MASKINONGE BAY --- 1955
Holiday
Episodes
We
rented a cottage by Maskinonge Bay. It was south of Pine Island. Granny and Mary and I were the
adults. The six children ranged from eighteen months to nine years, and there
was one cat with her three kittens.The
Pontiac car we had was not very large. Mary was the driver. Granny (75 years) and Pat (1-1/2 years) were
in the front seat. I was in the back
seat with Suzanne (7) who held the basket for Sadie, the cat, and the kittens.
Jimmy (5), Paul (3), and Michael (2) were beside me and partly on my knees.
Mary Jane (9) was scrunched in a corner because she was afraid of the cats.
The
floor was packed with groceries in boxes, and clothes in suitcases. There were
also the boy’s toys: plastics rifles and sail boats and a tin aquaplane. Fortunately,
Granny and Pat slept during the trip. When we arrived and opened the car doors, the cats
jumped out and started to chase little chipmunks.
The
cottage was comfortable but it was old with primitive conveniences. It had
walls and roof and kitchen, bedrooms and a living room but it did not have
a bathroom nor a toilet.
There was a small Outhouse built in the woods, with double
holes inside. Paul was
three years old, and was city-trained. He would not enter the Outhouse. He was
crying and he would not let Mary take him to it. Granny called Mary and said:
"Give Paul to me!"
She
held him in an outdoor rocking chair, and told him a story about boys like
himself who would go up the path where kittens and chipmunks played near the
Outhouse, under the trees. Granny kept rocking and
Paul thought for a while, then he stopped crying and took Granny's hand and
said: 'I go." Paul certainly liked it
very well. When Mary and I were indoors getting the supper ready, Paul took his
and Pat's new suede Davy-Crockett-jackets, and dropped them into the hole.
We called Suzanne for help.
We held her upside down by her legs so she got the jackets out of the hole. Mary took the jackets immediately and sank them
in the river, left them there an hour, and then dried them on a laundry-line
under the sun. That was another of the episodes.
There
was the day that Sadie, the cat attacked a skunk. I saw Jimmy run up the hill
to rescue Sadie and he hugged her before I could stop him. Mary took Sadie to
the dock, crooning to her poor cat, and bathing her in tomato juice. I had to
take Jimmy to the bluff and peel him of the clothes, and then
send him to go into the river to wash. I had to bury all his clothes. I had one
murderous thought about Mary's Sadie poor cat! Sadie-poor-cat!
Another evening Patrick crawled under the cottage. There was only about
a foot clearance under the floor. There were no witnesses, we were inside, but
we heard Pat's wails from the plank floor and we traced him under the cottage.
He must have crawled in, then sat up between floor joists, and didn't know how
to crawl out again.Granny called Suzanne and told her to creep toward Pat under the floor
and to keep chocolate-marshmallow-cookies in her hands. Suzanne showed Pat the
cookies and told him to keep his head down near the sand. She kept the cookies
just a little bit in front him, while he wiggled carefully and got out to eat
the cookies.
One other afternoon Mary and I
were enjoying the sunshine Pat seemed to have a long nap, so Mary went into the
room to check him. He must have stood in the bed and reached up to the shelf
and brought down two-pounds of ointment which were always used for burns and
insects bites, or diaper rash. He ate some, and filled his ears with what was
left, and smoothed his hairs in a pastry mess.
Granny was afraid of being attached
by wild animals. In the night she would bolt upright in the bed and announce: "I
hear something!"Usually
it was a squirrel rolling an acorn on the roof, or a chipmunk skittering
around.
One night there was a different
noise. It was hissing. Mary and I met in the living room with a
clash of flashlight beams. "A snake?" whispered Mary. We checked
all the windows. We swung our flashlights in unison to find whatever creature
was there. It was the three kittens who hissed at us from
their strange place for sleeping: behind a wall sheet of loose boards.
Then there were the wasps.
There was a big nest in the tree directly in front of the cottage. Our brave
husbands would not tackle them, neither would we!Whenever we were going to the shore we used the back door and were
careful to go walk right beside the cottage, that let us miss the wasp tree.
One afternoon
everyone was settled quietly in the cottage. The younger children were
sleeping, and the older ones were resting, so I decided to sit on the shore and
enjoy the peace afternoon. Mary Jane was the first to come down to the beach. “What’s that
stuff on your hands?" I said. “I spilled the corn syrup, Mommie. I swiped it up
with towels and washed the floor but it is still a little sticky. Now I am going to swim, and get myself
clean."
Behind the cottage there was a small clearing, reached by an uphill
path. There was a picnic table there and a home-made barbeque pit. Mary and I firmly believed in eating outside
and Mother did not. But neither would she be left alone in the cottage. She had
horror of insects, caterpillars, butterflies, and any other flying objects.
When Mother spent the time outdoor she armed herself with a tea towel, and
flapped it always in front of her face and the children near her.
One memorable noon, we carted
all our food and utensils to the table uphill. All the children sat at the
table, and I started to give the food to them.A big black cloud appeared suddenly from over the island, and the wind
brought the rain immediately. We gathered the children and the food and ran
down to the cottage. We were all wet and brought mud into the cottage. Mothers looking's at us were
blacker than the storm clouds.
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