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From: "Papa Joe"
To: "Storytell group"
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 1998 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: turtle stories
Folks,
You know I live at the edge of the deep deep woods. I should say lived.
Though I live in the same place the woods are no longer deep, never mind
deep deep. As a youngster, I lived in those woods when ever I could.
As
deep as deep can be.
Once on a mid Summer morning, I wander out into the woods alone. I had
nothing with me and wore only a pair of shorts. Noon found me at a
colonial
farm site. Nothing left, but the holes. One of the holes was a deep,
narrow, Stone Well. The sun shone straight down the shaft. At
the bottom,
I could see something.
I didn't know what it was. It didn't look like much. Maybe just a
stone
that might have fell from the side wall. A shadowy oval shape among
shadowy
oval shapes. And what ever made me think I could climb down there - where
no one had gone since the stones were laid two hundred years before. But
that object seemed to call me. I never even though about walking away.
I
did worry about getting in and out. Parts of the wall looked ready to
fall.
As the son of a stone mason, I could see the pressure of the earth had been
pushing on the stone sides.
I was just a slip of a boy. Small enough to fit in the hole, barely 18
inches wide. It was easy enough to find foot and hand holds to make my way
down the shaft - at least twelve feet deep into the earth. I could no
longer see below me as my body now blocked the sunlight. Nor could I bend
as the hole was too narrow. I slid through the cobwebs and tried not to
think about who else might be living down in this place. As I reached the
bottom and looked up, the sun moved out of view. In the blue sky shone
tiny
points of lights.
At my feet were cool smooth stones and one thing more. It was warmer than
the others, as if the few minutes of noon time sun had warmed it alone. I pressed my back and knees against the wall and picked up the object with my
feet. It was very light. Somehow, I managed to lift it high enough
to
reach for it with a hand. Then I knew what it was. A turtle shell.
I slipped the shell into my shorts for I needed both hands and feet to
climb. I climbed out of the earth, back into the sunshine and looked at my
prize. A spotted turtle, not long dead, in perfect condition. I
didn't
know what to do with it. It smelled too. Then I saw a hollow in an
old Oak
Tree. A Tree that had been growing for most of the years during the life
of
the Well. I thought of it as the guardian of the Well. So I put the
shell
into it's hollow and let it guard that too.
It was mid Winter before I returned to that place. The Well, Tree, and
shell were untouched. The shell was clean now. The tiny creatures
who
lived with Oak had taken care of it for me. I put it in my coat pocket and
brought it home. Here it sits today, on the shelf before my desk. A
rare
spotted turtle shell. But that's not the end of the story.
The next Spring, I past the place again, but this time everything was gone.
Cellar hole, Well, Trees, all. Bulldozed in for a new house site, out in
the middle of my deep deep woods. The end had begun, nine months from my
finding the Shell. Nine months after my journey through the Well.
Pax & Amicitia,
Papa Joe
Oak-n-Ivy Cottage, Turtle Island
(16 Sunny Lane, Fremont, NH, USA)
Papa
Joe ~ Biographical
Stories
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