The Great Hunt for Leprechauns
The next morning comes quickly. Lanker can hardly wait. He eagerly races into the kitchen, where Grandfather is already getting his faded denim overalls on. The smell of fried eggs and bacon fills the air as his grandparents move in and out of the kitchen, back into the dining room and the bedrooms.
"Are we going out, hunting Leprechauns, granddaddy?" asks Lanker.
"Yes, that's about what we are going to do today, boy. We are soon to go out, huntin' for Leprechauns."
His Grandfather smiles as he eases on his self-made, beaver hide overcoat.
"Well, everybody now gets ready!" announces his grandmother. "Food 'll be on the table directly."
Grandfather pulls up his wooden tied bottom chair. He takes his seat at the end of the table, with a heaped up, steaming plate sitting before him. Soon walks in mother and father. Father sits at the end of the table opposite Grandfather. Mother sits beside him. Grandmother sits between mother and Grandfather. Lanker sits on the side next to the wall, opposite his mother, underneath the cupboard. Soon steaming food is being ladled out into the awaiting plates. The eggs and bacon appear better than usual, but the piping hot grits are impossible to beat! When the food is all served out into each plate, Grandfather says.
"Looks like it's grace time to me."
He bows his head, as every person in the room does, even Lanker.
"Oh, father in heaven, please bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and to the saving of souls. For we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen."
The food is delicious, and Lanker can hardly stop eating until he aches from consuming so much. After the fine meal comes the buttered toast, and freshly made molasses. This is Lanker's favorite part of the entire meal. When every person finishes eating, Grandfather rises from his seat to open the door of the house.
"Well, come on son, we have Leprechauns to catch! So lets get a move on now, ya hear!"
Back behind the house is a twenty acre patch of hard woods, and some tall standing pines. The squirrels scatter and run about as the two make their way into this wood stand.
"If you wanted to hunt squirrels today, instead of Leprechauns, then I could show you a few tricks that might be of some lasting value to you," Grandfather whispers.
"But I want Leprechauns. Squirrels don't have gold, just nuts. I don't need any nuts, since I already have two."
"Alright now, little boy," says his grandfather in a low scolding voice, "cut that ugly sounding talk out."
The two continue to walk along. His Grandfather shows him what maples, oak, loblolly pine, and hickory trees are. There was a ditch some fifteen feet deep and twelve feet wide that was dug along the far side of the wood stand. The two walk along dirt mounds piled up years before Lanker was ever born. Across the ditch is a field of tall standing corn. On the other side of that field, a small cabin nestling inside its own pleasant shade of oaks and hickory, can be made out. Closer to the two, on the far right by a narrow dirt road running along beside the field, and on passed the house of Lanker's Grandfather, is another, more recently built house.
The two move along inside the wood stand until they arrive at a branch on the far side of the field. When they pass through this hardwood branch, on the other side is another field, with a natural hedgerow covering an antique wire fence separating the field from the wood stand. The two move along beside this hedgerow, easing along behind a rolled terrain hill in the field blanketed by morning fog, toward a much larger, thicker stand of hardwood timber.
"Do Leprechauns live here, grandfather?," Lanker whispers.
"I haven't seen any yet, have you?"
"Not a one," says Lanker, as he crawls along beside his grandfather.
His Grandfather gazes down upon him. A smile suddenly streaks across his sun hardened face.
"Here, little boy, let me help you a bit, there."
He reaches down and picks Lanker up from the freshly plowed earth where they both walk.
"It won't be long now, and you'll have those casts off. All of us will be so glad when that happens. Your mother is near tears thinking about that day."
"Why are these casts on me?," asks Lanker. "How come you don't have to wear them, but I do?
His Grandfather chuckles, then struggles to speak as he chokes back tears.
"Well son, you were born with deformed feet, so you must wear those casts for only a bit longer."
Soon the two make it over the hill in the middle of the field, entering into a dark, more tangled, much larger tract of woods on the other side. To the right, seventy five yards or so out, they walk past the old cabin. A lonely outhouse stands in the rear. They both can hear a foot organ playing tunes, and a happy woman singing songs long forgotten by time, as they both slowly amble passed. They can tell it was a foot organ because they could hear her stomping pedals squeezing the air bag.
"Hush, hush, just a second there, boy. I hear Aunt Molly Singletary in the distance there, singing Oh Molly Hare, Chicken in the Bread Pan, and Fire on the Mountain Side Run Boy Run. Aren't those songs so beautiful to the ear, son?"
"They sound pretty good," replies Lanker.
They both pause for a span of time as his grandfather smiles brightly, listening to the cheerful tunes.
"Listen little boy! Now she's singing One More Jug Full For Uncle Joe, The Old Horse, And The Road. Those were always some of my favorites!," says his Grandpa, with many smiles as the singing voice rang across the open field, moving in the air deep into the backwoods.
"Do Leprechauns really like to live inside these thick, dark woods?," asks Lanker in a quiet voice.
"To tell the truth, they actually prefer the rolling countryside, near flowing creeks," whispers his Grandfather in reply.
"So why are we walking in here?"
"We are headed toward a creek. This fire cut will take us to a higher, more open tract, called Tar Kiln Neck. Here, there is a creek my Grandpa called Crazy Woman Creek."
"Why do they call it that?," asks Lanker.
"They call it that because the creek empties into a run, which passes through the old mill race there, at old man Ludlow Davie's mill house. There on that mill site, right beside where the general store once stood, was once a cabin. There used to be an old witch doctor who lived there. Many of the locals claimed she was crazy. She was said to frequently make cassina tea, and drinking this so frequently made her act crazy. She lived there for years, until she was found dead one day."
"What killed her?," asks Lanker.
"Some bad people, it was presumed."
"Who?," asks Lanker.
"They never found out who. To this very day no person knows. More than likely, the people who did it are long dead now as well."
After what felt like an hour, grandfather and Lanker finally make it to this small tinkling creek, and the hilly land usually surrounding creeks. They walk around on this land, talking about creeks, deer, witches, old houses, and foxes with fluffy thick red fur, then finally Lanker asks.
"Where is the Leprechaun? Where does he live around here?"
"If we only keep walking and looking, we shall surely find him. I know he is around here somewhere," his Grandfather says, as he glances around carefully and rather cautiously from side to side.
The two continue walking, talking, and searching, until the sun slowly sinks behind the trees. His grandfather commences glancing around.
"Looks like we better walk back to the house. It'll be dark before we know what 's goin' on, son," states Grandpa, as he gazes into the treetops all around where they both were easing along.
"But we didn't find the Leprechaun, Grandpa," whines Lanker.
"No, but we may surely try another day. The Leprechaun will certainly still be there, come tomorrow, or even a week from now."