one big promise and one hot iron

Ben returned from town yesterday with boxes full of fabric. Aunt Kitty says he has no taste at all; there’s no other explanation for the purples and oranges he came home with. She says they’ll be suitable for nothing but work and I’m to expect to spend tomorrow stitching up some gathering aprons. I groaned and told her I promised to spend the next TEN evenings sewing if only she would let me have the daytime for myself.

“That’s fine, Tevis,” she said, “but I expect to see your needle threaded before the sun goes down. And don’t you be leaving off your usual chores.”

Well, there’s two things I should have considered before I made that promise and the first and most important thing is that Ben forgot to pick up Aunt Kitty’s chocolate when he was at the grocer’s in town. Ben whispered to me one time about how chocolate is Aunt Kitty’s kindness medicine, and when she gets short on chocolate her temper gets short too.

The other thing I should have considered is how the sun has a mean habit of going down before the day’s really over. After my chores were done, I had a mind to do some spying on the new boy across the creek, but I got distracted by the wildflowers coming up on the hillside. They fell into my hands, really, a great big bunch of them–shooting stars and bleeding hearts and dandelions–and that’s just what I would have told Ben but I thought I should save him the pain and trouble of reminding me how I’m cutting their life short by yanking them out of God’s green earth. So I thought instead I would take them as a sort of welcoming bouquet to that boy across the creek. I whistled for Pilot and he fell into step beside me, his tongue wagging at the chance to dig up gophers on the other side.

I was in sight of that big yellow farmhouse when it occured to me that flowers really aren’t the thing for a boy and maybe I should go back and catch him some pollywogs from the creek instead. By that time Pilot was shoulders-deep in a hole and whined at me when I called him to come.

“Well stay here, then,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

But of course by the time I fetched a jar from the house and filled it up with pollywogs, then ran back to get another jar for water ’cause Ben would just be beside himself if I left those wildflowers just laying in the grass to die–well by the time I got back to Pilot’s hole, Pilot was no longer in it.

I found him a couple hours later digging furiously under a manzanita bush and when I grumbled at him, “Pilot, you bad dog, why don’t you come when I call you?” he just looked at me over her shoulder, his nose turned red-brown from the dirt, and there was nothing sheepish about his expression. I swear he was thinking, “Now why would I want to come with you when I’m having such a fine time right here?”

I had to pull him home by the scruff of the neck, stopping by the creek long enough to pour out the pollywogs. I confess I poured the wildflowers into the creek too, ’cause I didn’t figure I needed any help getting in trouble this time since the sun was already well below the horizon. I rushed through the door with an apology already flying out of my mouth.

Aunt Kitty harumphed and said I should consider the apostle Peter next time I’m thinking about making promises I ain’t going to be keeping, and in the mean time I could plan to spend the next ten days indoors mending and cleaning and ironing. Aunt Kitty knows how I hate ironing, and I’m just certain that’s why she carried out that big stack of ugly fabric and plunked it down right in front of me as she said the word.

Me, I think Peter more than made up for it in the end. And I’m sure I will too. But in the meantime I’ll be ironing.