On our 160 acres we pretty much played anywhere we wanted to. The culvert was interesting not only in the spring but also during the dry season. At age six I was the eldest and as such was charged with “looking after” Tommy. We were a little too big to crawl into the culvert and that was just as well. Getting stuck would have been an adventure with uncertain consequences. Worse we couldn’t risk what might await us at the other end. Shiver! That was forbidden territory. Were we to go across the road we might very well encounter quick sand and slowly sink in never to be found again. Or we might be chased by the neighbour’s dog, well known for its ability to quietly sneak up and nip intruders. If we veered north and through the barbwire fence we might invite the displeasure of the neighbour’s bull. Go too far west and the Boogeyman might catch us and perhaps try to eat us like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Go too far south and we might get lost and very frightened before our sobbing and desperate parents were able to find us. There may have been days when our parents might have wished we’d “go south”. Not only was our father good at training dogs to stay on our property, he was good at keeping us there too.
On one fine day in June we had settled again into a favorite hiding place close to the culvert and sheltered by willows and tall grasses. Although there was little traffic on Highway 6 in those days, we might get to see a Greyhound bus, the odd Bennett wagon, an occasional Democrat and a rickety car or two, maybe even a Model T? Eventually we heard the sound of a car approaching, its tires crackling along the gravelled road. Cars then didn’t move very fast because they were often dodging ridges of gravel created by road maintenance crews, and because they were still not made for much speed.
As the car came down a slight hill and was about to cross the stretch of road adjacent to our shelter, Tommy leapt up and hurled a handful of gravel in its direction! Fortunately he did not have a sling shot with him. It would be two or three years before he would get to use one of those. Gravel regularly drifted into ditches when roads were resurfaced, when it rained and when it shot out from under the wheels of moving traffic – hence his ready access to ammunition.
The driver braked to a halt and jumped out of his car clearly in a fury. He could have thwacked us but instead gave us an impressive tongue lashing putting our scrawny bramble scratched legs into a tremble. We didn’t recognize him and he evidently had decided not to search out our parents. Had he done so the razor strop would probably have come down from the medicine cabinet in our kitchen. We appreciated his restraint. Besides Tommy had only hit the wheels – not a window. Why had he done it? I never found out. He was an impish child but not an evil one.
Although I’d longed to call back at the man that I was innocent, that would have been disloyal. He probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway. At six and the eldest child I was supposed to be “watching” Tommy so in a way I was guilty too. Tommy hung his head. Only I could see the twinkle in his eye. We both said “Sorry”. The man stomped back to his car and roared off spraying more gravel into the ditch. Only when it was over did we realize the potential danger we’d faced. This was an adventure we would not repeat. We had gotten off lightly and had not needed to face our parents, a good thing because while the razor strap could sting, it was nothing compared to the sting of guilt over having let our parents down. What lessons in morality and responsibility were honed along that coulee and in the community in which we lived? They were not written in any book, nor were they often spoken. We three, because eventually Celeste joined Tommy and me in our various pastoral adventures, grew up into decent independent law abiding adults – not perfect – but armed with a generous amount of common sense, leavened with appropriate humour and a healthy regard for the shivery, shimmering difference between right and wrong.
Note: The Bennett Wagon consisted of the chassis of a car pulled by horses. The “Democrat” was an open flat bottomed wagon also pulled by horses.
