Heaven's Gate Bridge twenty four

Heaven’s Gate Bridge twenty-four

Harriet was glad that she had one more day to recover from the measles. She did her best to listen to people and follow conversations. She soon discovered that her best way of keeping up was to focus on the mouth movements of the speaker. It was a little hard to do with her father since he had a mustache. Father thought that his mustache made him look more mature. It also covered a small scar that he received when he was a boy. He tried to shave himself as a little boy and the razor slipped and cut his lip. His father was so mad at him for touching his razor but when he saw all of the blood, his father just picked William up and carried him all the way to the doctor’s. William never touched his father’s shaving things again.

Harriet also noticed more things visually. She saw that the buds on the trees were a lovely green and almost leaves. The oak trees were her favorite kind of tree. She saw that there were more cardinals in the area this year than last year. She also noticed that the paint on the house was getting ready to peel. She knew that her father hated to paint but would do the job to save a little money.

As Harriet was looking at the garden she noticed that Buddy was again going towards the tree slowly. He stopped and froze like a statue at someone‘s doorway. Then Buddy began to run around the tree and put his little paws on the tree’s trunk. On the lower limb was the squirrel that he had been seeing ever since he came here and became a member of the family. She laughed and went over to the tree to bring Buddy back to the house to get a little time to read or practice her spelling.

But as she reached Buddy, he charged towards the fence and started barking. This barking was different from the squirrel treeing kind. Sometimes he looked like he barked and then at other times it looked like he was trying to growl. His voice was low enough that she thought that she heard his voice. She knew that ever since Willie was bitten by the snake, that all of the children were forbidden to go past the gate in the fence. Her parents stood side by side and made no mistake in telling the children of the dangers of a snake. They did not care the color or size, snakes could bite and a bite could kill. The children all shook their heads and said that they understood.

But try as much as she could, she could not call Buddy to come with her so she felt like a look through the hole in one of the boards would not hurt. Harriet walked over to the place where Buddy was barking. She thought that she saw some movement. She saw it again. It looked like someone was trying to get Buddy to be quiet. As she finally got her eyes focused through the hole, she saw a brown head and the body of a boy. She finally identified it as the boy in the church, Billy. He was the boy who sneezed at her and Catherine and gave them the measles. Billy stopped moving and slowly turned to look at the hole from the other side. He looked scared and ran off. The thing that surprised her the most was that Billy was dirty from head to toe. His shirt was a little torn. His suspenders looked as if they had been pulled all the way out. It looked like Billy also had a few bruises. She had guessed that Billy had been in a fight. And it seemed like Billy did not do too well. He turned quickly and ran down the fence line towards the end where he could get further into the neighborhood.

Buddy stopped barking and sat still. His tail was wagging at what he thought was acceptable. He was almost out of breath. Harriet was able to bring Buddy into the house and get him to drink some water finally. He immediately sat on a towel near the door and put his head down. Buddy wanted to be able to watch the back yard and see either the squirrel, the stranger or anything else.

Harriet knew that Mrs. Hunt would be spending a few minutes with her mother if her mother was strong enough. Her mother had a little soup earlier and ate most of it. The chicken soup was her mother’s favorite. The family had eaten most of the food they had prepared for the Easter weekend. A few people from the neighborhood and church had brought over a dish of vegetables, and freshly baked bread. Her parents were always doing the same thing for others because they felt that sharing in times of need was what life was all about. Mr. Miller also altered a suit for Mrs. Hunt’s husband when he died. Mrs. Hunt always appreciated how wonderful he looked as he laid in the coffin.

Mrs. Hunt came down and went into the kitchen. Harriet saw her go there so she got up to see if Mrs. Hunt had anything to say about her mother.

“Mrs. Hunt, is my mother doing better?” she asked.

“Yes, I think that she may be able to get up in a couple of days, but since she was sick, she needs to take it easy.” she replied as she dried off the dishes. “I hate to leave but I must see to my mother. She is almost sixty. My other brothers and sister says that she has asked for me to come home. I have not seen her in almost fifteen years. It has been too long and she has lived in that old rickety house ever since she married my father. I guess the love they had for each other kept them warm on all those cold days and nights.”

Harriet thought that she understood and helped put the dishes on the counter to be put away. She looked at the nice things that her family had in the kitchen and could not imagine other people who did not have the same conveniences. The only poor people that she heard of were on the other side of Heaven’s Gate Bridge. Those people either lived in very run down houses or hotel rooms that had no private bathrooms. The people were trying to improve their side but most of the people had low paying jobs. And when the people made any good amount of money, they moved to her side of the river or moved away completely.