The House

By Dawn Natelle

Nine Chapters in just over a week. I feel like Angharad when she was churning out a chapter a day. Now I just have to finish 3200 more to catch up. I wonder if Ang could check to see if there are any Dormouses (Dormice?) in Ontario: Dawn.

Chapter 8 – Moving days

The next morning Grey was up early, while Sun slept in after having trouble getting to sleep after the excitement of the truck. When she did get up, she saw that he had taken down much of the lodge, and the wigwam he slept in. It was all piled on the bank of the river, where the canoe was fastened to a post in the water.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Where is the lodge, and your wigwam?”

“The lodge is mostly there,” He pointed to a pile of saplings and birch bark. I have already taken the wigwam across the river. We might as well make use of the canoe while we can.”

“But why?”

“I realized walking home that it would be stupid to keep living here. You would have to walk all the way down to the road, then all the way back up the lane to work on your truck. It would take an hour, and another hour at the end of the day. We have no need to be on this side of the river … at least until Daria comes back, and by then we can walk across on the ice.”

“So we just move? What if I don’t want to move?”

“Well, we could stay if you want. The lodge will go back up pretty quickly. I’d leave the wigwam over there anyway. I want to have a base for working on the trees in the grove. But if you want to stay …” he said.

“No moving makes sense. I just would have been nice if you talked to me about it before you made up our minds.”

“Sorry. I was thinking about it as we walked home, but you were so amped up about the truck I didn’t want to throw something else at you. I made up my mind before I fell asleep. I was going to tell you first thing in the morning, but that was nearly three hours ago.”

Sun sulked a bit as she chewed on a jerky for breakfast, but soon got excited about the move. Grey was in the canoe for most of the trips, which were a triangle due to the fast moving current. The canoe went across at an angle downriver, and then came back empty on another angle. Then the two towed the empty canoe back up along the bank to where they started, and loaded for another trip.

Eventually they had most of the tools and disassembled buildings on the far bank, and Sun would go across with Grey on a last trip. “Wait a second,” Grey said, and ran back and lifted a stone from the ground. He picked something up, and brought it to Sun in the canoe.

“It’s Earl’s wallet,” she said. “What do I want with this?”

“Well, there is over $60 in there that you can spend on your truck. But mostly it is for your driver’s license, or at least Earl’s. You will need a license with the truck. Eventually we will figure out how to change that one for the real you. I admit it will be a bit embarrassing to use that one, but it will save you having to go to the trouble of taking the tests all again like I will before I get a license. I am over 16 now, but I think lack of ID papers will be a barrier to me getting one. At least one of us needs to drive.”

“Do you know how?” Sun asked.

“Not really. I started this when I was 16, and my family had planned to have me learn during summer break. That never happened, of course. Maybe you can teach me?”

“In my beautiful truck? I don’t know. If you keep making man-mistakes like you did about the move I might not,” Sun chided.

They got into the canoe, and with both paddling, they made it across on a lesser slant, landing a dozen yards upstream of the prior trips Grey had made. He jumped out and took the remaining supplies, and turned to watch Sun pick up the canoe from the end and carry it onto the bank. “We don’t want to scratch it,” she said. “Frank would have to sell it as used.”

They left the goods where they had been dropped. Sun went to her truck, to unlock it and make sure it was still okay. Grey walked across the grove following the direction that Miss Ridgemark had described as being to the spring. He came across a stream near the end of the planted trees, and followed it to its source, a spring slightly larger than the one on the other side of the river. They probably came from the same aquifer, he realized. There was a good clearing for a campsite about 50 feet from the spring.

When he got back he found that Sun had piled a lot of the lodge onto the little sled she had built in the winter. It didn’t work as well on the summer grass, but it could be moved with some effort. “Pick up those saplings, and follow me,” she said, wrestling the sled to the south.

“But the campsite will be over there, almost a half mile from here,” Grey said, pointing towards the spring.

“We can put the wigwams over there,” Sun said. “But this time I made the decision, and the lodge will go up next to the truck. I need a workspace.”

Grey sighed and followed his burly sister. When they got there they worked out a decision. Grey would only work on erecting the lodge if Sun would agree to work on the wigwams and other elements of the camp after, and not start working on her truck immediately. She was hesitant, but finally agreed with him that it made sense, as much as she wanted to get to work pulling the truck apart.

While it had taken Grey a week to erect the lodge initially, there was less work now, since all the components were there and ready. And with two working, one of whom was taller than the lodge, they finished late in the evening. They decided to spend the night there, and set up a camp, making a feast of the last of the venison and a pot of beans. They were both famished, having only had jerky for lunch, and crawled into opposite ends of the lodge to sleep.

The next day they both worked at setting up the camp. Grey started to dig the latrine, and after watching him for a minute Sun took over, and was four times faster with the spade. Grey erected the two wigwams first, and then started to cut saplings for a third, larger cook-wigwam to replace the lodge. It was large enough for the two of them to sleep together, when February came again. Many of the really cold nights last winter had the two spooned together platonically for warmth.

There was no need to make a cold storage pit until fall, so there was no digging required after the latrine was up. Sun erected that building, but replaced the birch bark walls with deerskin ‘for privacy’.

The following day Sun headed to her truck, and Grey headed into the bush south of the grove to harvest some spruce. He wanted to turn the trees into lumber to repair the house. He had already felled one tree.

It was a shriek from Sun that attracted his attention. He ran towards the sound, and for a second had trouble seeing her. She was on her hands and knees.

“It is a skull. A human skull I think,” she said as she brushed dirt away from a bone.

«Yes,» Red Oak confirmed. «That is the skull of Lone Goose, the last member of the tribe that cared for these trees. He must have died out here in the middle of the grove. I don’t know if animals killed him, or if it was just old age, but animals did come clean the carcass. The bones have been scattered, and many were broken to get at the marrow inside.»

“That is horrible,” Sun said. “We must bury him.”

«A proper Ojibwe burial would honor him,» Mimiha added. «A warrior can never rest fully until he has been given the last rituals, unless he dies in battle.»

“But he died 40 or 50 years ago, according to Miss Ridgemark,” Grey said. “We definitely need to bury him.”

«To do so will be a four day ceremony,» Mimiha said. «That is usually from the time of death, but it his case it will be from the time the first bone was found. Where shall we lay him out?»

“He spent his entire life tending the grove,” Sun said. “It should be somewhere near the center of the grove.”

«That would be ideal,» Red Oak said. «But first we must find as many bones as possible, and place them into position.

For the next six hours the two scoured the area, with Red Oak directing Grey, and Mimiha directing Sunflower. They found just over half a skeleton, many times having to dig a half foot down from where the spirits said a bone was located, only to find a small finger or toe. The spirits could identify each bone and it was placed on a deerskin in proper position.

It was getting near dusk when they heard Dan’s truck. “Flint told me what you found,” he said as he got out. “I brought some supplies too. Flint said you need to have a feast each night for four nights.”

“Since we have your truck here, do you think we could invite Miss Ridgemark out here?” Grey asked as he folded the skin over the skeleton like an envelope. “I think she is the only one around who knew the man.”

The three rode back to the house, and found the old lady on the porch. It was past her suppertime, but she said she hadn’t eaten. She offered to cook for her visitors though.

“No, I’m afraid we have some bad news,” Sun said. “We came across some bones in the grove. We are pretty sure they are the First Nation’s man you met when you were a young girl.”

“Lone Goose?” Daisy said. “I guess it must have happened, but it is still a shock. It always is when you lose someone you knew. It happens too often at my age. Did he die well?”

“We don’t know,” Grey said. “But the bones were scattered, probably by animals. We want to have an Ojibwe ceremony to send him off. Would you like to come? There will be feasts for four nights, but even if you only want to come to one it would honor him.”

“I will come to all four, if Dan will drive me. I can’t walk far anymore.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Dan said. “It is as if he was part of my band.”

They drove back to the bones, with Grey riding in the bed of the truck. When they stopped, Daisy took about four steps before Sun scooped her up and carried her to the camp claiming that she ‘weighed nothing’ to the delight of the old woman, who was pleased that she had not put on weight like so many of her contemporaries had.

Dan and Grey each took one end of the deerskin and carefully and respectfully carried it to the camp. Mimiha said that the camp was where the first three feasts should be, and a last smaller one would be at the burial site, after the hole was filled in. She stressed the importance of aligning the body east to west.

«We need to make it so when his friends come to accompany him to the Sacred Hunting Grounds in the West, he will see them coming, and not get lost going west,» she said.

They had a somber feast, with Dan, Grey and Sun singing funeral songs in Ojibwe as Daisy hummed along. Finally Dan and Daisy headed back to the house while the other two held a vigil until the moon was high. Then they went to bed.

The following three days were somber. Mimiha said they were allowed to work, but only if they were quiet about it. Luckily Grey had felled a large pine the day before the body was found, and merely had to trim the branches and begin splitting the wood.

He cut the tree into nine-foot sections with his axe, and then with the help of Red Oak found the best way to spit the wood lengthwise. He used his hatchet reversed as a hammer, and placed wedges into the places the spirit pointed to. Driving the wedges into the wood split it, and with Red Oak’s skill he was able to come up with either 1x6 or 2x4 boards that were the full nine feet long.

Sun worked on cleaning her new tools, feeling it was disrespectful to be tearing apart the truck while the ceremonies were underway. She finished late on the last day, and wandered back to the camp. She got a shovel and started to dig in the middle of the grove: a hole six feet long, two wide, and six feet deep.

Each night Dan had brought Daisy out to the feast, which followed the pattern of the first night. On this night Sun carried Daisy to the burial spot, almost in the middle of the grove. She set her down, and they stood somberly while Dan and Grey brought the deerskin to the grave, and slowly lowered it deep in the earth. Grey then added a bow, three arrows, and a cedar shield into the grave. A portion of the night’s feast was also added, and one of the canteens full of water. These items would allow the warrior to make his trip west.

Grey thought that some words were necessary at such a time so he stood and started to speak. “Lone Goose, we return you to your people. You spent many years in this grove, tending it. And for a long time it has been untended. Let it be known that now, and into the future, my sister Sunflower and I will take up your work and tend your trees. I only hope that we can do justice to the work you spent so much time on. I call your old friend, Daisy Ridgemark to cast the first earth.”

Daisy stood up and took the tool, but only gathered a quarter of a spade of earth, and cast it onto the bones. “Goose, my friend, when I was young you always had time to talk to me, and teach me about your world. I hope that you are finally released to your reward. You deserve it.”

Dan went next. “I am not of your band, but after the past four nights I feel that I am a part of a new band, an extension of your old band. If Sun and Grey will have me, I shall be a part of their band.” He shoveled in ten full spades of earth.

Sun went last. “From this day forth we name this Lone Goose Grove. Your spirit will always be welcome here.” She started refilling the hole she had dug out just hours before. She went faster and faster and finally Grey had to grab her arm so the she would give him a turn. After a few spades full, he thought he had finished the hole, but when he stopped she grabbed the shovel again and added a dozen more, until there was a slight mound over the grave, which was aligned perfectly towards the west.

The four remaining ate a somber meal, until midway through, when Dan, Sun and Grey all heard a new voice in their heads.

«I thank you all. I am Lone Goose, and I have wandered aimlessly among these trees since I fell. Now I see my father, and two uncles walked towards me to take me to the Sacred Hunting Ground. You have honored me, and that honors you. I go now. May peace and happy hunting follow you for the rest of your lives.»

“We just heard from Lone Goose,” Sun told Daisy. “He is pleased to be honored, and has passed on to join his relatives.” Daisy had a tear in her eye, and Sun had many. Even the men had to wipe their eyes on their sleeves.

“Please. Could you all come with me to my house?” Daisy begged. "I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Sun and Grey gathered up their bedrolls, and Daisy promised to have blankets for Dan. Thus Sun and Grey spent their first night in the old house, comforting an old lady.

Chapter 9 – Lightning Strikes

After the burial, Sun and Grey fell into a routine for about six weeks. Every morning they were up with the sun. Sun went to the lodge, and worked at tearing the old truck apart. She tried hard to fix the old parts, but in many cases could not, so she became a regular customer at the two auto parts stores in Peterborough. NAPA had most of what she wanted, and at a cheaper price, but a local store would source old parts for her over the Internet, sometimes getting new-old parts from across North America.

As a result, Sun went to the store at least once every day to see if a new part had been delivered on the bus. She was no longer concerned about people staring at her. She was now confident in her beauty, and wore her buckskins to the store where riders often pointed at ‘the giant squaw’ or the ‘huge Indian maiden.’ People from the area got used to her, and seldom gave a second glance when they saw her: many actually smiled and spoke to her like any other village resident.

Grey spent his mornings chopping wood, usually from sunup till noon. He would then take the sled, which he had converted into a wheelbarrow, full of wood to the house. He spent the morning visiting Daisy and helping her make a lunch for the three of them. In the afternoon, Sun went back to her truck, Daisy had a nap, and Grey would work on his wood. He had cut rough boards and planks out of the tree, but once he got the wood to the house, he had to trim it to fit. A 2x4 is not actually two inches by four inches, but a half-inch less in each direction. He had to plane the new wood down to fit, and make it match the bad or broken board exactly.

Around three Sun would come to the house, and Daisy would give her cooking lessons, making the dinner the three of them would eat. Grey or Sun continued to hunt deer to augment their diet, but now that they could keep food cold or frozen in Daisy’s kitchen, there was no need to make jerky.

In the evening one would work, while the other kept Daisy company until the sun was setting. Then they headed back to their camp. During this time they became familiar with the house.

It was huge for a single house, with over 3,000 square feet on the three floors (the basement even had an eight-foot clearance, like the second story. The ceilings on the ground floor were 10 feet high.) The plan for the house was simple. There was a five-foot wide hall around the entire floor, 20 feet in from the outside. This left a 40 foot by 70 foot space in the middle. On the ground floor it was 40 by 95, since there was no hall at the front. This was a traditional great room on the ground floor. On the second floor it designed as a playroom for the children that had never come to the house.

There were up to seven families in the house at different times, but none of Daisy’s seven brothers ever had children. In spite of her father being so prolific, something genetic prevented his sons from being fertile. That was one reason Daisy never married: she was asked when she was 24, but eventually declined. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might have children while her seven sisters-in-law were deprived of them.

The walls along the sides on the ground floor were of varying widths, with the smallest only 12 feet wide. This made roomy 20x12 bedrooms, and other rooms were 15 feet wide. The back of the house had a huge kitchen that spanned the entire width of the house, other than stairways and pantries. This beautiful kitchen space was now unused with only one person in the big house.

Daisy lived in three rooms. She had one room at the back as a smaller kitchen, the next room was her living room, and finally there was her bedroom. Across the hall was a washroom, which included a full bath that Sun and Grey already were making good use of. The house did not have hot water at first: there were four water heaters in the basement, but none worked. Daisy would heat water on her stove for her bath, but the others used it cold: they were used to bathing in the near freezing water (even in summer) of the stream. There were cheers all around when Sun managed to cobble together parts from the four old heaters to get one that worked, allowing hot baths and showers.

The basement of the house did not have the same arrangement. On the west side, there was an area with the furnace and other utility spaces, but most of the room was a huge open space that was 50x90 feet. One wall was mirrored: Until 1995 Daisy had taught ballet and other dance classes here.

First Grey got the three sets of steps onto the veranda repaired and safe, and then he finished half of the porch decking at the front of the house, so one could safely get from the east steps to the west.

Sun had her truck running in early September. She still needed to work on the starter, but with some clever use of screwdrivers, she was able to get the engine purring.

That night a thunderstorm rolled through at 10. Sun and Grey had watched the ugly looking clouds rolling in as they walked home from dinner with Daisy, and just made it to the large wigwam before the rain started to fall. They could see lightning to the west, and hear thunder getting closer and closer.

They huddled together in the large wigwam, wondering if they would be able to get to their sleeping wigwams without getting soaked. Suddenly there was a huge boom, and the ground shook.

“That was close,” Sun said.

“Yes. I think I just lost a tree,” Grey replied.

“Look over to the road. I see a red glow. Isn’t that near the house?”

Grey looked, and his heart sank. “That is the house. It is on fire!”

“Oh no! Daisy!” Sun cried. Both of them stood and immediately tore out of the shelter, with no concerns about getting wet. They just needed to get to their friend, and her house.

They ran full tilt, with Mimiha and Red Oak directing their footsteps. As they were on one step the spirit would call out ‘short’ or ‘long’, allowing the two to run full tilt in the dark without stumbling as they missed any possible roots or other impediments on the path.

As they got close, they could see that the fire was not bad, having been beaten down by the intense rain. “I will deal with the fire,” Grey said. “You look after Daisy.”

Most of the fire on the outside of the building was out, but the balcony was gone, and much of the upstairs rooms. The two downstairs rooms were a charred mess, and small blazes flamed here and there. With the old wood in the building, any one of those flareups could turn the building into a conflagration.

Grey took his deerskin coat and started beating down the flames. After a while he saw Dan beside him doing the same. “Go upstairs,” Grey ordered. “There might be flames up there. And go slowly. Those stairs are not safe.”

Dan was back five minutes later as Grey looked around at the largely extinguished fire. He was now just kicking burnt wood, trying to ensure that there were no embers inside the blackened wood. If there were, he would kick the wood outside, where the rain would quickly eliminate any hot spots.

“It was pretty good up there,” Dan said. “Just two or three hot spots. The roof is pretty much gone up there, and the rain kept the fire down. The floor of that room kept the rain out of a lot of this room, so you had more work.”

“I think it is done now,” Grey said, breathing heavily. “We should check back every five or ten minutes just to make sure. Let’s go see Sun and Daisy.”

They found the women sitting on the couch. Sun was holding Daisy in her lap as if the old woman was a child, rocking her back and forth.

“Do we need to leave?” Sun asked as Daisy wept. She was ready to pick the woman up and run with a second’s notice.

“No, we have it out,” Grey said, Dan nodding. “There are two rooms at the back that are burned up pretty bad, but the rain put most of it out. If it had been a dry lightning strike, we’d all be watching the biggest bonfire ever right now.”

“Oh my house, my beautiful house,” Daisy moaned. “Is it ruined? Will I have to move? I’ve lived here my whole life. I want to die here … just not so soon.”

“No, I can fix it,” Grey said. “I will fix it. The north steps and the rest of the porch can wait. I will start closing those rooms in tomorrow.”

“Unless Daisy had insurance,” Dan said. “Did you dear? We will have to wait for the insurance agent to see it.”

“I can’t figure out why it hit there,” Grey said. “There are lightening rods on each corner of the house, and one in the center of each side. The rod in that corner must have been bad. I’ll check all the others tomorrow.”

“Will you all stay with me tonight,” Daisy begged. She looked at Dan. “Not you. Your mother will be worried about you. But if you other two stay I will feel so much better.”

“Of course we will stay,” Sun said. “We will spend the night tonight, and every night until you tell us to leave.”

“That will never happen dear,” Daisy said. “Perhaps Grey will look around and find a couple rooms you can live in. But until he does you will stay in my rooms. The kitchen and living room will be open to you.”

Dan left, and the others stayed up for several hours. They calmed Daisy down, and Grey went to go check the burnt out rooms several times. Finally Sun announced that Daisy needed to sleep, and took her into her room, climbing into bed to cuddle with her for the night. Grey slept on the couch, with Flint waking him several times during the night to check on the fire area. The spirit said the boy could sleep, and he would alert him if there were a problem, but Grey insisted on being awakened every two hours.

Dan had taken Daisy’s insurance papers and called the agent early in the morning, and then arrived at the house before she got there. He was able to join in with the other three for a breakfast. Grey couldn’t remember having eggs for breakfast, and bacon. They had just finished when they heard a car on the drive.

“You stay here with Sun,” Grey said told Daisy. “Dan and I will get started with the agent.”

There was an appraiser with the agent, so she went inside to join the women while he surveyed the damage.

“Wow,” was the first thing he said. “How did the whole place not go up in smoke?”

“Manidoo was with us,” Grey said. “She poured a pretty heavy rain on the place.”

“Yes, lucky,” the appraiser said. “He went up on the newly repaired steps, and Grey had to warn him that he was going on some unsafe planks as he neared the burned out area.”

“You know I can’t cover this work,” the man said. “Only the area where the fire was, and 10 feet on either side. We insure against fire, not neglect.”

“Of course,” Grey said. The man look surprised, as if he was expecting an argument.

The man measured, then calculated on his laptop, and finally came to the conclusion that the damage would cost $40,000 to repair. “You will need to get three bids from contractors. Send them in and we will allow you to choose between the lower two.”

“What if I want to do the work myself?” Grey said.

“Yourself?” the man said. “That would be allowed. We will only pay out to the amount of the lowest bid then. And you will have to have the county building inspector approve any work.”

“That will be okay,” Grey said. He turned to Dan. “Do you know of any contractors in the area?”

“Several. I can get them out here today or tomorrow. And I will help you with the work.”

In the light of day they found that four of the eight lightning rods were defective, including the one at the corner where the lightning struck. “You will have to repair those within a month,” the appraiser said, “or else your insurance will go up steeply. I need a building or fire inspector report sent to the office showing the work was done correctly."

They went into the house and found that the agent had finished all the paperwork with Daisy. She collected her appraiser, and they left.

“She said that men would come and fix it,” Daisy said. “I don’t want strange men working on my house. I just want it back the way it was.”

“Don’t worry, Daisy,” Grey said. “Dan and I will do the work. There will be some men out to look at it and make estimates, but Dan and I fix it for you.”

“I want to see it,” Daisy insisted. They took her out the east door, and then walked along the repaired porch to the west door. Grey stopped them at the end of the repaired section. Daisy was used to walking with her head down to prevent a stumble on the porch when it had been broken, so she only looked up when Grey ordered a halt.

“Oh my house. My beautiful house. All black and evil smelling,” she actually sagged at the sight and Sun had to hold her up.

“We can fix it,” Grey said.

“Good as new,” Dan said.

“Or better,” Sun added. “Now let’s get you away from all of this. I’m going to spend the entire day with you.”

“But your truck, dear?” Daisy said.

“I love my truck,” Sun admitted. “But I love you more. It will wait. I am waiting for some starter parts anyway.”

Frank came by soon after, and volunteered to pull his old trailer over to block the lane, and keep sightseers from coming in. The local Tweed newspaper came by, and was allowed to take photos. She spoke with Sun to get quotes for a story. Daisy had been getting the little weekly newspaper since she learned to read, and said they had a right to the story, but she was still too upset to talk to them. Sun gave details of what happened, and announced that there was insurance and that the house, famous in the area, would be rebuilt.

The contractors came the next day, and each gave a quote. After receiving the quotes, Grey handed each man a $100 bill. He told them he knew he would do the work himself, and want to compensate them for making a quote on a job they would never be able to win. In the end the low quote was $32,000, and the others were also below the $40,000 estimate. The quotes were sent off to the agent, and she authorized construction to start.