Read Online Harris and me : a summer remembered by Gary Paulsen - Free Book Online
Authors: Gary Paulsen
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me understand why they would have a motion picture theater in the middle of the forest.
"Where do they show the movies?" I asked. Harris had completely ignored Clair's warning and was
playing in the dirt where we had a couple of old iron toy tractors and had made a farm.
"On the wall/ 7 he answered. "Where else? Don't you know nothing?"
So I dropped it, thinking I would find out soon enough.
It was an hour until we milked—which seemed a week—and another hour after we finished milking and separating to eat supper and change clothes. After wolfing food—almost but not quite keeping up with Louie—Harris ran upstairs and changed. He came down in moments with clean bibs on—still without a shirt, without shoes, and the side buttons open on the bibs showed he had no underwear on. I put on a clean tee shirt and came downstairs to find that even Louie had dressed for the occasion. He had changed shirts—not to a clean one (I don't think anything he ever wore was clean) but a different dirty one.
Knute and Clair and Glennis were all fresh and clean—Knute was wearing a newly ironed work shirt and I realized I had seen Clair ironing it two days before, heating the iron on the back of the stove and pressing a bit at a time.
Knute drank another cup of coffee, then nodded and without speaking went outside, leading the entourage to the truck.
The truck was old— how old was and is open to
conjecture. As was the actual make. It had been patched and rebuilt so many times with so many different parts that it might have been a Ford or a Dodge or even a Chevrolet. Whatever it was, it had been dead for a long time and Knute kept it running with a Lazarus approach, a mixture of miracle and work.
It didn't have a battery and we all stood watching while he cranked it, advanced the spark a bit, cranked it again, advanced the spark a little more, and cranked once more. This time it kicked so hard it nearly broke his arm. He swore eloquently—I began to understand where Harris found his ability—and then backed off on the spark, cranked once more, and it started with a sound like the pistons were exchanging holes.
He stood, smiling, and we all clambered in. That is, Glennis, Clair, and Knute got in front. Louie climbed in the rear of the truck and sat on the bed, his back to the cab, and Harris and I joined him.
I still had no idea where we were going but everybody was so glad to be doing it that I fell in with the enthusiasm.
"We don't get to town that often/' Harris screamed—a full bellow was necessary to override the sound of the engine. There was no muffler at all and very little tailpipe. What pipe there was ended
at the front of the bed so the full din of the engine came up around us. "It's the best thing there is, especially if we get some pop to go with the picture show . . ."
I got about every third word and he had to translate over the engine sound and he finally gave up.
Knute turned right at the end of the driveway and we started driving— ricocheting might be a better word—down a mud track that went through miles of forest.
When we'd done this for half an hour we came into a clearing a mile across—hacked out of the forest the way Knute's farm had been cleared—and in the middle of this clearing stood four frame buildings and a tall sheet-metal covered grain elevator. A set of railroad tracks ran alongside and past the four buildings.
Harris smiled widely and pointed. "Town."
I said nothing, but the way it looked reminded me of nothing so much as some villages I'd seen in the Philippine Islands—a scattered collection of huts thrown in the middle of nowhere.
We bounced across the tracks, turned on a dirt road that went in front of the buildings, and stopped in front of a clapboard-sided shanty that seemed about to fall in on itself. It had no windows in the front or the sides but an open door and a crude wooden porch
across the front. Above the door in rough, hand-painted letters were the
"Where do they show the movies?" I asked. Harris had completely ignored Clair's warning and was
playing in the dirt where we had a couple of old iron toy tractors and had made a farm.
"On the wall/ 7 he answered. "Where else? Don't you know nothing?"
So I dropped it, thinking I would find out soon enough.
It was an hour until we milked—which seemed a week—and another hour after we finished milking and separating to eat supper and change clothes. After wolfing food—almost but not quite keeping up with Louie—Harris ran upstairs and changed. He came down in moments with clean bibs on—still without a shirt, without shoes, and the side buttons open on the bibs showed he had no underwear on. I put on a clean tee shirt and came downstairs to find that even Louie had dressed for the occasion. He had changed shirts—not to a clean one (I don't think anything he ever wore was clean) but a different dirty one.
Knute and Clair and Glennis were all fresh and clean—Knute was wearing a newly ironed work shirt and I realized I had seen Clair ironing it two days before, heating the iron on the back of the stove and pressing a bit at a time.
Knute drank another cup of coffee, then nodded and without speaking went outside, leading the entourage to the truck.
The truck was old— how old was and is open to
conjecture. As was the actual make. It had been patched and rebuilt so many times with so many different parts that it might have been a Ford or a Dodge or even a Chevrolet. Whatever it was, it had been dead for a long time and Knute kept it running with a Lazarus approach, a mixture of miracle and work.
It didn't have a battery and we all stood watching while he cranked it, advanced the spark a bit, cranked it again, advanced the spark a little more, and cranked once more. This time it kicked so hard it nearly broke his arm. He swore eloquently—I began to understand where Harris found his ability—and then backed off on the spark, cranked once more, and it started with a sound like the pistons were exchanging holes.
He stood, smiling, and we all clambered in. That is, Glennis, Clair, and Knute got in front. Louie climbed in the rear of the truck and sat on the bed, his back to the cab, and Harris and I joined him.
I still had no idea where we were going but everybody was so glad to be doing it that I fell in with the enthusiasm.
"We don't get to town that often/' Harris screamed—a full bellow was necessary to override the sound of the engine. There was no muffler at all and very little tailpipe. What pipe there was ended
at the front of the bed so the full din of the engine came up around us. "It's the best thing there is, especially if we get some pop to go with the picture show . . ."
I got about every third word and he had to translate over the engine sound and he finally gave up.
Knute turned right at the end of the driveway and we started driving— ricocheting might be a better word—down a mud track that went through miles of forest.
When we'd done this for half an hour we came into a clearing a mile across—hacked out of the forest the way Knute's farm had been cleared—and in the middle of this clearing stood four frame buildings and a tall sheet-metal covered grain elevator. A set of railroad tracks ran alongside and past the four buildings.
Harris smiled widely and pointed. "Town."
I said nothing, but the way it looked reminded me of nothing so much as some villages I'd seen in the Philippine Islands—a scattered collection of huts thrown in the middle of nowhere.
We bounced across the tracks, turned on a dirt road that went in front of the buildings, and stopped in front of a clapboard-sided shanty that seemed about to fall in on itself. It had no windows in the front or the sides but an open door and a crude wooden porch
across the front. Above the door in rough, hand-painted letters were the
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