Summer of The Dancing Rabbits

              My dreams were filled with the smell of frying bacon.   My eyelids fluttered, my mouth watered, I cracked open my sleepy eyelids, breathing in deeply, frying bacon again filled my nose, stretching and yawning I poked my brother, Donnie, in the ribs’.

 “Wake up stupid, Grandma’s cooking breakfast” the only response was another snore.

      I sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, a slight breeze blew the curtains open on the big double window by the bed, the sweet smell of new-mown hay and overripe plums and peaches from the orchard came in with it, I could see the sun barely showing above the horizon.

A couple of chickens were trying to scratch out their breakfast in the yard, Grandpa’s big white rooster cracked his wings together and let out a loud “Cock-a-doodle-doo!!” that would have woken the dead.

My brother never stirred.

 I could hear the muffled conversation from the kitchen, Grandpa’s deep voice, Aunt Karen’s lilting laughter, and Grandma scolding them both.

 I grabbed my pillow and pummeled my brother with it, then ran to the bathroom laughing.  When we both walked into the kitchen grandpa looked up from his seed catalog

“About time you lazybones, get up, it’s almost seven o’clock, lots of work to be done”

 Grinning, we sat down at the table, the sights and smells of breakfast filling my senses, Mounds of steaming fried potatoes and onions, platters of fresh biscuits, pancakes, fresh bacon and sausage, a platter of fried eggs, a crock of freshly churned butter, several types of grandmas jams and jellies, honey and fresh cream from this morning’s milking, my mouth watered.

If you went hungry while staying and my grandparents’ house it was entirely your fault.

Grandma smiled at us as she sat a pitcher of warm syrup on the table, grandpa said the morning's prayer and we dug in!!

      Stuffing the last bite of pancake in my mouth and washing it down with fresh cream, I scooted my chair back away from the table and sighed, content.

 Donnie kicked me in the shins, glaring at me then looking at grandpa, I shook my head and mouthed the words “you ask him” Donnie shook his head.

 “No, you” then he kicked me again, I glared at him.

 “Grandpa” I started, he looked up at me,

 “Can we go fishing in Cane creek this morning?” I asked, almost cringing at his stare.

“There’s a lot of work to be done” he replied, “Give me one good reason I should let you”.

“Well, we have been here a week now and haven’t been to the creek yet,” I said.

“The hay won’t be ready to put in the barn until tomorrow” Donnie chimed in.

“We will weed the garden and feed the pigs when we get back” I offered hopefully.

Grandpa stared at us for what seemed an eternity, then grinned “looks like you two have it all figured out now doesn’t it” he laughed.

 “I don’t guess it will hurt anything to let you have a little fun, but I expect to see you pulling weeds this evening”.

“Thank you,” we said at the same time, and then ran for the back door, we could hear grandpa laughing as the screen door slammed.

     As we walked across the dew-laden grass to the shed, the coolness felt good to our bare feet, crickets chirred in the grass, cicadas sang in the distance, the sweet smell of drying hay wafted on the wind, somewhere a couple of mourning doves called plaintively.

 the morning seemed almost magical.

   We found our old fishing poles along with a broken tackle box full of plastic worms, in the back of the shed behind a broken shovel and a two-tined pitchfork.

 I dodged a wasp nest while grabbing an old mason jar to put grasshoppers in as we walked, the big yellow hoppers were the best fish bait.

 We set off across the new-mown hay towards cane creek which ran the length of grandpas 300 acre’s, we chattered endlessly about who was going to catch the biggest fish chasing grasshoppers as we walked.

  Entering the shade of a large group of oak trees and underbrush I thought I heard some small rustlings somewhere in the brush.

 “Shhh,” I put my finger to my lips, we stood there and listened, a blue jay cried “thief, thief”, somewhere in the distance a cow lowed, The rustling came from the brush again.

 Donnie and I got down on our hands and knees and crawled through the underbrush towards the location of the sounds, leaving our poles and things behind so as not to be too noisy, pushing aside a small clump of bushes very quietly we peeked through…

     On the other side was an opening about five feet across and roughly circular, covered with a soft green carpet of thick moss, in the clearing there must have been ten rabbits, of all different colors and sizes, hopping and running about as if they were quite mad.

Now and then two or three would bound high into the air at the same time as if in a contest to see who could go the highest, three were sitting in a rough triangle, about a foot away from us, facing each other, taking turns thumping their hind legs on the deep carpet of moss. Several others seemed to be having a foot race back and forth across the area.

    We watched, entranced, the whole scene made it seem as if the rabbits were dancing for the pure joy of being alive.  how long we laid there and watched I am not sure, but it all ended in a flash when Donnie sneezed.

 “Accchhhooo!!”  The tableau before us froze for perhaps a tenth of a second, then, POOF, rabbits went every which way, in less than a breath the clearing was empty, nothing left but rabbit fur and settling dust.

  We looked at each other in amazement, I reached out to touch the spot where the three had been thumping their feet, the spot was still warm, we got to our feet, all thoughts of fishing gone from our heads, we had to tell someone!!

   We grabbed our stuff and raced back to the house, bursting in the back door we both started to jabber at once.

“Whoa now, slow down,” grandpa said, “one at a time” my brother and I both told our story to a rapt audience, when we were done grandpa shook his head.

“Dancing rabbits?” he said, “are you sure you kids haven’t been smoking some more of that grapevine.”

“No, really grandpa, we saw it,” I said, and re-told the story again, by this time grandma and Aunt Karen had joined us.

  He shook his head again. “Maybe you did, maybe you did” he replied then started to laugh, before long we were all laughing, so hard the tears flowed down our cheeks and our sides hurt, after re-telling the story several times and more laughter we weren’t sure if we had seen it or made it up.

 Grandpa finally sniffed and said, “well, we had our fun, time to get some work done.”

 I turned ten that summer, my brother was twelve, the rest of that summer vacation was spent helping with the chores, putting up hay, feeding animals, tending the garden.

 The evenings were spent with cookouts, eating watermelon, catching fireflies, playing hide and seek with cousins, or just lying on our backs staring at the stars talking about what we would grow up to be.

 As it does, time slipped away, and soon it was time to go home.

 It has been thirty years since we drove away, and I waved goodbye to that magical summer.

  It was the last time I spent a summer there, and the last time I saw my grandparents alive.

 Their farm was sold to strangers, my parents passed away all too soon and I have not seen my brother in ten years.

 But I will always remember that summer.

 The Summer of the Dancing rabbits.