by Darrel Bird
Old Dogs, Children and Gil Bateman
By
Darrel Bird
Copyright 2010 by Darrel Bird
Old Dogs, Children and Gil Bateman
Gil Bateman had grown up on his farm and had inherited the farm when his parents had passed away, Gil Bateman was an atheist, all he mostly believed in was him self. He had worked his land all his life with no help from anyone, thank you, and didn’t intend to start now.
His land sat on a level 180 acres with the mountains rising on three sides and a hollow on one side which dumped off down to the Little Red River. He fished and hunted and took his living from the land, and he by God didn’t need anybody to tell him how to live.
The Low Gap Mountain was between him and the town, 8 miles to the west, but he seldom made the trip accept to get non perishable items such as flower and corn meal.
When his wife died, he buried her out back a few hundred yards from the house under the old Oak that had stood there for millennia. He buried her in the flower sack dress she had made with her own two hands. He just turned the soil with a shovel and when he gently lowered her into the ground wrapped in a blanket, he threw the soil back over her, filling in the hole. He knelt and patted the soil smooth with his hands, a lone tear made its way down his cheek as he declared that was that.
At the time he felt like taking a gun to his head after setting fire to the place, but instead he just cranked up the old Ford tractor and went out to plow and he plowed all day until it got too dark to see. He drove the tractor under the shed and shut off the engine and in the stillness of the night under a starry sky Gil Bateman went mad as a hatter.
There was an old house up the road a piece called the old McCallum place, no one had lived there in 25 years and the old house appeared as if it would cave in any minute, it was the home to two diamond back rattlers and a wild house cat, and the three vied for any stray field mouse who dared take up abode in the old house.
The snakes and the cat were shocked when up the drive way came an old beat up 1946 Ford sedan toting a poor family consisting of a man, a woman and two little girls of 6 and 8 years respectively.
You know how it is when you get used to seeing something, you forget it’s there and Gil Bateman had forgotten the old McCallum place was even there, but again, so did the tax assessor at the County seat which was 30 miles to the north, that is until one day a young sprout went to work in the tax office and discovered there weren’t any taxes paid on the place for twenty some odd years, he promptly listed it in the papers for foreclosure the day a poor family came out of East Texas who had ten dollars and some spare change.
The thing about this poor family of a man, a woman and two little girls, 6 and 8, respectively is that they weren’t Atheist and they depended on God as if he existed, so they knelt down beside the road on the way to the county seat and prayed over the ten dollars and change for God to give them a home to live in, seeing as they were long on faith and short on timber at the time.
Consequently Roy Tilton, his wife and two daughters walked into the tax office and announced they had ten dollars to redeem the house currently listed.
The ten dollars weren’t near enough to pay twenty some odd years back taxes, but since the tax office needed tax payers instead of tax owers the sprout took it upon himself to reduce the taxes to a ten dollar size.
Did I forget to mention this poor family also had a large yellow lab by the name of ‘Scoot’? I did didn’t I?
Scoot came flopping his ears into the world under the same house that the 6 and 8 year old girls, respectively, came into the world in, only the girls weren’t under the house, they were in the house right above the litter of one, born to a stray dog with no name.
The dog and the girls at length discovered each other as Mr. Tilton, being of kind heart and soul, decided to leave the stray be. Scoot skidded his hind end across the grass every time he went potty to the delight of the little girls and the Girls mother, Mrs. Joe Ann Tilton remarked as to how that dog could scoot, hence the moniker stuck. Things have just got a natural way of sticking, food sticks to the fry pan, and monikers stick to dogs.
It is just the way of things.
The snakes and the feral cat promptly lit out for more friendly territory when dust began to rain down on their heads from the floor just above them at the old McCallum place that day as the poor family declared with a little work and fixing up the old place would be their home, given to them as a gift from their loving Jesus on the day the sprout found out that back taxes were due.
The old McCallum place began to take shape as it was just breaking spring; they cleaned out the well and planted a garden in back of the house before Gil Bateman even knew they were there. Gil was out plowing his corn just as the summer got off to a good start when the little girls decided to explore the world around them.
They came walking down the road discussing grass hoppers and rag dolls until they came to the fence that separated Gil’s cornfield from the road. Gil looked at them in shock as he came to the end of the rows of standing corn. It looked to him like they had materialized out of the ground. He promptly shut off the tractor.
“Where’d you come from?” He stood looking at them as if he had seen a ghost. His mouth open which let out a drape of tobacco juice.
The girls pointed up the road in tandem with their fingers and Gil swallowed the tobacco juice.
“Who you be?”
“Marisa” said the older and “Carisa” said the younger.
“Where did you say you come from?” Gil slowly recovered enough to stick his hand into the bib of his overhauls which he was in the habit of doing when he had something to study out.
The girls again pointed up the road toward the old McCallum place.
“Up there? The old McCallum place?” Gil now sunk his hands deep into his overhauls bib.
“Uh huh.” Said Marisa, “The Lord give it to us.”
“But…But…you can’t live there cause I live here!” Now Gil was more confused than ever, but he set his mind to try and make sense of it.
“What you young’uns want?” Gil wasn’t taking kindly to anything he didn’t understand and it had been a while since he understood anything.
“Go on, git!” Gil pointed back up the road, but the girls forgot their gitter and just stood there.
“Go on, I told you to git now!” the girls looked crestfallen and turned to walk slowly back up the road, Marisa taking Carisa by the hand.
That made Gil feel bad with him self and he turned around and kicked the tractor tire, “Ow! Gol dang it!” he climbed back on the tractor, but decided to call it a day.
The next day as Gil was making another round in the corn field he had plowed for the fourth time in a week, the girls came down the road accompanied by the yellow Lab.
They walked up to the fence as Gil got down off the tractor to send them packing.
“Here misther.” Little Carisa said as she handed him something through the fence. She had a missing front tooth and the ‘ther’ slid right in there.
Taken aback by it Gil reached for the object, he taken the little cloth napkin off to find it was a small bowl of Pinto beans with a small hunk of corn bread stuck in the middle.
About that time Scoot protruded his head through the fence for a pat and a well done for being generous.
Gil stood there fidgeting as he remembered how bad he felt yesterday and mumbled. “Aw Hell.” As he rubbed the dogs head and gave him a scratch behind the ears.
His gut gave a growl as he stared at the little bowl of beans and corn bread.
“Are you sure you want me to eat this little girl?” he was confused as to what to do, as he was confused most of his
waking days.
“We would like you too sir, the Lord give it to us to give to you.”
A tear slowly rolled down Gil Bateman’s face as he stared at the girls and as he knew nothing else to do he ate the corn bread and the beans. The girls climbed through the barbed wire fence and taking Gil by the hand they led him toward the house. Gil Bateman began to cry as his heart melted in the hands of the two little girls.
“We’re sorry we made you sad mister, we didn’t mean too, honest.” Marisa said.
“Honest.” Carisa chimed in.
“I don’t reckon you made me sad, I jest ain’t used to having kids around I reckon.”
“Don’t you have any family?”
“No, no one.”
“Can we come by and be your family then?” Marisa said and Carisa shook her head vigorously
“I spect you kids have a family of your own, you better be going or your mother will wonder where you are at. Now go on with you.”
“Bye mister.’ said Marisa.
Bye misther.” Said Carisa.
Scoot figured the Lords business had been taken care of so he got up from the shade and began leading his charges toward home.
Gil stood looking up the road after them for some time after they had rounded the bend and was out of sight.
That night he felt a peace he hadn’t felt for a long time. He didn’t feel so crazy headed and he figured there must be something to this God business after all.
“If there is a God, he sure worked overtime to make them two.” He remarked to himself as he turned off the light.
Through the summer the girls continued to visit him and each time they brought him small gifts and it became the light of his day to see them coming down the dusty road as summer started to shift into fall, but one day they didn’t come, instead their father came rushing down the road in the beat up Ford, slamming on his breaks in front of the house.
The old car shuddered to a halt and Gil went out to see.
“Have you seen the girls today Mr. Bateman?”