A Valentine’s Day Dilemma

February 13, 2014.Reading time 5 minutes.

“Henry, what’s the matter, boy?” George Lee asked his son. “You’ve got that stress face your mother and I worry about.”

Henry quickly scrambled to cover the red and white clipped paper on his desk. When he looked up and met his father’s gaze, he found a measure of comfort in his concern. “Teacher gave us an awful assignment, and I don’t wanna do it.”

George chuckled, “I’ve never seen you shy away from anything too hard. What is it? Math? History? I can help you with those. If it’s writing your mother or Dorothy would be a better help.”

“It isn’t any of those.”

“Well, what is it then, son?”

Henry looked around to see if either of his sisters or mother were within earshot. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell his father what he had to do, but knew the man was going to pull it out of him somehow. Reluctantly, he answered, “I gotta make a card for someone. A Valentine’s Day card. And it’s awful.”

George Lee started to laugh, but noting the angst in his boy’s eyes, he caught himself and took a seat beside his boy. “Here now,” he said. “That doesn’t sound so bad. You used to love to make pictures and such.”

“It ain’t the making that’s so bad,” Henry lamented. “It’s the giving.”

“Well, what’s Virgil going to do?” George asked before pondering the question. He typically wouldn’t use Virgil Creech for any sort of standard of behavior.

“Aww, he’s sweet on that old Esther Haywood. So he’s got all kinda big plans about making something for her,” Henry explained. “Said he might even put a quarter in his card so she can take him to a picture show.”

Again, George stifled a smile. His boy was on the cusp of the wonderfully tragic discovery of girls, but obviously not there yet. “Didn’t he get in trouble for putting a cockroach in her hair last week?” he asked. “God help the poor girl Virgil sets his sights on.”

Henry laughed and the tension in his face eased somewhat.

“Isn’t there any girl you think is just okay?” George asked.

Henry thought for a moment. “There’s Abigail Jacobs. She’s not too bad.”

“There!” proclaimed George. “Make it for her.”

“She’ll slug me if I make it for her,” Henry said. “She already warned us if she got anything from us boys, something bad was gonna happen.”

“Well son, I’m out of ideas,” George said as he rose to go. “Surely you can come up with someone.”

“Dad, what did you get for Mother?” Henry asked, only to watch his father turned as white as the paper on the desk.

“I completely forgot,” George said vacantly. “And the stores are closed now… Oh, tomorrow’s not going to be pretty.”

George left his son alone and spent the duration of the evening plotting his own plan to stay out of trouble, while Henry finally finished his work.

In the morning, George came into the kitchen to see his wife cleaning up after the children’s breakfast. Instead of the reception he dreaded, he found himself met with a very loving embrace.

“George Lee,” Harriet gushed. “Of all the sweetest, most wonderful husbands, I do believe you are the best.”

As she squeezed the shocked man once more, he noticed over her shoulder a colorful card made of the very paper he had seen on his son’s desk. He couldn’t make out the words but he knew that Henry had not only found someone to make a card for, but saved his father’s hide in the process.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Portsong!

The Colonel’s First Story, pt. 4

February 6, 2014.Reading time 4 minutes.

We have nearly come to the end of Colonel Birdwhistle’s first story from the book. Click here to start at the beginning: Part 1 .

And now, I submit to you Part 4:

“An excellent question,” replied the Colonel. “We used local ingenuity, my dear. Local ingenuity. You see, the people there have been trapping monkeys for hundreds of years. The monkey is a clever animal, but he is more selfish than he is clever. He can figure out how to get his hand on something to steal, but once he has it in that hand, he won’t ever let go until it is his. So we tied several crates to the top of our cart, each with a freshly cut mango inside. Then we made holes in them just large enough so that monkey hands would fit in but the mango wouldn’t come out. On our trip, the monkeys descended on our cart and smelled the mangos. They fought over which ones got to stick their little hands inside to grab those fresh mangos. When we stopped the cart, the monkeys scattered — all except the ones with their hands stuck in the crate, too greedy to let go. So, we would untie those crates with monkeys attached and give them to the locals to…to take away… and relocate.” 400px-Vervet_yawn

He held up a hand again and pointed at it adding, “So the very thing that they cause trouble with gets them into trouble, too.”

“Did you get rid of all the monkeys in Africa, sir?” asked a boy with bright red hair and a nose generously sprinkled with freckles.

“No, young fellow,” laughed the Colonel. Then he pointed at the large tree behind him.

“You see this tree. It has squirrels in it right?” he said to general agreement. “If I were to take the squirrel family that lived there away, another family that lived say, over there in that smaller tree would look at it and say, ‘that’s a nice tree and there are no squirrels living in it. I’ll bet it has lots of nuts. We should go live there.’ And they would. So you would never have an attractive tree like this with no squirrels, right?”

The audience bobbled their heads as if they understood.

“It is, unfortunately, the same with monkeys,” said the Colonel. “We removed as many as we could, and by the time the next ship came in, there were at least as many monkeys there as there had been before. And they were stealing from us again. To them, our supplies were just like that nice big tree the squirrel family wanted. So they came in droves with their cute little hands and chit-chit noises and robbed us blind.”

He finished his story by slapping his knees to add emphasis and the children laughed. The mothers behind them clapped their approval, and the Colonel couldn’t suppress a “dreadful vermin,” muttered under his breath.

Conclusion coming soon