An Island Between Us

by K'Anne Meinel

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Marion. Could I mix some more for you?” Richard offered helpfully.

  Her eyes squinted at him, sure that he would find that more of a privilege than a punishment. “Do you two have your homework ready to be mailed tomorrow when we go into Franklin?” she asked instead.

  “I’m done,” Brian responded quickly...almost too quickly. Marion stared at him until he began to fidget. “Well, I’m almost done,” he admitted.

  “You go wash up and get that homework done.” She glanced at Brenda, who was playing with the kittens. The many minor scratches on the child’s arms made it look like she was hatching something. “Brenda, did you do the homework we set for you?” she asked the little girl to distract her from the growing kittens.

  “Yes, Mom. I got all the letters in order, and I even colored them,” she said proudly.

  “Get your homework and show me, if you would?” she answered, not trusting their answers as she worked to place the fireplace rocks just so. The braces she was using kept things straight, but she wanted the concrete to dry and make it solid.

  The children were a constant distraction for both mothers. Barbara continued to cut trees down. She’d wait until she had several before getting the children to ‘help’ her cut off the branches. She would leave just enough for them to feel they were helping and keep them out of Marion’s hair for a few hours. Marion took them with her to the beach to pull apart the many pallets, beachcomb, and to fish, so she could watch them as she worked and keep them far away from the trees that Barbara was felling.

  “Brenda, get Gray out of that bucket. He’s stealing the fish your brother just caught!” she called, seeing the sneaky gray kitten pulling at the tail with his baby claws, trying to cage a free meal. She knew the kittens had tried to catch mice but wasn’t certain if they’d been successful yet. Tiger was sitting patiently, waiting for his brother to get the fish, who flopped enticingly, ripping his tail out of the kitten’s grasp time and again.

  Another time, Marion couldn’t wait to share with Barbara that Tiger had had a chipmunk turn the tables on his hunt and climb on his back. He couldn’t turn fast enough to try and get the rodent off his back, and the animal hung on like a rodeo rider as the cat twisted and fishtailed. Marion laughed so hard at the sight, and she wished she’d had a camera. She cried in laughter as she played the scene over and over in her mind. The chipmunk, more scared of the human, took off safely and got away from the young hunter.

  “You know, they say laughter is the best medicine,” Barbara commented with a smile as she listened to the story later after supper. Marion hadn’t dare tell it during dinner as they might have choked on their fried fish and beans dinner.

  Marion was raising the chimney high enough that it required her to step up on a makeshift platform to reach the top. She had braces inside to make the chimney straight, and more braces on the outside, so it was nearly flat as she continued to build it up marginally narrower on each level.

  “I’d say stop for now until we get the second level up,” Barbara suggested as the sides were all about five feet high. The next log would make it six, and they wanted to go to at least seven or eight, depending on the logs she split.

  “You were planning on a second level?” Marion suddenly worried.

  “Well, a loft above the bedrooms for storage at least?”

  They discussed it, and while it would be a lot more work, they agreed this would provide them with space they hadn’t planned for, and it would be small and convenient too. Still, they had to worry about the joists that would make the slant of their roof, and they planned on using tarpaper and flat boards over the top. They’d accumulated a few of them from the longer pallets and some they’d saved from beachcombing.

  “We have to get the garden dug up,” Marion mentioned one night as they relaxed before the fire. It hadn’t rained all week, and it was getting warmer. She’d removed her layers of clothes earlier each day that week. Seeing Barbara’s muscles beneath her flannel shirt, Marion hungered to touch them. The workout each of them was getting from the heavy lifting they were doing had them both in the best shape of their lives.

  “We also have to get that block and tackle in line, so we can get the logs up higher on the walls,” Barbara lamented, her back aching from using it too much. Still, she was young and didn’t think it would hurt forever.

  “What about the dock we want to make in the cove?”

  “Well, I thought we were planning on using some of the shorter pieces of wood from the pallets for that?”

  “That doesn’t solve the pilings we need to sink?

  “I have a few stumps left over from cutting trees that I think would work wonderfully. If we wait to dig until the tide is out and cast them in cement, I think they may dry before the tide comes back in?” Barbara put the idea out there, and it was obvious she had thought about that a lot while she worked. She was rubbing lotion into her hands that were perpetually chapped from the sawing, chopping, and hauling of wood she was doing. The gloves could only cover up so much.

  “No matter how much we do,” she nodded towards the cabin, which was really taking shape at the other end of the meadow, “it seems we always have more to do.”

  “True, but we’re learning too, and that’s important.”

  “That last batch of pallets was very fine stuff. I separated out the wood this time,” Marion mentioned. “It would be good enough for porches for the summer rentals.”

  “I think I know where I want to put that first rental cabin, now that we’ve been here a while.”

  “When you are done with the fireplace and we get the logs up around it for the loft, maybe we should work on the dock or the garden?”

  “I’ll dig up the garden a bit...maybe we can get the dogs to help?” She looked at the puppy, who seemed to find the missing rock holes in the meadow intriguing. The smell had him digging happily as he stuck his nose into the hole and then went wild digging it up more.

  They laughed at the weird menagerie they were accumulating.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Just a few days later, they heard the blast of some sort of ocean-going vessel in their cove. Marion came down from her platform, halting work on the fireplace for now, and Barbara came running up from the woods where she had just cut down a tree and was clearing some of the branches.

  “What was that?” she asked as she came over the hill. The children were already standing on the edge of the path, ready to go down but not without their mothers’ permission.

  “I don’t know,” Marion admitted as they both headed over to look.

  They encountered the oddest sight. It was a boat towing what looked like a barge with all sorts of junk piled up and bound down with nets and ropes all over it. The women exchanged a look as they heard a second blast, and the whole family headed down to the cove. They were spotted by someone on the boat, who started waving madly. As they came closer, they recognized Grady. She held up what looked like a sheep and used its hoof to wave.

  Exchanging a look, both Marion and Barbara started laughing. As the towed barge came closer, they recognized a lot of the junk from Grady’s yard. The boat turned sideways suddenly, and the barge continued moving forward. The ropes were thrown from the boat and both Marion and Barbara were alarmed but waded out to grab them and pull on the barge. The boat turned sideways, dropped anchor, and a boat was lowered. They held onto the barge ropes and watched as a couple of cages were lowered to the smaller boat. They watched as Grady nimbly climbed down.

  “What are they doing, Mom?” Brian asked, amused to see the birds in the cages squawking and batting their wings.

  “I’m not really sure, honey,” she answered her son and looked at Barbara, who shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea either.

  “Um, should we go tie this off?” Barbara asked, feeling stupid holding the ropes to the junk barge.

  “I guess so,” Marion answered, and they walked the ropes up. The ropes weren’t quite long enough, but the
barge had washed ashore just enough that it was stranded on the gravel spit for now. They tugged a couple of times to be sure it wouldn’t float off, and by then, Grady had nearly rowed to shore.

  “Hey, there!” she called and pointed at the two cages stacked on top of each other. “I have your chickens,” she said unnecessarily.

  “We see that,” Marion called back with a smile.

  “Hi, Grady. Welcome to Whimsical Island,” Barbara put in with her own smile of welcome. “I hope you can stay for a while,” she added, glancing at the junk and having a suspicion about the visit. There were a lot of things on that barge they had discussed during their last visit.

  “Oh, I’m here to help for a few days, if you all don’t mind the company?” she asked as she heaved the first coop out of the boat and splashed ashore. Barbara stepped forward to take it from her and put the squawking birds on the gravel.

  “Absolutely! You are most welcome, we just didn’t expect...” Marion gestured helplessly at the enormous amount of junk on the barge, and she could see the sheep on the boat clearly now. She went forward and retrieved the second coop with Grady’s help.

  “I figured you all would need it eventually, and as I’m going outta business, I figured we’d work out a payment plan or somethin’,” she said as she lifted the cage and they placed it next to the other one. “These are the chicks I promised you plus a few extra. I done found you all some sheep too,” she nodded towards the boat where the rowboat was already making its way back. “I also heard that guinea fowl are the best thing for ticks, and they make good alarms for your yard. I found a passel of them, and I traded for those as well.”

  Marion and Barbara were overwhelmed and exchanged a look. They’d have to talk about that later.

  “I brought the latest pile of pallets too,” she admitted. “I need a va-ca-tion...Never had one of those,” she added.

  She’d brought so much junk, and eventually, they would use it all. It required a lot of time to get everything up on the beach, but they certainly couldn’t transport things like the cast iron stoves up the slope to the meadow without figuring something out first. The enormous weight would require some creativity. The men on the boat had been hired to tow the enormous barge and pick it up in a week, so the women would have time to empty it. They fought with the sheep, who jumped out of the rowboat and made their way by swimming ashore. Their naked bodies were bloated with young, and it surprised both Marion and Barbara that the farmer had been willing to sell them.

  “I toldja that sheep were cheaper after shearin’,” Grady pointed out, “and they’re full of young.”

  Both women were amazed at Grady’s generosity, but she explained that the town of Franklin had been warning her for years to take care of the junk in her yard. It had been her husband’s junk, but since she had inherited his mess, they were now holding her responsible. “I think it’s personal,” she said confidentially as she held one side of the guinea fowl cage. Marion held the other side of the cage, and they tried to work together to get it up the path, following Barbara who just lifted one on her own. “I’s heard there’s some sorta developer there, who wants to build G.I. housing, so they’ll populate Franklin and not wander away.” There was the G.I. bill that gave inexpensive loans to G.I.s who wished to build their own homes. It was also available to widows or families, but Marion and Barbara had not been able to obtain a loan.

  “Apparently, they want the boys who went out into the world to now settle here with their brides, and they is building up a storm around town with new houses. They want my land, but I ain’t giving it up without a fight. I sold the cars for scrap, made a pretty penny too,” she confided. “I knews ya’ll would need this stuff, and we’d talked about you havin’ first option.”

  They put the poultry down near the finished pen, and Grady eyed it, admitting it was a first-rate job.

  “We can’t afford to pay you right now, Grady...” Barbara began. The only thing they owned outright were the chicks, and even those seemed like too many.

  “You pay me when you can. I ain’t worried,” she answered. “I wanna see youse succeed,” she admitted, looking around at what they had accomplished. “That looks like a first-rate cabin there,” she added. “No garden?”

  “We simply haven’t had the time,” Marion admitted. “There were all those rainy days, and then we had to get the cabin up first. It’s just us two, and it takes–”

  Grady held up her hand to silence Marion. “I ain’t criticizin’. I’m here to help for a few days. It also will make them busybodies in town wonder if I’ve abandoned me place.” She chuckled, delighted at the idea.

  Both women laughed as they understood busybodies. The letters from their families hadn’t been polite, demanding they return with the children. In Marion’s case, her mother-in-law had threatened to send the police since child welfare in Massachusetts couldn’t do anything now that she was a citizen of Maine.

  “Let’s get the other cages up here and let them chicks get used to their new home,” she said. “You keep them keets in with ‘em, so they learn somethin’.”

  “What are keets?” Richard asked, looking at the chicks, who were just getting their real feathers. They looked odd as the fuzz and feathers were mixed together, and they had bare spots all over.

  “Keets is baby guinea fowl,” she explained with a smile, wondering what it woulda been like to have a son of her own. She saw that the children were dirty but happy and healthy-lookin’. She envied the two women and appreciated their friendship.

  They carried all the fowl up and put them in the coop together.

  “I don’t see any rooster in there,” Barbara remarked, watching them peck at the overly long grasses in their coop.

  “No, and you don’t want ‘em until they is older either. Why, that black basta–” she stopped herself as the boys were listening, “bugger,” she corrected herself, “woulda killed them chicks and keets matin’ ‘em too young. Now, you wait until they is big enough to fight back and avoid a randy...bugger.”

  “I’ve never been around guinea fowl. Do we need to do anything special?” Barbara asked as they returned to the beach to begin offloading the barge.

  “Well, they’ll follow the chickens around, or the chickens’ll follow ‘em around...depends. But if you don’t insist they all come home to the coop every night, they’ll go wild on ya, and the owls or some other varmint’ll hunt ‘em.” She went on to explain that if they fed them all together like they were now, the guinea fowl might not wander off, and they would bond with the chicks. “If’n you are gonna let them free range—and when they’re bigger you’rn gonna want to—ya gotta train them to come home, or they’ll go wild on ya.” She further explained that if one got out, it wouldn’t go far because the flock instinct was so strong, and the guinea fowl don’t like dark places, so the only thing that was gonna roost in the pen was the chickens. “Still, you can’t beat nuttin’ like a guinea for pickin’ off ticks and fleas and no-see-ums.”

  “What’s a no-see-um?” Brian asked, not understanding.

  Marion and Barbara both grinned as they listened avidly to the woman’s explanations.

  “Just what I said, boy, you no...see...um,” she explained and then slapped her knee and guffawed as realization dawned on him. They all had a good laugh.

  “Sometimes you don’t see what bites you,” Marion gentled the explanation after they came down from their laugh.

  He admitted that was true as he helped get the nets off.

  “Them guineas may start roostin’ in trees or on the top of yer roof. They like high places, and it’s impossible to get ‘em down. They fly about five hundred feet or so, which is why they can get up in dem places.”

  “Can guineas and chickens have babies?” Brenda asked innocently, enchanted by the small chicks and keets she had seen.

  “Yep, they shore can. Guineas are faithful to their husbands, but occasionally, you got a randy rooster, and he’ll try to have a baby with the gu
inea.” She was trying not to be too graphic with the little girl and didn’t even realize that the girl thought ‘randy’ was the birds name. “If’n they have babies though; those babies can’t have babies.” She looked up at Marion and Barbara and said, “They’ll be sterile.”

  They were learning so much that day and appreciated the extra knowledge. Still, all the added and unexpected work of offloading the barge wasn’t really appreciated, although the things she brought would be appreciated...eventually.

  “Wonder where the sheep got to?” Marion murmured as they continued to put things under the trees near the pallets.

  “I see them down at the end of the beach. I think the noise of the boat and the strange surroundings scared them a bit,” Barbara mentioned. “Look at Feathers.”

  They both watched the dog, who obviously wanted to go down there and fetch those sheep. She was practically shaking in her eagerness. She kept looking from them to the sheep at the other end of the cove and back. She was telling them she was willing and able to do her job. The pup, Barkley, was watching her avidly, unable to see the sheep over the rocks but sensing her anxiety.

  “Ya gotta be careful with them guineas. They’ll get picked off by owls and raccoons, and they nest in the darnedest places. They also share their nest with each other, so if’n you have a broody hen, it can have twenty eggs under it and they hain’t all hers!” Grady was still educating them, and they smiled at her descriptions in appreciation. “They herd like sheep. It’s a flock mentality. Where one goes, they all go, and if one gets lost, it’ll set up such a racket that the whole flock’ll come to find it. They is noisy, so if somethin’s in the area that they don’t recognize, they’ll let you know.”

  “How long does it take for their eggs to hatch?” Brian asked innocently.

  “About twenty-eight days, but don’t count on the mama bird to care. If they are sharing the nest with other mamas, they will march off without a thought once the eggs hatch. It’s like she forgets they exist. Not too bright. Them babies are very susceptible to cold and damp, so if you can get them to grow up, you are lucky. Their mates will guard ‘em during the day, but they are on their own at night.”