It did not take long for him to figure out who it was who got him into trouble over the yo-yo incident.  Confronted, Darlene did not deny her involvement.

Clifton:  I will make you sorry!

Darlene: Let's get it on!

Clifton:  All in good time, Baby.

Darlene's blood was about to boil, but she let it pass.

Clifton told his older brother, Louis, about this terrible, awful, mean, wicked girl who kept threatening him.  Louis said, "I can straighten her right out."  Clifton grinned.  "Thanks, Brother."

The Pratt's front doorbell rang shortly after five in the evening.  Mrs. Pratt answered the door to find a large angry woman and a twelve-year old boy standing on the porch.

L. A. Woman: Is this where Darlene lives?

Samantha: Yes. How may I help you?

L.A. W.:  How?  Just look at what that wicked vixen did to my Louie!

And there stood Louie, right eye purple and swollen, left cheek raw with claw (?) marks.

Samantha (turning toward the interior of the house):  DARLENE! Come here at once.

Darlene shows up at the door, stands beside her mother, grasping her skirt and looking up, her baby blues all innocence.  Louie's mother looks at this slip of a girl, turns to her son and says, "Is this the girl that beat you up?"

"Yeh, Ma.  That's her."

Ma turned with a roundhouse swing and walloped her son across the cheek.  "You let that little thing beat you up?  I'll show you what it means to get beat up!  Now get to the house. 'Scuse, me, Ma'am.  We'll be getting along now."


 ©2017  David W. Lacy

Crime in Pineville #T

During their first grade year at Pineville Elementary School, Darlene and Darren had been in the same classroom.  At the end of the year their teacher, a very frazzled teacher, advised most firmly that that sort of placement should not be allowed next year.

So it was that the twins had been in different classrooms since.  Clifton, Darren's nemesis, was in the fourth grade classroom with Darlene.  This sunny October morning Sadie, whose birthday was yesterday, brought her new yo-yo which her Aunt Min had given her.  Sadie had already mastered Walking the Dog and putting her toy to "sleep."  On the playground this morning she had even allowed some of her girlfriends to give it a try.  How pretty it was, shiny blue with silver sparklies that fairly danced in the sunlight as it spun up and down its string!

Back in the classroom, Darlene noticed that Sadie had placed her new treasure on the pencil tray of her desk.  Then it was time for math drill.  The five children in Sadie's row were sent to the chalkboard.  The teacher recited the "problems" and monitored the progress of the kiddos.  As it happened, Clifton was at the board, Sadie was at the board, and the yo-yo sparkled in the sunlight, lying there on the desk.

And you know what Darlene did.

That group finished their drill and returned to their desks.  Before Mrs. Lawton could call another group to the front there was heard a piercing shriek in the room.  Sadie had discovered that her yo-yo was missing.

"Yes, Mrs. Lawton, it was right there."  She points to the pencil tray.  "Someone stole my yo-yo!"
[Insert sobs for effect; oh, yes, those were real.]

The investigation is launched.  Emptying of pockets, dumping of desk contents and so on.  Darlene was "clean," of course, but when teacher got to Clifton, Clifton who in all innocence had no cause for alarm, reached into his desk to pull out the rat's nest he kept there and What's this?  The yo-yo was in the first handful of rubble he pulled out.

Mrs. Lawton palmed the toy.  "Clifton, you and I will spend our lunch time together.  Now class, let us get back to work."

"But, Ma'am! I --"

"But me no buts, Young Man!"


 ©2017  David W. Lacy

Fashion, Theft and Restitution #T

Darlene hated the brown cotton stockings: thigh high, ugly, held up by the suspenders on the little garter belt mama made for her.  In the wintertime, she really did not mind because she hated the cold anyway.  But in the Spring, well, you get the idea.

Darlene, though, as we have seen, is clever, and independent, too. She is now in the fourth grade but she discovered as far back as first grade that teasing from the more fashionably dressed girls was to be her lot in her school life.  But clever Darlene did not need much time to figure out that the stockings could be slipped off soon after she turned the corner at the end of the block on her way to school.  She would step behind a spirea bush, divest herself of the hosiery and store said hose in her brown lunch sack along with the apple and the sandwiches therein.

Darren, the loyal twin, never ratted out his sister, and might be said to be an accomplice, for he would wait on the sidewalk to continue his walk with the little look-alike.  If you are thinking that he did this more for his own protection than for the love of his sister, you would be both right and wrong.  There was that, of course, but Darren truly cared for Darlene, and he felt sorry for her, attired as she was in such unfashionable garb.

This Spring a heat wave struck in late March.  Tuesday morning, Darlene stepped behind the spirea, first time since October.  This went through Darren's mind: This has been going on for three years and what am I getting out of it?  Forgetting the protection his rowdy sister provided, he said, to himself, it is time for me to have some fun.

After lunch, Darren took his paper bag and Darlene's, too, and carried them to the shelf in the cloak closet.  But not before he transferred a brown stocking to each of the back pockets in his overalls.  Behind the bush, Darlene made a terribly disturbing discovery.  She was bare-legged and possessed of no stockings.  "Darren!"  she screamed, "Give me your lunch bag."  Darren complied.  Darlene still had no stockings.

Two blocks back to the dime store and Darlene ran all the way.  But as she entered the door it struck her that she did not have the nineteen cents she would need to buy stockings.  No time for such niceties: she strolled, either chalantly or nonchalantly to the hosiery counter, waited until the clerk was ringing up a sale, slipped a pair of brown stockings off the  counter and stuffed them up her sleeve.  She stole the merchandise.  The twinge of conscience did hurt, but not enough to deter her from her mission.  She ambled out the store and returned to the bushes which were her changing room.  Darren, of course, was not waiting for her.  But he was home when she arrived fully clad with stockings and all.

Darren, naturally, ferreted out the truth.  He was appalled.  Ornery, yes.  Mischievous, yes. But criminal?  He was willing, nay eager, to practice disobedience on occasion, but outright theft?  "Darlene, you have to make this right."

"Now just how do you think I am going to do that?  If I confess, Daddy will tan my hide and I might even go to jail."

"Look," he said.  Get your pig-bank.  I'll take care of it.  That's what brothers do."

"Yeah," she said. "Get me out of the trouble you got me into in the first place."

"That's what brothers do!"


 ©2017  David W. Lacy

The Pratts in Church #T

Pastor Pratt is on the platform.  He takes his position behind the pulpit and begins the introduction to his sermon.  He usually starts his message with a light-hearted or heart-tugging illustration, often drawn from his own experiences.  Today's story is no exception and casts him in the role of Peck's bad boy a quarter century ago.  Like father, like children?

Mrs. Pratt is seated at the center aisle, second row from the front.  Next to her is Darlene, then Darrin.  And next to him is Mindy who is snuggled up against her Grammy.  The two women have effectively blocked the egress from the pew such that no child is going to escape unless he crawls under the bench.  What a great idea!  Darren thought.  If I could get to the vestibule. . . As "all heads are bowed and all eyes are closed" Darren drops to the floor and begins to work his way, on his belly, toward the back.  At the fifth row back, though, he runs into a problem. Two problems, actually.  The first is that this row is completely filled such that there is no space between legs to accommodate the boy's body.  The second is that someone pronounces the "Amen."  Darren is stuck beneath a pew and no place to go.

Samantha is looking all around, turns to Darlene and hisses, "Where's Darren?"  Darlene shrugs, hands at her sides, palms up.  Daddy, in the pulpit, sees that Mama is in a state, but he cannot let that distract him from the point he is making.  But he notes that his only son is absent from his pew.  Pastor intoned, "Let us look at Genesis, chapter 27 and verse 8."  Then louder he read,  "Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee. Bring forth now to thy father the blue hymnal in the rack on the back of the nearby pew."  A bit of snickering, especially from those who had turned in their Bibles to the passage cited.  Darren felt the hair around his cowlicks stand on end and a chill ran down his spine.  He knew he had been had, but he rose sheepishly from the floor, grasped a blue hymnal, bumped past three pairs of knees as he moved to the aisle along the wall, muttering, "Excuse me, excuse me, I beg your pardon."  His father met Darren at the edge of the platform, the boy handed him the book and Dad muttered, sotto voce, "Wait 'til your father gets home." 

The preacher continued his sermon, church was dismissed, and one sandy-haired, freckle-faced boy escaped the environs post haste, but he headed directly to the house.

 ©2017  David W. Lacy

The Pratt Household #T

A bit ago you were introduced to the Pratt twins, Darlene and Darren.  Today, a bit about the rest of the family.
 
Mr. Pratt, Edwin, if it really matters, because everyone calls him "Pastor" or sometimes "Reverend," is the pastor of Pineville Community Church.  Pineville, as you are aware, is tucked away in a serene, not to mention somnolent, valley just a bit past beyond.  Parochial?  Not so very much.  If you were not born there you are not a "local," even though you may have lived there for seventy years.  Go figure.  The Pratts are not locals.  They came to town to pastor PCC nine years ago, just six weeks after the birth of the twins.  Five years later Mindy was born.  Mindy will ever be known as a local.  But never her parents or her siblings.  See above.

Mrs. Pratt, Samantha, is very much involved in the good works of the church and with the community at large.  She is a regular participant in the doings of the PTA and is a volunteer at the Pineville Community Hospital.

The baby, four-year old Mindy, is beautiful, charming, a living doll, one might say, and is beloved by all.  She is the good child, the payoff to perseverance, the balance over against the antics of the twins.  And how does Mrs. Pratt cope with all the responsibilities that devolve upon her as pastor's wife, mother to an angel and two hellions, still finding time to be of real service to the townspeople?
Bad luck often brings with it good fortune and in this case the bad luck of Samantha's mother in losing her husband to cancer three years ago has turned into the Pratts' good fortune.  For the past year Mrs. Cline has lived with the Pratts.

There is no cause for mother-in-law jokes, for Edwin and Eldena, that's Mrs. Cline, are the best of friends.  It might even be said that they adore each other, and Samantha loves them both and all is peachy-keen in the household.

Except for Darren and Darlene.  Please understand that these children are loved by all the occupants of the house, that there is no abuse going on.  They are well and properly cared for.  It is just that they are exasperating.  Twins: double the trouble, half the restraint.  If the girl-one don't get you, the boy-one will.  Or they both will.

Case in point.  Last Saturday Pineville Community Church had a Sunday School picnic in Pine Park.  The feast was consumed and the ladies of the Silver Set were tending to the cleanup duties.  People of all ages were entertaining themselves and each other, letting the meal settle a bit, you see, and the softball and volleyball games had not yet started.  Guys sitting around picking their teeth, ladies standing about in little clusters relating-- What?  You think gossip is going to slip into this account?  Not so.

Last Sunday Darren's Sunday School teacher, Miss Prunella (we call her, for Darren thinks of her as an old prune) had been a bit harsh with the lad over an itching powder incident involving Suzie Fletcher.  The young Pratt had yet to develop sufficient spiritual strength to forgive and forget.

So it was that Darren was crawling around on the ground, ostensibly looking for-- for what? Lost spectacles? A four-leaf clover?  Never mind.  As the boy sees his sister, pigtails flying, rushing headlong toward her, Darren positions himself, on his knees, directly behind Miss Prunella's legs.  Darlene turns her head to look back, ostensibly to see if the one chasing her is gaining on her (this is how she told it later) and in that instant of looking back and moving forward she ran into the unlucky SS teacher who staggered backward half-step, ran into Darren and fell on her back, plum knocking the wind out of her.  Beautifully executed teamwork by the twins, all deniability factors rehearsed in advance and carried off flawlessly.

The preacher's kids. You know what they say about those.

The Pratts of Pineville #T

 "Hi.  I'm Darlene and I am nine years old.  This is my brother."

"Hello.  I'm Darren.  I am nine, too."

"Oh, you are twins. How adorable!"`

There is an opinion that will change in less than a week. Most people who know them will say, "Darlene, indeed.. She's no darling, that's for sure. And Darren will dare anything, so long as it's ornery."

 Darlene and Darren are the first offspring of the Rev. Mr. Edwin Pratt and his lovely wife, Samantha. The twins have a sister, Mindy, age four. Technically, Darlene is the first-born of the Pratt children, being four minutes older than her brother. Pratt is their name, and mischief is their game.

Darlene's strawberry blonde hair is almost always in pigtails. Her complexion, to use a cliche, is peaches and cream, but that she wears a permanent Swiss dotted ribbon of rusty freckles across the bridge of her nose and under the eyes to the very corners of those bright blue orbs. A level could be placed across the tops of the heads of these two when they are standing side by side and the bubble would fall strictly inside the lines. It is likely, though, that in a couple of years Darlene will be the taller, but that probably won't last very long.

Darren has distinct double cowlicks and some wag said, not in the hearing of the Reverend, that those were exactly where the boy's horns would sprout in a couple of years, at the rate he was going. Of Darlene, well, she already has horns but keeps them pulled back in braids. Darren's band of freckles is the mirror image of his sister's. The eyes are the exact same shade as Darlene's baby blues.

Despite their similarities in appearance, however, these children were possessed (someone once said, "No kidding!") of two distinct personalities. Prepare to be surprised. Darlene was by far the more rambunctious, the one more likely to engage in physical altercations, and the one chosen first in most pick-up games on the playground or in a vacant lot. By contrast Darren was more the contemplative type, likely to be in a corner with a book, sometimes even a dictionary or encyclopedia. He is the kid who is picked on by the playground bullies. In particular, Darren has one nemesis who persists in annoying the lad, though this exchange once took place when Darlene was with her brother.

Clifton: "One of these days soon I will catch you when your sister's not around and I'll beat the crap out of you."

 Darlene: "You do that and when I catch up with you I will break every bone in your ugly body."

Clifton has confined his pestering to verbal taunts, a circumstance which will doubtless prevail.

 ©2017  David W. Lacy