The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp

by Joan H. Young

too."

  "You'd let me do that?"

  "Sure. You'd be helping me. Seriously, there's a lot of junk back there."

  "I know. I've explored all around. I already took the small stuff. I've been inside, too. It was easy to sneak in. I liked to sit upstairs and think about my grandfather. But now you own it."

  "School gets out on Friday, right?"

  "Last day. Tomorrow."

  "Come over Saturday, and we'll start. Unless you have another commitment," I added.

  "I'm not busy at all," he said with all the gravity of a businessman making a corporate deal. "I'll come."

  Jimmie didn't exactly smile at me, but he was no longer glaring defiantly. I figured the deal was sealed with the promise of more cash. He pedaled away to the west. Alder Road was a left turn a mile away.

  Drawing on all my new-found resources in the Dead Mule Swamp area, the next decision was an easy one. I needed to see Cora Baker, the local historian. Not only was she the person who had told me Jimmie Mosher used to live in my house, but she had hinted that she had dated him when they were young.

  I called her that night and asked if she could tell me more about the previous owner of my home. She suggested I visit her the following day. We pooled our resources to come up with a lunch.

  So, late Friday morning, I drove to the southwest corner of Forest County, to a small house on the banks of the Pottawatomi River. In a cooler I had egg salad sandwiches on whole wheat bread and a jug of lemonade.

  Alder Road was not out of the way at all, although it certainly wasn't the fastest route to reach Cora's. I turned south on the little-used road, and drove slowly, looking for dwellings that might be set back within the trees. I really couldn't remember seeing any houses along here. However, after crossing the defunct railroad tracks, and going around a jog, in about two miles I saw a house. At least, it might loosely be described as a house. An old semi-trailer had been parked in a small clearing, and a rough set of steps led to a door cut in one side. On the back was tacked a lean-to structure made of warped plywood, broken cupboard doors, pallets, and other scraps. A blue tarp was draped over this shed. The yard was filled with broken plastic chairs, old tires, buckets, damaged and rusting vehicles, and punctured bags of small trash with fluttering contents spilling through the holes.

  "Oh, my Lord," I said out loud. "Can this be where that boy lives?" Alder continued for another mile before running into Fox Road, and that was the only possible dwelling place I saw anywhere along the way. "And he has a mother and sisters. What can I do that won't injure his pride?" I wasn't in the habit of praying, but this was the closest I'd come in a long time.

  At Cora's I carried in the cooler, and she brought out a jar of homemade pickles, and plates. She'd already placed a container of brownies on the table. We sat at her kitchen table and ate lunch immediately. I liked Cora's old-fashioned kitchen that hadn't been done over since the 1950s. The one anomaly was a nearly new glass-top stove. Cora was no-nonsense, and when an appliance died she replaced it with one of quality. However, the most remarkable thing about Cora was that she had a genuine museum in her large pole barn. I had learned she wanted it to be in town where people could visit, but all I knew about the situation was that the topic was very upsetting to her.

  After lunch, we went out to the museum. She'd been working there all morning, and the building lights were already on. "I have some things to show you," she said.

  I was learning that there was nothing Cora liked better than answering questions about local history. When she could back up her answers with evidence, she beamed like a little girl, instead of a woman in her sixties. Cora was slight and usually wore overalls with a pastel shirt beneath them. This day was no exception, and the shirt was a lime-green gingham check. Her gray braids hung loose, although sometimes she pinned them up.

  "Look at these pictures," she instructed, leading me to a work table near the middle of the large room, which was ringed with professional exhibits. "I rummaged around and found some gems!"

  On the table were several old photographs with thick backing. I picked up the largest one.

  "That's your house not long after it was built," she said.

  The sepia picture was definitely my house, but the full-grown maples I loved near the end of the driveway were mere sticks. A team of dark horses was hitched to a large wagon. On the wagon sat a woman wearing a white blouse and heavy skirts, and a suited man with whiskers and a bowler hat on his head. I turned the picture over and read the spidery writing aloud, "Jedediah and Maybella Mosher, 1896." There were also individual pictures of the same man and woman.

  "Those are the grandparents of Jimmie Mosher."

  I almost did a double take, but then I remembered I hadn't yet told Cora about the young Jimmie, and she was referring to his grandfather. Cora rarely left her house. Local history was very real to her, but I wasn't sure she knew much about the current generation.

  Next she led me to the corner of the museum with the replica of Judge Reuben Pierce Oldfield's bedroom. "See the fancy lights?"

  "Of course." The curved, gilt brackets beside the bed ended in beautiful, etched glass bell globes.

  "Those actually came from the Mosher house. When the place was re-wired I got Jimmie's parents to give these old fixtures to me. Most houses had pretty much the same kind, so they fit here perfectly."

  "Do they still work?"

  "No, just decorative." She sighed. "I don't have a good picture of the house when Jimmie lived there, but these are from my personal photos." She handed me a small album bound with leather, into which she'd placed a bookmark.

  I turned to the marked page. These snapshots were of a type I recognized from my own parents' albums. I didn't think of Cora as old enough to be my mother, but she was. And there, in a number of black and white photos, she and a thin young man with dark hair were smiling at the camera. He looked very much like the boy I had met the day before. As I turned the pages, I saw them playing croquet, picnicking on a beach, and paddling a canoe. The last page contained posed pictures from a high school graduation. Everyone had taken turns standing with each group of people until there were pictures of almost every possible grouping. In the background was a red brick building. I recognized it as the now-empty, former Cherry Hill School. I pointed at the adults in the pictures. "Who are these people?"

  "Those are my parents, and here are Jimmie's. Their names were Jedediah, Jr (everyone called him Jed), and Hazel. The Moshers, that is."

  It was difficult to find an appropriate way to ask the questions that filled my mind.

  "You want to know what happened. Why I married John Baker, and not Jimmie Mosher, right?"

  "It crossed my mind." I grinned sheepishly.

  "I was a stubborn little fool. Remember I told you how I'd been collecting historical things since I was a child?"

  I remembered. Just a few weeks ago, Cora had shared with me her lifelong love for history which had resulted in this private museum.

  "Jimmie wanted me to give it all up. He was a lot of fun, but he thought my collections were silly."

  "You couldn't work out a compromise?"

  "One day he wanted to teach me a lesson about what was important. He took a pile of my papers outside and set fire to them."

  "Oh, no!"

  "It turned out they were nothing important. He'd staged the trick with my mother's help. But instead of learning anything, I sent him packing. That was the end of our relationship."

  "What became of him?" My interest was now intense, because a son of this Jimmie would be the father of mine.

  "He went downstate and met a girl who went to the same college. Her name was…" Cora wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips "…Sandra Sue. Much more modern than someone named Cora with dust on her nose. Anyway, he got a degree in business and moved back here with Sandra Sue. They opened a restaurant. It's the empty building just west of town on the highway."

  "Where are they now? Did they move away?"

  "B
oth dead. Killed in a car wreck." She sighed heavily.

  "Did they have any children?" Of course I knew they must have had a boy.

  "One son, Lee, who also had a son, I believe."

  "Don't they live around here? Why didn't he keep the family homestead?"

  "It's one of those local tragedies. The son and grandson were in the car too. Only the baby survived. His mother moved away. I don't know what happened to the baby after that."

  We had opened a couple of folding chairs while we were talking, and now we sat there in silence for a few minutes while I thought over what I should do. Cora must have realized I had something on my mind because she waited patiently. "Are we through with these?" she finally asked.

  "For now," I said.

  Cora bustled around putting the photos back into cases stacked along the long wall near the newspaper archive.

  When she was finished she came back and sat down again.

  "I have something to tell you," I began.

  "I thought perhaps you had," she said, rubbing a small hand over her lips to hide a smile. "Did you find another great secret in your house?"

  "No, this secret is much more lively."

  "Oh?"

  "Cora, I've met the grandson. His name is Jimmie Mosher, too"

  Her eyes opened wide. "Where is he? How is his mother? I don't remember her name."

  "One thing at a time! I don't have very many answers. He apparently lives in a complete dump on Alder Road. I think his mother is alive, but he almost cried when I brought it up." I didn't want