fire.
“What’s that?” She pointed at a low-roofed structure of rough lumber down
by the river. She needed to use his privy and that was the only thing she had seen
resembling one, though she couldn’t imagine him putting it there, so close to the
source of his drinking water.
“Ice house. Come see.”
He opened the door of the little room, which was dug deep into the ground
and had a thick layer of sawdust between its double-walls. A large puddle filled
with sodden straw stood in the middle of it.
“I’ll invite you for ice cream next spring. Last of this year’s ice melted just a
few weeks ago.”
“Mmm.”
She smiled and once again scanned the area for the outhouse, but there was
none to be seen. Need finally triumphed over reticence and she asked him where
it was. When he held out both arms and looked around at the woods, she felt herself go red.
“Sorry. Just fooling with you. I do actually have one.”
She followed him around the side of the barn, where he picked up what
looked like a heap of hide, bark, and poles. “I use this in the winter.” He carried
it over to the far edge of the clearing, stood it up, fiddled with the poles, and a
little wigwam materialized. Then he strode back to the barn and returned with a
wooden chair that had a large hole cut in its seat. He lifted a flap of hide and set
the chair inside the wigwam.
“There’s newspaper and matches inside that pouch hanging on the back of the
chair.”
“Matches?”
“For burning the paper. Just take care you don’t set the woods on fire. You’ll
figure out the rest.”
She bent over, entered the wigwam, and looked in the pouch. Along with
scraps of newsprint and matches, it also contained a small digging tool. So that
was “the rest” of what she was supposed to figure out. Instead of one big, stinking hole with a permanent structure over it, you buried your business as you
went along, like a cat. Once she overcame her initial astonishment, she thought it
a brilliant idea.
When she emerged from the wigwam Jeremy was down by the Geesis,
pulling on a rope to draw a crate from the river. She joined him, kneeling to wash her hands in the cold water, and he held up a tin from the crate, asking
“You take your coffee with milk?”
“Yes, I do. What’s that contraption?” Olivia asked, nodding at the tree behind
them. A pulley was nailed to it. A rope with a large hook hanging from it ran back up the hill to another pulley, nailed to another tree.
“That’s what I have instead of you,” he said. “Watch.”
He picked up the bucket that stood at the foot of the tree, dipped it into the river, hung it on the hook, and pulled hand over hand on the rope to send the bucket sailing uphill to the other tree. Then he yanked on something that caused
it to stay in place and walked up the hill with Olivia traipsing behind him in awe.
