Times of Uncle Ernest - Chesapeake City and Beyond – Ellie Chapter 3

Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Ellie

Chapter 3

I was about to doze off when the silence was broken by a loud rumbling, clanking sound. It was old Dave McNatt charging up our lane in his dilapidated panel truck. By the time I had run out front to take a look he had stopped mid-way up. It was a funny sight, Nina, watching that jalopy shake and rattle as it idled. Black smoke erupted from it, making its way westward across our field in rising clouds. Then McNatt lowered himself from the truck, limped to the front, and lugged a large tree limb out of the lane. Pop had put it there to slow him down. Pop didn't know it but he had invented the first speed bump. Now they're everywhere, and if Pop had thought to patent the thing we'd all be on Easy Street now.

       You see, Nina, McNatt tilled our fields, and he and his sons would always charge up our lane at top speed, causing dust to settle on everything and endangering everybody and everything in their paths. Well, before McNatt lumbered back to his truck, he overrode the engine noise with a stream of the most impressive cussing my young ears had ever heard. It was assorted, innovative language, the main part of which improved my vocabulary considerably. Then he sped up the remainder of our lane and entered the South Field, gunning the engine and thereby blasting the countryside with a clatter that only a badly damaged muffler could provide.

       McNatt had a big farmhouse and tilled a large farm just up the road from us. He had a great variety of animals, including about 100 foxhounds and a score of children of all ages. For some reason, Nina, Pop and I went up there once at dinnertime. When we got out of the car the dogs surrounded us. They were friendly enough but howling their heads off. When we entered the house the tribe had just sat down to dinner. Around the gigantic table sat Dave, his wife, and all those kids—from two or three infants in diapers to several in their late teens. They and all sizes in between were reaching, grabbing, talking, and crying.

       "You an’ the young’un set down thar, Jack, and dig in," Dave called to Pop. So we sat for a while and took in the spectacle. Pop nibbled on an ear of corn while I sat there uninterested. A tin pitcher of raw milk was frequently passed around. The mother poured me some and after it settled one of those plumb houseflies—dead of course—rose to the top of my cup. Gagging softly, I watched the kid next to me pick it out and fling it to the floor, where one of the housedogs nosed it and—like me—passed it up. "Hit's all rat; ah snared the bugger," the kid said, with a freckled grin, tickled that I was repulsed by the whole thing.

But Pop and I got out of there pretty soon, Nina, and before we left we walked down to the huge barn and, accompanied again by bustling hounds, watched the cows and horses in their stalls. On the way back to the car, all varieties of fowl were in the yard. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and ginny hens are the ones I remember. As we drove back home, Pop didn't say much about the experience, but by his chuckling I could tell that he enjoyed seeing my reaction to it all. Anyway, Nina, that was some visit, one that has stuck with me all these years.

[To be continued Friday, 6/05/2012]