Dusty Feet – A Childhood Memory

August made me long for the return of school.  I was bored and ready to go back to jumping rope with my girlfriends; my older brothers were my only playmates during the long summer, and I was tired of being the brunt of their pranks. Yesterday, after they grew bored tying Kenny to the front maple tree and took off his pants so all the world could see his dirty underwear, they headed for me, but I saw what was coming and escaped into the house to help Gram watch the Edge of Night.

 

Today, they had already tied Rudy down on an anthill and put honey on him, blown up several frogs with firecrackers stuffed in places they had no business being, and I was keeping a very low profile.  I had slipped out the back door to go for a quiet walk and had asked Gram not to tell the boys.

 

I was probably eight that summer, which meant my brothers were certainly old enough to know better than to do the mean things they did. The oldest two were well into high school, but I guess living in the country with no one else around just brings out the trouble in the minds. It never seemed to take them very long to find it.

 

I wandered up the dirt road, keeping an alert ear to any indication that my brothers had realized I wasn’t close enough to grab.  It was a hot day and I could smell the sweet scent of freshly cut hay as I walked up to a small field; I waved to my uncle who was working on his old Farm-all tractor, and he waved back, a large wrench in his greasy hand. He wiped his brow with an old stained bandana and put the wrench back to work.

 

I began to slow my pace once I realized that I could no longer hear my brothers, and wished I had thought to bring a jar of water.  Suddenly, I knew where I would go; I had almost forgotten a spot that I had discovered last summer and I longed to go there.  My steps quickened again as I turned down a connecting dirt road, past the goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace and into a shady, much cooler space.  On one side of the road was a swamp, which was almost dry.  It had an odd smell, but not unpleasant.  We’d always been scared of the swamp; as kids we’d been told that the swamp had no bottom and that it would suck you down and you would drown instantly.  I gave it a wide berth as I walked by, both frightened and fascinated by its muddy water and dead cattails.

 

The road led me up a small hill and back into the heat of the sun.  My throat was parched, but I knew the brook was not far away.  The dirt under my feet was so dry that puffs of dust kicked up behind my dirty bare feet as I walked by a corn field.  The corn was as tall as I was, but I wasn’t afraid.  At times, my brothers and I would run through the corn playing hide and seek; somehow I was always the seeker and they were the hiders. Being a little sister, and the only girl, sometimes just plain rotted. I had often wondered what it would be like to be the oldest, or the only, or a boy.

 

I turned down a path that bordered the cornfield and scared a crow off of its perch. Scared me quite a bit too!  I could smell the heat rising off the dirt and the corn and I had to try and keep my bare feet to the patches of cooler grass as I closed in on my destination.

 

And just like that, the air suddenly felt and smelled cooler. I could hear the splashing of the cold brook water as it tumbled over the rocks. I had arrived at my special place!  I quickly found a spot that I could lean down and take a long drink of the icy water and drank sloppily, not caring that my hair had fallen into the water. I put my whole face in and it felt glorious!

 

I sat on my knees and surveyed my surroundings as I took a deep breath. I loved the smell of a brook on a hot summer day, and I was right in my glory.  I washed off my grubby hands and wiped them on my overalls, and then stuck my feet into the water. It was shockingly cold, but a delicious sensation.

 

Lying back, my feet dangling in the water, I listened. A chick-a-dee was calling from a small branch above me and in the distance I could hear a frog, but otherwise, it was silent.  I closed my eyes, leaned my head back and relaxed, taking it all in.

 

I slept for a long time. When I awoke, my feet were blue with cold and the late afternoon shadows told me that it was time to head home before Gram began to worry.  In the fog that always follows a long nap; I decided that this would not be the last time I would escape here this August. I just needed to keep my brothers from discovering my retreat.