Chapter Two

 

THE ATTIC

 

Refuge, Exploration, Sweet Talk, and Treachery

 

          When dejected, the youngest boy took refuge in a semi-secluded spot to contemplate the injustices that youngest boys are heir to.  He found temporary privacy hunched on the woodshed stairs leading to the attic just outside the summer kitchen.

 

          His older brothers had not let him play ball with them.  They called him "Mama's Boy."

 

          The loud voices of Mom and Dad could be heard quarreling in the kitchen and they had no time for him.  They were both volatile, of French descent, emotional and noisy in argument and though they were always quick to forgive, their voices strident in anger were disquieting to him and sometimes he would hide himself away and put his hands over his ears.

 

          His brothers were wrong.  After all, he was old enough to get the cows in the high pasture by himself.  He gathered the eggs and fed the horses too, and helped Mom in the garden.  And he could throw a ball better than most kids his age.  Today, however, none of that mattered and he sat on the woodshed stairs feeling sad.

 

          Slowly he inched his backside up the stairs.  On his right he could see the door leading to the summer kitchen and on his left the stacks of firewood and kindling and the chopping block with the double-bitted axe embedded in its top.

 

          He bumped his bottom up the steps one by one until his eyes reached the top level and he could observe the interior.  It was familiar, roomy and a convenient playground for the boys in rainy weather.  Sometimes clotheslines were strung along its length when it served as a substitute drying place for wet laundry on rainy or snowy Mondays.  The lines were of use as well to air out woolen clothes that had been packed away the previous spring.  It had long been a storage place for seasonal, outgrown, outmoded or repairable -- and sometimes forgotten -- items of wear.

 

          There were trunks of old clothes, boxes upon boxes of Christmas decorations, old photograph albums showing people in ancient cars and buggies at family reunions in unfamiliar places.  One old musty album contained pictures of Civil War vintage and, best of all was great-grandfather Goulette's Civil War sword, scabbard and belt, wrapped in a blanket and tucked away in the oldest trunk.

 

          There was a great family bible that had many now-blurring names inscribed on the front pages.  It had terrible illustrations of people burning in Hell and devils with tails and pronged forks looking down at them.  They were scary and disturbing and he put the bible down and went to the window to look out into the sunlit yard.

 

          Inside, not far from the window, he looked over the winter wear and boots, snowshoes, sled and skis.  There was a lone toboggan awaiting repair after last winter's collision with a tree.  Seeing nothing more of immediate interest he walked to the open space where the walnuts and butternuts were spread out to dry.

 

          Every year in midfall after the first frosts of October, when nights were getting nippy and leaves had turned and fallen to the ground, the boys would start looking under the trees for any nuts that were already down.      

 

          The walnuts had green coats which would turn brown and fall off as they ripened.  As soon as the boys saw a few on the ground they would race to pick them up before the squirrels took them.  They climbed the trees and shook the limbs, and from below beat the branches with long poles to knock more nuts to the ground.  Raked, gathered in sacks and baskets, they were carried to the attic floor to dry out over the coming weeks.  Some still had sections of their green coats that would peel off as the walnuts dried.

 

          The butternut tree was then already old and must be long gone by now, but when the boys were young it yielded the sweetest, woodsiest-flavored nuts in nature.  When taken from the tree or picked up from the ground, they had a green sticky coat which eventually turned brown.  They, too, were hauled to the attic floor and spread out in a separate pile to dry.

 

          As he sat there now, the nuts were ready for shelling.  He cracked a few walnuts with the nearby hammer and anvil and picked out the meat with his fingers.  He could hear the voices of his mother and brothers below, and feeling much better and tired of being alone, he started to descend the stairs.

 

          "Oh, there you are," his mother said, knowing all along.  "Just in time.  I want you boys to crack some nuts for me.  Tomorrow is Sunday and we're having company and chocolate cake and ice cream.  "I'll need two big cups of walnuts and butternuts.  Make sure you get nice butternut halves because they will go all around the top of the chocolate frosting on the cake.  The walnuts can be in pieces because they'll be served on top of the ice cream with maple syrup.  Here are three nutcrackers and picks.  See that I get them back."

 

          They dashed up the stairs, again on good terms.  They knew that on Sunday they would be taking turns cranking the freezer handle and waiting for that feeling in the arm that only experience could teach as the ice cream attained the perfect consistency.  When the beater was removed, one of them would be permitted to clean the blades with tongue or spoon.

 

          As the nutcracking progressed and the cups were filling, and having hammered his fingers a number of times and knowing that his brothers would soon lose interest and abandon him to finish the job, he considered how he might leave without appearing to be a quitter.

 

          He thought, if I tell them I have to pee and then go find Dad and say that I'll go get the cows, and he says all right but don't run them, then I'll take Rover and head down into the pasture before they find out.  He envisioned his journey through the pasture, stepping along cow paths, skipping flat stones along the course of the brook, looking for tadpoles and crossing wider spaces in the stream by hopping from boulder to boulder.

 

          He would climb the last hill and enter the fringe of the sugar woods where in late winter the men drew the sap for maple sugar and where he'd usually find the cows in late afternoon in a cleared area.

 

          When he'd driven them all back he would have done his share of work for the day and wouldn't be told to shovel down the ensilage or feed the calves.

 

          As he thought about his first words, oldest brother Edward suddenly rose and put down his tools.

 

          "Come on, Rover," he said.  "It's time to go get the cows.  The nuts are about finished, Pauly, and Rich and I will have to do the chores, so you clean up the mess here and take the nuts to Mom."

 

          They departed and he did as told.  He did not feel too badly.  He had been accepted as part of the working group, and it was he who would take the nuts to Mom.  And big brother Edward had called him Pauly.