The House

By Dawn Natelle

Thanks for all the kudos and comments for 29. I will keep this story going for another 10 chapters or so. I have started on a new one that I may launch before this finishes: Dawn

Chapter 30 –Sugar and Guitars

Tanya woke to the smells of bacon frying and people talking in the kitchen below her room. It was the first time in weeks that she had not had any nightmares about the robbery, so she dressed in some of the things she brought from her apartment and headed downstairs. Many of the people of the house were eating breakfast.

“Ah sweetheart, the newest member of my little family,” Daisy said, coming over to hug the girl. “Did you sleep well?” It was hard not to fall in love with the little senior citizen who was always so friendly and helpful: especially not when she was filling a plate with scrambled eggs and bacon.

“These eggs are amazing,” Tanya said as she ate. Dary beamed with pride.

“We have our own chickens in the stable,” she said. “I gather them up every morning, so these are as fresh as can be. Dan is getting me a new batch of chicks in next week, so we will be able to see them.”

“What other animals are there on the farm?” Tanya asked.

“Just horses: four and a pony. And a dog called Rabbit. You will see them later,” Dary said. “Red is out hitching the horses up to the wagon. We are taking them back to the camp today. It is the end of the Maple syrup season and we have to gather up the pails. It should have been done sooner, but with court cases and such we have just left the pails on the tree.”

Soon after they heard the boy come to the rear of the house with the wagon. “Whoa, those are big horses,” Tanya said. She really didn’t want to sit next to Red, but didn’t have to worry, as Dary jumped up on the wagon first and nestled in beside him. Tanya used the same steps as Dary to climb up the wagon, and was glad she had worn jeans.

“We have 50 sugar maples in the grove, and we were able to tap 47 of them this year,” Dary said. “We also put pails on another 16 trees in the bush proper to fill out the crop. Apparently the house can earn almost $10000 a year from the trees. I like the fact that there is good syrup for the Sunday pancakes.”

“Hawk says that they got over a gallon of syrup per tree this year,” Red said. “That means we have almost 60 gallons to bottle up later, for Frank’s store this year. The little bottles are on order, and we have enough labels left from last year to glue on. The whole house will work on it, and it will take a couple days.”

They were soon in the Grove and Red parked the horses in a central location where they could nibble on the spring grass while the three went from tree to tree and pulled the pails and spigots out, tossing them into the backs of the wagon. Then they went to the camp, and pulled up the giant kettles the sap had boiled in. After that they drove through the bush proper and tried to spot the 16 trees that were tapped. The first 13 were easy, but they had to look hard to find the other three. With all that done they headed back to the house.

“I like it here,” Tanya said. “I lived in the city all my life. Peterborough is not big like Toronto, but it is way different from here. This seems so quiet and peaceful. You can hear the birds and even see animals like rabbits and such. I really like it. In the city the only animals you hear are dogs barking.”

“Wait ‘til Grey brings you out to the river,” Dary said. “It is just the other side of the grove. He makes you come before sun up, like 5 a.m. and you can see all the animals come to the river to drink for the day.”

“Five a.m.?” Tanya sputtered. “That is crazy time. Why so early?”

“Because that is when the animals are out: sunup. It is later in winter, but there are not so many animals. A lot hibernate during winter. If you are lucky he will take you out for an overnight trip. You spend the night in a wigwam and he will teach you how to build a fire. Then it is only a few minutes to get to the river.”

“He took me out with snowshoes earlier in the winter,” Red said. “It will be easier in the spring, and warmer in the wigwam. Although deerskin and bearskins are pretty warm.”

Tanya thought for a while. “You mean there are bear out here? Are we safe?”

“Oh sure,” Red said. “I’ve only seen them at the river, and they are more scared of us than we are of them.”

“I’m pretty sure I would be more scared if I saw a bear,” Tanya said. “I mean if they have bearskins, that must mean someone hunts them.”

“Grey says he will take me on a hunt, when Sun says my bow skills are better,” Red said. “I brought a bow today, in case we saw something. We like a fresh buck every month or two.” With that he pulled the horses up and aimed an arrow at a tree about 50 yards away. He shot, and the arrow glanced off the side of the tree. “I need to be able to hit it in the center, so it goes in, and from 100 yards. Sun can shoot 200 yards. And I need to get that arrow or Sun will skin my hide for losing it.”

He handed the reins over to Dary and ran after the arrow. “You really like him, don’t you?” the elder girl asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Dary said. “He’s 15 and I’m only 13, but we really clicked when I came here. How old are you?”

“I just turned 20,” Tanya said. “I don’t have a boyfriend at college.”

“Why not?” Red said as he climbed back into the wagon, arrow in hand. “Are the boys there that stupid? You are super pretty.” As he said it he hugged Dary to show her he was still her boyfriend. “You are too old for me, and I already have the cutest girl in the province, but I can’t believe there are no boys after you.”

“Well, there were 44 students in our class, and only two boys. And it turned out they were both gay,” Tanya said. “A lot of the girls in the class chased the boys from the police foundations course, but I concentrated on my studies. And work.”

“‘Til I screwed that up,” Red said remorsefully.

“Don’t worry, everything is better now,” Tanya said. She was actually getting to like Red. “I practically have a job now, and when I get to class with the girls in September they will be so jealous that I already have a practical lined up.”

“Where do these sap tools go,” Red asked Dary as they neared the house.

“It the old barn next to the stable,” the girl replied. “We got them out of the basement when we first started tapping the trees, but they want to clean that up. Park in front and we’ll help you put them away.”

With three sets of hands the work went quickly, and then Dary and Tanya went into the hen house while Red stowed the wagon under its tarp and then took the horses into the stable to rub them down. By the time they were done, it was nearing lunch.

When the noon meal was underway, Sun told Dary that she needed to tend the babies after lunch, since she hadn’t had them for the morning. The big woman also told Red that he was to work on the bus. Sun had the motor working, and all that was left was to finish the new seats. Grey had come up with a way to make normal seats for four people fold down and make a double bed. Sun wanted one on each side of the bus, and Red was to be the upholsterer.

Tanya stayed with Dary looking after the babies, who were now nearly a year old. As it was a nice spring day, the girls took the babies out onto the porch where they basked in the warm sun, although the air was still cold. Soon Dary heard voices at the back of the house, and went back to check.

Dan, John, and Hawk were in the back yard, wading in soggy grass in the area of the septic tank in their high rubber boots.

“What’s up?” Dary called down from the porch.

“We are just making up some plans for the new septic tank,” John replied. “It was fine when only Daisy, Sun and Grey were living here, but with so many in the house now it is overloaded. If the county health department came out they would … well, I don’t know what they would do. We need a bigger tank, for one thing, and we plan on making the weeping bed a lot longer, with five branches instead of four.”

“Luckily we have the backhoe Sun fixed up,” Hawk said. “I’ll be starting on the digging as soon as it dries up a bit here. I want to teach Red how to run a backhoe: he’ll probably get nearly a month of experience.”

“Right now we are just getting some measurements to figure out how much sand and gravel we will need for the new tank and trenches, and to work out what everything is going to cost. It may stretch our budget to the limit,” John said as he wrote numbers down on a piece of paper.”

“Will this new system get rid of the smell back here?” Dary asked. “It would be nice if we could open the windows on the back kitchen without it smelling like an outhouse.”

“We’ll have it done by Canada Day, and the odor should be gone soon after,” Dan said. “Now is that cute little blonde around? I have to go out on my afternoon rounds, and she wanted to come. Besides, three men on a tape measure is overkill.”

“Tanya is in the front with the babies. I think she is ready to go.”

Dan and Tanya headed off to their calls. Dan introduced her to the patrons of his outreach, and she got along well with both. One was a retired man, who kept calling Tanya ‘cutie’ and the second visit was with an elderly woman, who enjoyed having another woman to talk to while Dan headed out to buy her groceries. They finished the two trips in under an hour each. Dan noted that in a few more weeks he would have to do grass cutting and yard work for them, and the visits would take a little longer.

They got back an hour before the first evening bus would come to the store, so Dan dropped her there, and headed back to the house, where he helped Red and Grey on the upholstery work on the bus. Sun was working on the outside with a sander, roughing up the metal before painting. She was on a ladder (even she was not tall enough to reach the top of the bus) to erase the old ‘School Bus’ markings from the front and back. She also needed to eliminate the warnings on the doors before the bus would be street legal.

After several hours Sun saw Willow and Tanya walking home from the store, and the other boys inside the bus were warned that it was dinnertime. Dary had done most of the meal herself, with some assistance from Dan and Hawk, who had barbecued venison steaks on the grill while she had made several side dishes and a salad.

Over the meal everyone discussed their days, with Tanya excitedly explaining her new jobs, and the trip to the Grove in the morning. The men explained that they had worked out the costs involved in putting in the septic system. The one area they could save in would be in buying a tank. John had found plans for a tank on the Internet and with free lumber from the mill, they could build a form and have it filled with concrete at a lower price than buying a tank. The other large cost would be in having gravel and sand brought in to line the tank and the weeping beds.

«Why would you buy sand and gravel when it is free in the earth?» Miniha asked Grey mentally.

«It is free, but we don’t know of where to dig for it on the property,» Grey replied.

«There are five different sand areas near the house, and three with good gravel,» Miniha said.

“Miniha says that there are sand and gravel on the property,” Grey said. “If Sun lets me have the morning off tomorrow then I will head out with Hawk and the backhoe and see if it is good enough for the job.”

“I hope it is,” John said. “Sand and gravel were a large part of the cost. Now if you could dig up some plastic piping for the weeping beds, we would be laughing.”

As they cleared the table, Tanya confusedly asked Dary: “how did the little baby girl know there was sand on the property, and how did she tell Grey? She is just learning to talk.”

Dary laughed. “The baby is Minihaha, named after Miniha, one of the First Nations people that live in Grey’s head. They talk to Sun as well, and one of them, named Flint also talks to Dan. And I guess there is a forth one: ‘the medicine man’ that helps Grey when he operates.”

“Operates?”

“Yes, he can start singing and then go inside of the bodies of animals or people that have First Nations’ ancestry,” Dary said. “He healed me when I first came here, and Nora, who had cancer when she came.”

“He can go inside of you? That sounds creepy. I don’t want someone inside of me,” Tanya said.

“If you were sick you would,” Dary said. “He can poof away a cold or the flu in about 10 minutes. You don’t look like you are First Nations, with that blonde hair. If you get sick you will have to get Nora to look after you. She is John’s wife, and works most days in the hospital in Tweed.”

In the Great Hall after dinner Sun got out her guitar. She had been giving the kids lessons for the past week, concentrating on Red, who they thought would be going away. So it was Dary who got the first lesson this time. As Sun was showing her how to hold the guitar, and where to put her hands, Red got up and ran to his room, coming back with a rather beat-up guitar that he offered to Tanya.

“Here. This one is old and busted up, but it plays pretty well. You can follow along with Sun,” Red said.

Tanya took the instrument and started to play and sing. She was clearly not a newcomer to music:

He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious

He was a punk
She did ballet
What more can I say

He wanted her
She'd never tell
Secretly she wanted him as well

But all of her friends
Stuck up their nose
They had a problem with his baggy clothes

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

She had a pretty face
But her head was up in space
She needed to come back down to earth

Five years from now
She sits at home
Feeding the baby she's all alone

She turns on TV
Guess who she sees
Skater boy rockin' up MTV

She calls up her friends
They already know
And they've all got tickets to see his show

She tags along
Stands in the crowd
Looks up at the man that she turned down

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

Now he's a super star
Slamming on his guitar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?

He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her

Now he's a super star
Slamming on his guitar
Does your pretty face see what he's worth?

Sorry girl but you missed out
Well tough luck that boy's mine now
We are more than just good friends
This is how the story ends

Too bad that you couldn't see
See the man that boy could be
There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

He's just a boy
And I'm just a girl
Can I make it any more obvious

We are in love
Haven't you heard
How we rock each others world

I'm with the skater boy
I said see you later boy
I'll be back stage after the show

I'll be at the studio
Singing the song we wrote
About a girl you used to know

I'm with the skater boy
I said see you later boy
I'll be back stage after the show

I'll be at the studio
Singing the song we wrote
About a girl you used to know

Avril Ramona Lavigne

“That was awesome,” Dary said, clapping her hands as she held her guitar. “Now we have two teachers. And you know the newer songs. I love Avril: she comes from just down the road in Napanee. I wish she came back there more often.”

I have a guitar back at my apartment. I didn’t think I would need it here. I’ll pick it up the next time I go to Peterborough,” Tanya said.

The two couples sat down, the Dary and Tanya learning Sk8er Boi and Sun and Red working on One Tin Soldier. When the two-hour lesson finally ended, Sun and Tanya performed a small concert for the family to compensate for having made them listen to the beginners plinking away as they learned. The pair found they had quite a collection of songs in common: mainly older songs for the adults. They played the Beatles, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, some Leonard Cohen, and a few newer ones by Justin Bieber, another Ontario boy. The impromptu show ended with Sun doing a Leona Boyd classical solo to round out the largely Canadian performance (other than the three Beatles songs).

That night Tanya went to bed feeling better than she had for years. She felt she had discovered a second family in with wilderness of eastern Ontario.