The old gray cat that Thankful called Mr. Johnson came up and began rubbing her leg. She picked him up and I noticed he had strange looking paws. When I mentioned it....Thankful said he had seven toes on each front paw....every gray cat has extra toes..Jake Johnson had four thumbs...that's where Mr. Johnson got his name.
I asked her who Jake Johnson was and she said that he would come later in her stories. She continued talking,"In 1915...George Started building this house...it took him a little more that a year to get it perfect...he, mum and I moved in...I think it was September of 1916 when we moved in....there were no houses around us for a half mile back then....oh...this was such a beautiful place."
I changed the tape and she kept going,"It was January of 1917 when Freddie came home...he had been on duty near the Mexican border...he said he was in the First Infantry Division, later to be known as The Big Red One....he was to sail to Europe in June...My Freddy was going off to war...we had nine days to be together."
"We made love every chance we had...mum told us that the house is either infested with mice that have musical instruments or the bed springs are fighting the head board.....she teased us quite often."
"On the last day...we went for a picnic by the creek...the sun was shining bright...we had laid all of our clothes in the grass..I remember watching a cloud...a small dark cloud moving over as I looked up through the branches of a tree...big raindrops began splashing on my face and Freddy's back...we cried with the rain that day...the last time we made love."
Thankful took a tissue from inside a brass box and dried her eyes. I felt a lump in my throat and welling tears as she took a deep breath and continued,"Freddy was wounded in the Argonne forest...a bullet in his hip...the mustard gas took his life though...the last letter I got had a few tiny blood droplets on it...I know it was blood because Freddy apologized for sending me a letter that he had coughed blood on.
"He died in a French hospital...George...sweet old George arranged to have his body returned here...Freddy is buried at the Sunrise cemetery...I placed my last letter on his coffin...I was about to mail it when I heard the bad news."
A knock came at the door....Thankful got up saying,"Who could that be...nobody visits me?"
I didn't pay much attention as I munched on a cup cake. In a few moments, Thankful rushed by...grabbed her shotgun and headed back for the door. Before I knew it....the shotgun blasted and Thankful screamed,"Don't you ever come back her you bloody piece of dog shit!"
I rushed to the door to see Thankful standing on the front step and a car speeding away. Smoke was curling from the left barrel as she said,"I can't believe that some one would take advantage of these murders going on...he wanted to sell me a damn security system!"
After the stun went out of me I said,"Thankful...you scared the hell out of me!"
She just grinned and said,"Sorry Tommy...I think I scared a lot of hell out of that jerk!"
