The neighbor lives about two miles away from where I live. He has a family, his wife sometimes sends the younger boy over with some soup for me. She says she feels bad for me living out on my own without anyone to see to me. I would never have imagined taking charity a while back, these days I’m grateful. I used to have money and an income, now I don’t have either. My pension isn’t a lot; a nation forgets its heroes fast when they go bankrupt, even the ones who go bankrupt for their country.
My neighbor’s house isn’t any nicer then mine but at least all of his family had coats to wear. It was his little boy who answered the door and then without asking me in turned to call his father to come. His mother was the one who asked me in while his father came from the other room. You might think that the husband of such an angelic woman would be someone I would get along with but there you’d be wrong. He and I don’t get along too well; he thinks I put on airs because of my past.
“Hello neighbor, I was wondering if you’d be going into town any time soon.”
“I might be, if you have anything you need to get for you.”
“I got a list here of things I’ll be needing. Of course I’ll pay you for your trouble,” I added. He nodded.
“I guess I’ll be heading into town later today then. I’ll drop your stuff off with the wagon tonight.”
“Much obliged.”
“Won’t you stop for something to eat?” asked my neighbors wife, already heading for a pot over the fire. I saw the look in my neighbor’s eye and was torn between upsetting him and eating some real food for a change.
“You’ll have to excuse me ma’am,” I said tipping my hat to her, remembering that I depended on my neighbor’s good will. “I should be going, ‘sides I already ate. I thank you kindly for your offer though.” Having made my excuses I absented myself from the house as quickly as I could. A fine state of affairs, I who had never fled before superior enemy forces forced to bow to the prejudices of an uneducated backwoods trapper. Money, and the lack thereof, changes everything.
Once I got home again I fried some of the morning’s mush in some of the pig fat, a far cry from what ever good food it had been the neighbor woman had had in that pot. When I had presented my idea to capture the fort before the politicians of our great nation I had been feasted, wined and dined. Back then I had worn my uniform, instead of turning it into a blanket to sleep under. I had had my best captain’s dress uniform and my frockcoat and my hat upon my head. I imagined walking in on all of those fancy parlors how I was looking now and imagined what all those pretty ladies who had flirted with me once would say. It was an entertaining thought; I could always use an entertaining thought. It made the mush go down easier.
I was making a set of toy wooden solders for the neighbor boy in my free time; I had a lot of free time. I thought of it as a way to pay back him and his mother for everything they did for me. I was whittling them out of little pieces of wood so they looked like the men of my regiment had, and then the others to look like how the other forces had, from the top of their fort. I was thinking maybe I would even make him a model of the fort, and then I would show him how my moment of glory had come, and then in a few years passed.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment