Dirt

When I was one and a half my mother took my sister, who was three and a half, and me to my grandmothers house a short drive from home. She went inside to talk with grandma and let us play outside. We were familiar with the back yard and all that it had to offer and soon found our favorite thing to do; dig in the dirt. There was a particularly soft spot of dirt over next to the east fence of the yard, it was a little darker than the surrounding earth but that made it all the more fun to play with as we would mix the lighter dirt with the darker. Soon our little hands were dusty and dirty as we enjoyed the dirt. Our clothes, shoes and hair soon turned a dusty black. In my sister's hair it was less noticeable because she had dark hair already but I had very light hair and the black dust clung to the hair and made me look very different. While we were enjoying the digging and playing in the dirt Grandpa came out to check on us. He noticed where we were playing and chuckled. He decided since he was the responsible adult he would add to our fun. He went to the side of the house and grabbed the hose. He turned it on and kinked it so that it would not splash to much as he brought it over to where we were. Then he let the water out. We, my sister and I, loved the water and it made the dirt even more fun to play in. We made mud pies, mud castles, mud everything. Our hands got blacker, our clothes got blacker, even my sisters hair, which was already dark, got blacker. We had streaks of mud and dirt on our faces, the had water and mud in between our toes. It was wonderful! Grandpa just laughed. I do not know exactly how long we were playing in the dirt and mud but it was to our great dismay when Mom came out to check on us. She saw us and screamed in horror, as most mothers so often do when their children have been having fun, asking the all to familiar question, "What are you doing?" Needless to say even at one and a half and three and a half years old we knew that we had to think of something quickly otherwise our bottoms would soon be a little red. We just smiled and pointed to grandpa, who was plainly not trying to laugh. Grandpa had a little more fun as he doused us head to toe with the hose to get us a little cleaner and then Mom took us inside to take a bath. We did our best not to track the mud into grandma's house and I am pretty sure that we had to fill the tub twice because of how dirty the water was the first time. I learned years later that the dirt next to the east fence was so fine and black on top because that is where my grandparents put the coal they used to heat the house in the winter time.