Right now, on my front steps, is an odd assortment of … things. There is a rake, leaning dangerously across the steps. There are a few sticks of varying lengths, a frisbee made of fabric, a large rock and a piece of cement that looks suspiciously like a rock but, upon closer inspection, reveals itself to be a piece of cement (it was originally mistaken for a fossil– ah! the disappointment!). And there is somebody’s dog’s toy. A stuffed toy; I think it is supposed to be a bird, and it has eyes that gave me a serious scare when I went down the steps before light this morning to take a walk.
These things were purchased by one of my children from another one of my children, or maybe from the neighbor children, who have been playing, too. They have been playing for hours at a time in the back yard mostly, running from our playset to theirs and beyond it, running along the path and leaping over the creek. They each have something called a “store,” and they go about collecting things to sell in this store, or visiting one another’s stores and making purchases.
And what is their currency? Feathers, of course. Brightly colored, fuzzy feathers that I bought in Wal-Mart on Sunday for $1.39.
Why did I buy the feathers? Because William needed them. He wanted to make an Indian chief headdress.
And why did he want to make this headdress? Because he had built a tee-pee in the playroom. He made it from an old sheet and several blankets, the old kitchen bar stools and the piano bench. Oh, and clothespins. A fellow with a tee-pee will be wanting a headdress, and with some old elastic from discarded pantyhose, a few feathers can turn an 8-year-old head into something really noble.
It was only after he made the headdress that he struck upon the use for the leftover feathers. “Mom, do you think we could use the feathers for money? Do you think we could buy things with feathers?”
When I finally understood that he didn’t mean we should try to buy things at Wal-Mart with feathers but that the neighborhood kids might value such tender, I said yes, yes, they could definitely use feathers for money. And that has been amusing them all week, every afternoon.
Last week it was digging. For some reason, William has been hankering for a cavern, and as there is no cavern to be found nearby, he decided to make one. Unfortunately, he commenced his digging in the clay under the play set. He started in one spot, and Ben started in another, planning to meet with their tunnels in the middle. When we discovered what he was doing (they had made some serious progress, I being the ever-watchful mother), we made him fill in the holes; the playset’s stability was seriously hampered.
So he started digging in another place, thinking he had followed our instructions and found a better spot. But we made him put the dirt back, and also the lawn.
Before this it was an elevator he was after. He has a vision in his head to build an elevator for the playset. He wants it to carry people. I think we have him understanding that it has to be only for things, a dumb-waiter, we’ve told him. He knows he can’t do this himself, and now we’ve bought supplies. We have pulleys and rope and special metal rings, and hopefully, this weekend, we’ll be able to make his vision a reality.
After he went to bed last night, I found scissors and a large, black, plastic envelope on the floor. He had cut the end off the flat lining of a gym bag and removed the cardboard, trying to make a pouch for his feather money. I don’t know what he’ll think of next, but I’m proud of him already. And I have to say, headdress or no, that’s a pretty noble head on those shoulders.
