by Susan Ternyey, Apr 2023 reprise
“Look, Momma, I’m making ice cream,” Jeffy proudly proclaimed to his mother, who was planting a rainbow of spring flowers in her garden. He whirled the pedals of his upturned tricycle. Momma smiled at her creative boy, though she didn’t look over to see.
“That sounds like just what I’ll need when I finish here,” she replied, and he beamed.
“I’m going to make lots. I’ll make them the colors of the rainbow like your flowers,” he spoke as he imagined bowls of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple ice cream. In his mind he put them together and giggled about stirring them all up. He didn’t know yet that such a mixture would come out brown as the ground.
After a few minutes Jeffy was tired of his work, and came to watch Momma.
“Can I help?” he asked, knowing from past experience that a kid should ask before digging in Momma’s garden.
“I wonder if you would get me a drink of water,” she dodged his offer.
“I need one, too,” he suddenly realized, and ran into the house. A few minutes later he brought her a glass that was less full of water at each stride as he bounced back to her. She was thankful for the invention of plastic glasses.
“I already drank mine,” he announced authoritatively.
Jeffy glanced around Momma’s garden. Suddenly he spied a hole. He knew he didn’t make it, but who had?
“Momma, someone’s been digging in your garden,” he declared with alarm, and quickly added, “and it wasn’t me!”
“Hmmmm,” Momma mildly voiced her displeasure.
“Was it Boxer, the dog next door?” He had been the guilty culprit not a few times.
Jeffy looked at the hole. He remembered the holes that Boxer had dug in the past.
“This hole is smaller than Boxer’s holes,” he said thoughtfully.
“Was it Capricia the cat from down the street?” Momma surmised another fairly frequent guilty party.
“No . . .” Jeffy considered the look of the dirt after Caprica had left her mark. “This is a hole, not a hill,” he said.
“Who do you think dug that hole, then?” she offered him a way to make a good guess.
Jeffy continued to look at the hole as he thought about animals he knew that dug holes.
“It’s too small a hole for a rabbit to live in the winter,” he spoke, absorbed in contemplation. “It’s too big for a worm,” he continued.
“How big is it?” Momma asked, thinking the estimation process would be a good recap of size comparisons they had explored more than once at the kitchen table.
Jeffy used his imagination to see different sized fruits, vegetables, blocks, and balls in his mind. This hole wasn’t shaped like a carrot, so he tossed out vegetable thoughts. It was much smaller than a watermelon, bigger than a pea (oops, that’s a vegetable). A grape? No, this hole was larger than a grape. Smaller than a baseball, maybe a golf ball or a ping pong ball?
Just then a quick movement caught Jeffy’s eye at the other end of the garden. He knew he had to look slowly and carefully so that the animal would not get scared and fly or scamper away. It was a squirrel, with a peanut, and it was digging in Momma’s garden!
“Momma!” He said excitedly, forgetting not to run over to her, “It was a squirrel! I just saw one burying a peanut in your garden!” He was jubilant. He had figured it out. He went over to the new hole and picked up the peanut the squirrel had dropped in its haste to get away safe from this big boy-threat. Jeffy ran back to Momma proudly showing her the peanut. Momma hugged him.
“I’m so proud of you, my smart boy,” she truthfully admitted to herself as well.
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