The Raft

The Raft – The grey matter from my brain leaked on to the keyboard, boy did it ever make a mess, as your about to read. 

So sorry, you won’t be able to unread it.

Another strange tail from that wack job Rex.

Life was hard for a 13 year old living on the streets and back ally’s. On my own for the last 2 years. I worked odd jobs, a lot of times just for a meal or a place to sleep in someone’s shed. I never had more than 2 pennies in my pocket at once.

Winters were the hardest, finding enough to eat or a warm place to sleep was a challenge, I spent many a night hid out in someones hay loft under the hay. I’d sneak in real quite like after it got dark, and be gone by first light, sometimes with an egg or 2, that I hoped they wouldn’t miss.

I did a lot of work for ole Widow Thomas, she was a cranky one she was, boxed my ears more than once, but she always had a big pot of porridge going and seemed to have a soft spot for an orphan boy like me.

One cold winter back in double aught, that’s 1800, we was both half starved, she didn’t have much to begin with. Coal was hard to come by that year, and the ground froze solid, the river iced over so hard you could walk all the way across it. Then in late February we had a slight warm spell and with it came the snow, 2 feet or more. About the time it quit snowing the cold came back with a vengeance.

One night, I could tell she was cold, the widow, but she didn’t let on, told me about how she wishes she had went some place south when she was younger, some place like the river town of Louisville or maybe all the way down to New Orleans. She said that she heard, that it never snowed in New Orleans.

How it could be winter and not be cold I had no idea, what with the wind howling outside and all, it was snowing sideways, ice covered the windows.

It got so cold inside the widow’s small home, that the Pennsylvania Fireplace wouldn’t even keep the porridge warm, it had a skim of ice on it all the time. Snow and ice built up inside around the doors and any cracks.

Coal long gone and the last of the firewood gone, she had me bust up most of her furniture to burn, the furniture didn’t last long.

That dark night, the cold got worst, she told me to grab a pillowcase and fill it with whatever little she had left in the way of viddles, I had no idea why because it was to cold to go out and the door was frozen shut anyway, but by the feeble light of her last candle nub, I did as she bid.

With the pillowcase of food by her side, I thought she was going to have me take her to Doc Brady’s place, instead she reaches into her bodice and pulls out a small coin purse, tells me to hold out my hand and she slipped 2 half eagle gold pieces and a penny in my palm, said it was the last of her money and that I was to take and use the money to get out of town.

I refused to take her money, she gave me a sad smile, with a dreamy look in her eye, she said that she wishes she had ruined off some place warmer as youngun.

Please, boy, my hard working boy, I won’t live to see the light of day, I want you to take this stuff and anything else you can carry and leave. Go some place warm. Tell the towns folks you came to check on me and found me dead.

She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and I knew she was gone. As the sun rose I gave her a kiss on her cold forehead. I gathered up the meager food, I couldn’t get the door to open, her house had a small window up in the loft, that I managed to jimmy open, wormed my out to the porch roof, then closed the window the best I could, gently lowered myself to the hard packed snow, I didn’t break through the crust of the snow until I was well into the woods,

Around noon that day the it warmed up the sun came out the snow started melting, boy did that create a gooey mess, the next day I helped to burry the widow.  Nobody was surprised she passed away, froze to death, they were saying.

My tears flowed freely, thinking of all the things she had done for me.

Ankle deep in a muddy snow, pants wet and cold up to my knees,  I had to agree with the widow, it would be nice to live someplace warmer, that’s when I came up with my idea to build a raft of my own.

I had watched how flat boats and rafts were built, so I kinda had an idea for that I was going to build.

I decided to make a raft of logs tied together with strong rope and a floor of sawed lumber and a small tent in the center to protect me from rain and sun.

I knew I could work for to trade for everything I would need.

Later that day I found what I was looking for, it was about a mile outside of town, up a creek a small ways, was a small glen that flooded when it rains. It was mostly hid by cat tails taller than me.

More importantly within dragging distance was 8-10 dead trees washed down stream from last years flood, they looked as if they would do nicely.

So with a broken saw the blacksmith gave me, I set to work cutting my logs for the base of my new raft and home.

It was a lot of work cutting the logs and dragging them into place, took me several days.

I still did odd jobs to get what I needed. I worked a week at a new sawmill, for meals and enough lumber for the floor of my roughly 8 x 20 foot raft.

Another 3 days cutting kindling for ole Doc Brady and his wife. The trade got me a big ole canvas wagon cover.

I used the lumber to make a wood floor for my raft and the canvas to make kinda tent.

By then it was coming up on the middle of April, oh it had rained a little here and there but nothing to get the creek up.

Well, one night my raft had been done a while, I was tuckered out like you wouldn’t believe. The blacksmith had hurt his arm so I was helping him with the forge. He worked the bellows and directed me on where to pound something. That hammer sure gets heavy after pounding something a few hundred times.

That night the stars, were shining bright, when I crawled in my tent on my spiffy raft.

Long about daylight I felt a slight rocking sensation, the rain was beating down, I poked my head out of my tent to find myself in the middle of the river, I had no idea how far I was down stream, but I didn’t recognize any of the landmarks.

Yup, you guesses it, that’s all he wrote.

The End