Fireworks

The summer that Brother put the stick of dynamite in the outhouse was the summer that came to be known as “The Drought of 1892.” It didn’t rain from May to September and it was so hot that the women left off wearing petticoats under their dresses—even Aunt Marie. I was ten and Brother was twelve and I told him that it was a stupid idea but he told me that I was just a kid and to stop pesterin’ him if I didn’t want to help. I had a proprietorial attitude toward Brother though and didn’t want him to think that I was afraid. He’d get that scornful look on his face that made his eyes darker and puckered up his chin and nose when he was mad at me. So I helped him.

I held the blue stick of dynamite tightly while he wound the specially waxed twine around one end of it. Then he carefully lowered it into the dark deep hole of the outhouse seat until it touched bottom. We trailed the twine twenty feet into the lilac bushes and I crouched down while he lit the match. We watched the smoldering sparks sizzle up the twine, making it look like a snake on fire. Suddenly Brother stood up and ran to the door of the outhouse. I hollered at him. “Wattya doin’?" I knew my voice was screeching.

“Hush. I wanna see what it looks like?”

“But you’ll be blown up!”

“The dynamite ain’t that strong.”

The smoldering sparks kept moving up the twine leaving a limp black tail of burnt dust. I watched with my mouth open as it neared the door. I held my breath. Brother followed it inside and stood over the hole looking down. Then there was a loud boom and I closed my eyes.

All the birds seemed to swoosh up in the air crying and fluttering around at once. The noise of the explosion seemed to go on and on, echoing with the birds’ cries. When it was still I began to smell the most awful stink. It seemed to come  in waves with the heat of the air. I turned around and ran through a gap in the bushes away from the smell. I looked over my shoulder and saw Brother running out the door, covered with brown slime, trying to wipe his eyes and his mouth but only managing to spread the muck around.

“Come on to the pond,” I yelled at him.

In a croaky voice he said that he couldn’t open his eyes so I ran back and grabbed him by the sleeve and raced to the pond in the field beyond the run-in-shed. As soon as I got the gate open he ran down to the edge and dove in, shoes and all. I could still smell the awful stench and, looking down, saw that the muck was all over the side of my dress so I dove in too.
The water was cool and sweet and I was barefoot so I could kick easily and get over to Brother in the middle of the pond.

“Wow! What a stink!”

He was laughing now and we started horsing around. Then we saw Daddy Brown running down the hill toward us. In the distance, with her skirts raised so high that her white knickers showed, Aunt Marie came in a sort of prancing run, lifting her knees up high. Behind her was Bingy, with her muslin dress bellowing so that it looked as if she were flying toward us on an umbrella.

Daddy Brown stood on the edge of the pond with his hands on his hips looking stern and puzzled at the same time. Aunt Marie and Bingy came up and stood on either side of him. “Come out of there this instant!” Aunt Marie’s voice was shrill with a sing-song elongation about the vowels that made the words wrap around our bobbing heads. It was her fiercest voice and signaled the amount of trouble we were in.

“I told you it was a stupid idea.”

Brother ignored me and we paddled toward the bank and our doom.