Casting for a fishing story ~ July 3, 1997

David Heiller

If your ear lobes are intact now, guard them with your life. I taught a four year old how to cast a fishing lure.

It started innocently enough last weekend at The Cabin. When my four-year-old nephew, Collin, arrived, the first words he said to me were, “Uncle Day-vid, I caught more fish than you last year.”

He had out-fished me one evening, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it after only 12 months.

Uncle Day-vid and Collin at the cabin: fishing buddies

The next morning we went to the dock to catch sunnies. Usually with a four year old, that means dropping a line from your Sesame Street rod and reel straight down into the water, and watching half a dozen panfish converge on the worm.

They have a brief conference, then elect the smallest one to investigate further. You end up pulling in a fish only slightly bigger than the hook itself. This gives the kid a great thrill, which gives the adult a great thrill.

But Collin’s Sesame Street fishing rod and reel were broken. Why is it they only last one summer? Could it be a conspiracy?

I gave Collin my best rod and reel. I figured I wouldn’t need it. When you fish with kids, you don’t really get much fishing done yourself anyway.

Collin was thrilled to sit on the dock and catch small fish. But I couldn’t resist showing him how to cast his bobber out further, where the bigger fish might be.

Learning to cast a fishing rod is a milestone in a child’s life, like riding a bike or hitting a baseball. One of my earliest memories is of fishing with my brother, Glenn, and trying to cast with a rod and reel.

Glenn must have been in a good mood that evening to let me use it. Usually it was Cane Poles Only.

The open-faced reel had a thick black line. You used your thumb for a drag. It was virtually impossible to cast without getting a backlash the size of an eagle’s nest.

I think I made one cast, then spent the rest of the evening trying to untangle the line. Glenn was not pleased, to put it mildly. But I was thrilled to have been given the chance to actually cast my bait. I eventually mastered the reel, and was able to cast it at least five feet.

Getting the bait on is the step before casting.

With that rite of passage in the back of my mind, I showed Collin how to cast. I showed him how the line-release button worked. I showed him how much line should be dangling at the tip of the rod when you cast.

I told him how to bring the rod back to two o’clock, then bring it forward to 10 o’clock. I don’t know if he knows how to tell time, but he nodded dutifully. I held his hand and we did it together. The bobber soared out at least five feet.

No fish was hooked, but Collin was. He couldn’t believe he had done that. He grabbed the rod from me. “I want to do it now, Uncle Day-vid,” he said.

“Let me show you one more time,” I said. But we both knew that wasn’t necessary. He kept the rod and kept casting.

Most of the time he looked like a mule skinner whipping a team of horses. He churned up the water with short casts. Once in a while he’d get one out 20 feet.

Fishing pretty much stopped for Collin at that point and casting took over. He would simply cast and reel, cast and reel. He paused only long enough to have me bait the hook after a fish had caught up to it long enough to strip it bare.

On Saturday night, I took Collin and two adults out in the 14-foot fishing boat. I sat in the rear, manning the six-horse Mercury and keeping a close eye on Collin.

Watching a kid cast on a dock is one thing.

You can give him a wide berth. Sitting next to him in a boat is another. There’s no place to hide.

Collin worked both sides of the boat. He cast to the front and to the back. He would announce his direction with a polite sentence. “Excuse me, Day-vid.” “Excuse me, Nancy.” “Excuse me, Mike.”

We wanted to excuse him into the lake. But instead we just hunched our shoulders and lowered our heads and waited for the bobber to go whipping past.

Collin was sitting on a boat cushion. Each time he cast, it inched off the seat. Finally after one mighty cast he ended up with a crash in the bottom of the boat.

No, I didn’t hope he had a broken arm. But I couldn’t help telling him that that’s what happens when you cast so much. “You need to let your bobber sit for a while,” I told him for the umpteenth time.

But Casting Collin wasn’t going to let a bruise or two stop him. He kept on casting, and we kept on ducking.

I know I could have made him stop and sit still and be quiet. But fishing is supposed to be fun, and Collin was having fun. So I let him cast away.

I ended up catching three keepers to his one. “I caught more fish than you,” I said with a smile that he recognized. “Maybe that’s because you did too much casting.” He didn’t say anything. It was a four-year-old dilemma.

We got back at dark. Collin held a flashlight while I cleaned the fish. We ate them the next day. There’s nothing better than fried sunfish fillets, rolled in flour, fried in butter, and seasoned with salt, pepper—patience!

Time will tell where Collin goes, fishing-wise. I tried to teach him how to put on a worm and take off a fish. He didn’t want learn that mundane skill quite as eagerly. But I’ve got a hunch he will.

Once you learn how to cast, the rest is all downhill.

It’s just a snake… isn’t it? ~ July 7, 1984

David Heiller

Snakes. Just the word sends a shiver up most people’s backbone.

I don’t mean that everybody is afraid of snakes. Most people aren’t afraid of snakes, once they spot them and get over the initial shiver. It’s that first sighting, when you see the grass move and the snake slither, that makes everybody jump.

This first heart-pounding surprise is what gives snakes a bad name. Take a group of kids, and put a snake in their midst, and that snake’s future will be gravely in doubt. I remember when I as about 12, some younger kids caught a big water snake by the river, carried it up to Main Street, and proudly killed it for all the town to see. I saw it, and yelled at them. “Why did you have to kill the snake?” They looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s just a snake,” they mumbled.

Of course, the other strike which snakes have against them is that some are dangerous. Marlin Perkins will testify to that—remember that Wild Kingdom episode when a python nearly squeezed him to death in an African swamp?

(I presume there were some people off-camera watching very closely, waiting for a signal to come to the rescue. Plus he had good insurance from Mutual of Omaha.)

Grandma Schnick

    There aren’t many pythons in Minnesota, but there are rattlesnakes. In southeastern Minnesota, where I spent my first 17 years, rattlesnakes were killed every summer. For all the running I and my cousins did in the hills and woods, it’s surprising we never stumbled upon one. The only one I saw in the wild happened to meet me right in town, in July, 1969. I had just finished mowing the parsonage lawn, and was heading home, when I nearly stepped on a large timber rattler. It was a mottled brown, about 18 inches long, just lying there uncoiled. I thought about letting the snake go on its way, but the sound of kids playing a block away ended that idea. A well-aimed shovel put the snake in the dump, and gave me a trophy of nine rattles.

My Grandma Schnick has always warned about snakes. She will be the first to admit that snakes are her least favorite creature on earth. Anytime anyone goes hiking in the woods, she says, “Now you just take a stick with you, for snakes.” Then she usually follows that advice with the most recent rattlesnake story to drive home her point.

Grandma and my mother came up for a visit last week. It was a pleasant three-day stay. On Saturday, we went to the Duluth Zoo, and happened to see two snake exhibits. One of them had about 10 snakes in a large cage. The snakes were lying on top of each other. You could see Grandma shiver, even on the other side of the thick glass walls.

Oh, the outhouse!

    When we got back home from the zoo, I started working in the kitchen, while Grandma went to use the outhouse (we have no indoor bathroom). After just a short time, I heard a fast pounding on the door. There stood Grandma. “David, grab a stick, there’s a snake in the outhouse,” she said in a very urgent tone of voice.

I carried the broom which I was holding and pounded down to the outhouse. I had no intention of hurting the garter snake, and Grandma knew it. Still, I peeked into the small room, spotted a rusty old coffee can, and jumped back, heart pounding.

“Did you see it? Is it there?” Grandma asked.

“No, it’s just a coffee can,” I answered, sheepishly.

Of course, the snake had long gone. Still it was a snake, and it reminded me of all this. I must admit that I still like to carry a stick with, me when I walk in the woods. Even though there aren’t any poisonous snakes around here. Are there?

A summer rain ~ July 2, 1987

David Heiller

 Rain fell Sunday afternoon. It splashed off our garden beds at first, raising a dust storm for the bees and ants. Then it settled the dust and ran off the beds and finally soaked in.

Malika, always moving to the next adventure.

I stood in the doorway with my two children. They had been lobbying during the past hour for a trip to the park. I had been urging a compromise walk down the road. Their expressions as they looked at the rain fall outside the screen door reflected the overcast sky.

“Now we can go to the park after the rain?” Noah asked.

“Pahk atta rain?” Malika echoed.

“Well, it’s pretty wet there,” I said uneasily. “Maybe we should stay home, then go tomorrow when it’s done raining.” I knew tomorrow would be better, what with their grandmother here for a visit.

Malika pushed past Noah as I opened the door to breath in the late afternoon air. The rain was letting up, after just an hour. We needed more, the garden and hayfields needed more, the Askov and Finlayson water towers needed more.

Drops of water fell from the roof, landing on Malika’s head as she peered up at the clouds. She moved barefoot onto the porch, then ran on tip toes under the maple tree. The water sprayed her like a gentle sprinkler. She didn’t care about the park. This was much better.

Noah, bike and boots...

Noah used his four-year-old common sense as he watched his sister test the water. “Mollie doesn’t have shoes on,” he said as he pulled on a pair of rubber boots. He wears those boots on the hottest days of the summer as well as the coldest winter days. Today he was lucky it was raining, so it made sense, and he could afford to remind me in a righteous voice, “Daddy, Mollie doesn’t have shoes on.”

“That’s fine,” I answered absently. The sun broke through the western rim of the storm. Suddenly the air was cool and clear, washed by the rain. The garden glistened, the plants crisp, the soil dark.

Birds circled over the rows, a platoon of tree swallows that wove and spun as they snatch invisible mosquitoes. A cat bird called from the windbreak of white spruce, a loud and angry call like a tomcat with a sore throat. Our cat, Miss Emma, sauntered from the trees toward the house, followed by those angry cat calls. I looked for a bird drooping from her jaw, but she just smiled. Not even a feather in sight.

A male bluebird swept in to its house on the clothes line pole. The sun caught its bright blue feathers, its orange breast ruffled slightly as it hurried to feed the young peepers inside the house.

The afternoon settled into evening. We took our walk, Malika sitting in her wagon, Noah riding ahead on his 12-inch bicycle with training wheels. Then it was home to see Mom and Grandma, baths for the kids, a Sesame Street story, and up to bed.

Darkness crept over the yard, Cindy’s mother stood at the kitchen window, looking at the apple tree. “There’s a deer there eating apples,” she said. Sure enough, a deer moved easily under the tree, grazing the newly watered grass, picking up tiny apples that the kids had knocked down. It had two spikes for antlers, covered with fuzz.

“Is Noah awake?” I asked.

“No, he’s sleeping,” Grandma answered. She had gone to check the minute she spotted the deer.

Finally the deer moved slowly down our driveway and north up the county road, toward some new supper, or perhaps a bed for the night.

Malika and Binti

^‘I stepped outside. Our dog, Binti, lay under the apple tree, in full sight of the deer. She wagged her tail slightly, but didn’t move except to raise her eyebrows as she glanced at me. “Pretty nice, huh?” she seemed to say.

Pretty nice, I agreed.

Taking her out to the ball game ~ June 4, 1992

David Heiller

How do you define baseball? If you are a six-year-old girl, it’s by the length of the licorice, and the taste of the pop, and Kirby Puckett’s first grand slam.

I took Malika to her first game last Friday. Before the game, I tried to engage her in Baseball Talk (BT). This is the second most boring language in the world (behind the mating noise of a three-toed ground sloth). You say things like, “Wow, Puckett has seven hits in his last 12 at bats.” And your friend answers, “But Lieus can’t hit worth beans with men in scoring position.” Boring.

Fortunately Baseball Talk on Friday was tempered by Kid Talk (KT), which has all the logic of a computer that just fell off a desk. It almost makes sense. Here are some samples of our dialogue, which I jotted down on the back of my scorecard.

Daddy~Daughter Dynamic Duo

BT: Larkin is playing right field.

KT: Who’s Larkin?

BT: You know, Gene Larkin.

KT: Who’s Larkin? What’s a Larkin, Dad?

KT: I see Kirby—the guy cleaning the area out there (around the pitcher’s mound).

BT: No, that’s the groundskeeper.

KT: How many more minutes (till the game starts)?

BT: Twenty

KT: You already said 20.

BT: No, I said 30.

KT: Oh.

KT: I want pudding.

BT: Where’s pudding?

KT: That guy’s holding it.

BT: That’s not pudding. That’s beer.

KT: Oh.

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’m hungry.

BT: (Silence.)

KT: I’M HUNGRY.

She talked about a zillion other things too. She admired in a loud voice a woman’s earrings, which were shaped like little baseballs. (Now THERE’S a good birthday present for Cindy.) She checked out ladies’ purses, and told me (in a loud voice) every time she saw one she liked, or one that resembled her own 47 purses.

Noah and Malika working
 on their Twins imitations

She ogled a baby across the aisle, a kid all of one month old, who was passed between Mom and Dad while they ate pretzels and drank beer.

In between talking, Malika ate. It was a miracle. Her stomach normally holds half a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, max. But at the game, where food prices are inflated as much as the stadium, she consumed a can of orange soda, three strips of button candy on paper, 67 peanuts, and a licorice rope two feet long.

She finished it all by the fifth inning. “I want a hot dog,” she said. Sure, for another $3, I thought. I put my foot down (on a carpet of peanut shells) and said no. But not until I’d bought myself a glass of “pudding” for $3.25.

We did manage to talk a little baseball, thanks to the idol of every kid who plays catch in Minnesota, Kirby Puckett. Kirby came through. He moved from groundskeeper to hero when he came up with the bases loaded in the fourth inning, and lined a homerun over the right-centerfield fence. We stood and roared with 26,000 other fans. Malika gave me a high-five and hollered, “A grand slam!” I didn’t even know she knew what a grand slam was, but she yelled it. I heard her. There’s hope for her yet.

We didn’t quit clapping until Kirby stepped out of the third base dugout and tipped his cap. A true hero, for the umpeenth time. Then at the top of the fifth, the crowd rose again as Kirby ran out to center field. The scoreboard announced that it was his first grand slam in the majors. It showed a replay, then a close-up of Kirby, who modestly doffed his cap again, and gave it a short swirl to the crowd.

My spine tingled. It was a special moment, one I’ll remember for a long time. Malika won’t. But I’m glad she was there with me to share it.

The Twins ended up winning, 17-5. But they could have LOST 17-5 and Mollie wouldn’t have known the difference. She had her food and her questions and her purses and earrings and her Kirby and her Dad. What more to baseball is there?

When we were leaving, she showed a new dance step to anyone who cared to watch, something between the Radio City Rocketts and some Nazi Storm Troopers. Then she tiptoed down the sidewalk, missing every crack for two blocks in honor of her mother’s back.

In the car, she made the predictable announcement: “I don’t feel so good.” Stomach hurt? “Uh-huh.” But no disasters would end this adventure. The car rolled northward through the night, and the dash light soon wrapped a sleeping girl in its warm, green glow.

The next morning, I asked Mollie what she thought of the game. “I just loved it,” she said dramatically.

“What’d you love about it?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “The Twins won. I want to go to another game next time.” Sounds good to me.

A new world for Adam ~ July 1, 1993

David Heiller

We wanted to show Adam the world, or at least our world. Adam is my sister’s 11-year-old son. He’s from a suburb of Dallas, Texas. He recently stayed with us for 12 days. My sister wanted him to get out of the city and see a different way of life. We wanted him to get to know our son Noah better, since they’re only a year apart in age.

It was a dangerous proposition in a way. We only get three TV channels—no cable. Noah’s closest friend lives four miles away, not four blocks. Everything that you find in a city is glaringly absent in Birch Creek Township. No parks, no pools, no malls. I was a little worried that Adam might be impatient with our way of life.

Adam

I shouldn’t have worried. He said more thank yous than I could count, even to people like Palmer Dahl who sharpened Adam’s tomahawk. “You paid for it,” Palmer said in a surprised voice. He wasn’t used to a polite kid either, but Adam meant it.

I knew the rest was working out on Adam’s third night. He and Noah and I were taking a sauna, and Adam said out of the blue, “If I was at home, I would have watched about 14 hours of TV today.”

Instead, we had gone to the Northwest Company Fur Post in Pine City. Our family had never been there, but because of Adam, we went. At the post, a voyageur had taken us back in time. The kids watched him throw a tomahawk into a log, and that took care of any urge to watch TV.

When we got home, I gave them an old steel hatchet, and they spent hours throwing it against a slab of white oak. Later in the week, they went to a store and bought their own tomahawks, and Palmer Dahl put a fine edge on them, thank you.

The fur post got them talking about building a wigwam, like the one there. They didn’t do it, because they didn’t have time.

I had worried that they would have too much time, but I forgot how kids can fill time. I also forgot how much our area and rural lifestyle have to offer.

They shot Noah’s bow and arrow. Adam hit a rabbit, but it got away. They biked over to Noah’s friend’s house four miles away.

They spent an afternoon helping clean the calf barn and milking cows at our babysitter’s farm. Adam was amazed at how the cow manure was taken away through a grate in the floor. He described the size of the cows udders, spreading his arms like he was holding a 20 pound northern.

Noah, David, and Adam and
one of their favorite activities.

You won’t find that in Dallas.

Adam helped me weed the garden and didn’t complain. I showed him how to chop and split a log with an ax. He liked that. Why couldn’t he have come in the fall, when I have 12 cords of firewood to make?

We went to a pow-wow in Hinckley. He and Noah bought dancing sticks, and joined the Indian dancers in an intertribal dance. Cindy and I watched them until we finally got in and danced too.

This past Sunday, they spent all afternoon hiking at Banning State Park. Adam described how he climbed up some “kettles” or vertical holes in the sandstone rock. Cindy told me later, “He was definitely at risk a few times,” which translated into, “I’m glad he didn’t fall.” In other words, he was being 11.

When Adam returned, he asked me if we could go canoeing. Normally after a trip like that, on a Sunday night, I would say no. But I wanted Adam to go canoeing, if he wanted to, so after supper we went to Fox Lake and paddled for two hours. We told stories and sang and watched a mother loon holler at us as she kept her eye on the baby swimming by her side.

In the canoe, I told Adam about trips to the boundary waters; how you can drink the water. I wished we could have done that. It was on our agenda.

And that night, I looked up into the clear night sky, which is something we haven’t seen much this summer with all the rain, and I wanted Adam to see some northern lights.

Maybe next year.

The next time some old timer tells you that kids don’t know how to play anymore, tell me and I’ll give them Adam’s address. He’ll set them straight.

We did show Adam a slice of our world. Adam liked it, and that reminded me about how lucky we are to live where we live.

Our house is going to be empty without him. And that will remind me of how lucky I am to have a nephew like Adam.

Some fish never stop growing ~ July 6, 1989

David Heiller

We did a lot of fishing when I was a kid, growing up on the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota. I have a thousand memories, but one stands out. It’s so old, I only remember remembering it, if you know what I mean.

It was a summer evening, when I was about six. We were fishing off a dock south of Brownsville, in the backwater. The dock was full of us kids. I had a cane pole, of course, and stood at the edge of the black water, which lapped over the old wooden planks and onto our feet. It was that still time of day, with the warm smell of summer evening in the air, a smell kids know, a mixture of fish and water and wet wood and mayflies and warm sunshine.

I remember that smell, and I remember my cane pole just about jumped out of my hand as a fish took the huge bobber under. I pulled up, the black line straining, and suddenly a huge bass lay thrashing on the dock. It shook out the hook, and started flopping toward the water. Glenn, my older brother, stood and gawked for a split second. Then he pounced on the fish like a cat, and clutched it in 15-year-old hands, a lunker large mouth.

It seemed like a lunker to me, anyway. We measured it at 16 inches on the spot. By the time we got home, it was 18 inches long. That’s all the longer Glenn would allow it to grow, and it has stayed there for 29 years. I admired that black bass for years. I used to hold my hands apart 18 inches, and tell myself, “That’s how long it was.” I could see its green back, the black line running down the side, the huge mouth, the red in its eye. It’s been my favorite fish ever since.

Noah's bass

This past weekend, we took a family vacation to a cabin on Pelican Lake, near Orr, Minnesota. As soon as we had unpacked the car, we piled into the boat, and headed for a fishing hole, my son, Noah, my sister-in-law, Nancy, and me.

We pulled up at a narrow channel between two small islands. It looked like a good spot, according to the resort map. “Reef,” it said, showing tiny lines in a circle. Besides, another boat was here too. They must know what they were doing, I thought. That’s a basic rule of fishing: If you don’t know what you’re doing, find someone who looks like they do. One of the guys from their boat was in the water, tugging at the anchor rope. “Anchor’s stuck on the rocks,” he called out as we pulled up 30 feet away.

Noah cast a nightcrawler out from his Mickey Mouse rod and reel, while I bent down to bait my hook. Suddenly there was a splashing. Noah yelled, “I’ve got one, I’ve got one.” His rod, all three feet of it, was doubled over the side of the boat out of sight. It pulled him to his feet.

“Pull it in,” I said, thinking it was a sunny. Then I saw the swirl of a large green back in the water. I gawked for a split second. “Help him, Nancy,” I called. She reached out, grabbed his line, and hoisted the fish into the boat.

“Look at that, Dad,” Noah said. He held up a largemouth bass, about 16 inches in length. It must have weighed a pound and a half, maybe a little more.

Good fishing for Noah, David, and Nancy.

“Nice bass,” the guy in the water called from the nearby boat. It was an honest compliment, but did I detect a touch of jealousy, a wistful tone in his voice? Where had I heard that before? From my brother on the dock south of Brownsville 29 years ago?

The fishing peaked then and there. We caught plenty of sunnies the next two days, plus perch and crappies and smallmouth and rock bass and a two pound northern. But no more largemouth bass like that.

Which was fine with Noah. Because the largemouth began to grow almost as soon as it was filleted and refrigerated. “How big was it, Dad?” he asked that evening as we returned to the hot spot. He held his hands maybe two feet apart. “That big?”

“No, not quite,” I answered, trying not to smile.

“That big?” He moved his hands 18 inches palm-to-palm, but they immediately drifted apart, like opposite poles on a magnet, and the fish grew some more.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, smiling.

And for a split second, I smelled it again, that smell of fish and water and wet wood and mayflies and warm sunshine.

Under the sun and stars ~ December 3, 1992

David Heiller

When the sun and stars finally showed up last weekend, people stretched and smiled and went for walks under blue and sparkly skies. Eight straight days of clouds make you appreciate a bright November day and night a great deal.

I had to work on Friday, the first sunny day. When I got home at 3 p.m., my niece, Sarah, put her hands on her hips and said, “You’re late.” She had the deadly tone of a married woman.

A little Sarah loving.

Then she added, “Let’s go for a walk,” and I was saved, because there’s nothing that heals a nine-year-old’s feelings better than a walk down the road. Yes, nothing better than a walk with a niece you see about twice a year under a sun that you see about twice a month.

I cut up an apple as we walked, a golden delicious that Mom had brought with her. Some people bring a bottle of wine or a bag of pastries when they go calling. In Morocco, you bring a cone of sugar. Mom brings apples, which is good, because a walk wouldn’t be a walk without an apple to eat along the way.

So we ate our apple and waved to our neighbors, Rosie and Dorothy. Their two dogs came out to bark a greeting, and our dog nosed up to them for a quick hello.

I pointed out Binti’s grave in the field. “I planted flowers there but you can’t see them now,” I said. Sarah said she had been going to tease me about Binti, at her brother’s insistence. But the sunshine and the fact that she was holding my hand must have changed her mind. That made me smile.

David with one of our guinea pigs,
Olga de Polga, in his pocket.

And it led to Noah’s raising of a philosophical question: “What five animals would you bring back to life if you could bring five animals back to life?” I ticked four off quickly: Binti and two cats and a three-legged dog from my childhood. Noah rounded off the list with a guinea pig that died last summer.

That got me asking about what five PEOPLE you would bring back to life. I spoke quickly: two grandmas, my dad, and Lynette, my sister. “Lynette first,” I added before I could think.

Noah and Sarah couldn’t add to the list. Oh, to be nine again.

I looked at Sarah and Noah walking together. They are only thirteen days apart in age. Sarah has long dark hair and alabaster skin covered with freckles. She shows her mother’s Scottish blood. Noah is all blond and German and Norwegian.

I glossed over that. I saw how they smiled the same way, and for a second I wished that they were twins.

We passed and waved at Couillards, who were splitting a big pile of wood. Everybody was out enjoying the sunny afternoon. Even the animals. We discovered all kinds of tracks in the snow along the road: rabbit, squirrel, mouse, even a bird that Noah said was an owl. My guess was a grouse, but an owl sounded better, so I let that pass.

We turned into a field that held the remnants of a house and a chicken coop. Sarah crawled into the coop and retrieved a plastic egg. She pried up a rusty pail and an enamel pot with the bottom rusted out. She wanted to keep them.

“What are you going to do with them?” I asked sternly.

Sarah visiting with Queen Ida.

“Put flowers in them,” she said. She had given the one answer that would make me happy, and she knew it. I carried them home for her.

We returned with the sun glowing long and red on the winter horizon. I pointed out the moon, a pale thumbnail setting high in the west. Sarah couldn’t believe that little sliver was the moon. She asked if people could see it by her house in Cottage Grove. I said yes, and that her mom and dad were probably looking at it right now and thinking of her. She smiled at that.

When we got home, Sarah showed Grandma Heiller her treasures. I thought Mom would roll her eyes and sigh and say something like I had said, what most parents would have said.

But grandmas don’t say those things. She admired them and said, “Well, look at that. Isn’t that something?” She told us that the egg was probably placed in the coop to get the chickens to lay more. The long skinny pail had been used for milk, she said. Why yes, she had carried one like that when she was a kid.

Later, after supper was eaten and the kids were in pajamas, I carried Sarah and Mollie outside. I guess it was the last leg of our walk, to see the clear Thanksgiving heavens. The winter sky never disappoints. We were smothered with stars.

“There’s Orion,” I said, gesturing to the east as best I could, holding a kid on each arm.

“And there’s the seven sisters,” Sarah added, pointing straight up. Seven sisters? She had me on that one.

Sarah left the next morning. She forgot her milk pail and rusted pot. My guess is that she won’t even miss them. Next spring I’ll plant flowers in them for her, to help me remember a sunny walk and starry, starry night.