The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

least, we could catch our breakfast right out of the pool that had been formed and stocked with fish perhaps a thousand years ago just for our benefit. An endless supply of firewood lay right at the edge of our camp. It was not quite under the cliff, so sometimes we had to put up with the discomfort of getting damp in the rain while we chopped a day’s supply of firewood from a big cedar tree that had fallen across the creek. In the ten years or so that we camped at the site, our gathering of firewood did not make a dent in the tree. The last time I saw it, the cedar looked as if it had been gnawed on by a discriminating beaver and then abandoned.
    Now, what was I writing about? Oh, yes, big. I did mention a big cedar, but, of course, you have no idea how big the big cedar was. If I said the cedar was as wide as a sidewalk and that you could cross to the other side of the creek on it without being scared of falling in, you would perhaps grasp the concept of “ big ”—in this case, at least. So here we had not only an infinite supply of firewood, but easy access to the other side of the creek provided by a single tree. What more could you ask of big ?
    One extremely dark night—actually, because of the depth and narrowness of the canyon, all of the nights were extremely dark—my friends and I suddenly heard an enormous racket over by the big cedar.
    â€œWhat is it?” I whispered to Norm.
    â€œI don’t know,” he whispered back. “But it’s big !”
    Vern nudged me in the back. “Can Norm see what’s making that racket?”
    â€œI think so,” I whispered to him. “He says it’s big !”
    Kenny nudged Vern. “What’s making that racket?”
    â€œNorm says it’s big !”
    â€œ Big ? It’s gotta be a bear!”
    Vern nudged me. “Kenny says it’s a bear!”
    â€œCripes,” I said. I nudged Norm. “It’s a bear!”
    â€œOh, no!” he hissed, which is an expression that is hard to hiss—unless, of course, you have a big bear ten feet away from you.
    It was a matter of considerable comfort to me that I had Norm between me and the bear. Norm, at the time, was a little fat kid and, I suspected, would provide the bear with a rather tasty hors d’oeuvre. By the time the bear was done snacking on Norm, I could be at the tiptop of the nearest pine.
    Suddenly, the racket stopped. This could be a bad sign! Fortunately, for the rest of the night, not a single sound came from the big cedar. All four of us could attest to that, because none of us got any more sleep.
    The next morning, we discovered that the racket had been made by a chipmunk gnawing his way into and through a bag of potato chips. Not only did one of the smallest of woodland creatures deprive us of a night’s sleep, but he also ate one of our basic camp foods! You lose your potato chips on an outing, and you’re as good as done for. It was a lucky thing for that chipmunk that he didn’t show his smug face around our camp again. He would have been in big trouble!
    I went to elementary and high school in a tough little logging town. Although it has been some time since I was in first or second grade, I can still recall the dreaded cry issued by one of my small compatriots: “Watch out! Here come the big kids!” This warning probably referred only to those male pupils in the fourth or fifth grades, who themselves were probably not all that big . Well, some of them were big . In those years, you didn’t get past fourth grade until you could read, spell, and do fractions. I remember one kid—I’ll call him Jethrow—who had been in fourth grade for at least three years. There were rumors that he was already shaving and perhaps dating the teacher, but I doubt they were true. He wasn’t her type. But occasionally there was a really big kid in fourth or fifth grade. In any case, whenever the “ big