Pure Spring by Brian Doyle Page A

Sweet horse shit.
    Sandy points.
    There’s Grampa Rip lying down on some bales of hay in one of the empty horse stalls, on his back, peaceful, in his funeral suit, his watch chain glistening, snoring a little bit, a small smile on his lips, a tulip in his buttonhole, his open hand on his head.
    The horse in the next stall says something in his throat to say hello to us. Grampa’s eyes open.
    â€œI love the smell of horses,” he says. “Don’t you, whoever you are?”
    â€œIt’s me, Martin, Grampa Rip. Sandy showed me where you went to. It’s time to go home.”
    â€œI’ve had many different jobs in my lifetime, boys. I’ve been a ditch digger, a paver, a caddy, a door-to-door watch salesman, a tugboat cook, a stonemason, a roofer, a bricklayer, a lumberjack, a log boomer, a pig slaughterer, a manure spreader, a harness maker, an elevator man, a boxcar loader, a railroad man, a bottle washer, a farmer, a mailman, a dynamiter, a sewer worker, a teamster and many, many more... I’ve seen it all. One of the jobs I had for a while was milkman for Borden’s Dairy, years and years ago. My horse’s name was Strawberry, one of the first berries of spring. Strawberry knew my milk route as well as I did. I remember, on hot days, she liked me to put a chunk of ice in her mouth to cool her off. I came looking for her tonight.
    â€œShe knew every house and store to stop at. You didn’t have to tell her. You didn’t even have to pick up the reins to steer her. And if there was a sign in the window — NO MILK TODAY, THANK YOU — she wouldn’t stop. She’d go on to the next. I swear she could read the signs. Yessir! And between stops I’d read and read my books!”
    â€œTime to come home, Grampa.”
    â€œYou know, boys, in the old days,” says Grampa Rip, “in spring in the Ottawa Valley we had contests, games, cross-cut sawing, rip sawing, needle threading, big picnics, everybody there, potato peeling, pancake eating, eggs boiled in maple syrup...pour maple syrup on everything, on each other, pour maple syrup all over the boys and girls and we bathed ourselves in the sacred dew of the maple tree...”
    â€œTime to come home, Grampa Rip.”
    Sandy and I help him up and brush the straw off his suit.
    â€œHome?” says Grampa. “Get my horse, Strawberry. She knows the way. Strawberry, my old loyal horse. Take us straight home, no questions asked.”
    There’s a warm spring rain touching tender our faces. We walk the short way home.
    At the apartment door Sandy gives us a special salute. We go in. Grampa gets in his chair and I get five dimes out of the Grampa-is-lost bowl.
    I go out in the hallway and shut the door. I want to give Sandy the five dimes and I want to talk to him about an idea I have. An idea about “distract, then act.” Sandy doesn’t talkbut I only have to explain the plan to him once and he gets it right away. He’ll be there. His nodding tells me that.
    Oh, Gerty. Tomorrow I’m comin’ to see you with a plan! And tonight, in my sleepiness, I’ll go to sleep with you!

16
The Plan
    R ANDY IS in a good mood today. Today is Saturday. Today is payday. The weather is beautiful. The tulips are all over the place. He’s already stolen, with my help, twelve dollars from the first stop we made today at the Parliamentary Restaurant.
    â€œThey’re easy on Parliament Hill. They just don’t seem to pay attention to anything. You could steal the flag off the Peace Tower up there and I bet they wouldn’t even notice!”
    I’m hoping to get him off his usual subject before he even starts so I tell him that Gerty and I went to see the Marx Brothers movies at the Rialto last week.
    â€œMarx Brothers. Jews. Karl Marx, the inventor of Communism, was their great-grandfather. Those Marx Brothers, they’re not funny. No Jews are funny. Oh yeah, maybe