The thing is, I’ve been reading. Aunt Kitty says I may as well have dropped off the end of the earth (and I had to bite down mighty hard on my stubborn tongue to keep it from waggling that there is no such thing.) Pilot’s eyes have taken on a mopey expression and Wilbur, well, she’s grown a bit round in the belly from all this lazing by the fireplace on foggy days.

Ben did his Christmas shopping in the attic, just as he does every year. There wasn’t even a blush on his cheeks when Aunt Kitty mentioned that the shawl she lifted out of a newspaper-wrapped box on Christmas morning bore a remarkable likeness to the one draped across his mother’s shoulders in the photo on the piano.

As for myself, Ben uncovered a stack of dusty books. Wuthering Heights. Pilgrim’s Progress. Pride and Prejudice. Little Women. Misty of Chincoteague.

I thought, at the first, that I would start straight from the top, and opened Bronte’s novel that very evening. Was this a gift? Because it seemed a punishment to me! I read it aloud so Pilot and Wilbur could share in my misery. You may wonder why I didn’t just put this book down and move onto the next. I wonder too. Pilot whined when Catherine’s ghost first appeared and Wilbur wiggled under the bedcovers until only one hind hoof could be seen poking out. I wanted to hide under those covers myself, and I would have if only I could still see the words on the page.

Three nights of this we endured, and for what? Only to wake that third morning with Heathcliff’s agony in our hearts: “You said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

I had done nothing to deserve this pain, and I’ll tell you it was a struggle to hide my bitterness from Ben. Collecting dust in the attic, indeed. Just as it should be! My next choice would not be made so casually. I reckon anyone would’ve been convinced as I was by the declaration on the dust jacket of Pilgrim’s Progress. “A Christian classic,” it said. Uplifting, I thought, and why shouldn’t I have? Pious, that’s what it would be– good and holy and uplifting.

And I’ll tell you I near to peed my pants no less than three times in the reading of that book, and by the end I was holding onto Pilot and weeping like to start a flood with the certainty that I could be bound for nowhere other than hell–and what a dreadful, terrifying place it would be!

Two days I stayed away from books altogether, but in a moment of pure weakness, on the third day I picked up Pride and Prejudice. Aunt Kitty assured me there was nothing to fear in this one and all would be well by the time the last page was turned. And it was! Darcy loved Elizabeth and Mr. Bingham loved Jane and that rotten old lady was put in her place. There was a smile on my face when I closed the book and Pilot barked a cheerful bark, like I had not heard from him in weeks. The sun had come out after days of fog and we were settled quite comfortably against a fallen log on the hillside. I giggled and leapt to my feet. So full of joy was I in that moment, I even found a grin and a wave for that rotten boy Ezekiel when we passed him on our race back home.

That night I dreamed of Pemberley, and in the morning I woke to the sound of my own voice whispering plaintively, “Mr. Ezekiel.” Disgusted, I tossed back the blankets and recovered Pilgrim’s Progress from under my bed. Better fear of eternal damnation than mooning over some stupid boy.

…with a little bit of toothpaste slobber on the star, just to keep it real.

Here’s the image I used for the applique, if you’re interested.

…just finished for my youngest, a patchwork of her infant clothing:

Her older sister wants one too, but not for the sentimental value…

She wants one this BIG!

That’s Jack.

Least, that was Jack until a couple days ago, ‘fore he wound up headless and plucked and stripped of all his turkey-ish dignity.

I know I’m not the first kid to consider being a herbivore round ’bout the time I made the connection between what struts around our property all puffed up and proud eleven months out of the year, and what ends up on the platter on Thanksgiving Day. Ben tells me I need to stop namin’ all the birds, but I don’t see where that would make any difference at all. If I didn’t have a name, would he be eatin’ me for dinner?

You might suppose that my first conversation of a spiritual sort with Pastor JT would have something to do  with gettin’ through the pearly gates or making some improvements to my moral character. You would be wrong. Me and Pilot and Wilbur hiked all the way over to the church this past Wednesday morning to talk with Pastor JT about a turkey. I told it to him just like that, too. He saw us comin’ up the road, me and my dog and my goat, and he called out from the church steps, “Well, good morning, Miss Tevis! What can I do for you and your friends today?” And I told him, real serious-like, “Sir, we need to talk with you about a turkey.”

Well Pilot figured since he was included in the greeting he’d go ahead and fill the pastor in on our troubles. That dog forgets sometimes not everyone converses in barks and whines, on account of he’s used to me always knowing what he’s gettin’ at. Between the two of us though, we managed to get our point across and were rewarded for our efforts with a scripture and a suggestion.

The scripture was about how God gave man dominion over the earth. And the suggestion was this:

“Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, Tevis. Thank the Lord for providing you with a home, a family, and provisions for each day.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. If I was 57 years old and wise, might be I’d gather some useful stuff out of his words. But I’m just 13, and all I heard was a whole lot of dodging the issue. Here’s something I do know. There was no turkey eatin’ going on in the Garden of Eden.

I don’t mind tellin’ you I think that pastor just wanted to be rid of us right quick, ‘fore we laid somethin’ on his conscience that might creep up Thanksgiving day just as he was set to take a tasty bite of bird smothered in gravy.

Left with no other choice, I had to take this problem to the Lord, and you know how anxious that makes me. Well, I came away from that time of talkin’ with God with a fine proposal for Ben, and I took it to him right away. If Jack died of natural causes before Thanksgiving day, I said, then we’d enjoy a right fine turkey dinner. If not, well, then, we’d just have to make do with our potatoes and yams and greens. I don’t mind tellin’ you I was surprised when Ben agreed to my proposal. I suspect that had more to do with him trustin’ in the Lord than thinkin’ I’d come up with a good idea.

We heard the coyotes and their “yip-yip-yaroo!” in the night and when the goats started bleatin’ (‘cept Wilbur of course, who was sleepin’ just fine at the foot of my bed) and the birds started squawkin’, Ben ran outside and fired a shot in the air. He was too late for Jack, though, who we found next morning halfway ‘cross the yard from the pen, where the coyotes must’ve left him when the shotgun scared ‘em off.

I’ll tell you what. No one, nowhere needs to spend any time convincing me we live in a fallen world. I’ll tell you what else. One day I’ll be in a place where we won’t be eatin’ any turkeys, death by natural causes or not.

But today the best I can do is give Jack a decent burial. (What’s left of him, that is, after we have our fill of supper.)

All you artists out there, and fellow lovers of things old and beautiful, have to check out Old Book Art.

In this version of Little Red Riding Hood, published by M. A. Donohue & Company in the early 20th century, grandmother was not eaten by the wolf. In fact, she threw a quaint tea party the day after her fright:

And this one, believe it or not, is called “The Untidy Children.” Clearly, the artist is from another generation, if not another planet:

The telephone rang today–can you imagine? I suppose you can, suppose in fact that such a happening is not so rare where you come from. But let me tell you, around these parts the phone rings about as often as Moses comes knocking at our door, which is to say, never.

It’s a fact I jumped clear out of my seat at the breakfast table when it happened, knocked Aunt Kitty’s scones clean off the table. And what would you expect?

I suppose it would have been unbearably disappointing if that telephone call turned out something boring, like a goat loose on the road, and it’s the truth Aunt Kitty eyed Ben before she lifted the phone off the cradle and mumbled quite confidently, “Wrong number.” But indeed it was not!

It was Aunt Kitty’s uncle died, and this the first I ever heard his name. Nevertheless, Aunt Kitty’s scones sat there on the floor for the rest of the day while she fussed over me and Ben and what in the name of all that’s holy were we to do about making ourselves presentable for the services.

Now why a stranger like that should merit me puttin’ on a hat–a real hat, with flowers and bows on it–I can’t say I know. But Aunt Kitty, she says it’s the proper way to show respect, and this as she pinned her own ridiculous hat to her head the next morning.

Well, I don’t mind telling you I felt a right fool, wearing a garden on my head, and maybe I argued just a little bit, and maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of a whine in my voice. Certainly though, nothing to justify Uncle Ben telling me I was carryin’ on like a stuck pig. Anyhow, the truth is I practically was a stuck pig by the time Aunt Kitty was done with her bobby pins.

For two hours we drove, the longest two hours I ever knew. There’s no gettin’ comfortable with a hat stuck on your head and pins poking you every which way. We pulled up to the graveyard and Aunt Kitty and me ducked beneath the windows so as no one would see us when the truck let out it’s backfire. (Ben says that truck’s just like an old man–sometimes it’s just gotta clean out its pipes with a little cough. Problem is, lately it’s cleaning its pipes every time he shuts off the engine, and there’s just nothing little about that cough.)

Well, we stood around the grave and the preacher did his preaching. The wind picked up and Aunt Kitty kept elbowin’ me for fussin’ with my hat. And the wind picked up some more. Matter of fact, that wind picked up so much it carried away a bouquet of flowers. And some lady’s handkerchief. And the preacher’s notes. And while the preacher was standin’ there stuttering and flipping pages in his Bible, that wind up and carried away mine and Aunt Kitty’s hats.

I don’t know as I’d ever heard Aunt Kitty laugh before, excepting those grown-up kind of laughs that never really amount to much. This was a real laugh, the kind that shakes your belly, and I’d swear that laugh pushed our hats even farther up into the sky than the wind ever could all on its own.

All this talk about showin’ respect and do you know what I was thinking in that moment? When God showed up in that burnin’ bush, did he tell Moses to put on a hat? No, he did not. Neither did he tell him to fancy up his hair or to clean up his clothes. “Take off your shoes,” God told him, and that’s what Moses did, cause really, who’s gonna argue with a bush that’s on fire and talkin’ to you?

Well we stood there bare-headed for the rest of that service. The rain started falling about two minutes after we lost our hats. By the end would you believe I was actually wishing for that ridiculous hat? A wet head is what I got. A wet head and a look from Aunt Kitty that most certainly said “I told you so.”

…What have I been up to?

…I’ve been transforming my youngest into Little Red Riding Hood for the upcoming holiday,

taking a field trip to the local CSA farm,

inadvertently feeding the local wildlife (the deer are wild; the guinea fowl and kitty are not),

sewing up projects for the school’s craft fair,

adding children of the canine sort to our family,

playing in the hay,

and, of course, riding the railway at our local pumpkin farm.

Tevis will be checking in soon!

SUPPLIES:

1/4 yard home dec weight fabric

1/4 yard stiff fusible interfacing

3 1-inch buttons

matching thread

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cut two strips of fabric and one strip of interfacing 3 1/2 inches by 44 inches. Iron interfacing to wrong side of one strip of fabric.

2. Cut off corners to form points at each end.

3. With right sides together, stitch two strips of fabric together in a 1/4-inch seam, starting on one long side and leaving an opening for turning. Clip corners, turn and press.

4. Topstitch all around the strip of fabric, closing the opening that was left for turning.

5. Measure 7 inches from one point and fold down. Sew on button through both layers to create handle.

6. Fold other end of strap in opposite direction until the point is directly opposite the point on the other side of the strap.

7. Mark button location by folding back point. Mark buttonhole, beginning at base of point. Sew buttonhole (through one layer of strap only!) and open with seam ripper. Sew button into place.

8. At approximately 17 inches from pointed end opposite handle, mark two parallel 1-inch buttonholes, each 1 inch from a long edge of the strap. Sew buttonholes and open with seam ripper.

9. Now, cut two strips of fabric and one strip of interfacing measuring 1-1/2 inches by 30 inches. Iron on interfacing to wrong side of one strip of fabric. Stitch strips together in a 1/4-inch seam, right sides facing, leaving an opening for turning along one long side.

10. Clip corners, turn and press. Topstitch the length of this strap, closing opening left for turning.

11. Feed this strap through the two side-by-side buttonholes on your other strap. Mark single buttonhole location near the end of the strap on the left, and mark two or three buttonhole locations on the other end of the strap. (This will give you the ability to make the strap bigger or smaller depending on what you are toting around.) Sew and rip buttonholes.

12. Mark button location on vertical strap approximately 8 inches below buttonhole. You can also determine this button’s location by laying out your bookstrap and marking the center point directly opposite the parallel buttonholes–exactly where the horizontal strap will want to connect at the front of the bookstrap.

13. Okay, last step–the pencil pocket! Cut two strips of fabric measuring 2 inches by 7 inches. With right sides facing, sew strips together in a 1/4-inch seam, leaving an opening on one long side for turning. Turn and press. Pin pocket to vertical strap, with the bottom side of the pocket sitting just above the parallel buttonholes, or the top side sitting approximately three inches from the point of fabric on the handle. Topstich three sides of pocket, leaving the top open. Stitch again down the middle of the pocket, from top to bottom, forming two narrow pockets for pencils.

Now pack up a notepad, a favorite book and a pair of pencils. You’re done!

Now about this time I reckon you’re asking yourself, “Does that girl’s life just up and stop when the radio waves go silent?”

And this would be my answer for you: In a manner of speaking, yes.

See, here’s what happened to me round ’bout three weeks ago when I’d just coaxed an ornery hen into giving up her goods. (The truth is I tricked her a bit with an old slight of hand Ben taught me once.) Aunt Kitty came slamming out the screen door, hollerin’ my name like I was somewhere in the next county ’stead of just across the yard.

“Time for school!” is what she said next.

Well, my summer just up and died a sudden and horrible death in that moment, and I’ll tell you I’ve spent the better part of a month grieving it’s passing and trying to accept the truth of it all.

I never much considered myself one to give a person the benefit of the doubt. It’s a fact I breathe easier when there’s someone to blame (other than yours truly, of course) and there’s a certain, well, a certain joy in watching a rotten person get their just desserts. Now before you go gettin’ all huffy with me and touting ’bout mercy, just hear me out. We’re not talking guillotines and hangin’ trees here, after all.

Take that morning Aaron McMillan called me Bird Legs in Sunday school. I’ll admit I felt no remorse when he tripped (without any assistance from myself, mind you!) and landed on his face and spent the better part of a week with a big white bandage on his nose. Matter of fact, I can’t rightly make myself sorry that his noggin still crooks a bit to the left and I have been known, on occasion, to make a brief mention of that fact when he gets a look in his eye that says he’s thinking of teasing me again.

But as Aunt Kitty likes to say, that’s neither here nor there. The thing is, a genuine police cruiser came screaming up the road yesterday, peeled around the corner at the mailbox and sped on up the hill to the cross-creek neighbors. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen every day and I’m sure you can understand why Pilot came runnin’ right to me and demanded I take him over the hill to investigate. I could hardly refuse him now, could I? It is after all a dog’s duty to look after his people and who am I to interfere with that duty?

We didn’t spend more than a minute listenin’ to Mr. Curtis and Miss Julia and the policeman; I know eavesdroppin’s a sin and I’d never. Besides, Pilot got restless there in the bushes and I feared we’d be found out.

We’d almost walked right on past that boy before I saw his toes stickin’ out behind a tree. I stalked around to stare him down, hands on hips. “I reckon you’re in some trouble,” I said.

Pilot whimpered a little and crawled into Ezekiel’s lap. Traitor.

“Reckon so,” he said, with a shrug that tried to say he didn’t care. I didn’t much buy it.

I sat beside him, leaves crunching beneath me. “They’re saying you cleared out the liquor supply at the market.”

“Is that what they’re saying.” He didn’t really say it question-like.

“Whatcha gonna do with so much liquor?”

He glanced down at me then, just for a moment, then fixed his eyes somewhere out in the trees. “What would you do with it?”

I had to think on that for a bit. “Well, Aunt Kitty says most of it tastes no better than goat pee. Can’t see how goat pee would be worth goin’ to jail for, so I reckon I’d give it back.”

Zeke just sat there, so still-like I started thinking he’d maybe nodded off. I bumped him with my shoulder. “Why don’tcha give it back?”

He looked me in the eye then, and he said, “I don’t have it.”

“Well, what’d you do with it?”

But he was done talking, that ornery boy, and I was left to wonder if “I don’t have it” meant he already got rid of it, or he up and drank it all, or he never done had it in the first place. I bumped him with my shoulder again, but he just scuffed Pilot’s head and then nudged him away, then shifted ’round enough to take me by the waist and hoist me up.

“Go on, now,” he said, and he gave me a little shove on my backside.

Well I left then, but it was only ’cause I wanted to. Pilot came with me ’cause I grabbed him by the collar and made him.

When that policeman came knocking on our door not five minutes after I walked through it, I hadn’t any idea the words that would be comin’ out of my mouth when he asked the last time any of us had seen Ezekiel, who, in case we didn’t know, had a police record and should be treated with some measure of caution. Here’s what I said, every word of it:

“Well, sure I have, officer. Me and Zeke been camping up the hillside since yesterday afternoon. Reckon you’ll find him at home now seeing as how we just packed up camp a little bit ago. See, I’ve had a burr under my behind since that boy said I was prob’ly afraid of the dark, being a girl and all, so I just had to show him it weren’t true. We spent the whole night up there, we did, without a flashlight between us, and I’ll tell you what, if anyone got scared, it was that lily-livered boy.”

I threw in that last part just so I’d feel better ’bout doing something nice for that rotten boy.