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| Adventure | Sex | Philosophy | History | Excerpts from How to Improve Your Live and Save the World |
 A Stone's Throw, Orvie's Stories, a book of short stories by Mort Mather, is on sale now in bookstores, from the publisher, or through Amazon. Get a signed copy by sending a check for $19 to:Mort Mather 802 Bald Hill Rd. Wells, ME 04090-6634
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Ya gotta be real quiet when you?re tracking Indians;
careful like Deerslayer not to step on a stick and make it crack, because
Indians can hear real good and they will come and get us. Cubby, my faithful
scout, and me are heading up the mountain to the woods, but first we have to
cross the raging river. I wish we had a canoe like Deerslayer. We go along the
bank looking for a way to get across and we come to a tree with some big
branches that reach across the river. Deerslayer stealthily climbs the tree and
walks out on a branch holding onto a branch above. Faithful scout plunges into
the rushing water, takes a drink of the clear, cold water, and swims across,
climbing the bank just as Deerslayer drops out of the tree next to him.
"Hey! Jeez, Cubby, do ya have to shake the water off right next ta me? I?m
soaked! I might as well?ve waded across."
The girls let me jump rope with them. Mostly they
like me to swing the rope, especially Sue May because she is taller than me
even, and the swingers don?t always get the rope high enough. It hits her head
and then she?s out, which isn?t really fair because it isn?t her fault. Sue May
gave me half a Twinkie, and the other girls teased her and said she had a
boyfriend, but I?m not anybody?s boyfriend. I like to look at girls, but gosh
they are weird sometimes. I mean, I really can?t figure ?em out. They always
have secrets and they aren?t really nice to each other and they aren?t nice to
boys either, but they get really mad if boys aren?t nice to them.
And
what if Sue May was my girlfriend? What would that mean? Anyway, she isn?t.
Perry gets a bite but the fish gets away. He pulls in
the line and puts another worm on the hook and just then the same thing happens
to me. As I put on a fresh worm I ask him what Satan does.
"Oh, he comes
down to earth a lot. He is the one who tempts us to do wrong things because if
he can get us to sin and we don?t confess to the priest then Satan gets us and
we go to Hell."
"Does God come down to earth?"
"No. He sent his
son Jesus but he never came himself."
"Why not? Why doesn?t he come down
like Satan and tempt us to do the right thing?"
"I don?t know."
"Seems like it?d be a good plan."
It starts getting hot, so we go under
the bridge to get out of the sun.
Pancakes for Breakfast
"Get up, Orvie. Come on
down here!" I don?t want to get up yet, but what is Dad up to? He should have
gone for the train by now. The radio is on, which it never is in the morning.
There?s something goin? on. I haul myself out of bed, pull on my pants, and run
downstairs. He?s right at the bottom and he picks me up and throws me in the
air. He?s laughing and Mom is laughing and there is cheering on the radio. Dad
holds me in one arm and puts his other arm around Mom and we start dancing
around the kitchen an? Dad is singing, first time I ever heard him sing. "The
war is over, the war is over, it?s over over there, the war is over, the war is
over, it?s over over there." An? Mom starts singing too. On the radio I hear
people shouting and cheering and the announcer talking about how everybody was
about half crazy with joy.
We would have danced all day except we got
tired and all three of us fell in a heap on the floor. Turns out because the
Germans gave up Dad didn?t have to go to work, so he made pancakes.
Mort Mather |
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