I took four children on a walk across the bridge and up the hill. Just before the little old road that runs along the flank of the ridge, my two children began to whine; the other two suffered in polite silence. Once on the road, I fed the youngest all the lemonade boxes I had packed. I promised the three teens I'd break out some chocolate when we reached the ruins of a little house.
The lemonade only briefly worked. What also worked for nearly a quarter mile was a stick she picked up, tossed ahead, picked up, tossed ahead, until she completely lost track of it and went back to whining. It was a nearly-warm day and I carried everyone's coats until we finally got to the mossy front stoop and broken foundation of what may have been someone's home a century ago. I don't think it was just a well-built outhouse gone to pot.
The teens whined for lemonade, and settled for water. The youngest ate, then ran ahead around the bend to the trail back down. The trail back down became a narrow blacktop road between some of the oldest houses in town. We looked out across the rivers and the penninsula, sat and rested, then watched the small one roll down the street in her heavy coat like a wooly pachinko ball.
