A Cold Detour

“Okay,” Christa nodded lovingly as she pushed a mitten onto the left hand of her second son. “Now you're all set to go.”

“Yes!” five-year-old Scott exclaimed with joy. 

He leapt from the kitchen chair onto the black and white linoleum floor. He clapped his hands, creating a muffled noise as his mittened hands collided. Scott was going to his grandpa's house and he was super excited. He wasn't sure what they were going to do, but he knew he was going to have fun. Sometimes they would work in the workshop. Sometimes they would read a story. Sometimes they went sledding on one of grandpa's Flexible Flyer runner sleds.

“Okay, Scotty,” his mother interrupted his train of thought. “Now, you walk straight to Grandpa's house. Don't get side tracked or distracted. Deal?”

Scott nodded.

“Say deal,” Christa prodded. 

“Deal!” he exclaimed as if he had been waiting for her to demand that response.

Christa walked her second son through the back porch and opened the storm door. She watched as he confidently made his way down the sidewalk towards her in-laws' residence up the hill from the historical family farm. She chuckled as he waddled slightly against the restrictive nature of the snow suit in which she had dressed him. The full body, hooded suit was almost too small for him, but she figured it would last through this winter. She waited until he had crossed the gravel driveway and was well past the barn before turning back towards the kitchen where a sink full of dishes awaited her.

“A mother's work is never done,” she smiled to herself.

In the meantime, Scott was on cloud none. He was walking to his grandpa's house. In the snow. By himself. At the advanced age of five, he was practically a grown up. He could be a little more grown up, of course. He could be six. Scott liked being five, but for some reason, he thought that five was a weird number to be.

He stopped and looked straight up at the sky. Puffy white clouds spotted the vibrant blue backdrop and at times seem indistinguishable from the snow flakes that drifted through his line of sight. He watched as a jet plane made a thin white line across the blue like it was playing connect the dots with the clouds. He imagined for a moment what the picture might look like if the plane had been able to connect all the dots, but got distracted as the jet path fanned out and faded into nothing. He opened his mouth wide in an attempt to catch one of the bigger snow flakes as it fell lazily from the cold winter sky. He missed. The snow flake landed on the tip of his nose, causing him to giggle as he stifled a sneeze.

The boy continued his journey until he reached the far side of the manure pit. He stood on the section of the gravel drive that covered a  concrete culvert, which was three feet in diameter, through which a small creek flowed. Now, there is one thing that is true of pretty much every boy, young, old, or ancient. They all love fire and water. And sometimes dirt. Scott was no exception.

He walked gingerly to the edge of the driveway and peered over the edge into the rippling water below. He could see the gray end of the culvert where it protruded from underneath the drive. The constant flow of water had eroded the creek bed creating a small pool. The surface of the pool rippled under the relentless flow of the creek while the rest of the pool was calm by comparison. The calmness disappeared a few feet away from the culvert as the creek shallowed and the pebbles and stones disturbed the flow in a mesmerizing manner. 

Scott kicked his rubber, booted toe into the windrow of snow at the edge of the drive and watched a chunk of snow tumble over the edge into the water. The resulting splash was rewarding enough in and of itself, but something else caused the boy to gasp. The snow hit the water and immediately changed from white, to gray , and eventually translucent until it seemed to disappear all together leaving only a shadow to be dispersed by the pebbles of the creek bed.

“Wow,” Scott whispered to himself. “That was cool.”

He nudged another chunk of snow over the edge of the drive and watch with nearly equal delight as it faded into the water below. The miniature Henning got down on his hands and knees and used both hands to persuade a much larger mass of snow to leave the relative safety of the driveway and plummet to it's watery grave. This time, the chunk was large enough that a translucent ball made it all the way out of the pool and tumbled and twisted across the pebbles and stones until it finally broke apart and disappeared entirely.

Excited by the improved results of his most recent experiment, the amateur scientist sought a larger specimen with which he might further improve his results. He found what he was looking for right next to the source spot of his last specimen and excitedly pushed it towards the creek, eager to witness the resulting splash and the subsequent disappearing act. The ball of snow pressed up against an old utility pole that was laying on it's side, partially covered by gravel, dirt , and snow. (The pole was used as a barrier to prevent the drive from eroding away and was chosen, not only for it's size and length, but also for it's resistance to decomposition thanks to the pitch that had been applied to the surface of the wood.) 

Scott grunted and groaned as he struggled to push the large ball of snow over the utility pole. Finally, the snow boulder slipped over the driveway barrier and splashed violently into the cold creek below. However, Scott was unable to appreciate the fabulous splash caused by it's collision with the surface of the water. The momentum caused by the sudden release of the snow boulder combined with the natural slickness of Scott's full body snow suit, had carried the child right over the barrier. He struggled against the inevitable to no avail and tumbled head over heels into the creek. The slight top heavy nature of his body had allowed his body to do a full somersault. He landed directly on his rump in the deepest part of the pool, causing a splash that dwarfed all previous splashes. 

Stunned by his sudden change in altitude, the boy sat there wide-eyed and unable to appreciate the literal ripple affects of his wet landing. Suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch in his young mind, Scott scrambled to his feet and scurried up the steep embankment of the creek to the driveway. He stood on the gravel surface shivering as he debated whether to go back home or continue on to his grandparent's home. He looked towards the house trailer that his grandpa called home and quickly came to the conclusion that it was far to great a distance for him to travel in his present state. He turned on his heel and made a beeline for the white farm house from whence he had come.

He covered the distance between the creek bridge and the house much more efficiently than he had from the house to the bridge. One can only attribute this to the child's change in motivation.

“I need to get back home before I freeze to death,” he muttered to himself as he imagined all the water that had soaked into his snow suit suddenly freezing solid and stopping him in his tracks.

He burst through the back porch door and stopped, doubling over with his hands on his knees as he attempted to regain control of his breath and willed his shivering to stop. The wooden door that separated the back porch from the kitchen opened, revealing his surprised mother.

“What are you doing here?” she asked before her son's sodden condition registered. “Oh my goodness! What happened?”

“I fallded into the crick and I got all wet,” the soggy boy confessed as he choked back tears. “I didn't mean to. I slippded.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Christa comforted her second son as she stifled her own laughter. “Don't cry. Everything is fine. Let's just get you out of these cold, wet clothes in into a warm, comfy blanket.”

“Am I not going to go to see Grandpa anymore?” Scott asked as his mother helped him out of his soggy snow suit.

“I'm going to throw this in the dryer,” she answered reassuringly. “Once it's dry, you can try the trip again. Maybe this time, you could just stay away from the creek. I'm going to call Grandpa and let him know that you're going to be a little late.”

Scott nodded, grateful not to have lost his day with his grandfather, and wrapped himself in a blanket as he waited for his clothes to dry.