Here is a sketch based on a story that
my Grandmother used to tell about her brother:
The summer that Brother put the
stick of dynamite in the outhouse was the summer that came to be known as “The
Draught 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
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, blending with the noise of the
explosion. The noise 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 on 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 of 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 my sleeve and 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 dress billowing out 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 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.
