Shortgrass Song

One Nothing Caleb knew of could best his pocketknife. It was the first thing he had ever owned that he really wanted. Life and quack doctors had granted him plenty he didn't want: measles, mumps, whooping cough, croup, cramp colic, flux, bilious fever. But when he clutched the double-bladed, bone-handled, tempered-steel pocketknife in his little fist, he felt retribution for all his past ills. His mother looked into the door of the dugout. "Caleb, come out and get some sun now," she said. "It will make you better." Better? He had never felt as well in his life. He owned a pocketknife! The boy stepped out of the dugout and watched his mother climb the bank of the creek and disappear over the rim. His house was like a cave, carved into the brink of the dirt bank, its roof of poles and sod level with the vast plains his family had crossed by wagon. He stood and looked at the mountains before he fol lowed his mother. He didn't t know why they couldn't live in the mountains. It would be fun to slide down them. He reckoned it would take him two days to slide down mountains that tall. The scramble up the bank winded him a little. He panted and watched his mother carry her water bucket to the flowers she was trying to grow. She looked like a stick figure lost in a dream of dead grass. He preferred to look at the mountains. Dirt fell into the dugout when the boy jumped on the sod-covered roof. He heard it sprinkle the tabletop inside. He looked over his shoulder to make sure his mother hadn't seen his; she hadn't, so he dropped to the seat of his pants and let his legs dangle over the doorway to his home. He fished out his knife, warm from his right pocket. The midday sun glinted against the brass endpieces. His father had oiled the hinges, and the folding blades swung easily from their slots in the handle. He chose the long one. He didn't really know why the knife had a short bladecouldn't think of anything he would want to stab that slightly. From his left pocket he produced a chunk of kindling wood with a square end. He meant to whittle it into a point that looked like one of the mountains across the creek. Maybe he could give it to his mother and prove to her that he could do something besides lie around sick. The blade sliced easily through the soft pine, and left facets smooth enough to reflect the sun. Caleb turned the blunt stob into a precious gem. He held it at arm's length to check its shape against the mountain. He smiled, then heard the handle of his mother's water bucket rattle behind him. "Caleb," she said, "don't sit on the roof, you'll shake dirt...." The boy's every muscle flexed, snapping his little body into the air. His mother was screaming as if she had a panther in her petticoats. He could grab nothing, his hands busy with the paraphernalia of whittling. He bounced on the roof, pitched forward, saw the threshold below, where he would land. Suddenly his head jerked down and his shirt caught him under the chin. His mother dragged him by the collar, up over the roof edge, and away from the creek bank, screaming. "Ab! Come here! Come here right now!" She pinned Caleb's wrist to the ground and took the pocketknife away. Caleb's father was plowing a short way down the creek. He left his oxen and came running as the boy rubbed his throat and caught his breath. "Ella? What happened?" he said. "Where did Caleb get such a knife?" she asked, shaking the bone handle at her husband. "I gave it to him." "Did you not think it important to ask his mother first?" "The boy's six years old, ElBlakely, Mike is the author of 'Shortgrass Song' with ISBN 9780812530292 and ISBN 0812530292.