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Drew heard his dog, Chester, barking in the distance, but kept still as the wind coursed though the high grass on either side of him.
He watched intently with his chin pressed against the ground as the Union gunboat slowly glided past the sandbar. Eyeing the big guns in their portals he marveled, as it swept wide, presenting a menacing starboard broadside to the entrenched enemy.
He had found a good vantage point just above the curve in the channel where he could see the Confederate camp just down stream. Cannon had been placed on a rocky overlook with field artillery hidden some distance back from the water’s edge on the inside of the bend. He had been watching for sometime and had observed no movement in the rebel camp but he was sure that once the ironclad came into view, all of that would change…
“James Andrew!”
He jumped up from his hideout and quickly snatched the warship from the waters. He gathered the rebel soldiers as quickly as he could and bounded off through the brush.
A call of “Andrew” from his mother would bring a boy reluctantly in for supper, but “James Andrew” usually meant some form of reckoning was looking for him.
“James Andrew!” His mother called again.
“Coming!” he answered, struggling to maintain both armies as Chester, the Border collie, was now running haphazardly under foot. A rebel soldier fell by the wayside, which did not go unnoticed. Chester quickly snatched it up and streaked across the yard and up on the porch where he dropped the little man at the feet of Drews’ mother. He sat back and gazed up at her almost smiling, the way dogs do.
“You are such a tattle tail”, She said as he kept glancing back at Drew who was coming across the yard.
Drew frowned at Chester. “Traitor”, he said, as he aimed one of the cannon his way. Chester had a way of wearing a halo when things hit the fan, something that Drew could not seem to master.
“Drew, I asked you to cut down those bushes behind the shed. Did you do that before you went to the creek?”
Drew dumped the soldiers on the porch and replied, “No Ma’am,” knowing that she already knew the answer anyway.
He walked around to the garage and gathered up the axe and an old pair of loppers. The bushes had been there since before he was born and had only recently died, of old age, he assumed. He failed to see the immediate need to clean up the area but would not argue the point with his mother. He only hoped that there would be some kind of adventure in it, though the prospects looked very unlikely.
He hacked away at the bushes and before long he had gotten to a point where what little was left was thick branches down close to the ground. He went back to the garage and returned with a shovel and began digging at the base of each bush. Drew was growing tired of this chore and became frustrated at the depth of the root ball.
He stopped for a moment and stepped back as Chester sniffed the excavation. Drew could not understand why such a job couldn’t wait till a time when he actually wanted to do it. He began to think about doing other things and wondered how he could manage an escape.
“What cha doin’?”
Paul had managed to slip up on Drew unnoticed, something he enjoyed immensely, usually finding Drew talking to Chester and carrying both sides of the conversation. Another minute and he might have done just that.
“Mom wants me to dig up these bushes,” Said Drew.
Drew resumed working with his shovel as Paul stood overlooking an ever-increasing hole around the bushes.
“I just came up from the creek,” said Paul, “Thought you’d be there.”
“Was.” Drew scraped the loose dirt from the hole and stopped again. “I got captured. Got hard labor. Working on an escape.”
Paul squinted, “Digging your way out, huh?”
“Yep.”
They both grinned and grabbed the low branches of the bush and gave it a good shake. These chores always seemed to go faster when Drew’s friend Paul showed up. The end result being that they might finish sooner and vacate to a more favorable endeavor.
The digging went on for about another hour broken up by several distractions involving the finding of an old piece of chain, an iron rod and two halves of the same arrowhead.
Finally, the ground surrendered the remaining ragged stump and the two boys leaned back against the shed on either side of the hole. Drew thumped the ground with the iron rod as they discussed the possible scenario of a band of Chickasaws trying to find a lost arrow, and maybe having to finish off a wounded bear. He drew back with the rod and speared it into the hole, making a strange metal sound. Both boys stopped and looked at each other.
“Treasure!” they said almost at the same time.
Drew pulled out the rod and both boys began digging with their hands and soon cleared the soil from around the edges of what appeared to be a small metal box.
Paul stopped digging and leaned back from their find.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
“What? Smell what? I don‘t smell anything” Drew stopped, and stared at Paul in bewilderment.
“Where’s your septic tank?” Paul asked, looking at his hands.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last week Polly Tabors septic tank was pumped out and it smelled just like this.” Paul waved his hands toward Drew’s face.
Drew shook his head, “So what you’re saying is, you fell in the mess and never washed your hands?”
Paul was laughing now but then thought about it and stopped again. “Well, where is your septic tank?”
Drew studied for a moment.
"Other side of the house,” He said, “Sort of down the hill.” He pointed at the metal box, “This ain’t it.”

Work in Progress.

A Smithy

Jonas slowly opened his eyes and frowned, realizing a throbbing headache. Thinking he had simply awakened from a night’s sleep, he struggled to reason why, practically at the end of his nose, there was a wiry white haired fellow gazing at him intently. Jonas firmly pushed the man back with a callused right hand against his chest.
“Not so fast, Jonas,” said the little man. “Are ye aware that ye have met with a serious injury?”
“I am aware that my skull hurts, and who the hell are you?”
“Now, we’ll have none of that, “said the little man, “There are ladies present.”
From a chair in a shadowy corner of the room rose a gaunt figure of a women dressed in black lace. The Presbyterian Lady’s Auxiliary had seen the need to send it’s most ardent busy-body, the moral harpy, Ms. Tripp.
“Oh yes, Jonas Finch,“ she said in a high raspy voice. “It’s plain to see that you are at yourself. It appears that prayer can only go so far and that you have not awakened as a new man ready to preach on Sunday. With such an abundance of heathens through out the county…”
“Ain’t they some hogs somewhere that you can torment?” Jonas muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” Ms. Tripp glared back at him.
“I said, I…I wouldn’t want to put the preacher out of work,” Jonas said a little louder.
“Well!” She said with some disgust. “I think the Lord could not have too many in His employ.” With barely a glance towards the kitchen she continued while walking toward the door. “Abigail, I am relieved to see that you are not yet a widow, and if I can be of guidance to his salvation…”
“Thank you, Ms. Tripp,” said Abigail hiding a grin behind small fingers. “I think we can manage.”
Jonas squinted hard as the screen door slammed loudly.
The little man leaned forward again and said in a quiet concerned tone, “Jonas, do ye know me?” he said, studying Jonas’ expression. “I am Doctor Eli Wilson.”
“Well, I reckon I’ve seen you”, Jonas said as he took a long breath and exhaled. “But, I don’t recall having business with you.”
“No sir, ye wouldn’t”, the Doctor smiled, as he sat back, closing his bag. “It has occurred this morning that Henry Mott’s Morgan horse placed hoof to head rendering ye insensible. Ye have slept through our business and God willing, our work is done.” He turned to take a coffee cup from the small table by the bed.
“I thank you, Mrs. Finch”, said the Doctor and he took several short sips once again studying Jonas. “Ye should not work this day and perhaps not tomorrow.”
“Think so, do you?”, said Jonas as he sat up and lowered his feet to the floor. He would afford no more notice of the Doctor’s mandates than if he had spoken from the other end of the county.
“Jonas, ye should not take this lightly,” said the Doctor. “As ye have lingered briefly at death’s door, ye should reflect that that door could yet open.”
Jonas seemed undeterred as a relatively tiny Abigail rushed forward leveling an outstretched arm and finger pointed directly at Jonas’ nose. “And where do you think you’d be going” Her Irish temper was well known to him and on any other day, a source of amusement.
“Do you not hear this man? Do you know how hard it would be for your children and for me if you fall over dead? Aye, you will wish to be kicked by another horse if you think to get up now!”
Jonas would back down from no one except for the fiery haired mother of his children. He eased his six-foot frame back onto the bed and breathed a heavy sigh as the Doctor tried to contain a laugh. “Mrs. Finch, I expect he is in good hands now and I should be calling on the Millers before nightfall. Sara is expecting her seventh child soon, they are hoping for a girl this time.”
“ I suppose there is always hope“, said Abigail, “T’would not be too much to ask, after six boys.”
The Doctor closed his bag and stepped toward the door.
“What of Mott’s horse?” Jonas asked.
“Well, the horse got the last word with ye this morning, and as ye can see, it is now late afternoon,” the Doctor chuckled. “Your apprentice, has since shod the horse, which I am sure, is no worse for wear, though I think him lucky not to break his leg on such a hard head.”
Jonas turned a hard look in the direction of the Doctor and growled under his breathe, “Be gone, Quaker.”
The Doctor smiled and turned to Abigail, “ I have left some powders there on the table if he should see fit to give in to it. I shall return before weeks end. Mrs. Finch, I thank ye for the coffee and bid ye good day.”
“Thank you, Doctor Wilson,” chimed Abigail, as the screen door slapped shut.
The solemn faces of three small children then pressed against the window screen looking in at Jonas. He reached out from the bed and thumped the screen and the little faces pulled back smiling. Jonas winked at the least one, Emmy, a tiny girl of four years. They all ran giggling off the porch and around the house.
Jonas watched the children playing in the dirt between the roots of a great oak tree. They recited pretend dialogs while moving stick people and few marbles along the dusty trails of imagination.
By evening Jonas was up and about with a stiff headache, the likes of which recalled his younger days when he acquainted himself with his Grandfather’s jug of corn whiskey. The ill effects soon dispelled any chance of a lasting partnership, much to his Grandfather’s delight.
Jonas was no stranger to pain. His hands and arms were scarred from the hot iron of the blacksmiths trade. Heavy work with wagons and horses had fashioned a solid figure of a man of twenty eight years.
The next morning, Jonas got up early as usual, having rested more than he felt like he needed. He had stoked the fire and laid iron aside to fashion into hinges. He fed the hogs then returned to the house and ate a good breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits.
Leaning against a front porch post, Jonas surveying the street feeling like town emperor with a biscuit in one hand and the butter spoon in the other. At the far end of the street he could see the grain mill and a heavy wagon being loaded with bags of flour. The millwright, Samuel Newsom, was walking towards him with a big smile and grain dust puffing out of his clothes.
Just then a man on a new bicycle passed Samuel ringing the warning bell on the handles. The rider passed the house ringing the bell twice more, as Jonas watched him disappear around the corner.
“Well.” he said almost out loud.
“Jonas, you got to get you one of them”, Samuel said as he trotted up the steps hardly noticed.
“What?”
“Damn bi-cy-cle, boy! I swear, somebody‘s gonna make a killing off them things before it plays out.” Samuel dropped onto the porch swing in a cloud of flour dust. “Tell me now, just what jug must a man drink from to climb onto Granny‘s spinning wheel and ride it down the road, anyway?”
“I don‘t know, but I expect he’d have to drink enough that he couldn’t walk,” said Jonas, waving the butter spoon about.
“It is a truly marvelous age”, Samuel continued, “It seems that every couple of months there’s some kind of a new contraption.”
Samuel threw his head back and rubbed his chin stubble . “Now, I believe that’s D. W. Picket’s brother, James.” he said. “You know, he ain’t no circus acrobat…does well to tie his own shoes. But I seen him the other day coming down Graves Hill just a flyin‘.”
“Well, even a rock can roll down hill,” Jonas said as he gulped down the last of the biscuit, “I’ll be impressed when I see one flyin‘ uphill.”
Despite wanting to sound like a skeptic for Samuel, Jonas could see the changes coming. He had seen steam engines and mechanized industry in his youth when his father worked in a Pennsylvania foundry. There seemed to be a machine for every job there, and he had marveled at the workings of a machine performing the skilled trade of his father, Ephraim.

Work in progress.