Portrait of father and daughter (dad is on the left)
From: THE DAY WE BLEW UP THE CAT: And other stories from a normal childhood
Volume 1 in The Dad Story Project series
By award-winning author S. Peter Lewis
Download it from Amazon for just $0.99
Barn Boots
I walked out into our meadow on a recent morning to hear the news from the dawn birds and check the dew. I start most summer days this way and recommend it—goldfinches and robins spread unbiased cheer better than CNN, and droplets condensed out of the night sky lubricate the day better than drive-through espresso.
As I swished out through the tall, wet, green of the morning, I came upon a swathe of mowed grass that began near the barn and ran southeast for fifty feet before stopping dead at a clump of goldenrod. Later, while pouring milk over crackling cereal, I asked my family about this mysterious swathe. My wife, Karen, just shrugged, but when my daughter Amanda heard the question she slumped against a nearby wall and hung her head. “Oh, yeah, I tried to mow the meadow,” she said. “But it was too hard.”
“For the horse?” I asked.
“For my horse,” she said.
Five years ago, when Amanda was just eight years old, she asked us to get her a pair of barn boots for her birthday. I appreciated her request, since I’m a barn boot-man myself—sliding my feet deliciously into my black LaCrosse rubber boots most mornings between the opening day of mud season and mid-summer. Barn boots represent real work in a world where many of us (this writer included) earn a living by clicking a mouse. (At the end of most of my work days all I track into the house are stray nouns and dangling participles, but after hours in rubber boots I clump in mud balls, lawn clippings, and damp nasturtium blossoms—evidence of real toil.)
So, when her birthday arrived, Amanda opened an oddly-shaped package wrapped in the latest edition of the local paper, and her eyes opened wide and bright. She slid her feet into her new barn boots, hooked her finger at me, and said, “Follow me.” Out in the yard she pointed at the house and said, “farmhouse,” then pointed at the barn and said, “barn,” then down at her boots and said, “barn boots.” Finally she pointed at herself. “I guess I need a horse,” she said. Clever girl.
Amanda’s first barn boots led to a fine collection of animals living in practically every corner of our property, including fish, snakes (sometimes coming into the house one in each hand, “Dad, open the door, quick!”), hermit crabs, mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, chinchillas, rabbits (don’t ever get two rabbits), cats, sheep, and finally, goats. With each passing year the animals in Amanda’s collection got bigger and required more attention, and every couple of years she outgrew a pair of barn boots.
But her dream of a horse didn’t come true. The barn needed renovation, fencing needed to be installed and a corral built; but money was tight and her great dream always had to be put off. Amanda is patient, and she enjoyed working in the barn with her menagerie, but I could see the longing in her eyes when she looked out at the old pasture next to the barn. And on the day she went out into the meadow with the mower and tried to conquer the long grass, I realized she was just trying to keep the magic arithmetic going: farmhouse, plus barn, plus barn boots, plus a mown meadow, equals horse.
Later that evening I took the mower out into the meadow and began to push. The grass was tall and the going was hard and sometimes my barn boots slipped on the damp ground—but little by little I extended Amanda’s swathe. Back and forth I cut, the soft, wet smell of progress hanging in the air, until a bright green rectangle began to take shape. I looked up once and saw Amanda watching me from a window.
When I finished, Amanda came out to meet me and we sat together on the granite steps of our old farmhouse. “Gosh, Dad, you did a lot,” she said. I took off my glasses and wiped my sweaty forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. “Someday you’ll get your horse, Mandy,” I said. “Until that great day, whenever you see your papa out there fighting back the goldenrod, you’ll know that he hasn’t forgotten your dream.” My daughter smiled and laid her head on my shoulder and we just sat there for a few quiet moments admiring her future Arabian prancing out in the freshly mowed meadow.
Sometimes all it takes to keep a dream alive is to cut a little grass.