The House

By Dawn Natelle

Not much action this chapter, but we are setting things up for some later: Dawn.

Chapter 14 – Squirrel

The next morning Willow made the call to her boss, who was not happy that she was taking time off. In the end he insisted that she be at work the next day, or consider her job lost. This upset her a lot, but she walked over to the store with Grey, while Darryl and Sun worked in the garage.

At the store, Willow looked around with wide eyes. There was one pair of unsold snowshoes on the wall, and Grey noted that she could work on making those, or more dreamcatchers if Frank didn’t offer her a job.

They sat and got a pie and coffee each, with Frank noting that he was short-staffed with a bus coming in a half hour later.

“Where is Wendy?” Grey asked.

“Off sick,” the harried storeowner said. “And tomorrow and the next day are her days off. We are going to be going nuts till Friday. The bus never takes a day off.”

“Do you want a clerk?” Grey said.

“Are you offering? I could use you, although I make more money when you are building canoes for me.”

“What about Willow here? She’s new in the area, and looking for work. She lives in the house, and is willing to take part-time or full-time.”

Frank looked at the girl. “Finish that pie. Your break is over. You can drink your coffee as you go through our extensive orientation process. That is the door the customers come in: up to 80 at a time when there is a bus. They line up along here and usually order a coffee or pop, and a sandwich. Miriam is making sandwiches up ahead. A coffee or pop is a looney. A sandwich is $5. I usually work cash, because Wendy is way faster than me on sandwiches. But we will start you on cash today.”

Willow just looked at Grey in bewilderment.

“Do you want the job?” Grey asked.

“Yes,” she finally said, standing and moving over to the till.

“It will be full time, eight hours a day with an unpaid hour for lunch,” Frank said. “That is for three days, till Wendy is back. Then it will be part time, covering when the buses come in, except the days when Wendy is off. Those will be full time days. So you will get 28 hours a week, or 36 if you want to work all seven days. Pay is $10 an hour for the first two weeks. After that, if we both like how things are going, it will be $12 an hour.”

“I was at the store for two years before they moved me off minimum wage,” Willow said. “I was only making $12 an hour there, for a 35 hour week. Without a drunk husband to support, I’ll be making more money here.”

Grey left the woman at the store, after eating the last few bites of her lemon pie. His apple pie was long gone. He gathered up Rabbit, who was chasing squirrels behind the store. He had learned his lesson, and never came near cars in the parking lot, let alone on the highway. He would always walk on the far side of Grey when they were near the road.

On the way back, Grey stopped at the mill, where Sun was still working on the saws. He saw a bored looking Darryl sitting on an overturned bucket near the door.

“Where’s Mama?” the boy said with a tinge of alarm.

“She got a job,” Grey said. “She’s working at the store.”

“Can I go see her?” The boy was kneeling down to hug Rabbit.

“Maybe when it is her lunchtime. I think today she will have lunch there. Let’s go tell Daisy to make her up a plate for lunch. In fact, we will see if she will make three. It can’t hurt to bribe her bosses with a free homemade lunch on her first day. Frank and Miriam probably get tired of eating stale sandwiches that the bus passengers don’t buy.”

Just then there was a loud metallic screech from the mill, followed by a squeal of joy from Sun. “I’ve had penetrating oil on that nut for days,” she said. “And it finally loosened.” She squirted another shot of oil, and soon had the nut coming off easily. A second later she had the huge 50-inch blade off the crosscut saw. She easily hefted the blade free, and when Grey went to help, she noted that it weighed 40-pounds.

“Well, that’s garbage,” she said. “I don’t know where we will get a replacement for it, or worse, be able to pay for it.”

“What’s wrong with that one? Can’t you just sharpen it?” Grey asked.

“No, it is wonky. Only a little, but a saw cutting wood that has a flutter like that is worthless, and more than a little dangerous. The faster it goes, the more the flutter, and if you add wood to it, then it is even worse. A blade has to run true and straight.”

“Let’s take it to the store and see if Frank can sell it. He likes weird stuff, and a 50” saw blade is about as weird as weird comes.”

“Okay, let me know when you are going, and I’ll help carry it,” she said. “What are your plans for the morning.”

“I thought I might teach Darryl how to make dreamcatchers, since you have kind of given up on them, to play with your greasy machines.”

“Good, although dreamcatchers are kinda a girl thing, aren’t they?”

“I taught you how to make them, didn’t I?” Grey retorted, hoping that the comment by Sun wouldn’t turn off Darryl. After all, many Ojibwe boys make the ornaments before moving onto snowshoes and canoes.

“I don’t mind if it is a girl thing, Uncle Grey,” Darryl said.

“Uncle?”

“Well, grandma said both Mama and Sun were her daughters, and you were her son. Adopted I mean. So I figure that makes you my Uncle and Sunflower my Aunt,” the boy explained.

“Well, I am honored to be your uncle,” Grey said, and was immediately rewarded with a hug.

The boys went into the house, and found Daisy in the kitchen. She had a few pounds of roast beef left over from dinner the night before, and made up ‘to go’ plates for the three at the store, and the three that would be delivering it: Sun, Grey and Darryl.

“You have lunch duty tomorrow,” Daisy told Grey as they finished up the scalloped potatoes and vegetables to go with the beef covered in gravy. The house had tin plates with lids that the food had been served up in when the workers at the mill in the 50s were too busy to come to the house. These made excellent containers for the meal, especially when Daisy put them into a warm oven so that the food would still be warm when they got to the store.

“No problem. I like to cook,” Grey said.

“Can I help?” Darryl said.

“Sure thing, my boy,” Grey said. Darryl glowed when Grey called him ‘my boy.’ Earl had called him the same thing on occasion, and it was as if he owned the boy. When Grey said it, Darryl knew it meant that he loved him. And Darryl loved Grey back.

When the meal was ready, Grey realized that Daisy would be the only one having lunch in the house. “Dary, run out to the mill and tell Sun to bring the LTD around. I think we need to take Daisy to the store with us. She doesn’t want to eat alone here.”

Daisy had a tear in her eye when the boy ran out the door, singing ‘Grandma’s coming, Grandma’s coming.”

“I love that boy,” she said as he headed to the mill. “And I love you too, son of mine,” she wrapped an arm around Grey. “As I was plating up the food I realized that I was going to be eating alone, for the first time in a long time, and it was making me sad. Then, when you said we were all going to the store, it just made me so happy. I haven’t been there in years, since I started having trouble on those old steps. Your new ones are so much easier to climb.”

They heard the car come into the lane, with Darryl bouncing around in the passenger seat. Grey helped Daisy down the steps, or at least until Sun picked the lady up and carried her to the car, where Dary was holding the passenger door open. Grey darted back into the kitchen to get the meals.

It was only a two-minute drive, but Daisy enjoyed every second of it. “Now don’t you go carrying me into the store,” she told Sun. “A woman needs her respect, and I can handle that far.”

At the store, the harried staff were just cleaning up from the early bus to Ottawa. When they saw the home cooked dinners, they were elated. Frank and Miriam worked seven days a week, and seldom ate anything other than leftover bus sandwiches.

“So how do you like working here,” Grey asked Willow.

“I love it,” she said. “I have been meeting the locals who come in for coffee and pie. The bus was hectic, but I kept the line moving. Frank only had to help me on the register once.”

“We are keeping her,” Frank joked. “We will chain her up in the back. She’s a hard worker, friendly and smart. You don’t get all of those in a worker very often.”

Darryl sputtered. “You can’t chain my Mama up. She can work here, but she has to come home to our house after work.”

“He was just joking, Dary,” Grey said, tousling the boy’s hair. “It means they really like your mom.”

“Well, I really like her too,” the boy said in a slight pout. Just then a customer came in and Willow popped up. Frank also stood, and pushed her back to her seat. “See,” he told the boy. Then he turned to Willow, and told her: “This is your lunch. Miriam and I will take turns with customers during this wonderful meal.”

Willow enthusiastically described her morning, and Darryl told his mother all he had done while she was working. Grey told her that he wanted to take the boy out for an overnight campout in the Grove. Willow quickly agreed. She trusted Grey with her son completely.

Eventually the lunch hour was over, and the tin plates were scrapped clean. Willow went back to work, learning how to make pies, and the others piled into the LTD. But they didn’t head straight home. First they drove to Madoc, where Dary kept his grandmother company in the car while Grey and Sun went into the bakery to buy some desserts. Most of the people they met stared at Sunflower, but she no longer was self conscious, and just smiled at the gawkers.

Back in the car, they found Daisy was pointing out to Dary which stores were new, and which ones she remembered from her last trip to the village, 15 years ago. Then they drove through the countryside, and came into Tweed from the west. It also had been years since she had seen it.

They stopped again, and Sun and Grey went into the grocery to get supplies for the feast that Grey had planned for tomorrow. Sun had been in Tweed many times, and only new people stared at her. It was getting close to summer, and the cottagers were starting to come into town. When they got back, Dary was sitting quietly while Daisy dozed. She woke up when Sun’s weight pushed the driver’s side down.

“Oh my,” she said. “I must have dropped off. This is usually my nap time. But I wouldn’t have missed this for the world: to see all the old places again, and the new ones too. I feel 10 years younger.”

“Now stop that,” Sun said. “You are not all that old. Most people just retire at 65. You have many years left with us.”

“Now that all you are in the house, I don’t mind,” she said. “It is such a lively place again.”

“It is a shame that I couldn’t cure your hip or the arthritis,” Grey said. “I would have thought all the time you spent with Lone Goose would have given you Ojibwe status, but apparently not. My song wouldn’t let me cure you. At least I found that I can only cure those with at least a little Ojibwe blood. It keeps me centered to know that I am not magical.”

Back at the house Sun carried Daisy to her bed while the boys carried in the groceries. “Thank you for the dessert, Uncle Grey,” Dary said.

“So polite,” Sun said as she walked into the living room. The boy ran to her and hugged her legs. “And thank you for the ride, Auntie Sun,” he added. “Grandma and I had such a good time with her showing me about all the old buildings in those towns.”

“So what are the boys doing today?” Sun asked. Darryl looked up at Grey in anticipation of a fun afternoon.

“Well, since Willow gave her permission, we are going on an overnight campout to the grove. We will be back before 10 tomorrow, and then we are going to make a feast for lunch.”

Grey had a full pack, although it was not heavy, containing mostly deer and bearskins to sleep on and under. They would stay in one of the smaller wigwams. Of course he also had a hatchet, knife and bow and arrows. Rabbit loped along beside.

They entered the grove at the Black Walnut end. This time, as well as showing the bark, leaves and shape of the tree, Grey had the boy close his eyes with both hands on the bark, and Grey sang a recognition song in Ojibwe. From that minute on, Darryl never forgot the tree. They did this with all the other trees in the grove, and several others outside of it. In the oak groves the boy picked up more than a dozen acorns he found on the ground.

Grey dropped his pack at wigwam, and showed Dary how to build a fire in the Ojibway way. A small fire was burning when he took the boy to the spring, where they both drank from the clear, cold water.

“That is great,” the boy said. “It tastes so much better than the water from the house.”

“For a time Sun and I carried water back to the house from here,” Grey explained. “But it got to be too time-consuming when the water at the house is so close to this if it is kept cold.”

They walked back past the fire, where Grey told him how important it is to keep an eye on any fire you make in the woods. It was fine, so they continued into the grove to a point where Grey could just see the fire. Rabbit was made to stay at the fire.

Grey made Darryl stand facing the trees, and then stood behind him, facing the same direction and putting his arms over the boy’s shoulder. Both closed their eyes, and Grey started to sing in Ojibwe. He sang for about 10 minutes, and then stopped. “When you open your eyes, look for the first animal you can see. Open!”

“A squirrel,” Dary said. “So cute.”

“I should have known,” Grey mused. “You have acorns in your pockets, right?”

“Yes. I thought they were pretty.”

“Take one, and toss it to the left: about 30 feet. Not at the squirrel: he will think you are throwing a stone.”

Dary tossed an acorn, and the squirrel flinched, but only jumped a few feet away.

Then the little critter looked at the acorn, sniffed a few times, and hopped over to it to snatch it up and chew it up, leaving only the cap.

“He ate it, he ate it,” Dary said in delight, keeping his voice low.

“Now toss one to where he was standing before,” Grey said. “but not so far.” Again the squirrel came and ate it.

They continued this, with shorter and shorter tosses until finally Dary was just dropping the nuts.

“He’s not eating them anymore,” the boy said. “He just puts them into his cheeks.”

“He is saving them for later, or to share,” Grey said. “But squirrels are greedy little characters, and will never leave an acorn. If you dropped one more then he couldn’t carry them all in his cheeks, but he would try. He would go a step or two and an acorn would fall out. Then he would pick it up, and another one would fall out. It is really cute to watch.”

“I think it would be mean,” Dary said. “Teasing the little squirrel.”

“Oh, I guess it would,” Grey said. “But what you have just done is to discover your spirit animal: the squirrel. It is a part of your totem, to use the teachings of a far-away tribe.”

They walked back to the fire, and found a small tendril of fire had escaped the pit and was creeping along a strip of dry pine needles. “This is why you always watch a fire in the woods,” Grey said. “I could see that from where we were playing with your squirrel. If it got bigger, say to that pile of needles over there, it could become a big fire that would be hard to put out. And if we didn’t put it out, we would have a forest fire that might burn all the way to the house. But you can put that out by stepping on it.”

Dary tentatively stepped on the flames, extinguishing them. Once he realized the flame wouldn’t hurt him through his sneakers, he was more aggressive and soon had all the fire out.

“If there was a forest fire, what would happen to the house?” Darryl asked.

“In the worst case it could burn the house down. Daisy has insurance on the place, but I doubt she would rebuild it as big as it is now. And we would have to find a place to live while they are rebuilding.”

“We would have to go back to Earl,” Dary wailed.

“No!” Grey said firmly, grasping the boy in a hug. “I will never let you go back to that man. You are safe with us forever, or until you grow up. Now, what do you want, dinner or cutting your stave?”

“Dinner. I am hungry,” the boy said. “What is a stave?”

Grey explained as he prepared the dinner: a stew that he had ingredients for in his pack. Breakfast in the morning would be oatmeal with a small bottle of maple syrup. After explaining the stave, Grey rolled on to recounting about the fire at the house last summer. Finally he looked up and saw the boy sitting with his back against a tree. There were four squirrels sitting in a circle around him, waiting for him to fish another acorn out of his pockets. Finally, his hand went into an empty pocket, and he said: “That’s all guys. I will look for some more tomorrow.”

The two boys then ate their portion of stew, and followed it up with another drink of spring water. They went into the oak grove, and cut a sapling for Darryl’s stave. The boy didn’t like the hatchet, and in the end Grey had to cut it down, and top it off. Dary did drag it back to the camp, dropping it when he saw the fire. He ran over to check that the fire was contained, and then came back to his sapling.

He tried very hard to de-bark it, but nicked his hand with the knife. Grey had brought along a healing poultice, and as soon as it was applied, the pain stopped. But Grey had to finish off the stave.

The next morning Grey awoke before dawn, as he always did in the woods. He found the little boy had moved over the night, and was spooned closely to his back. Grey slowly wormed his way out, dressed, and tossed another two deer skins on Dary. He was just coming out of the outhouse when he saw a pink little rocket, wearing only tiny white briefs, tear out of the wigwam and into the outhouse.

It was late May, but in Ontario it is still very cool in the morning, so Grey went to the wigwam and picked up two of the deer skins. He sat with them on his lap, and when the pink rocket appeared again, he waved it over and bundled the boy in furs.

“And now you know that you put your clothes on before you go to the latrine,” Grey admonished.

“But I had to go really bad,” Dary explained.

“Let me guess. You stayed in the warm furs until it was too late,” Grey suggested. “Then you didn’t have time to dress. Next time get up a few minutes earlier so you can have clothes on. Now, if you are warmed up, go get your things on. I want to take you for a little walk.”

They went to the river north of the came as dawn broke, and the boy was astonished to see all the wildlife appear for a morning drink. Daria was there with her boys, who were much less gangly than they had been the last time in the spring. She saw him, and bugled an angry call at him, as if to say ‘get your butt over here with some water and some cedar trees’. Grey just laughed at him.

“That is Daria,” Grey explained. “She is the spirit animal for Sunflower and I, as well as a friend. I might have to come up and see her this winter.”

“Can I come?” Dary asked.

“No,” Grey laughed. “You will be in school this winter.”

“Ugh, I hate school. They beat me up there,”

“Well, it will be a new school. And if they try to beat you up there, tell Sun. She will make sure no one hurts you. I think Dan has a plan to stop all the bullying at your new school in Tweed.”

“Can I call him Uncle Dan?” Dary asked. “I love him just as much as you. And Aunt Cindy? She is nice too.”

“Well, it is possible,” Grey said. “Dan is my best friend, and kids often call friends of their parents Uncle. But hold off on Aunt Cindy. She has only been dating Dan for a little while, and you don’t want to push it.”