Did You Ever Get a Grab Bag?

January 12, 1966

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. It's January. Do you like January? Dad says you should like every day. That every day is a gift from the Lord, but somehow January days can feel like grab bag gifts that don't have anything in them but broken crayons. I got a grab bag like that once. It was at the school fall festival when I was a little kid. They had this bunch of brown paper bags in a big box. For a quarter, I got to pick one of the bags. 

I imagined the most wonderful things in those brown paper bags. Perfume that actually smelled good. Or maybe a miniature doll. A set of jacks. The prettiest marbles in the world. Or maybe a gold locket or an ID bracelet. I'd always wanted an ID bracelet with my name engraved on it. I don't know how I thought my name would be on a bracelet in one of those bags, but nothing seemed impossible as I looked at those brown paper bags full of imagined treasures. 

I didn't imagine broken crayons. Judy Wilson's mother was working the grab bag booth when I made my unlucky pick. She said surely the crayons weren't broken when they were put in the bag, but even unbroken, the crayons wouldn't have lived up to my expectations. I looked at the crayons and burst out in tears. It was so embarrassing, but you've got to remember that I was just a little kid then. Only six.  

Mrs. Wilson wanted to let me pick another sack, but Aunt Love said no. Said I should be happy with whatever prize I got and it would be a good lesson to teach me not to let my imagination get carried away. 

I thought Mrs. Wilson was going to cry with me then, but what could she say with Aunt Love so determined to teach me a lesson about not getting my hopes up so high? Mrs. Wilson knew about my mother going off and deserting me and I guess she thought that was enough lesson about how things can go wrong. 

She didn't give me another bag, but she did take my hand and walk me over to a different game. One where you picked up ducks out of a tub of water. I was much luckier with that draw. Mrs. Wilson looked at the number on the bottom of the duck and dropped it back in the water without me seeing what the number was. She said it was for the best prize there. A necklace with a glass heart that sparkled in the light. I don't know if she cheated on the number or not, but I did know that I'd been given a gift of kindness. Even then when I was just a little kid. 

Have you ever been given a gift of kindness like that? After you got a grab bag of bad luck?

Are you ready for the next part of Bailey's story? Well, here goes.

Bailey's Bug by Jocie Brooke
  (Continued from last week. The whole story is under the Bailey's Bug link up top.)

Chapter 10

   The country went on and on. During the day, they walked until their feet hurt, then napped in the sun. At night, they stopped wherever Lucinda found a tree with good limbs for sleeping because the coyotes made her nervous.
   Bailey was used to the coyotes' howling now and to the owls that hooted and screeched. Once he quit jumping at shadows and got used to the woods being a noisy place, he slept almost as good out in the open as he had on his rug back at the Robinsons' house.
   When a noise did wake him, he blinked open his eyes, sniffed the air and tried to sort out what made the noise. They had been in the woods a couple of nights when Bailey decided  silence was the noise to worry about the most. As long as the frogs and bugs kept singing, everything was the way it was supposed to be. When they fell silent, that's when Bailey got up, a growl deep in his throat, just in case something was out there in the dark.
   The daytime held dangers too, both in the woods and in the wide open fields where what Lucinda called cows ate grass. Lucinda made them walk wide circles around the big clumsy looking animals. 
   One day when they forgot to listen to Lucinda and walked too close to the cows, one of them lowered its head and ran at them faster than Bailey thought possible. He skittered out of the way, but Skelley wasn't quick enough. The cow gave the old dog a good toss.
   Bailey barked at the cow who shook its head at him and went back to eating grass. 
   When Skelley caught his breath, he stood up and shook his skin back in place over his bones. "I'll take an elephant any day. Ye can reason with an elephant."
   "I told you to stay away from them," Lucinda said. 
   "It appears you were right about that, Miss Lucinda." Skelley looked around. "Do ye see where my baton might have landed?"
   "I'll find it." Lucinda was off before the dogs could stop her.
   Bailey and Skelley inched along behind her, ready to charge to Lucinda's rescue, but the cows paid no attention to the cat. She found the stick and dropped it at Skelley's feet.
   "I do thank ye, Miss Lucinda. I wouldn't be wanting to go on without me master's baton." He ran his nose up and down the stick to make sure it hadn't been damaged by the cow.
   "I don't know why any of us are going on." Lucinda sounded cross. "We've gone miles and miles and what have we found? Cows and coyotes. Dirt and thorns." She licked one of her sore feet.
   She stopped and stared off across the field. Somehow Bailey knew she was thinking about cushions in windows.
   He wanted to tell her they were close, but he didn't know whether that was true or not. The hum in his ear was steady, always in his head except when thunder boomed above them and crowded out everything but the need to find a place to hide until the storm blew past. 
   Bailey wanted Reid to be close. Each hill they came to, he hoped Reid's new house would be just on the other side. But then there would be another hill. He looked across the field to where the trees met the sky. "Do you think we're in another state yet?" 
   "I wouldn't be doubting it," Skelley said. "The states, they just run one right into another, and I never knew how me master could tell when we were in a new one, but he always knew."
   "Then we're probably almost there." Bailey tried to sound as sure as he could.
   But Lucinda knew him too well. "You don't know where we are. We're probably going in circles."
   "He's not doing that." Skelley took up for Bailey. "We've been heading toward the sunrise every day. Never the sunset. We're keeping a straight line, for a truth."

(To be continued)

Ever been to a Fall Festival?

September 23, 1965

Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. The first day of fall is here. Football games and Fall Festivals. Have you ever been to a chili supper and fall festival at a school? I used to love to go when I was a kid, but now that I'm fourteen going on fifteen, they aren't as fun as they used to be. But I still have to go. Dad and I both do. We have to take pictures for the paper. Dad says he doesn't believe he's ever been anywhere noisier than a fall festival. Especially when they have those clicker things for prizes. You know what I mean. Pieces of metal that you pinch and make a click sound. I loved getting them as prizes when I was in grade school. I still like them. I got two last weekend, but Dad told me I'd better not click them when I was in the car with him. Funny how noisemakers don't bother you when you're the one making the noise but drive you crazy when it's somebody else making the noise. 

What's your favorite thing at a fall festival? Dad likes the cake walk, but then if you win, you're stuck with a cake you have to carry around. The duck pond is fun because everybody gets a prize there. More tin clackers or sometimes whistles. Dad says they are even worse and looks like teachers and parents would know to get prizes that weren't so noisy. Then you can throw bean bags at a target. I never won those, but I used to try all the games, even dunking for apples. A person could drown trying to bite an apple in a tub of water! 

What fall festival games did you like? 

And now for more from Bailey and Lucinda. 
 
BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
(continued from last post. Read it all in the Bailey's Bug link at the top of this report.) 

Bailey is still on the road with Lucinda. In today's chapter, they meet a new friend. 

 In the morning, Bailey’s stomach growling woke him up, but he lay still. Lucinda’s eyes were shut. She might not be ready to wake up. Bailey’s left ear began to itch and little pins were sticking in his feet. Worse, he needed to find a bush. He was going to have to move and chance Lucinda’s temper.

A loud clang brought Bailey to his feet. Lucinda’s eyes flew open wide and she backed up against the fence and hissed. “See what it is.”

Bailey peeked around the corner of the trash bin. Nothing there. No people. No anything. A clang above his head made him jump again. Bailey looked up to see the skinniest dog ever, balancing on the edge of the bin opening. Bones looked like they were trying to break free of his skin.

The stranger pulled his head out of the trash bin to look down at Bailey. “And who might you be?” The words were muffled by the piece of bread in the dog's mouth.

“Bailey.” Bailey thought about barking really loud to see if that might make the other dog drop the bread, but that would be rude. Better to just stand there and let the saliva dribble out of the corners of his mouth. “How do you do that?”

The bread disappeared in the dog’s mouth. “What’s that, me lad?” he asked when his mouth was free once more.

“Stay there on the edge without falling in. I couldn’t even make it up to the opening last night.”

“Practice it takes, me lad. Many years of practice and a good bit more need of food than you’re showing.” The dog looked down at Bailey with dark eyes that laughed. Bailey didn’t mind. It was a nice kind of laughing.

Bailey’s tail tapped against the bin. “Maybe so, but I'm still hungry. Could you show me how to get something to eat from the bin too?” Bailey tried to sound respectful. ”When you're finished yourself, of course.”

The old dog laughed. “I fear this is a trick you could never learn, Bailey me lad. Not even with much practice.” The dog glanced back into the bin. “But it appears there’s a bounty of scraps this day. So I’d be honored to share vittles with the likes of you.”

The dog’s head disappeared back in the bin and then tossed out a few bits of bread with some meat still stuck to it.

“Be that enough, me lad?” The dog peered down at Bailey through his legs and tottered so that Bailey was sure the old fellow would fall in the bin or off it at any minute.

Bailey look at the bread. “Is there any milk in there?”

“Milk?” the dog said. “You are a particular beggar, for a truth. But let me give it a look see. If it’s on top I might be able to grab it.”

He slung out a few more scraps and then, with a yelp of discovery, jumped down to the ground to place a milk carton at Bailey’s feet. “There you go, lad. Enough milk for a bit of a sup, I should think.”

“Thank you.” Bailey wagged his tail. “Do you have a name?”

“Skelley, at your service, I’m sure.” The dog dropped down in a kind of bow that made Bailey forget how bony and old the dog looked.

“Skelley. So glad to meet you and thank you so much for the food. I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”

Skelley laughed and picked up one of the crusts. He rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing as though to get every bit of enjoyment from it. “No doubt the longest your stomach’s ever been deprived from the looks of you. Aren’t you going to drink that milk you wanted?”

Bailey looked at the milk and then blurted out. “What about cats? Do you like them?”

“Cats? Interesting questions so early in the morning. Especially for one who seemed so anxious to eat.”

“But I need to know what you think about cats?”

“Ah, cats.” The old dog sat back on his haunches. “Are we talking Siamese? Alley tomcats? Brindled cats? I knew a gray cat once, a jolly cat he was. Then, of course, there was Josephine who rode on me back in the circus ring.”

Bailey wasn’t sure what a circus ring was. He decided to ask exactly what he needed to know. “You’ve never chased them up trees or anything like that?”

“Aye, some perhaps when I was a mere snip of a pup. But the years have taught me cats always get to the tree first and then sit smugly up in the branches while you run circles down below looking the foolish one of the two.” Skelley’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Surely you don’t want to be off chasing cats before you have your bit of food.”

“Oh no. I don’t chase cats at all. It’s just I have this friend. Lucinda.” Bailey tried to think of the best words to tell Skelley about Lucinda.

Lucinda didn’t wait for him to say anything else. She came out from behind the bin. “You don’t need to third degree our new friend after he was kind enough to get us food.” Lucinda was practically purring as she looked at Skelley. “I thank you for the milk, sir.”

Bailey nudged the carton over to her. Skelley’s eyes looked bigger than ever in his bony face as he watched Lucinda tip over the carton to lap up its contents.

Then he lifted his lips in a dog smile. “I had the feeling this would be a banner day. The sky was promising sunshine. The cars were few and far between. The bin was stuffed so full the lid stood open. Now here the two of you are with a story to tell or I miss my bet.” Skelley picked up another bit of food. “But eat up, Bailey lad. The story can wait.”

He didn’t have to tell Bailey twice.

(To be continued.)