“Ok boys, who thinks it would be cool to go see a supernatural tree?” asked Foster’s Grandpa.

A few of the younger Scouts of Greenville, Mississippi’s Troop 987, including Foster, raised their hands but the older boys chastised and stifled their naive alacrity with elder, superior sneers. Hands dropped slowly. Grandpa anticipated this post-Generation-X skepticism and changed his demeanor to one more fell and serious.

“About eight miles north of Belzoni lived a crazy old woman named Melba Teagarden. She lived in a small one-bedroom house and rode a mule to town. Last time I saw her, she had about fifteen cats and ten or so dogs. They say she ran around naked under the full moon.”

This new opener garnered more attention.

“Someone told me that she needed to see a doctor because she had been acting crazier lately so I went over there to check her out. When I arrived, she bolted out of her house with hair as white and frazzled as teased cotton, ran right up to me, grabbed me by the shoulders and said ‘I found a door to the future!’ Well, obviously I concluded that she was mentally ill, especially with that weird ivory pipe shaped like a pirate she always smoked and the naked dancing under the moon I’d heard about. I decided to humor her all the same so I could check her out. I took an oath long ago in medical school to help people after all. As I was trying to look her over, she said she wouldn’t tell me how she travels to the future unless I came back once a month to check on her mule. I could tell she was suffering from something but without being able to look at her more closely, I couldn’t know for sure. So I agreed to visit once a month to check on her mule – as long as I could check her too.

“Long story short, I went over there many more times and she finally told me how she could travel to the future. She got on her white mule that she called Professor Throckmorton – she even drew glasses on him with a black marker – and told me to get on and she’d take me to the door to the future. What the hell, I thought, so I rode behind her on that mule.”

Here there were laughs and a few incredulous smirks, but at least they were paying attention.

“We rode the old mule for about two miles into the swamp which had drained from dry weather. The going was slow as the mule bogged down in the mud. We wove through big, old trees until we stopped before a huge bald cypress whose trunk flared out at the bottom as wide as a pickup. She told me that no one but her knew about this giant tree since the water usually covered up the trunk base.

“Some time later … after the old woman disappeared … I brought some guys from the forest service to see that tree. They declared it to be the biggest tree in Mississippi. It is almost forty-seven feet in circumference, fifteen feet in diameter and seventy feet tall. The forest service guys said the tree could yield enough lumber to build six regular houses. Can y’all guess how old it was?”

The Scouts, who were still paying attention, made guesses and the consensus was around five or so hundred years.

“Over two-thousand years old. Older than Jesus,” said Grandpa.

One of the younger boys asked, “What about traveling to the future?”

“What happened to the crazy lady?” asked another.

“I was getting there,” continued Grandpa. “So we got off the mule and Melba Teagarden pointed to what she naturally called the Big Tree. She said the door to the future was in the base of the Big Tree, but it only opened once a year. Then she started babbling about the details. Basically, here’s what she said: Once a year at midnight on the seventh day after the Winter Solstice, a door at the base of the Big Tree opens. If you go inside, you’ll go to the future. But you have to come out by sunrise or you will be stuck in there until the next seventh day after the Solstice. A year later.”

Grandpa paused to let this part of the story sink in. Moments later, many hands were up. The same kid asked again what had happened to the old woman.

“Well, that’s the thing. Last year, I went out to the house to check on her about a week after New Year’s. She and the mule were nowhere to be seen. I noticed a pile of scattered mail on her porch. I figured she must have gone out to the Big Tree and that maybe, given her age and condition, she died there or something. The water had receded again so I slogged out there in the mud to the Big Tree. When I got there, I saw that weird old ivory pipe shaped like a pirate stuck in the mud near the base of the tree. I also saw lots of footprints in the mud: human and mule.”

“Did she get stuck in the tree?” asked one of the boys.

“I don’t really know. Maybe,” Grandpa said. “Do y’all know when seven days after the Winter Solstice is?”

Blank stares.

“It’s on December 28. So, for the next campout, we’re going to camp in Melba Teagarden’s back field on December 28 and go out to the Big Tree near midnight to see if she comes out.”

The boys peppered Grandpa with many questions. Almost all of the younger boys asked questions suggesting belief. Some of the older boys, however, asked questions more skeptical in nature. Despite this sage teenage skepticism, they still told each other they intended to go. Just for the fun of it.

Grandpa answered some of the questions but concluded his pitch by telling them that if they wanted to know more, they’d have to come to the campout three days after Christmas.

B.

Foster surveyed his Christmas gifts strewn about and unwrapped before him with alert and calculating eyes. Like wreckage wrought by a whirlwind, wads of torn wrapping paper and useless handmade bows lay randomly among massive piles of toys, hunting and fishing accoutrements and electronics. Foster wanted to ensure he had received the number and quality of gifts he felt was appropriate. He couldn’t say exactly how many or how much would be adequate – he would know by looking.

For a brief fevered moment, Foster wondered if his best friend would beat him this year. A tiny bead of cold sweat surfaced on his eleven-year-old forehead as he imagined going next door like he always did after what he called the Big Gimme only to see a smug look of triumph on Mike’s face for having more or better gifts. But just as quickly as it surfaced, that bead of fear evaporated when he remembered that Mike would never beat him for two reasons. First, he had a sister and a brother whereas Foster was an only child. Second, Foster’s father and grandfather were doctors; Mike’s parents were teachers.

With the swift efficiency of a seasoned accountant, Foster’s eyes completed his gift survey. He concluded that although he had received most of the things he wanted this year – let’s face it, you never get everything you want all at once – there was something very important missing: the iPod Mom had promised Grandpa was getting it for him. A 60 gigabyte iPod MP3 player with video ability, not the mere 30 gig player with no video ability – that’s what everyone else was getting. No, only the 60 gig player with video would do.

Come to think of it, Grandpa was nowhere to be seen. Foster couldn’t remember seeing him at all that morning. He remembered waking up at five, waking his parents, coaxing them to come downstairs to unwrap presents and unwrapping said presents. Foster looked at the old cuckoo clock over the fireplace that read ten-thirty. His parents’ siblings and their brood had been over already for an hour. His mother and aunts and grandmother were aflutter preparing the Big Gimme dinner. His father was entertaining the other men by showing them his new plasma television up in the game room.

Foster couldn’t actually go look for Grandpa. That would require him to leave his post, which would mean leaving his gifts unguarded from his cousins’ greedy little fingers. No. There was only one thing to do.

“Mom!” he called from the living room.

No answer.

“Mom!” he called louder.

“What, honey?”

“Come here, please,” he said.

“I can’t, I’m cooking dinner.”

“Where’s Grandpa?”

No answer. Foster drew in a breath for another summoning but his mother came into the living room, her hands besmirched with dough of some kind.

“What is it, hon?” she asked.

“Where’s Grandpa?” he asked again, aware that she was aware what he was really asking. “Mom?” Foster’s mother called to her own mother. “Where is Dad?” “He’s getting Foster’s presents,” Grandma returned.

“See,” said Foster’s mother. “He didn’t forget about your Ipod.”

“I hope not,” said Foster, unconvinced. After all, Grandpa was old, he thought.

C.

From within the living room, Foster espied Grandpa approaching the sliding glass door from the backyard with a peculiar grin. Grandpa motioned for Foster to come outside. Foster quickly slid open the door and trotted outside to receive what was almost certainly a brand-new 60 gig iPod with video – though come to think of it, why would Grandpa give it to him outside?

“Where are you going, Grandpa?”

“Just come out here to the driveway,” said Grandpa.

Foster didn’t ask any more questions since all answers would lead to the iPod anyway.

Grandpa stood in the driveway before the closed garage door. He was still brandishing that strange grin – the kind of grin that looked to Foster proud and satisfied. He noticed that Grandpa held the garage door opener in his hand.

Foster reconnoitered to make sure he wasn’t about to play a trick on him. Grandpa was prone to playing tricks. Like the time he handed Foster a big steaming sausage biscuit, telling him it was the finest sausage biscuit that he’ll ever eat – only to find out that the sausage was no sausage at all, but rather liver. Or that time last summer Foster argued with his cousin over who would get first dibs on that wonderfully large bowl of something on the table at which point Grandpa assured them they would both get plenty as he doled out two large servings to each of them – only to find out that the wonderful something was something ghastly called rutabagas.

Foster was getting wise.

“What’s going on, Grandpa?”

“Well, Foster, I’ll tell you. You, my boy, are about to behold the finest gift you have ever received. Yes, the finest gift. Why, this gift will provide you the means with which you can get anything. It’s magic.”

Foster’s mind changed gears faster than a Nascar driver. How could an iPod provide him with other gifts? It must be something else, otherwise why would Grandpa have brought him outside? Dang it. He really wanted that iPod.

“What is it?” asked Foster in mock anticipation.

“Have you ever heard the saying: ‘Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life’?” asked Grandpa.

“No, sir.”

“It’s a very important concept, Foster. One that you need to learn if you want to get anywhere in life. And with that, I present to you your Christmas gifts,” said Grandpa with a flourish of his hands and arms like an old tonic salesman about to reveal a new panacea. He pressed the garage door opener and the door crept up loudly.

Foster fidgeted as he waited. It can’t be an iPod, he reaffirmed to himself. Why would he put it in the garage?

When the clamor of the old garage door motor ceased, there was an eerie silence as Foster looked around the garage for his new present. He didn’t see anything that appeared meant for him. There was nothing in there but yard tools and Mom’s old exercise bike.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Grandpa.

“About what?”

“Your gifts.”

“Which are mine?” Foster asked, not wanting to blurt out that he didn’t see anything that interested him. He didn’t want to be rude.

“The lawnmower and the rake, boy. What else?” said Grandpa.

As he said those words, Foster realized that there was a brand new red push lawnmower with a bow on it sitting directly in the center of the garage and a new rake leaning on the mower.

“A LAWNmower,” said Foster, not as a question or a mere statement, but rather as the kind of affected adulation given when one receives a present that one either doesn’t want or doesn’t need but doesn’t want to offend the giver.

“And a rake,” said Grandpa.

“Right, and a RAKE,” said Foster in the same tone.

Foster was stymied. He didn’t know exactly what he should say or do at this point. He felt the heat of embarrassment laced with disappointment spread in his cheeks. What was he going to do with a lawnmower and a rake? They already had a lawnmower – a John Deere riding lawnmower as a matter of fact – and several rakes. Why did they need another?

“If you are confused, young Foster, I will elaborate. You’re probably asking yourself why I gave you a lawnmower and a rake when your father has that nice John Deere over there and a whole row of various and sundry yard tools. You’re probably also wondering why I didn’t get you an iPod. Right?”

“Umm…well…I guess so.”

“You know how Grandma and Grandpa have always given you what you want? Whenever you wanted it, all year long?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, other than Christmas and your birthday, this lawnmower and this rake are the last things we’ll ever give you. You’re eleven after all. Old enough to get a job.”

“A job?” asked Foster, the word feeling foreign and false as it traveled from his mind to his vocal cords and out his mouth.

“That’s right,” said Grandpa.

“But I’m only eleven.”

“You’re old enough to push that mower and to rake leaves, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“Well, just think Foster. You live in a nice neighborhood and everyone has a nice yard. Guess what every one of those yards needs. They need to be mowed in the spring, summer, and fall here in the Delta. They need to be raked in the late fall and winter. And guess what else. Most people have other jobs that leave them little time to mow or rake or to want to mow or rake. Except retirees of course, most of us anyway. Look around this neighborhood. Find me the best kept yards and I’ll show you retirees. Other than them, at least half of the people in this neighborhood would love to pay a local boy - one they know and can trust – twenty or so dollars to take care of their yard once a week. Get yourself two yards at first. Do the math. What’s twenty dollars times two?”

“Forty,” replied Foster lightning fast. Had it been twenty apples times two or twenty miles times two, his eyes would have glassed over like in math class. But this wasn’t math class. This was money.

“Ok. Now, that’s forty dollars a week. How much allowance do you get?”

“Ten dollars a week,” yawned Foster.

“So add forty to that. That’s fifty dollars a week. Now, what’s fifty dollars times four?”

“Two hundred,” Foster said.

“That’s right. Two hundred dollars a month. So if you just mowed and raked two yards a week, you’d be getting one-hundred-and-sixty dollars more a month than if you just sat around and took your allowance.”

“I guess so,” said Foster.

“You guess so? Boy, I know so. With that kind of money you could buy plenty of iPods. One for each day of the week. You could buy a scooter or a bike or even better, you could mow more yards, save most of it and buy yourself a car when you’re sixteen. Just think of the possibilities with this mere lawnmower and rake,” said Grandpa with an excited, expectant visage.

Foster considered the proposition, and for a brief moment it sounded great. But then he realized that this would require work.

“Dad? Foster? Come on, it’s time to eat,” called Foster’s mother.

“We’re coming,” Grandpa replied. Before he turned to go inside, Grandpa looked at Foster. “What do you think about your presents?” he asked.

“I think they’re great,” Foster said, thinking he said it in a tone and with a face that was convincing. But he knew it was hard to fool Grandpa.

D.

While everyone ate Christmas dinner, Foster pondered the iPod question and how he could get one without having to work. Perhaps as a birthday present. No, he’d already had his birthday back in October and it would be about ten months before his next one. Maybe he could offer to work for Grandpa. That had worked in the past. No, that lawnmower and rake thing probably meant he wouldn’t go for that anymore. He could use the money he’d saved from his birthday and Christmas presents. But why use that money if he didn’t have to? There was always the old standby: He could bug the heck out of his parents. If he bugged hard enough, they’d eventually give in. They usually did. Of course, that would take time.

Surely, there had to be another way. Foster’s mind was desperate and irritated. What’s with this stupid lawnmower thing? he thought as he looked at the end of the table and smiled at Grandpa, who was eagerly eating one of the turkey legs.

Then he remembered the campout and the Big Tree and traveling to the future. Was it true? Nah, Grandpa probably made it up. Then again, he seemed pretty serious. It wasn’t like Grandpa to make up things. What if it was true? What if there really was a way to see the future in the Big Tree? If so, Foster had to figure out a way to use it to his advantage.

He knew that in the movies people usually used knowledge of the future to make tons of money in the stock market or by gambling on football games or horse races. He didn’t know anything about the stock market or horse races. But he knew about football. Maybe he could find out who will win the college bowl games and even the Super Bowl. They would be coming up pretty soon and he knew that the older boys and their dads bet on those games. In fact, Foster knew that his father had won enough money this past season to buy the plasma TV he said Santa had brought.

Yeah, that’s a good plan, Foster thought. Besides, all he needed was about three hundred dollars to get the iPod and accessories. It might work. Better than him working.

E.

At around 9:00 a.m. on December 28, Grandpa and Foster pulled up to the troop hut. The parking lot was full of parent vehicles, Scouts and camping gear. It was the biggest turnout since summer camp six months ago. All three Scoutmasters were going. One of them was answering parent questions, one was attaching the troop trailer to his pickup and the other was directing excited patrol leaders to have their patrols gather and organize the troop’s gear.

Soon, a steady stream of Scouts carrying canopies, tents, tables, propane bottles, a flagpole, stoves, patrol boxes holding cooking equipment, five-gallon water jugs, coolers, lanterns and individual bags of gear flowed into the trailer, One new Scout’s mother was helping her son carry his share. A Scoutmaster reminded her that such work was for the boys to teach them responsibility. She reluctantly acquiesced and before leaving, hugged and kissed her son three times in front of all the other Scouts. After she left, the other Scouts gave the new boy plenty of hell.

After about an hour of trying to impose order on boy chaos, everyone seemed ready to go. The senior patrol leader’s headcount totaled sixteen Scouts, three Scoutmasters, and Dr. Thompson.

F.

Troop 987 arrived at Melba Teagarden’s place about a hour after leaving Greenville. It had been almost exactly a year since she disappeared and her homestead looked it. The small one-bedroom house leaned right, as if when abandoned it decided to finally give up. The windows were broken. The front door hung askew as it clung vainly to the doorjamb. The original white paint had largely flaked off. The house looked grayed and dirty and warped like some abandoned skeletal ship marooned on a deserted, mad island.

Everyone exited the vehicles to behold the homestead. Seeing it desolate and empty made Grandpa’s story and their mission more palpable. The boys were unusually quiet and respectful, as if they were in a graveyard. Grandpa’s tone encouraged the somber mood as he pointed out where he’d first met Melba, where she kept the mule and her other animals, and where the driveway continued into the woods to the Big Tree.

Apparently the mule, the fifteen cats and ten dogs had wandered elsewhere. There were no signs of the life that made a place a home. Other than the haunted notes of the wind chimes hanging over the porch, the rustling of the bare tree branches and the waving of the waist-high dead weeds in her lawn, there was a pervasive silence.

Grandpa pointed out that they would camp just in front of the woodline a hundred yards behind the house. They all climbed back into the vehicles and drove to the trees. They parked and found a suitable campsite abutting the woods.

Just after noon the boys finished setting up camp. The patrol leader assigned two boys from each of the patrols to cook lunch. While doing so, the other boys played capture the flag.

As they ate, Grandpa suggested that they all hike to the Big Tree after the meal so they could investigate things during daylight and learn how to get there easier for their midnight trek. The boys seemed excited about that prospect and thus cleaned up everything far more quickly than usual.

G.

The driveway turned into a dirt road as it passed Melba’s house and proceeded through the woodline. Grandpa and two Scoutmasters led the way down the road. The boys trailed behind, cutting up and goofing off by throwing sticks and dirt clods at each other as they walked. The third Scoutmaster took the end of the chaotic line so the boys didn’t straggle too badly.

After about a mile in, the dirt road devolved into a muddy trail pocked everywhere with small depressions likely made the year before by Melba’s mule. As the way narrowed, the boys were more or less forced to narrow their stick and mud clod throwing to a four or five foot broad corridor. The Scoutmasters admonished them every few minutes or so to “Stop that grab-assing.” This admonition rarely failed to make the boys laugh, but it nevertheless worked until the next such admonition.

They were well into the swamp area when the trail became less of a trail and the cypress trees became bigger and more ancient. Soon the trail became covered with shallow water, first an inch or so deep, then up to three inches. The water was still low, however, since it hadn’t rained much that winter. In any event, the water didn’t bother the boys at all since they wore their duck boots and since when did a boy turn away from sloshing through the water with boots on?

“There it is, boys,” Grandpa pointed.

“Where?” everyone asked in unison.

“To the right. You can’t miss it. Let’s go,” Grandpa replied.

About twenty yards to the right stood the Big Tree. It was as big as Grandpa promised. Bigger, even. They sloshed through the six-inch deep water that became shallower as they approached the tree.

“See? Look how big it is,” Grandpa said. “Forty-seven feet in circumference, fifteen feet in diameter and seventy feet tall. Damn, that’s a big tree.”

Despite the usual difficulty in impressing boys of this age in a world of sensory overload brought upon by the constant inundation of movies, television, and the internet, the boys were clearly in awe of the Big Tree. They were relatively silent as their eyes took in the sheer mass of the bald cypress. There were many whoa’s and gosh’s and even a stifled damn or two.

“Dr. Thompson? Where’s this door to the future?” a younger boy asked.

“I believe it’s on the other side,” Grandpa replied.

The younger the boy, the faster he ran to the other side. The older the boy, however, the slower he meandered in order to prove to everyone else that he was too wise to be so excited about a mere tree and what was obviously a silly story made up to bribe the troop into full attendance on a campout. That didn’t stop the older boys from joining the investigation, however.

“Grandpa, I don’t see a door,” Foster said.

“I didn’t see the door actually open,” said Grandpa. “I only know that this is where I found Melba’s ivory pirate pipe. This is also where I saw that crazy mule staring into the tree.”

“He must have been waiting for her to come out,” said a boy.

“Probably,” said Grandpa.

As everyone looked about for signs of Melba Teagarden, Grandpa spoke more about Melba herself.

“As I said before, Melba Teagarden must have been an untreated schizophrenic. I suppose it’s easy to be such out here in the country. Without family or friends to insist upon her being medicated or committed and without a serious incident necessitating permanent State intervention, it’s perfectly normal for a woman like Melba to live in her own world undisturbed … at least by actual people, anyway.”

“How did you come to meet her?” one of the Scoutmasters asked.

“One of my patients in Belzoni told me about her. The guy who runs the rural postal route. As far as I know, he’s the only person who ever went anywhere near her front door. She didn’t have a mailbox so he delivered her mail to her door. Sometimes she’d come to the door and stare at him, sometimes she’d say something he wouldn’t understand, and sometimes she’d throw things at him. She once threw tomatoes at him, calling him the devil. After that he called me about her. He said he felt sorry for her and noticed that she was getting thinner and a little crazier than usual. So I went to see her.

“Like I said before, the only way she would let me visit her was if I promised I would look after her mule, Professor Throckmorton. So each time I came here I played like I was examining him. In the process, I would look at Melba a little, if she let me. I came here once a month for about a year and each month she looked thinner and older, as if she were aging a year each month. She never would let me take a blood sample or anything. She said she was fine and eating plenty, pointing to her garden with pride.

“Nor did she ever let me in her house. Ladies weren’t supposed to allow strange men inside, she said. Somebody might get the idea she was a harlot.”

“What did y’all talk about?” asked an adult.

“Usually we’d talk about her garden or her mule. She spoke of him as if he were a person. About how he would always beat her at checkers or quote poetry she hadn’t heard of. I commented once that Professor Throckmorton was an interesting name and she said that he made it up from some old book he read. She said he wasn’t really a professor. Rather, he was an author, which is why he needed glasses. It was very difficult, she said, to find glasses for a mule.”

“She was definitely wack-a-doo,” someone said.

“Yeah, she sure was. But I don’t think it was just a physical mental illness, in the biochemical sense. I tend to think it was a mixture of her illness and her past. She once said she wished she could go to the future when she could dance alone in the moonlight and tend her garden and talk to mules without people bothering her. She said she knew that soon the world would be almost empty of people, of men who killed husbands and children and men and women who allowed that sort of thing to go unpunished. If she could just get there, to the future, she could be safe.”

“Did somebody kill her family or something?” the judge asked.

“I’m not sure. I talked to the retired sheriff about her. He said she didn’t grow up here and that she just showed up by herself in Belzoni one day in the early seventies, paid cash to construct a one-bedroom house on this piece of land she also paid for with cash. She stayed in a tent until the construction was complete, he said. After the house was built, she only came to town once a month on a mule, though probably not on that same mule all those years. She likely had at least a couple of mules during the last thirty years. Anyway, she purchased supplies from the closest little store between her house and town – she wouldn’t enter into town any further – and then she would leave for another month. As far as I could find out, she never went to church nor even to the World Catfish Festival each year,” Grandpa said.

“She’d definitely be crazy to miss the World Catfish Festival,” one Scoutmaster laughed.

“So tell us again about how that old lady disappeared in that tree,” Foster asked, pointing to the ancient brown monolith just feet away. Most of the boys had been gradually drawn from investigating the Big Tree to Grandpa’s second account of the crazy lady.

“I already told y’all about how the first time I met her she ran up to me, grabbed me and said she’d found a way to the future. After about a year of visiting her once a month, she told me the way to the future was through the Big Tree. Once a year at midnight on the seventh day after the Winter Solstice, a door opens in it. If she went inside, she could walk into the future but if she didn’t come out by dawn she’d be stuck in there until the next year. The last time I saw her she took me out here on her mule to show me this tree. Just after New Year’s Day, I came out to this tree when I couldn’t find her at home, thinking she might have come out here and died or something. When I got here I saw the mule standing about right here and her pipe on the ground about right here,” Grandpa said as he approached the spot on the ground just in front of where he assumed the door to be.

“So are we really going to come out here in the dark at midnight to see if the tree opens?” one of the older boys asked.

“I know I am. Y’all can stay at camp … if you’re scared,” Grandpa said, without a smile.

“I’m not scared. There’s no such thing as magic trees,” another older boy said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t care if y’all come or not. I’m coming back here to find out for sure. I’ve seen stranger things in my life,” Grandpa said.

“Ok, boys. Let’s go back to camp and cook dinner. Some of you girls might need to take a nap so you can stay up late,” a Scoutmaster said.

H.

Dinner came and went. A large fire illuminated the camp. The temperature had dropped to the low forties, which felt even colder with the humid air, and the campfire’s heat warmed their bodies as much as its light strengthened their minds against the old specters of the outside dark.

The Scouts took turns telling stories through the night, the object of which was to scare or gross-out or both. The adults encouraged the narratives and added their own, thinking it funny to set a sinister mood before their midnight trek to the Big Tree.

Since it took about thirty minutes to reach the Big Tree during the day, Grandpa surmised that they needed to leave camp about an hour before midnight to account for slow moving through the dark wooded swamp. At about ten-thirty, the adults mustered everyone in formation so they could make sure each Scout wore his duck boots, his coat and hat, and his flashlight and whistle in case he got lost out in the black.

A headcount revealed four missing boys. It turned out that four of the younger boys had crawled inside their sleeping bags inside their tents to take a nap. The patrol leader retrieved two sleepy-eyed boys to the muster. Despite his best efforts, however, he was unable to get the other two out of their bags. They said they were too tired to go. The adults knew they would fail in getting those two particular boys to follow them into the woods in the dark. One of them was the boy whose mother tried to help him load the trailer back at the hut. They left them there with the warning not to leave the camp.

The remaining contingent ventured into the dark swamp. As Grandpa had anticipated, the going was much slower in the dark, even though there was little grabassing on this trip. Instead, everyone marched slowly and silently, grasping his flashlight tightly like it was a totem of good versus the evil dark. Things were always different in the dark. The adults knew that, and it was one of the few things the boys didn’t need to be told.

They made it to the Big Tree a few minutes before midnight. Some of the boys ran straight up to the tree, others stood back in caution. Each of them, however, shined his flashlight at the base of the tree, waiting.

“Three … two … one … midnight,” Grandpa counted.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe your watch is wrong,” someone said.

“Could be,” Grandpa replied.

They waited longer. Nothing happened.

“It looks like nothing is going to happen,” said Grandpa. “It’s five after midnight and I don’t see any door. Somebody walk around the tree and make sure there’s no opening.”

A few boys volunteered, now more confident since the story was turning out to be untrue.

“I don’t see any opening,” Foster said, disappointed. He had been the first boy to volunteer.

“We’ll wait another twenty or so minutes. Then we’ll go back,” Grandpa said.

I.

“I knew there was no such thing as magic trees,” the more skeptical of the older boys said, more to himself than to anyone in particular but in a tone belying a sense of disappointment.

“Yeah, that’s too bad. I was hoping that maybe we could find her and…” Grandpa said, trailing off into thought. He had known all along that it was probably just a story, just the product of the mad ramblings of an old, sad, lonely woman. She likely died out there and the animals dragged her into the swamp and consumed her. He knew from his experience as a Green Beret medic in Vietnam that this was likely. Wild pigs, probably.

Despite his early skepticism that the whole thing was merely a story and the subsequent confirmation of that, Grandpa did not regret telling it. He had believed the mere prospect of the story’s truth would be enough to create an adventure for the Scouts. And his grandson. He had accomplished that mission and that was good. He was out there with the Scouts in the first place to help teach Foster to be a man. A good man. Like his idea with the rake and the lawnmower.

“Where’s Foster?” Grandpa asked the group after they’d returned to camp.

“I dunno,” a couple of boys answered. Everyone looked at each other to see if one of those others included Foster.

“Has anyone seen Foster?” Grandpa asked, more emphatically this time.

“Everyone look for Foster,” the head Scoutmaster called.

No one found him in the camp. Nor in a tent and nor in the vehicles. Everyone called out his name but heard no reply.

“Does anyone remember him coming back from the Big Tree?” Grandpa asked loudly.

“No, sir,” all of the boys answered in turn.

They formed a search party. They broke up into two teams, one to look around camp and Melba’s house, the other to go back to the Big Tree. Grandpa led the latter group.

They searched for Foster for the remainder of the night. As each hour passed, the search became more frantic. Grandpa hoped he would soon hear the whistle Foster was supposed to be carrying and to blow in bursts of three if he got lost. But he never heard the whistle.

When Grandpa’s group reached the Big Tree, it was around three in the morning. Foster was not there. Grandpa ordered everyone to search in the vicinity of the tree in a grid formation. Someone found something.

“Dr. Thompson, I think this is his hat,” said the patrol leader.

It was Foster’s Scout hat. It had his name written under the brim.

Grandpa had everyone form a circle around the tree with each guy’s back to the tree. He told them to walk forward and scan the ground with his flashlight. After everyone was a hundred yards out, Grandpa told them to halt and walk back.

When they reached the tree, Foster was sitting on the ground with his back to the tree. He appeared fine. Grandpa checked him for injuries and found none. Other than having no hat, all of Foster’s clothes were still intact and he did not appear to be especially cold or otherwise afflicted, except his dazed silence. He uttered no words in response to a deluge of questions nor did he volunteer anything. He remained silent as they all hiked back to camp.

After reaching camp, the adults made coffee and hot chocolate. Grandpa took Foster inside the van to examine him more closely for any injuries. There were none. Grandpa gave him some coffee and an aspirin. When he finished the coffee, Foster started talking again as if nothing had occurred. When asked what had happened, he insisted that he didn’t know.

J.

It was June. Grandpa was driving one of his friends to a party down the street from his son’s house. The sun had sunk below the horizon several minutes before and it was dark enough to warrant headlights.

“Look over there,” Grandpa’s friend said. “There’s a kid mowing a yard with a flashlight. You don’t see something like that very often. Especially these days.”

“That’s my grandson, Foster,” Grandpa said.

“He’ll do well,” the friend said.

“He sure will,” Grandpa said. “I gave him that lawnmower for Christmas. He didn’t seem too keen on using it until after he got back from his first campout.”

“What happened on the campout?” the friend asked.

“I don’t really know. He won’t say, but I think a Big Tree convinced him” Grandpa said, thinking he was telling a half-truth.

“A big tree?”

“Never mind.”