This Month's Story

“I think we can do it in two days, Mr. Paul. Then we have to get the plasterer in to finish it up nice. Wait a week after that and then we can paint it. It’ll look nice.”

I’m standing in the long hall with Danny and we are looking up at the 15 feet wall that divides the living room from the hall.

There are three “lights” in the wall, three foot by four foot square holes. These lights are set high in the wall to let the sunlight from the hall skylights light the living room. It’s called “borrowed” light and makes the living room much brighter during the day than if the holes had not been placed there.

I want to increase the amount of this light by cutting two more holes in the wall, hence Danny’s visit. Two more holes added to the three holes already there will increase the amount of “borrowed” light in the living room by about forty percent, a nice increase.

I tell Danny to go ahead and do it and the next day he shows up with a helper and starts cutting the two new holes in the wall. I’m amazed. Even with the rough cuts of the new holes, the living room is markedly brighter.

Danny is an expert at these kinds of things and doesn’t need me around to bother him. I leave him and go do other things. It isn’t till later when I am walking up the hall that I hear him talking to his helper, pointing from his high perch through the hall end window to the woods in the back field.

I know what he is telling his helper and move as quiet as I can to the bedroom door to hear him tell the “story.” It’s a story I told him years ago about the elephants that live in our woods and the blueberries. It’s a good story. My purpose in eavesdropping was to see both his helper’s reaction and as well as hear Danny tells his version of my story.

I originally told it to Danny during the early construction of the house.

At the time, Danny was one of the carpenters. It was summer, much like it is now. A little warm and I were standing with Danny outside. It was nice weather to build a house.

Danny had stopped working for a moment and, looking in the direction of the back field, had been talking about the fruit trees I had just planted and the care they would need. Danny was a good person to give advice on things such as this. Danny has a bit of land himself and has fruit trees among other things growing on his property.

Danny was looked at our broad unplowed back field and the land’s possibilities.

“This here’s a nice piece of land, Mr. Paul. Those fruit trees will do well. Do you get bothered by any animals?”

“Well, the deer are pretty bad, but it’s the elephants that scare us the most.”

We had been talking in a comfortable place where Danny had been screwing a piece of plywood to a corner of a support wall. He had returned to working on the plywood when I said this. He stopped and looked at me.

“You have elephants?”

“Yeah. In the back there. They’ve been there for years. Stella says they escaped from a circus or something. They started with two but now there are about eight.”

Danny stood there looking at me.

Bill and his brother, Mike, two of the other men working a short distance away had slowed what they were doing and were obviously eavesdropping. I figured what the heck and plunged on.

“They live deep in the woods in the rear of the back field. They only come out when the weather is nice like it is now. You probably won’t notice them though because of the blueberries.”

“The blueberries?”

“Yeah. See they’re shy. So as not attract attention to themselves, they paint their ears blue and then crouch low in the blueberry bushes and even if you look directly at them, you almost can’t see them.

“They don’t really eat any of the blueberries, but it does make a person hesitate to go gather some. I mean when you go to get a blueberry and a large elephant stands up, it does scare you. I tell you, Danny, these are not small elephants”

Danny by now is just staring, his mouth slightly open.

Bill and Mike have edged closer. Mike finally cuts in with a question.

“Why do they paint just their ears?”

“I was curious about that myself. I asked Stella about why they did that when I first saw them. She says that when she was younger she remembers that they used to paint their rear ends. I guess it was easier to paint; all they had to do was sit down in some blue paint.

“But it turned out their rear ends made so big a “blueberry,” that it didn’t fool anyone. Also, with just their rear end painted blue, the elephants had to be pointed away from anyone in order to hide and they’re too shy to do that. So I guess they switched to just painting their ears blue. It’s the first thing you look for when you see an elephant anyway.

“To tell you the honest truth, they never bothered us much during most of the year except when the blueberries would get ripe. That’s when the birds would come to eat the berries. Oh, it does get ugly then.”

Danny had put down his screw gun; none of the men were working. I kept looking back toward the trees, wondering how I was going to end all this.

“It’s all right if they just stay back there behind the tree line, but when the blueberries ripen and they come out to be in the sun, things get a mite touchy.

“You see, at that time the birds come in flocks to start feeding on what they think are bodacious big “blueberries.” Somehow, the word spreads and the birds come in huge flocks. They cover the blueberry patch. However, as soon as they would begin pecking at what they think are large plump blueberries, the elephants go berserk and stampede!

“Oh, my gosh! I tell you, Danny, that is something to see. It is unbelievable! The elephants running wild, screaming in pain, the earth trembling, the birds calling to each other, confused, circling overhead, trying to dive down and get themselves at least one of the big blueberry to eat.

“If the elephants head back into the woods, it isn’t so bad. Things quiet down fairly quickly when that happens. No, sir. It’s when the herd turns and head for us and the old farmhouse that it gets scary. I remember one time watching them come and trying to figure what to do when I see Stella running toward me screaming.

“Paul, get back in the house!! Here come the blueberries!!

With this Mike picked up his hammer and headed back to where he had been working. After a moment, Bill quietly turned around and did the same thing.

Danny just stood there staring at me.

“Really, Mr. Paul??”

“Really, Danny.”

Well, all of this took several years ago and here was Danny explaining to his helper about the wild life we had on the farm and how they lived.

I had got as close to them as I could, but I did get to hear the word “elephants” several times and when he said “stampede,” he waved his arms so hard he almost fell off the ladder.

Really, Danny.

“Here there be elephants!”