But a kerosene lantern swinging over a wagon full of children is a thing a woman thinks twice about. So Friday I drove to the farm store in town and I bought four battery lanterns, the kind that throw a warm light, and I kept Lon’s kerosene one for the front rail where no child would be near it.
While I was at the farm store I ran into Diane Hendrickson in the feed aisle. The Hendricksons are up the road from us. Three kids, all under ten.
“What are you up to,” she said, looking at my cart full of lanterns.
So I told her. I told her the whole thing, Roberta and the list and the line through my kids’ names, and I told her I was taking Lon’s wagon out Saturday at dusk and any kid on our road was welcome on it.
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Diane got a look on her face. It was not a surprised look. It was the look of a woman who has swallowed something herself.
“My Tyler got crossed off too,” she said. “We missed the workday. Craig was combining. You cannot stop combining for a church workday, the weather does not care.”
“Bring your three,” I said. “Bring blankets, it’ll be cold on the hay.”
“I’ll bring cider,” she said. “I’ll bring a roaster of cider and I will not say one word to Roberta about any of it.”
Telling The Kids
I told Ella and Sam Friday night, at the supper table, and I was careful how I said it.
I did not want to raise them to crow over somebody. Ruth from church, the pastor’s widow, she would say a child who learns to gloat is a child you have to unteach later, and she is right. So I did not say we are going to show Aunt Roberta. I said something closer to the truth.
“Saturday night,” I said, “we are going to give all the kids on our road a hayride. Dad’s going to drive the Ford. We’re going to put every kid from the Ahos’ baby up to Tyler Hendrickson on Great-Grandpa Lon’s wagon, and we’re going to ride around the whole section with lanterns.”
Sam about came out of his chair. Sam is six. A hayride, a tractor, and the dark, those are the three best things he can think of, and I had just offered him all three.
Ella was quieter. She is old enough to know what it was really about.
“Is Aunt Roberta coming,” she asked.
“She’s not invited and she’s not uninvited,” I said. “This is a road thing, not a church thing. Anybody who lives on our road or comes to our road is welcome. That’s the only rule.”
“That’s a better rule,” Ella said.
I let that sit. Out of the mouths of babes, my grandmother used to say, and then she would not finish it, because the rest of the verse is the part grown people need and children already know.