“I’ve got a dog named Bruno,” I said and started to cry.
“Now why are you crying?” asked Mr. Miller.
“I miss my dog,” I said.
“Did the poor dog die?”
“No, but I had to leave him. He couldn’t make it across a train bridge we had to cross to get here. I hope a train didn’t run over him or something. Now I’m afraid he’s lost and starving.”
“A dog can’t get lost,” said Mr. Miller. “They can always find their way home. They’ve got a sense of direction that’s almost like magic.”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you?” said Charlie. “I told him that, but he wouldn’t believe me. I always tell him stuff, and he doesn’t believe me.”
“That reminds me of a story my mother used to tell,” said Mr. Miller, pulling up the only other chair in the room and sitting down. “A long time ago, when she was just a young girl, she lived next door to her grouchy old aunt. Well, that aunt had a dog, part German Shepherd, I think, that used to stay over my mother’s house all the time and play with the kids. That dog wasn’t too much fond of the grouchy old aunt, either. She was about as much fun as a broom in a dirt-floor house. Well, one day my grandparents bought a nicer place on the other side of the county, Barren County, to be exact, and loaded up all their stuff on wagons and moved, leaving that poor dog alone with the aunt. That dog wasn’t happy about that at all. He was so unhappy, in fact, that about a month later he showed up at my mother’s new place, happy as a lark, just a-barking and carrying on. They ended up keeping the poor dog. There wasn’t much use in trying to take him home if he was just going to find his way back.”
“Wow, that was a smart dog,” I said, amazed.
“It just goes to show that you don’t have to worry about your dog getting lost. He’ll find his way home.”
I felt very relieved and wiped the tears off my eyes with the back of my right hand.
“I’m starting to get tired, myself,” said Mr. Miller, stretching his arms.
“I am too,” said Charlie. “Where can we sleep?”
“I’ve got an old rope bed in my guest bedroom,” he said, laughing. “I keep it for the flood of guest I get up here all the time.”
“What’s a rope bed?” I asked.
“It’s one of them beds like the old time people used to sleep on. This one belonged to my great-grandfather. Have you ever heard the term sleep tight?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, now you get to find out what it really means. Come on in here, and I’ll show you.”
Intrigued, we gathered our things from the first bedroom and followed him into the second bedroom. There to the right of the doorway was a short bed with a simple headboard and footboard. It was covered in patchwork quilts. Mr. Miller pulled back the soft mattress and revealed a rope running the length and breadth of the bed.
“See these ropes?” he said. “You have to make sure they’re tight, or the bed will sag and be uncomfortable. That’s why people say sleep tight. I said ropes, but this here is really all one rope that starts out on one end then runs up and down around these little pegs until it gets to the other end. When it gets to the other end, see, it cuts the corner and starts going up and down the other direction.” He covered it again with the mattress and said, “This here is a feather mattress. They don’t make them like that anymore, like sleeping in a cloud. Now y’all better go on and get some sleep. I’m fixing to go to bed, myself.”
With that he left the room, taking his lantern with him, leaving us in the dark. Charlie got in the bed. I was relaxed enough now to sleep in my shorts; having an adult in the house made me feel much more secure. Mr. Miller didn’t seem like he was going to be too bad. I found the bed to be very soft and comfortable. It had feather pillows to match the feather mattress. I lay there for a while and contemplated everything that had happened that day and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 10
The sound of a rooster crowing slowly woke me up that next morning. Before opening my eyes, I entertained the idea that everything that had occurred the previous day had all been a dream, that I was back in my own bed, and that the crowing rooster was one of the poodle roosters that my mom raised. My mom, of course, would be in the kitchen cooking up some pancakes. After eating I’d ride my bike over to Charlie’s, and we’d horse around all day. I opened my eyes to the same sparse cabin of the night before.
I sat up in bed and looked around. Charlie was still asleep. To my surprise, the room did not look as scary in the friendly and familiar sunlight that shone through the windows. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a chest of drawers to the right of the front window. Above the chest of drawers hung a very old, yellowish oval-shaped photo of an angry looking man and woman. I had heard that people used to have to sit for a long time to get their picture taken, and I figured that was why the couple looked so irritated, as I was sure I would have been. I got out of bed and put the clothes back on that I’d worn the previous day.
“Where are you going?” Charlie asked, stirring from sleep.
“Just getting up,” I said.
“I’m going to have to find the bathroom.”
“Yeah, I could use one myself.” I looked out the window and saw a few chickens pecking around in the yard. That explained the sound of the rooster crowing.
Charlie got out of bed, dressed, and we walked into the kitchen together.
“It’s about time you two got up,” said Mr. Miller, startling us. “Thought you two were going to sleep all day. It’s already seven o’clock.”
“Seven o’clock is early,” said Charlie. “I can’t believe I woke up so early.”
“I’m up at five every morning. It don’t matter how late I get to bed. I got this internal alarm clock that wakes me up. I don’t need no alarm clock like most people.”
“We’re looking for the bathroom,” I said.
“It’s out back.”
“That’s a weird place for the bathroom,” said Charlie.
“I guess you rich kids never heard of such a thing as an outhouse.”
“I’ve heard of it,” I said. “I just never knew anybody that had one.”
“I’ve lived my whole life without having one of them highfalutin indoor bathrooms, and I’ve gotten along just fine. People don’t need as much as they think they do sometimes. I built that little outhouse myself years ago. It’s got the moon window and all. You can’t have a proper outhouse without a moon window.”
“What’s the moon window for?” asked Charlie.
“What do you think it’s for? It lets in a little air and a little light. The moon, of course, is a crescent moon. That way it ain’t big enough for people to be sticking their head in and looking.”
Charlie and I laughed. “Who in the world would want to do that?” asked Charlie.”
“Years ago we didn’t have any of that big city store-bought toilet paper either,” continued Mr. Miller, ignoring the rhetorical question. “We had to use last year’s edition of Sears and Roebuck’s catalog. Now that was some fine toilet paper. You could read it and wipe your ass with it when you were done. Of course now, since catalogs aren’t so handy, I have my daughter send me up some fancy store-bought toilet paper every month.”
Charlie and I went out the back door laughing hysterically and took turns using the little wooden outhouse.
“That thing stinks,” said Charlie when he came out. “I’d just as soon use one of them highfalutin indoor jobbies.” We both laughed again. I was actually starting to enjoy our adventure, almost forgetting my worries from the previous day and what a mess I was in.
Mr. Miller came out the back door carrying two buckets. “I need y’all to go down to the spring and fetch us some water. Follow that path behind the henhouse there, and it will lead you right to it. I’ll try to conjure us up a bite to eat while you’re gone.”
“Good, I’m hungry,” said Charlie.
“Me too,” I said.
We
grabbed our buckets and walked behind the small wooden henhouse. Here we found a rocky path leading down the hillside. As we walked down the path, we found that in some places crude rock steps had been placed, making the trip down this steeper side of the knob a little easier. When we had reached the bottom of the knob, we found a small wooden building with a stream of water running out the open doorway, forming a small creek. Inside the wooden building we found a pipe coming out of the far wall. Water poured rapidly from the pipe.
“This is great,” said Charlie. “We can come down here and play in the water.”
“Yeah,” I said, excited. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I wonder where the water is coming from.”
“It’s a spring,” said Charlie, cupping his hands and drinking some of the water. “That’s the best water I’ve ever tasted.”
“Let me try,” I said, tasting the water also. “Wow, that is good. It’s really cold too.”
“It stays cool because it comes out of the ground, the same way a cave stays cool.”
I put my mouth up to the water to taste it directly, and Charlie pushed my head underneath the flow. I yelled and laughed and grabbed Charlie and pushed him into the water, soaking his clothes.
“Wait,” said Charlie, laughing. “I don’t want to get my shoes wet.”
We took off our shoes and socks and played in the stream for a while. Finally, Charlie decided we better get back up the hill before Mr. Miller began to think we’d run off. We wrung our wet clothes out, filled our buckets, and headed back up the hill. About half way up, Charlie stopped in front of me and poured some of the water out of his bucket.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“That bucket’s too heavy with all that water in it. I’m about worn out.”
“I’m pretty tired myself,” I said and poured some water out of my bucket too.
When we reached the cabin, Mr. Miller said, “It sure took you two long enough. I was startin’ to think maybe you ran off or something. Looks like the two of you fell in the creek. I see what took so long now: you couldn’t resist the cool water on a hot day. I guess a century ago, when I was young, I’d of done the same thing.”
“It sure was fun,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Charlie. “I’d heard about springhouses before from my dad, but that’s the first time I’d ever seen one.”
“Now what is this?” said Mr. Miller when he saw our buckets. “I don’t care if you play in the water, but you need to get your work done too. Why, both those buckets together wouldn’t make one good bucket of water.”
“We couldn’t carry them when they were full,” said Charlie.
“You two are going to have to start working harder and get some muscles if you can’t carry any more water than that. If you stay around here for a while, you’ll be strong enough to carry a bucket full of water in each hand. There’s a lot of work to be done around here. Back in my younger days, I used to have some pretty big muscles. I got them from hard work.”
“I’ve been wanting to put on some muscles,” said Charlie
“Me too,” I said.
“Y’all just stay around here and keep working hard, and I’ll make strong men out of you. We’ll start with a good breakfast. How do you like country ham and eggs?”
“I love it,” said Charlie.
“Me too,” I said.
“The good thing about country ham is that the salt preserves it. That old city ham will go bad in a few days. One of you go inside and grab some plates and some cups out of the kitchen cabinet, and we’ll eat right out here. It’s too nice of a day to be cramped up inside.”
I went in the house and came back out with three pewter plates and three white ceramic coffee mugs. Mr. Miller cooked the country ham and eggs in an iron skillet over a metal and stone grill, a grill like the ones found in many camping or picnic areas. We sat on some big rocks and ate. The salty meat was a bit tough but tasted great. I had never eaten breakfast outside before, and I was enjoying the experience very much. Mr. Miller had also made coffee, and Charlie and I were allowed to drink it without question. I felt almost grown, not dare mentioning how bitter the coffee was, figuring that if I were going to be grown up, I’d have to get used to bitter coffee at some point. My parents had always said I wasn’t old enough to be drinking coffee, but Mr. Miller didn’t seem to notice my age. He made me feel more like an adult, whereas my parents had always made me feel like the kid that I was. Charlie must have also realized the importance of the bitter coffee, for he too drank it without question. I knew that he had a huge sweet tooth that wouldn’t fit in a horse’s mouth.
“I don’t know how you two drink that coffee without any sugar in it,” said Mr. Miller. “I like to add a little coffee to my sugar.”
“I usually like to drink it black,” said Charlie, with a noticeable sigh of relief, “but if you got some sugar, I might try it and see how it taste.”
Mr. Miller handed Charlie a little bowl of sugar cubes that had been concealed by a lid. Charlie promptly removed the lid and added five cubes of sugar to his coffee and handed the bowl to me. Much relieved, I added three cubes of sugar to my coffee. The coffee tasted great now, a perfect complement to our wonderful breakfast outdoors under the morning sun. I’ve loved coffee ever since.
When I finished eating, I stood up to carry my plate and coffee cup back into the kitchen. I dropped the coffee cup, and it shattered on the rock I’d been sitting on. All the peaceful feelings I’d had a moment before, about what great a morning it was, shattered along with the coffee cup. Still not familiar with Mr. Miller’s temperament, I was afraid he would fly into a rage. I was terribly disappointed because I had been enjoying the morning so much up until this point.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to. I can pay for it.”
Mr. Miller put his hands together in front of his face, looked reverently up in the sky, and said, “My dear grandmother handed that cup to me on her death bed. ‘Buford,’ she said, ‘take care of this cup and don’t ever let it get broken.’“
“I’m terribly sorry,” I said, wanting to find a hole to crawl into.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just pulling your leg. My grandmother died before I was born. It’s just a cheap cup like they sell at the dime store. I’ve got plenty of them in the kitchen.”
Charlie laughed. And after thinking about it a moment, I laughed too. Mr. Miller seemed to be a pretty nice guy after all.
Chapter 11
After finishing our breakfast and helping Mr. Miller clean up the mess, Charlie said, “I guess we better make our way over to the truck to meet Stephanie. What time is it?”
“It’s almost nine,” said Mr. Miller.
“We’re supposed to meet her at ten,” I said.
“Just remember, don’t tell her a word about me,” said Mr. Miller. “I guess I better put the fire out, or she’ll be snooping around here wondering where the smoke is coming from.”
With that, Charlie and I went back in the house, got our duffle bags, and walked out the front door, heading up the path towards the truck.
“Do you think Mr. Miller is a nice guy?” I asked Charlie.
“Well, at first I didn’t, but the more I get to know him, the more I think he might not be so bad.”
“That’s the same thing I think.”
“It might be a pretty good idea for us to just stay up here with him for a while. No one will ever find us up here; I don’t think. I kind of like it up here, myself.”
“I kind of like it up here too,” I said. “It’s like we’re on a big camping trip or something. I never get to go on camping trips. My parents always stay at a hotel every trip we go on.”
“I went camping in the Smoky Mountains last year with my parents,” said Charlie. “Me and my dad loved it, but my mom said she’d just as soon stay in a hotel next time.”
“Yeah, I remember you talked about that trip for weeks. I’ve been wanting to go camping
ever since. Now it looks like I’ve gotten my wish. Hey, why don’t we pretend like it’s the cowboy days, and we’re up here living like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“I’ll be Daniel Boone, and you can be Davy Crockett.”
“How come you get to be Daniel Boone?” asked Charlie.
“I thought of it, so I get to pick first.”
“I guess it don’t matter. I mean, there ain’t too much difference between Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.”
“I just wish we had some of them coon-skin hats. That would make it complete.”
As we marched up the hill, imagining ourselves in our new roles, we were startled by movement in the woods to the right of the road. A mother deer and her baby fawn stared at us briefly then ran away like lightning. The scene was a perfect backdrop in a world where we were early pioneers exploring untamed nature. I wondered if there were any bears in the woods. And I wondered what we would do if we came upon one of them. I tried to imagine how Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett would handle the situation. I thought it would be neat if a bear started to attack Charlie, but I was somehow able to stop the bear just before it slashed his throat. Charlie would consider me his hero for life after that. I watched the side of the road for a stick that would be good for fending off bears.
We took off running around in all directions when we reached the top of the hill and saw the old truck. I was familiar with this area of the knob and felt almost like I was back home in some way. Slowing down, I picked up a long, crooked stick and decided it would be perfect for saving Charlie from a bear attack, and it would make a good walking stick as well.
The stick triggered a memory from the previous fall. I had been complaining to my parents about not having a nickname. Some of the other kids at school had nicknames their parents had given them, but I didn’t. My mom thought it over a moment, and because I had been reading about and expressing interest in American Indians recently, suggested Chief Walking Stick. I quickly came to the conclusion that a nickname would not be in my best interest, not wanting to be laughed out of school. As though reading my thoughts about Indians, Charlie started making a sound like an Indian Warrior, clapping his hand over his mouth as he yelled. He chased me around the open field until we had exhausted our burst of energy, and we sat down on a large rock to rest.
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