Wednesday, January 26, 2011

"Describe a person who is especially interesting."

They called him Mouse because he loved cheese and he'd bring a large piece of cheese to work instead of a lunch box, cheese and a beer. He walked everywhere he went and he'd never get into a car or a bus. If it was too far for him to walk then it wasn't somewhere that he was supposed to go, in his opinion. I saw him walking through the village each day when I was a child. He had muscle ticks and his head was nodding back and forth and to the sides as he walked, making him look like the pigeons that strutted around the square. He was a tiny man too, short and skinny, and he'd wear a gray jacket that was too big for him. In the winter he'd wear a hat with ear flaps and they'd flap up and down as he nodded his head. It took many years before I could understand why they called him Mouse and not Pigeon. 

On Friday evenings he'd come to visit my grandfather and have a beer while they talked about the week that had passed. He'd enter the house and then knock on the kitchen door greeting us with a stuttered "Blessings to all in the house!" He'd take his jacket off and fold it and put it on the stool by the stove before he sat on it. If it was cold weather he'd put his hat and gloves on the edge of the stove to warm them. He'd pull his fingers through his red hair making it stand right up and then he'd wait for my grandmother to serve him coffee and a cheese sandwich. While he was waiting he'd stomp his foot as he was following the rhythm of a melody that we couldn't hear, and now and then he'd make a clicking noise with his tongue. He'd thank my grandmother, drink the coffee, eat the cheese and feed the bread to the dog when he thought that no one was looking. 

When he had finished eating he started talking. The worlds would jump out of his mouth in an irregular way with random
click noises now and then while his foot was tapping some sort of rhythm. The hair that was standing right up on his head would sway back and forth as he nodded, making me think of dry straws on a field on a windy day. He'd start by telling storiesthat children could hear and then he'd give me money and ask me to run to the store and buy him tobacco. I knew that I was missing out on things and I'd run the fastest that I could to get back. 

When I got back both he and my grandfather would have opened a beer and they'd slowly and thoughtfully fill their pipes with the tobacco and smoke in silence for a while. My grandmother would put me to work helping her to make dinner, I'd stand on my toes on a small stool by the bench next to the stove, with my ears fixed on Mouse and what he'd tell us next. When he had gotten both beer and smoke he'd start adding whistling noises to his speech too. 

"I saw a bear :click: when I was walking :click: home today! It was a :click: young one ::whistles:: and he went down the hill ::whistles:: by old Betty's house. :stomps foot: :clicks: :whistles:"
His head nodding up and down back and forth as he looked at me to see if I was listening. 
"No good :click: for little girls :click: to be out alone :whistles: these days. :stomps:"

I knew he was trying to scare me, all the adults did, if it wasn't bears then it was trolls in the well or monsters in the lake. I always played along since it was part of the game, and I told him that I never left the yard alone. He'd nod his head even more and tell me that I was a good girl, and move on to tell funnier stories that made us all laugh. 
When the dinner was done we'd politely invite him to eat with us and he'd politely tell us that he couldn't that day, but maybe the next time, then he'd walk back out into the village. 

He was a wonderful, caring, loving man that never did any harm and always was ready to help others. Still people would avoid him or even be a bit scared of him. I loved his stories and I still remember the smell of the smoke from his pipe. He was killed in an accident at his work when he was no more than 50 years old. I wish that I had been older while he was alive so that I could remember his wonderful stories better.

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