Tin Can Serenade
By Amanda Dykes
© 2013, 2015 Amanda Dykes
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations.
For permission requests or other inquiries, contact the author at www.AmandaDykes.com
Scriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, King James Version, public domain.
Transmitted from the United States of America.
Author is represented by Wendy Lawton of Books and Such Literary Management.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Second edition.
To the readers who so graciously shared their own cherished Christmas memories,
planting the seeds of this tale:
may you find wisps and snippets of your own stories,
folded with care into this one.
Two homes in the mountains
Snowed in for winter’s keep;
A river in between them,
A rope tight o’er the deep.
A mother and her daughter,
A father and his son,
A cottage and a cabin,
A story yet unspun
But time did freeze a tin can
Dangling from that rope
A messenger from days gone by,
Echoing long lost hope.
Until a cold November day
Saw decades fall away;
Young hands inscribed a folded scrap,
A missive sent to say…
______________
Are you the girl that got my boat?
______________
Greetings, new neighbor! What joy to find your note in the tin can!
Do you mean the river-faring vessel that moored beneath our dock?
Many Warm Salutations,
Genevieve Hartfield
______________
Thanks for the fancy card.
It was real nice of you.
You don’t have to use that kind of paper for me, though. I’m just Tim.
My boat got away in the current and
I saw it cross the river.
Do you have it? Can I have it?
______________
Good Sir Timothy, of course I shall use my very best stationery for you! I’ve been waiting to write a letter all my life, you know. Saving up all my words.
I send thee thy boat by this pulley, tied ‘round the handle of this can, and with it two biscuits from our tea. We had four, and there are only two of us-- me and Mother-- so please share in our bounty.
I shall bid thy vessel bon voyage at the riverbank tomorrow, mid-day, if you plan to sail her again. I will bring my whitest handkerchief.
Sir Timothy, do you know how this can came to be on this rope?
______________
Alright, I’ll sail her. Here’s a peppermint stick. The biscuits were tasty. You use some strange words though. See you tomorrow.
Oh. I don’t know where the can came from. We only moved in a week ago. Sorry. Maybe my Pa might know. He lived here before.
______________
Goodness, what fun that was! I could see you hollering, but the river is so loud, I couldn’t hear you. I imagined you were saying “O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!” like Mr. Whitman. Were you? My father was lost at sea.
Mother says I mustn’t send too many messages in the tin can, or I’ll tire you out. I asked her how she knew, and she said “You’re not the only one who’s used that tin can, Miss Jenny-Pen.” She tapped my nose like she does when she’s teasing, but she looked a little bit sad.
Do I make you sad? Do I tire you out? I promise to not use so many extravagant utterings fancy words, Timothy, if you’ll only say I don’t tire you out. Mother says all my words make up for all the ones she didn’t know at my age. She smiles when she says it. She didn’t know how to read back then.
______________
I was hollering at you to get back! All that prancing about you were doing, you almost fell in! Glad you didn’t.
I don’t mind the messages. Sorry about your pa. My ma’s gone too, since I was a baby. It’s alright about your words.
Pa can talk like that too, only he doesn’t. He has a whole room full of shelves of books, but he says they never did much for him, and now the only one he reads is his Bible.
He says that one keeps him going, and I keep him going too.
______________
Mother cried when I told her about your Ma’s passing, dearest Timothy, you dearest of dear ones. And then I gave her my whitest handkerchief, the very one that bid adieu to the VALOR. (You don’t mind if I name your ship, do you? Isn’t it gallant? I think you’re quite gallant yourself. ) And then do you know what Mother did? She said “There’s only one thing to do. Get your apron, Genevieve!” I curtsied and donned my apron and we made you cinnamon rolls. Cinnamon rolls! We never make them but on Christmas morning, and that’s two months away yet! She must think you’re special. I do! I’m sending my whitest handkerchief round them to help keep them warm. But do send it back, dear Timothy. I haven’t any others. Don’t tell anyone.
p.s. Mother went white when I said your Pa reads the Bible. She didn’t say a word, but her eyes were as big as saucers.
______________
Boy! Those were good! Pa thought so too. He said he hasn’t had any like that since we left the city, but even so, he’s glad we left. That’s why we came here. He needed some place quiet, he said. Away from people. Well, he got that! Did you know you’re the only one we’ve seen since we got here?
Pa wants to do something nice for you and your ma. But with that bridge washed out down river, I don’t much know what he’s going to do. And then he said he didn’t know if it’d be looked upon kindly, says your Ma’s got some spirit, if she’s anything like the girl he once knew. But he stuck his chin out and said “No matter. We’ll do it.” And when he sticks his chin out like that you can bet something’s going to happen.
Does your Ma make other good things like the cinnamon rolls? Can you ask her—what makes the dough rise? Pa says your Ma knows scientific things. He tries to answer all my questions, but sometimes he gives me a book instead when he doesn’t know, and I’m not much for books. So could you ask her?
______________
Something nice! For us? Oh, what a delight! But don’t you know your moving here was something nice? We stay here because it’s the only home we know, but it does get awfully lonesome up here atop the mountain when winter comes-a-rapping at the door.
______________
I see you haven’t found my other message yet. No matter. I’m adding another, to tell you a secret.
I told Mother what your Pa said bout her, and her cheeks turned as pink as fairy floss! Did you ever have fairy floss in the city? Like eating a pink cloud made of sugar and light and all the goodness in the world.
Mother said your Pa was the one with spirit. She said nothing would stop him when he got an idea in his head. And then, Timothy, her smile disappeared under a shadow and she looked so utterly sad.
______________
I’ve pulled the tin can back over three times now to add these messages. Oh, won’t you ever return? It’s been two days now! Are you lost forever? And with my handkerchief, too.
I bet you met a band of pirates in the woods, and had to use it as your white flag of sur
render. That’s alright. At least it met an adventurous end.
But how shall we save you? Never fear. I’ll think of something.
______________
We weren’t lost, and if we’d found a band of pirates you can bet they’d be the ones to need help. We were gone getting something for you.
Pa says kindly tell your Ma to step to the riverbank tomorrow morning, get the arrow he shot across, untie the rope from it, and then tie it tight ‘round that big pine you have there. Tight. And then pull on the rope until the surprise crosses the river. Got it?
And he says if she doesn’t want to see him, fine, but for the love of molasses, get the arrow. Pa’s a genius, and he rigged up something great. Just you wait.
Why wouldn’t your Ma want to see my Pa, anyway?
______________
Good gracious! Did you ever see such a thing? A mountain of firewood, towering high and fording across the river! Why, it’s enough to last a month or more!
Ma Mother and I usually cut our own firewood, but don’t tell . People don’t know what to make of two ladies doing such things. But it’s just us, and we don’t mind .
And you were right, Timothy. Your Pa is a genius, building that raft just perfectly. Tell him it was simply beautiful. No, no. Don’t say that. Please say it was—it was—splendidly awe-striking and positively brilliant!
I wish you’d have come over on the raft, Timothy. What a grand time we’d have. I could show you my castle! It’s only a grove of trees, but I think it’s much better imagined as a castle. Why don’t you come over in that boat I see tied to your dock sometime? I’m sure Mother wouldn’t mind. She even asked me to send this letter to your father. Would you kindly deliver it to him? And Timothy, how odd that your father would think Mother wouldn’t want to see him. She’s never said a word about any such thing.
Thank you for the firewood! We’ll have the glow of firelight tonight, and perhaps we’ll pop corn over it. I’ll save some for you if we do.
______________
I told Pa what you said, about him being awe-striking and all that. He laughed, but not to make fun. It was that laugh from deep inside him which is good. He doesn’t much laugh like that, and you made him do it. Then I gave him your Ma’s letter. But I saw it on our closed-up piano, still sealed and collecting dust right along with the piano.
Do you ever wonder where this rope came from, anyhow?
______________
The rope? Why, you don’t know? It was here before the bridge. Or at least that’s what Mother says. She says it’s how folks used to cross the river- in a little cage, pulling themselves across in the air! Can you imagine?? Well. That was ages ago, and after the bridge came along, they took the cage down. Where the can came from, I still don’t know. I wonder if we could cross the river again using the rope? Oh, wouldn’t it be grand?
I know the water must be too low now to use your boat. I asked Mother if I could wade across, but she said “Jenny Marie, don’t you dare. Your feet will freeze before you’re halfway across!” But if we could cross with the rope…we could launch the VALOR every day together and never have to holler and not be heard!
Anyway. The rope was always here. It’s the can I don’t know about.
______________
Pa says no one crosses that way now. He says it’s too weak, and only one person has crossed since the bridge’s time, and that person shouldn’t have. He looked me straight in the eye and said it just like this: “Never, never cross the river on that rope, Tim. Understand?”
Don’t get angry, but I asked Pa how two womenfolk could survive all winter out here on their own.
He laughed deep and said if anyone could survive out here, it was your Ma. That she’s more than cinnamon rolls and frills and books.
______________
Good gracious, Timothy. What did he mean??
Whatever it was, our bread will never turn out now because of him! I told Ma, and she punched the dough she was kneading. And she went white as the flour on her hands and said “Grant Morrow said that?” She pursed her lips and didn’t say another word all afternoon. “‘More than books’,” she kept muttering. “Irony indeed.” And then this evening, when I was supposed to be reading, it was so quiet upstairs I tiptoed into her room and saw her kneeling on the floor, surrounded by letters. I got pretty close before she noticed me there, and do you know what I saw? Well, not much. But the year of the letter in her hands was 1892. That’s seven years before I was born! Six years before Mother and Father married .
Just before Mother turned and saw me, I saw one tiny part of the letter . It said:
Someday I’ll play you a song that will change your mind, Marian.
And it won’t be a waltz.
But then she saw me, and shot to her feet, and lickety-split we were downstairs again, reciting Latin like nothing had ever happened.
Except, Timothy, later that night, when she usually turns in to read, she took her book downstairs and sat and read it by candlelight… right where she could look out the window and see the light in your cabin.
______________
I don’t know what you need to learn Latin for. You already talk like you live in some other land. But that’s alright.
Pa sat at the dust-covered piano tonight and stared at it for a good half hour. The letter was gone, I don’t know where. He just stared at the piano keys. I stuck around because I thought he might play—and he never plays. Sometimes on my birthday, as a treat, but that’s all.
But he didn’t play. He stood up, shook his head, and picked up his Bible and read to me by the fire like usual.
The river’s getting lower, might not be good for launching the VALOR any more, but maybe we could race sticks. It’s quieter now so I might be able to hear you. Slowing down for the winter I guess. Does it ever freeze?
______________
One winter it froze, and do you know what Mother and I did? We skated! Just me and her, out there in the cold, spinning like the snowflakes above us. Well, if you want to know the truth, Sir Timothy, I didn’t precisely “spin”. I mostly fell. But mother would pick me up, laugh a silver melody into the air, and on we’d go. Afterwards we sat on the bank and sipped steaming chocolate, and sang “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” until the cold air made us choke over our words.
The river hasn’t frozen since then, but maybe it will this year! If it does, then we’ll be able to cross! Do you have skates?
______________
Do I?! You bet I do.
…do you think your Ma would make those cinnamon rolls? Pa sits by the fire downstairs most nights now, even after the fire has gone out, with a candle in the window. He holds his Bible on his lap, and looks out toward your house a lot. Maybe I shouldn’t have spied, but I did. You know something? His Bible pages are so soft, when he turns them they hardly make a sound. That’s how much he reads that book.
______________
Oh, Timothy! Isn’t it romantic? Your Pa, and my mother, sitting by their windows, separated by the rushing river! Stop it, I know you’re rolling your eyes at me. Stop that at once. And don’t tell me the river isn’t rushing. That’s as may be, but it felt nice to write it that way.
Does your Pa build the fire every evening? I bet you take turns. Mother and I do. And what does he read to you from that blessedly-quiet Bible? I bet it’s strong and hefty, isn’t it? I bet you’re Pa’s strong, too. And I bet when he reads, it’s with a steady voice, deep and smooth and full of whatever that-magic-something is that can wrap someone in comfort, just in their voice. I suppose he could even fix our jammed door in a flash, if he wanted. We’ll find a way; we always do. Never you fret. I know you’re fretting. Stop that, Timothy.
And whatever you say, Timothy, it is romantic.