Topic: Cabin in the Woods

[dbackfan]

Cabin in the Woods by Terri

   A few years ago, I drove to southern Indiana to find the house I had lived in as a child.  The Tecumseh Coal Company had long ago gouged the hill and the rocky road I now followed was unfamiliar.   At the top of the hill, crowned by a forest of maples, hickories, and honey locusts, I struggled through the undergrowth of wild polk and blackberry briars looking for
 a landmark.  A clearing drew my attention.  There was the oak tree with a remnant of our tree house, a board hanging lopsided from its perch.  The three-room log cabin was gone.  Was this really the place?
   As I stood in silence in this sunny arena surrounded by the gloom of the forest, trying to remember, I heard the familiar call of a quail coming from the brush.  Bobwhite!  Bobwhite!  Turning my head to locate the bird, I saw the honeysuckles.   I stepped among the leaves and rotted logs and leaned over to smell the pale yellow blossoms.  The fragrance brought back a shower of memories.  I could almost see the house now.
   It was a three-room log cabin shaded and secluded by miles of forest.  On cold nights, while sleet or snow blew against our little house, and the winds howled, my father, the coal-mine dust washed off, read stories to us by kerosene lamp, its black smoke curling up to the ceiling, the flickering light casting shadows that danced on the walls.  My brothers and and I lay stretched out on the bare floor, sharing a bowl of popcorn flavored in bacon grease as our father read tales of Robin Hood, White Fang, or Riders of the Purple Sage.  He sat on a straight-backed chair pulled to the front room from the kitchen where a coal and wood-burning stove sat behind the table and heated the whole house.  The toasty smell of hickory wood tossed among the coals drifted into the living room.
   On summer nights, when the air hung about us sweet with the fragrance of honeysuckles and sassafras, we often sat on the front porch, our legs dangling over the edge, listening to our dad play his guitar and harmonica.  The crickets, frogs, and whippoorwills sing in chorus.  Mom sat on the porch swing with my baby brother, creaking back and forth.
   We all slept in one bedroom, a chamber pot hidden in a corner behind a chest of drawers.  Each morning, Billy and I took turns carrying the porcelain pot to the outhouse behind the strawberry patch.  When it wasn’t our turn, we’d poke fun at the other, holding our noses.
   There were no pictures on the walls and the furniture was sparse:  a kitchen table, six chairs, and a high chair, a stove, a cabinet holding eating and cooking ware, a bucket of drinking water and a basin for washing dishes, one couch and a book case always full of library books, two double beds, a twin bed, and a crib, a chest of drawers, and a wardrobe.   
   Still uncertain if this was really the place, I turned for a last sniff of the honeysuckles.  Through the vines, I saw a red, toy truck, rusted with age.

[Cindy]

I like this story.  It leaves me with the feeling of sweet childhood memories, when family and love were what really mattered 

[dbackfan]

Thanks, Weatherchick.  While childhood may hold much sadness as well, I think it's good to remember the good times (title of a wonderful book by Richard Peck--Remembering the Good Times).