The Anything Box

lost hold of the bush and fell down into the racing, roaring water. Then Mommy
was there gathering him up, crying his name over and over as she waded to a
low place in the bank, the water curling above her knees, making her stagger.
Stevie hung on tight and cried, 'Eddie! Eddie! That mean old Dark! He made me
throw my pocket piece away! Oh, Mommy, Mommy! Where's Eddie?'
And he and Mommy cried together in the stickery sand up on the bank of the
wash while the flood waters roared and rumbled down to the river, carrying
Eddie away, sweeping the wash clean, from bank to bank.
And a Little Child-—
I have arrived at an age—well, an age that begins to burden my body sometimes,but I don't think I'd care to go back and live the years again. There'rereally only a few things I envy in the young—one thing, really, that I wish I
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had back—and that's the eyes of children. Eyes that see everything new,everything fresh, everything wonderful, before custom can stale or life hastwisted awry. Maybe that's what Heaven will be—eyes forever new.
But there is sometimes among children another seeing-ness—a seeing thatgoes beyond the range of adult eyes, that sometimes seem to trespass even onother dimensions. Those who can see like that have the unexpected eyes— theeerie eyes—the Seeing eyes.
The child had Seeing eyes. I noticed them first when the Davidsons movedinto the camping spot next to ours on the North Fork. The Davidsons we knewfrom previous years, but it was our first meeting with their son Jerry, andthe wife and child he had brought home from overseas. One nice thing aboutcamping out is that you don't have to be bashful about watching other peoplesettle in. In fact, if you aren't careful, you end up fighting one of theirtent ropes while someone else hammers a peg, or you get involved in where totoe-nail in a shelf on a tree, or in deciding the best place for someone elseto dip wash-water out of the creek without scooping gravel or falling in. Evenbeing a grandmother twice over doesn't exempt you.
It was while I was sitting on my favorite stump debating whether to changemy shoes and socks or let them squelch themselves dry, that I noticed thechild. She was hunched up on a slanting slab of rock in the late afternoonsunshine, watching me quietly. I grinned at her and wiggled a wet toe.
'I suppose I ought to change,' I said. 'It's beginning to get cold.'
'Yes,' she said. 'The sun is going down.' Her eyes were very wide.
'I've forgotten your name,' I said. 'I have to forget it four times beforeI remember.' I peeled off one of my wet socks and rubbed a thumb across thered stain it had left on my toes.
'I'm Liesle,' she said gravely. 'Look at the funny hills.' She gesturedwith her chin at the hills down the trail.
'Funny?' I looked at them. They were just rolling hills humping ratherabruptly up from the trail in orderly rows until they merged with the aspenthicket. 'Just hills,' I said, toweling my foot on the leg of my jeans. 'Thegrass on them is kind of thick this year. It's been a wet spring.'
'Grass?' she said. 'It looks almost like—like fur.'
'Fur? Mmm, well, maybe.' I hopped over to the tent and crawled in to findsome dry socks. 'If you squint your eyes tight and don't quite look at it.' Myvoice was muffled in the darkness of the tent. I backed out again, clutching arolled pair of socks in my hand. 'Oh, geeps!' I said. 'Those gruesome oldpurple ones. Well, a few more years of camping out and maybe they'll go theway of all flesh.'
I settled back on my stump and turned to the child, then blinked at thefour eyes gravely contemplating me. 'Well, hi!' I said to Annie, the child'smother. 'I'm just forgetting Liesle's name for the last time.'
Liesle smiled shyly, leaning against her mother. 'You're Gramma,' she said.
'I sure am, bless Pat and Jinnie. And you're wonderful to remember mealready.'
Liesle pressed her face to her mother's arm in embarrassment.
'She has your eyes,' I said to Annie.
'But hers are darker blue.' Annie hugged Liesle's head briefly. Then 'Come,child, we must start supper.'
' 'By, Gramma,' said Liesle, looking back over her shoulder. Then her eyesflickered and widened and an odd expression sagged her mouth open. Annie'stugging hand towed her a reluctant step, then she turned and hurriedly scootedhi front of Annie, almost tripping her. 'Mother!' I heard her breathlessvoice. 'Mother!' as they disappeared around the tent.
I looked back over my own shoulder. Liesle's eyes had refocused themselvesbeyond me before her face had changed. Something back there—?
Back there the sun was setting in pale yellow splendor and purple shadowswere filling up the hollows between the hills. I've climbed little hills likethose innumerable times—and rolled down them and napped on them and battedgnats on them. They were gentle, smooth hills, their fine early faded, grassy
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covering silver against the sun, crisply tickly under the cheek. Just hills.Nothing could be more serene and peaceful. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.You meet all kinds.
That night the Davidsons came over to our campfire and we all sat around inthe chilly, chilly dark, talking and listening—listening to the wind in thepines, to the Little Colorado brawling its way down from Baldy, the sounds oftiny comings and goings through the brush—all the sounds that spell summer tothose of us who return year after year to the same camping grounds.
Finally the fire began to flicker low and the unaccustomed altitude wasmaking us drowsy, so we hunted up our flashlights and started our before-bedtrek across the creek to the Little Houses hidden against the hillside. Men tothe left, girls to the right, we entertained briefly the vision of tiledbathrooms back home, but were somehow pleasured with the inconvenience becauseit spelled vacation. We females slithered and giggled over the wetlog- and-plank bridge across the creek. It still had a grimy ghost of snowalong its sheltered edge and until even as late as July there would be aragged snowbank up against the hill near the girls' Little House, with violetsand wild strawberries blooming at its edge. Things happen like that at ninethousand feet of elevation. We edged past the snowbank—my Trisha leading thegroup, her flashlight pushing the darkness aside imperiously. She was followedby our Jinnie—Pat is a goat and goes to the left—then came Mrs. Davidson,Annie and Liesle, and I was the caboose, feeling the darkness nudging at myback as it crowded after our lights.
Since the Little House accommodates only two at a time, the rest of ususually wait against an outcropping of boulders that shelters a little from asoutheast wind which can cut a notch in your shinbones in less time than ittakes to tell it.
I was jerkily explaining this to Annie as I stumbled along thesemiovergrown path—it hadn't received its summer beating-down yet. I wasreaching out to trail my hand across the first boulder, when Liesle gasped andstumbled back against me, squashing my toe completely.
'What's the matter, child?' I gritted, waiting for the pain to stopshooting up my leg like a hot fountain. 'There's nothing to be afraid of. YourMommie and I are here.'
'I wanna go back!' she suddenly sobbed, clinging to Annie. 'I wanna gohome!'
'Liesle, Liesle,' crooned Annie, gathering her up in her arms. 'Mother'shere. Daddy's here. No one is home. You'll have fun tomorrow, you'll see.' Shelooked over Liesle's burrowing head at our goblinesque flashlighted faces.'She's never camped before,' she said apologetically. 'She's homesick.'
'I'm afraid! I can't go any farther!' sobbed Liesle. I clamped Jinnie's armsharply. She was making noises like getting scared, too—and she a veteran ofcradle-camping.
'There's nothing to be afraid of,' I reiterated, wiggling my toe hopefully.Thank goodness, it could still wiggle. I thought it had been amputated.Liesle's answer was only a muffled wail. 'Well, come on over here out of thewind,' I said to Annie. 'And 111 hold her while you go.' I started to takeLiesle, but she twisted away from my hand.
'No, no!' she cried. 'I can't go any farther!' Then she slithered like aneel out of Annie's arms and hit off back down the trail. The dark swallowed her.