Tilling Fiends
By the time the morning had expired, October had finally come. Cold and colder.
Mom, Rose, Frances, and Linnea had arrived shortly after eight to rent a tiller to plant the flower bulbs before the rain came. Once the fuel had been switched on, as had the On button and the choke, Frances was in heaven. Somehow, the entire yard managed to remain untilled. Only the front of the house by the porch was unearthed.
“Stand back, my turn,” Rose bellowed, emerging from the house where she had been chucking back a platter of buttered toast.
“No!” Frances protested.
He was fully enjoying the experiencing of plowing up the yard.
“Away!” Rose commanded, and took over pilot-ship. “Whoa!”
And away went Rose.
Fortunately she missed anything directly in her path other than the lawn. And somehow, between the two of them, the bed was tilled. Roots were chopped. Things were brought to the surface that might not have seen light for several years.
“Watch us find a body here,” Collette said, as she and Mom shipped bags of unrooted grass to the back yard.
Sure enough, a jawbone was uncovered later. It appeared to be a jawbone. Not necessarily human. But bone nonetheless.
Inside, Puck chewed on his stuffed pig and rolled around the floor next to his Aunt Linnea who had already raided the freezer for chocolate ice cream.
After the tilling had been successfully accomplished, they loaded the tiller in the big green slug and headed back to the house for the second till job before the rain came. It hung in dark folds in the west. The color collage already grew over the lake, all oranges, reds, yellows, and golds.
The cold bite blew in as they tilled the back yard. Carrie was also eager for her turn and helped Frances turn up the soil while she was grandly dressed in plaid pajama pants, a South American pull-over, and bike gloves.
She was soon finished in order to be ready for Elizabeth’s arrival. Their plane departed in 24 hours, and they still had shops to shop, highlights to highlight, and other things in the cold gray and wild winds. They would not be back until November.
Inside, the lamps glowed softly. Candy pumpkins sat in the dish. The kids bundled up in blankets around their lessons while Puck napped warmly and soundly in the other room.
Frances was up to the usual things: dipping the handle of a spoon in candle wax before pouring an afternoon snack bowl of Lucky Charms.
‘We should have National Puck Day,” he was saying, as Joe made Puck giggle in his bouncy. “Then when he’s old enough he can go up and make speeches about his day.”