The Hayride Grandma Asked For

Into the woods

Bud spoke to the team. Just their names and a little kiss of a sound.

Ivo and Tolbert leaned into their collars together, the traces came tight, and the wagon rolled forward out of the parking lot and onto the gravel.

I was riding on a bale right behind Grandma, with my hand on her shoulder. I could feel her take a deep breath.

The harness creaked. The tires crunched on the rock. Behind us the van started up and followed.

The road ran past the little cemetery, and then the woods closed in on both sides, and it was like riding into a church window. The sugar maples were blazing orange.

The sassafras was red and gold. The oaks were just starting to turn, and the sun came down through all of it in long bright ribbons.

Nobody talked for the first quarter mile. Not one person.

There were twenty of us on that wagon, fourteen residents, four aides, Bud and me, and all you could hear were the horses’ feet and the wagon and somebody’s breathing.

Then Ambrose, who had not said ten words since spring, lifted his head and sniffed the air.

“That’s sassafras,” he said. “You can smell it. Smell it? My wife used to make tea from the roots.”

Nola, beside him, said she could smell it. Then Cleve said he could too.

Then everybody could, and Ambrose started telling about the sassafras tea, and how his wife sweetened it with sorghum, and he didn’t stop talking for the next mile.

What they said

I’ll tell you what I heard on that wagon, because I’m not sure I’ll ever hear anything like it again.

Tilden told about his uncle’s team in Ohio, two big grays, and how one of them would only work on the left side.

He told about breaking the young horse to harness when he was twelve, and how his uncle let him do it alone, and how proud he’d been.

Glennis named every tree we passed, the way she must have taught a thousand fourth graders. Shagbark hickory. White oak. Black walnut. Redbud.

When she got one wrong, the farm boy aide corrected her, very politely, and she looked at him and said, “Young man, you are right,” and the whole back of the wagon cheered.

The married couple held hands under their quilt the whole way. They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to. Every so often she leaned her head over on his shoulder and he patted her knee.

Cleve told the price of eggs in 1962 and nobody minded.

Theda, who has her bad days, had a good one, and she sang little bits of songs to herself and smiled at the leaves.

Nola cried a little, and when Idell asked if she was all right, she said, “Oh, honey, I’m just so happy.”