Near as I can tell, being thirteen isn’t much different from being twelve. Or eleven. Aunt Kitty still won’t let me flip the pancakes on the hot griddle and Ben still won’t hear of me learning to drive the pickup truck. I even showed him just yesterday how I can reach the pedals and the steering wheel at the same time now, but all he did was shout at Aunt Kitty, who was closest to me at the time, to “Get those keys out of the ignition before she figgers out how ta start it!”

Course, I already know how to start it, but I didn’t figure right then was the best time to say so.

The thing is, I expected to be some smarter at thirteen than I was at twelve. I expected I would finally understand why God made cling peaches even though they’re nothing but trouble and don’t taste nearly as good as a freestone. I expected some privileges too. Thirteen is pretty close to grown up, you know. Ben did convince Aunt Kitty that I might stay up a mite later in the evenings, but I keep falling asleep before I’m meaning to and next thing I know it’s morning and I don’t know the first thing about what happened past my old bedtime.

I followed Pilot all the way to the road today. Aunt Kitty nearly did tan my hide when I got back, but it was worth it. I saw a bright red race car speed by with two girls in the front seat, their long hair whipping like a yellow flag in the wind.

When she was done closing her eyes and taking deep breaths and telling me why it’s not safe for me to go out to the road by myself, Aunt Kitty handed me my apron and told me to gather up some peaches.

“Mind you pick the ripe ones,” she said. Well, the best way I know to determine if a peach is ripe is to take a bite out of it. My tummy was feeling fairly sore by the time my apron was full and Aunt Kitty didn’t say even one word of thanks when I let the peaches roll out on the table. Her eyes scanned the peaches, then they closed for a minute or so, then she looked at me and whispered–yes, whispered, though there’s not a sleeping baby within a hundred miles!–

“To test a peach for ripeness, Tevis, you simply squeeze it gently–” Here her voice rose for a moment and she repeated that word–”GENTLY! If it gives, it is ripe. If it is hard, it is not ripe.”

“Well, I’ll be!” I said. “Want me to get some more?” But she didn’t answer, just stood there shaking her head at the fruit on the table.

I took that to mean no, which was just as well because I had a mind to feel the wind in my hair like those girls in the race car. Ben was busy in the barn doctorin’ up the goats and when I looked, sure enough the keys were right in the ignition like usual.

Now don’t get all worked up about it. I was only going to take that truck to the end of the driveway, turn around and come back. Just far enough to lean my head out the window and feel the wind in my hair. Pilot hopped up beside me and sure enough, Wilbur jumped in too. Well, I’m smart enough to be safe, so I buckled them into one seat belt and me into the other. I turned that key over in the ignition and we all three of us nearly jumped out of our seats at the engine’s roar. Setting my arm across the seat like Ben always does I looked over my shoulder and pressed gently on the pedal. When nothing happened I figured I was being too shy about it. Pilot and Wilbur were looking at me, tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths.

I pressed my foot down harder. That truck thundered so loud Ben came tearing out of the barn, his feet sliding sideways as he turned the corner, barely staying a step ahead of the dust he was stirring up. Turns out there’s more to driving than turning a key and pressing a pedal.

Well, Ben still hadn’t found his voice by evening time. He asked Aunt Kitty to pack a pipe for him and he took himself out to the back porch to set a spell.

While I was watching Aunt Kitty tamp the tobacco I asked her, “How come we have cling peaches when they’re so much trouble?”

“Hmm?”

“You know, they stick to the pit and they don’t taste near as good as a freestone. Why even grow them?”

“Well, they come ripe earlier than the freestones,” she said. “I suppose they make the summer longer.”

The way I see it, I’m two bits smarter now than when I woke up this morning. When I shared this thought with Aunt Kitty she just rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and whispered something like, “Lord help us.”

It’s peach season at Frog Creek. Enjoy a taste of our corner of the world:

VANILLA BEAN PEACH SYRUP

INGREDIENTS:

1 vanilla bean

2 cups sugar

5 cups pureed peaches (peeled and pitted first)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

DIRECTIONS:

Two days before you want to make the syrup, slice a vanilla bean or two in half lengthwise and place them in a covered bowl with your sugar (two cups sugar for one batch, four cups sugar for two, and so on).

On day three (or whenever you’re ready), combine pureed peaches and lemon juice in a large, heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add sugar and vanilla bean and stir to combine. Bring to a boil again and let boil for a minute. (Don’t let it boil for too long or your syrup will be too thick to pour.)

Pour into prepared jars and process in a boiling water bath. (See canning instructions here.)

And now for the WAFFLES… more proof that the old so often outdoes the new. My search for the perfect waffle recipe ended with the discovery of Fannie Farmer’s Raised Waffles, originally published in the 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cookbook (see page 81), and more recently given new life in Marion Cunningham’s Lost Recipes.

FANNIE FARMER’S RAISED WAFFLES

(begin preparing the night before)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup warm water

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups milk, warmed

8 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 cups flour

—

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

To prepare the sponge: Select a large mixing bowl. Add water to bowl. Sprinkle in yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve. Add milk, melted butter, salt, sugar and flour. Beat until smooth and well blended. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand overnight at room temperature.

Just before cooking waffles, beat in eggs. Add baking soda. Stir until well mixed. Batter will be very thin.

Pour 1/2 to 3/4 cup of batter into very hot waffle iron. Bake until golden and crisp. Makes about 8 waffles.

I’m telling you straight off that everything that happened to me on my birthday is Ben’s fault. He came into my bedroom blowing on his harmonica, singing about me turning thirteen and all. Pilot set to howling and Wilbur, who lately has been invited indoors on account of all the whining she does if we leave her in the barn like she’s just a goat, tried to croak a howl out of her own little snout. What with all the ruckus and my eyes still half shut in sleep, I missed most of Ben’s song. Here’s the part that stuck with me, like tarweed on a horse leg:

“You’re a young lady now

no more little girl.

Thirteen years old,

takin’ on the world.”

Well it’s certainly not poetry, but here’s what that song set me to thinking ’bout: By the time she was thirteen, Pocahontas had already saved a man’s life. When Joan of Arc was thirteen, she was listening to the voices of God’s saints and angels. (Now I do hear voices talking to me on occasion, but they’re generally just in my head and it’s usually along the lines of “Aunt Kitty’s gonna know if you sneak another cookie off the tray” or “God heard that awful thing you were thinkin’ about that snooty Mary Coots in church today.”) Now you could say this here’s a reason to stop reading so many books, seeing as how reading about someone else’s life can make a girl so unhappy with her own.

But let me tell you something else I know, and this not from a book at all. It was the night of Aunt Kitty’s thirteenth birthday when she met her first husband, God Rest His Soul. (Just last year I figured out that last part wasn’t actually his name. Apparently it’s something you say when you talk about a dead person.) Now it’s true that Aunt Kitty says when she met him he was driving a cherry red ‘65 Mustang convertible and she didn’t really know what that boy looked like until their third date, but still. Things happen when you’re thirteen!

“Taking on the world,” Ben said, and it seemed like I ought to be doing more than chasing Pilot all over the hillside and tossing feed to a bunch of chickens. How does a girl wake up on an ordinary day and make it extraordinary? I spent the better part of that day waiting for Providence to step in and make something happen, but the chickens just kept pecking at the ground, Wilbur kept chasing her tail and Aunt Kitty kept telling me to pick up after myself. Well it shames me to tell you so, and for the life of me I can’t say what made this seem a good idea at the time, but I decided if Providence wasn’t going to take over then I would.

I ran on shaky legs all the way across the creekbed, up the hillside on down the gravel road leading to the neighbors’ house. Miss Julia was on her knees in the garden with a big brimmed hat covering her face.

“Where’s that boy?” I asked her, not announcing myself at all.

“Hmm?” she said, looking up at me.

“Where’s that boy?” I said again. She wrinkled up her eyebrows, like she was thinking hard. I curled my lip and said with utmost disgust. “Ezekiel.” Oh how I did hate to say that name.

“Oh,” she said, her brows relaxing and an easy smile spreading across her face. “Check the barn. I think he’s mucking stalls.”

Well I did hate to interrupt him, seeing as how he was right where he belonged, knee-deep in horse poop. But I was on a mission.

Fists tight, I marched up to the barn door and called him. “Hey, boy!”

He ducked out of a stall, shaking that black hair out of his face.

“Come here,” I said with some authority, but still I was a bit surprised when he set aside the pitch fork and walked right over to me.

He was taller than I expected, and maybe a little older too, but I steeled myself and glared up at him and said, “Today’s my thirteenth birthday and you need to kiss me so as I can say something happened other than chickens peckin’ at the ground and me picking up after myself.”

Now, soon as the last word was out of my mouth I started wishing I could swallow them all back up again, but I’m no coward and I stood my ground. I looked down for just a moment maybe, but that was for his sake, not mine. I thought he should have a minute to think about it without me staring him down.

I might’ve jumped just a little when he put his hand under my chin. His skin was rough and scratchy after all, and it probably had horse manure on it. But when he tugged my face up I looked and what do you think I saw? That stupid, crooked grin on his face. Oh, I could see right through him alright. It was all he could do to not laugh in my face right then and there. I slapped his hand away and ran all the way home.

We had chocolate cake that night, just Ben and Aunt Kitty and me. Ben gave me a tiny wooden jewelry box that he’d been whittling away at after dinner through most of last winter. Someday I’ll have something to put in it. Aunt Kitty gave me a pair of knitting needles and a big ball of fuzzy red yarn. We sat side by side in the kitchen and she guided my hands through the motions while she sang along:

“In through the front door,

around the back,

through the window

and out pops Jack!”

We were just getting started on the third row of stitches when there was a knock at the door.

“Who calls at this hour?” Ben said, and rose from his reading chair to open the door. He returned a moment later with a wrapped package. “No one there,” he said. “Just this.” He handed the box to me.

Here’s what the note on top said:

“Happy Birthday Tevis.

Keep this nice and warm and maybe you’ll get a baby hawk out of it.

Zeke”

I don’t have to tell you what was in there, do I? A chicken egg. A plain, old, stupid, white chicken egg. I really don’t like that boy.

(aka the best Chocolate Fudge Cake ever)

FOR THE CAKE:

INGREDIENTS:

3 squares unsweetened chocolate

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup dairy sour cream

1 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Melt chocolate in small bowl over hot water; cool.

2. Grease and flour two 9 x 1 1/2-inch layer cake pans.

3. Sift flour, baking soda and salt onto waxed paper.

4. Beat butter until soft in large bowl. Add brown sugar and eggs. Beat with mixer at high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in vanilla and cooled melted chocolate. Stir in dry ingredients alternately with sour cream, beating well with wooden spoon after each addition until batter is smooth. Stir in boiling water. Batter will be thin.

5. Pour at once into prepared pans. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 35 minutes or until centers spring back when lightly touched. Cool layers in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Loosen around edges with a small knife or spatula; turn out onto wire racks and cool completely.

FOR THE FROSTING:

INGREDIENTS:

4 squares unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup butter

1 (1 pound) package confectioners (powdered) sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine chocolate and butter in small heavy pan. Place over low heat, just until melted. Remove from heat.

2. Combine sugar, milk and vanilla in medium size bowl; stir until smooth. Add chocolate mixture.

3. Set bowl in pan of iced water; beat with wooden spoon until frosting is thick enough to spread and hold its shape.

4. Frost the cake and enjoy!

What is it about a boy that can make a girl do such silly things? Our little Wilbur sashays around the yard now, too good for the pasture and too curious for the barn. She never took to the bottle and we finally gave up. She prefers her vittles in a dog dish, and prefers to lap up her drink out of the trough beside Pilot. I’ve seen her trying her darndest to wag her little goat tail and yesterday I watched her turn no less than three times before she lay down in the straw. It’s not so much that she believes she is a dog; it’s more that she’s doing her best to impress one.

As for Pilot, near as I can tell he hardly knows he’s got a goat on his tail from sunup to sundown. He goes about his business like usual–waits at the door for breakfast in the morning, hunts up a little rodent snack around mid-day, and barks once or twice to let us know when he’s ready for dinner. Now you just go right on and tell me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that just how boys always are when girls are making themselves silly moonin’ over them?

That’s just why you’ll never catch me making a fool of myself over some boy. Just this morning, in fact, we were leaving church and Aaron McMillan bumped right into my backside.

“Oh, sorry Tevis,” he said, but I could tell by the blush rising up his neck that he wasn’t sorry at all. I’m sure Aunt Kitty was quite pleased with me though when I used my most mature voice and politest manners to say, “No problem at all, Mr. McMillan.” His mouth crooked up on one side then; I think he liked me calling him “Mr.” I just turned my head and strode with utmost grace across the lawn to Ben’s pickup truck. Aaron McMillan with his fair hair may be one of the finest looking boys of my acquaintance, but I see no need to make myself silly over him.

Now it’s unfortunate for my sense of maturity and gracefulness that Ben pulled onto our driveway just as that wicked neighbor boy was retrieving the newspaper from the box at the bottom corner of our property. (Of course he wasn’t at church, the heathen.)

Ben cranked down his window and called out, “Hello there, Ezekiel.”

That boy just nodded his head. Who did he think he was anyway? I swear he might’ve tipped his hat if he’d been wearing one. Thinking he’s some titled lord in regency England.

I stuck my head out the window and said, “You’re supposed to say ‘Hello, Mr. Ben.’”

For that I got an elbow in the ribs from Aunt Kitty and a whispered, “Hush, Tevis,” from Ben.

That boy–Ezekiel–he looked to his feet for just a moment and when he looked back up I saw that he’d been trying to contain a grin. He did not succeed. “Hello, Mr. Ben,” he said, but his eyes were on me all the while. Then he asked, “Been missing any chicken eggs lately?” and turned back up the road.

I fairly flew out of my seat, hollering at that boy. “Why you rotten, stinkin’, no good, snot-snivelin’, lily-livered–!” Aunt Kitty smashed her palm against my mouth at that point and I saw Ben shaking his head, muttering to himself, “Strange question to ask. Guess that boy is a mite disturbed. Best keep to ourselves, I wager.”

When we pulled up to the house Pilot and Wilbur were chasing a stray cat around the yard. The cat finally took refuge in a tree and Pilot sat back on his haunches to wait, tail wagging. Wilbur wobbled on her first try, but soon enough she was sitting on her haunches beside him and when she opened her mouth I swear the sound that came out was closer to a bark than a bleat. And who am I to judge that goat for acting like a dog? It’s all I can do to keep acting like a girl when I get around that boy.

I think it’s time I told you the truth about me. By that I don’t mean that I have plain brown hair and my eyes are the same. I don’t mean that I’m on the puny side for a twelve-year-old, or that my mama’s name is Katy and she’s out there somewhere in this big wide world. It’s about God. I don’t think He likes me much. Seems like every time I took the time to ask Him for something, what I’d end up getting was something else entirely.

My eyes, for instance. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that if he was going to give a girl plain old brown hair, that he’d at least make up for it with some fancy blue eyes. So one Sunday while the preacher was preaching ’bout how good God is at giving us gifts and how all we have to do is ask for something and we’ll get it, well I closed my eyes right then and there and bowed my head and asked the good Lord to give me blue eyes. I tell you it wasn’t five minutes later we were leaving the church and a honeybee flew right up and stung me right under my left eye. I spent the next three days with my eye swollen shut and Pilot looking at me funny every time I went outdoors. I decided right then that preacher must be studying the wrong book.

When Ben rushed inside this morning without first stomping the dust off his boots and asked me real calm-like if I wanted to learn to bottle-feed a goat, something stopped me from jumping out of my chair and racing him to the barn.

“Why won’t its mama feed it?” I asked him. That’s when he looked down and seemed to notice his dusty boots for the first time.

“Forgot to stomp my feet,” he mumbled and shuffled back outside.

Well it’s a sad thing when a baby comes into this world on the same day her mama is taken from it. I spent the better part of the morning trying to get that little she-goat to take the bottle and Aunt Kitty tried for most of the afternoon with no better luck. A goat’s cry isn’t so different from a human baby’s and I don’t mind telling you by the end of the day we were all frazzled, even Pilot, who took to howling like a hound dog and pacing outside the barn door.

This is the part where I get back to God. See, I decided to pray the most backwards prayer I could, thinking maybe I could trick Him. After thinking on it for a while, I finally prayed that God would bring back the goat’s daddy (who lives on some neighbor’s farm, I think), hoping God would instead bring back her mommy. I know that seems unlikely, but I think God could work a miracle sometimes just to spite me.

We none of us ate much of our dinner that night, what with the goat’s crying and Pilot’s howling. It was later, when Ben was out closing up the chicken coop for the night and I was trying to get past the first paragraph of Moby Dick, that I realized the only sound in the night was the “chink, chink” of Aunt Kitty washing dishes. I dropped my book and ran barefoot out to the barn. Ben was standing at the door and turned to hush me as I drew near. There was just enough moonlight pouring through the stall window that I could see them there on the straw, Pilot curled up around that baby goat, the both of them snoring in their sleep. What can you do when you’re looking at a tragedy and a miracle sittin’ side-by-side? Ben shook his head and grinned and I grinned back at him and together we went back to the house.

Aunt Kitty started calling the goat Wilbur before Ben told her it was a she-goat, not a buck, but we’re all pretty used to the name after spending the day saying again and again, “Hush, Wilbur. It’s going to be all right.” Turns out we weren’t lying after all.

MATERIALS:

1/2 yard fabric

1/2 yard vinyl-coated cotton fabric

1 1/2 yard ribbon

coordinating thread

a nice long stick

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Measure a 6 1/2-inch diameter circle on both your regular fabric and the vinyl-coated cotton and cut.

2. Measure and cut two 13 1/2- by 12- inch pieces out of each fabric.

3. Along the top edge of your fabric (the 13 1/2-inch length), mark the center at 6 3/4-inches. Then measure out 2 1/2 inches to each side of the center and mark.

4. Measure 3 inches down from the top edge at the center mark. Draw a curved line connecting the three outer marks and cut through both pieces of fabric. Repeat with the vinyl-coated cotton.

5. With right sides facing, stitch together the 12-inch sides of the bag and press open seams. Repeat with the vinyl-coated cotton. (I skipped the ironing with the vinyl cotton.)

6. Fold the circle piece in half and iron. Fold it in half the other way and iron again.

7. Using the ironed creases as guides, pin the circle piece to the bottom of the bag, right sides together, matching creases and seams. Where there is no seam, place the crease against the center point between seams.

8. Form a double pleat between each of your four pinned points.

9. Sew the circle onto the bottom edge of the bag. Turn right side out.

10. Repeat this process with the vinyl-coated cotton. It’s not easy to work with, so take your time and accept imperfections!

11. With right sides together, stitch bag lining (vinyl-coated cotton) to outer bag along scooped out edges ONLY. Turn bag right side out.

12. Stitch together straight edges along top of bag.

13. Top-stitch scooped out edges along top of bag.

14. Measure and cut a single strip of the outer fabric, 26 inches long by 3 inches wide.

15. Fold strip of fabric in half lengthwise and press. Open it out again, then fold each long end toward the center and press. Fold the whole thing in half lengthwise and press. Mark the center of the length of fabric with fabric pencil or by pressing it again.

16. Fold in one short end of the bias. Aligning the raw edges, with right sides together, pin the bias to the top of the bag so the edge of the bias meets the seamline.

17. Align the center of the bias with the other seam.

18. Pin remainder of bias to bag top and stitch along seamline (use the crease in the bias as a guide).

19. Fold bias over raw edges and stitch close to edge to finish.

20. Attach a safety pin to one end of ribbon. Feed the ribbon through the bias.

21. Tie a knot in each end of the ribbon and when you’re ready to go wandering, just fill up your sack and feed the stick through the scooped out ends.

Please remember that this tutorial is offered for your personal enjoyment. Please do not sell any products made or inspired by this tutorial.

It’s funny how a body can think she knows herself and suddenly one day some little thing happens and all at once she finds herself a stranger. All in all, I would say that moment–when I was so high up in that Digger pine and already upset over my part in the murder of that innocent hawk baby–was a poor time to learn that I was scared of high places. Ben told me once, when I asked him how come he’s still afraid of snakes and thunderstorms even though he’s all grown up, that there’s some fears we leave behind when we get older, but there’s enough things we learn to be afraid of to keep us from gettin’ too full of ourselves.

Apparently God above must’ve decided at that unfortunate time that I was a little too full of myself and at that very moment he smote me with a fear of heights. Of all things. And then He sent the devil himself to rescue me.

It was that boy from across the creek, the one who ran away when I said hello. I recognized him by his lily-livered scent–well, that and the weird black hair that hung long and straight to his shoulders. He came walking up to the bottom of the tree, looked up, and didn’t even try to hide his lousy grin when he saw me holding on for dear life.

“Hi there,” he said.

“Harumph,” I said.

“What are you crying for?” he said, and pushed his hair out of his face, probably so I could see that lousy grin a little better. I looked away, but then my eyes fell on that cracked egg and I felt those stupid tears welling up in my eyes all over again.

He followed my eyes to the broken shell on the ground. “It’s just an egg.”

How could he be so cold-hearted? “There’s a hawk baby in that egg, you meanie!”

“How would a hawk baby get inside a chicken egg?”

I looked down and sure enough it did look an awful lot like an ordinary chicken egg, but “What’s a chicken egg doin’ way out here?”

He shrugged. Not that I was looking at him, but I saw it out of the corner of my eye while I studied that egg.

“Probably that dog of yours snagged it out of the coop,” he said. “Or maybe a coyote.”

And I looked and I couldn’t deny it. That surely was a chicken egg and no baby hawk in it at all.

“Come on down now,” he said, and I just shook my head.

“Can’t,” I told him.

“Sure you can,” he said. “Just let go and I’ll catch you.”

Now it may seem, seeing as how I’m the one stuck in a tree crying about a cracked chicken egg, that I’m the dumb one, but I’m tellin’ you that boy must be dumb to think I was gonna jump out of that tree with nothin’ but his hands to catch me. I shook my head a little harder, in case he missed it the first time.

“C’mon,” he said. “Just take my hand.”

Maybe at this point, so as you’re not thinking that boy was 15 feet tall, I should admit that I hadn’t quite made it to the top of that tree. But it felt like it, it really did.

That’s when I remembered what had been said about this boy.

“What’s disturbin’ you anyway?” I asked him, and I watched his eyes glass over and his shoulders square up.

“Come down,” he said in a new voice, and it might have been Ben talking for the way my body just up and obeyed. Well, that boy did catch me, but whether he was any softer than the ground would’ve been I just can’t say. I rolled off of him and I ran all the way home without once looking back.

As Ben likes to say, it’s been hotter than Grandma Jean’s final resting place around here. When I asked Aunt Kitty what that means, she just said Ben wasn’t too fond of his Grandma Jean, ’specially after she sneaked a whoopie cushion onto his dinner chair the night he finally convinced Lily Hawkins to come for dinner. Apparently Lily Hawkins had hair fine and yellow as cornsilk, and as such could not be expected to tolerate a boy with poor table manners.

On account of the heat though, Aunt Kitty cut short my lessons this morning. Doing math is fine, she said, and sweating is fine too, but doin’ them both together is just plain torture. She packed up my wanderin’ sack and shooed me out the door.

“Keep an eye out for rattlers,” she said, and I was on my own.

Now, I like to think of myself as pretty intelligent–smarter than the average 12-year-old girl, I mean. Least-wise Aunt Kitty’s always telling me I talk like a foreigner or someone twice my age on account of all the books I’m always reading, and sometimes she threatens to pack the books away for a while. I’m afraid no one will think I’m smart when I come to the end of this tale though. I can hardly explain to myself how I wound up at the top of that old Digger pine, bawling my eyes out over a broken egg.

First thing I did when Aunt Kitty shut the door behind me was whistle for Pilot. He came running quick enough, but when he saw that wanderin’ sack over my shoulder he knew we were going for a ramble and just like that he was off. I tried to keep up with him, but pretty soon I had to stop and pull the foxtails out of my shoes and when I looked up again, he was long gone.

That’s about when the hawk cried out, and it’s also about when I saw the egg laying on the ground at the base of that big Digger pine. I looked at that egg, and I looked at that hawk and I put two and two together. Or I guess I put one and one together. Well if I wanted to be doing math, I’da been back in the kitchen with Aunt Kitty. In any case, I searched the branches of that tree and sure enough, away up at the top, there was a big nest. That hawk let out another cry and there was just no help for it. I knew what I had to do. I put aside my stick, tucked that egg into my pocket, hitched up my pants and started climbing.

I got real high real fast. I’m a pretty good climber, on account of all the times Pilot’s chased neighbor cats up into trees and I had to rescue them to keep Pilot out of trouble. So I was real close to getting that egg back in the nest when I felt something shift in my pants and I looked down just in time to see that egg fall down, down, down until it landed with a thud and a crunch right back in that spot I first found it.

So that’s how I wound up near the top of that Digger pine, bawling my eyes out over a baby hawk that would never see the light of day. Now if you’re a tree climber you might know that getting up a tree is a darn sight easier than getting back down.

Most of the time, Pilot is a good dog. He has his moments of weakness, like anyone does, his mostly relating to critters smaller than himself. He can pounce on a mouse quicker than any cat you ever saw, and he’ll dig up a maze of gopher trails till his nose is caked clay-red and his eyes nearly crossed. Those aren’t the bad things, though.

Pilot’s taste for small creatures isn’t limited to mice and gophers. I once saw him swipe a bird right out of the air. Honest! Me and him were just sitting on the hillside one evening watching the sun go down (and pretending we didn’t hear Aunt Kitty hollering at us to wash up for dinner) when all of a sudden Pilot leaps straight up in the air. When I come to my senses–for a minute I thought he must’ve spotted a cougar–there’s a little bird caught between his teeth. Tell the truth, I think Pilot was surprised too. It was hardly a moment before he loosed his mouth and that bird went flying away. The two of us, we just watched it go, neither one of us quite believing what had happened, I think.

But what I’m trying to say is sometimes Pilot has caused us some trouble. Me and Ben and Aunt Kitty, I mean. There was the one time Pilot came home with a real working man’s tool belt and the hammer still dragging off one end. A truck come flying up the driveway that afternoon sending up a cloud of dust thicker than the tule fog. The driver didn’t even get out, just pointed at Pilot and hollered at Ben, “That dog stole my tool belt!”

We don’t have cats and you can see why. The chickens mostly stay in the coop. No bunnies. No guinea pigs. (Why anyone would want a guinea pig I can’t imagine.)

So you can see how it probably would have been a good idea for our neighbors across the creek to let us know when they decided to raise Jersey Giants. They may be big for chickens, but they’re still just chickens after all. I’m sure you can guess–when I tell you that our neighbors came outside this evening and found all but two of their Jersey Giant chickens dead in the yard and a certain dog stuck half in, half out of the chicken coop–I’m sure you can guess who that certain dog was.

Maybe there’s some people couldn’t love a dog after he committed a massacre like that. Maybe there’s some would gladly trade in that dog for half a dozen cats and chickens roaming free. I wish I could explain how it is that I love Pilot more every time he makes a mess of things, even a really big mess like this.

I brought him into my bed this evening and left the door cracked just a hair so I could better listen to what our cross-creek neighbors had to say to Ben and Aunt Kitty. I’ll admit I was afraid they’d demand we shoot Pilot or some other awful thing. I’ve read Old Yeller. I pulled the covers over us both and pretty soon Pilot was dreaming about chasing gophers and mice. I suppose he might’ve been dreaming about those chickens.

And outside my door those people weren’t talking about Pilot or the chickens at all.

“He’s a very disturbed boy,” the lady was saying.

“Julia!” the man loud-whispered back. He seemed to be shushing her, the way Aunt Kitty’s always doing to me in church when I try asking her ’bout repentance or sexual relations or other stuff while the preacher’s still preaching.

“Well, he is!” Julia said. “I don’t mean no harm by it. He just is.”

Aunt Kitty said something then so low I couldn’t make out a word and then I got distracted puzzling out who they might be talking about. I had just decided they must be speaking of that boy I saw across the creek a few weeks ago when I heard Ben turn the latch on the front door and realized I missed the whole rest of what was said.

What I want to know is, what’s disturbing that boy so much? And it better not be me, ’cause I done nothing but say hello to him, real friendly-like.