Rumblings and Grumblings

[7:10am] Baby Lonnie’s birthday that day; but he was no longer a baby. Seven! How had the time passed so very quickly?

Ah, a day of magnificently mysterious storms – woodland lights, mosses and green grasses, mushrooms and emerald green glades, fireflies, and winds in the heights of the deep blue towers. Collette could rarely get enough of such astonishing stormings and was more than pleased with the current results of the spring weather that year.

Meanwhile, the black wasp sting to which Collette had succumbed at Klondike Park the summer before, was acting up oddly. The scar was still a small perfect circle on her left arm, and an area surrounding it was quite sensitive to the touch, the lingering poison having damaged her nerves, perhaps.

Rose’s latest creation that morning was singing to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers to the following lyrics:

“Onward, Rose’s army,
Marching as to war,
With a bunch of itch mites,
Marching on before.”

Later, as the rain came a tumblin’ down, Mom made chicken salad as a fantastic boom! of thunder crashed through the yard. And Carrie managed once again to sabotage her hair, turning the crown a golden crop of bronze-wheat color. She did, however, more successfully dye Collette’s hair a darker brown. Meanwhile, while Collette gave class assignments to Joe and Rose, she read more of the book on Mary Lincoln which Grandma Combs had lent her. One letter the old Antebellum maid had written, gave a list of things she intended to pawn after President Lincoln’s death, from diamonds rings, shawl pins, and onyx earrings, to silver gilt coffee spoons, enameled sleeve buttons, nut picks and 2 sets of ice cream spoons… interesting and vain woman she was.

Back to thoughts from Michigan – during the wonderful stay in the second location on the shore with the wind and the tree groves and the thicker forests behind, the island lay across the way. And once they had survived the trip over in the boat, they had arrived – Mackinac Island – that was a place of near enchantment. Vehicles were not allowed on the island, nor rollerblades on the sidewalks. Bikes and carriages were modes of transportation, however, and the whole island was full of paths, walks, greens, glades, and old shops and great Victorian houses. The Grand Hotel was there as well (once the movie set of Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve), all sparkling white and golden-yellow in the sun, sparkling coves where the waters lapped the beaches. They swung on the swings there below a great forest-covered cliff. Collette ran ahead up the path and found a beautiful lookout near a stone fort, and watched, amazed, at the beauty of the lake below and the forests, paths, and autumn branches.