Baartock Part 14

Riding in a car for the first time didn't seem to bother Baartock's father. Maybe it was because he was going to see the bridge, or maybe it just didn't bother him.

They did have to go the long way around, but eventually they got to where the bridge had been. There were lots of kids standing around and some adults too. There were big orange painted barrels blocking the road, so people wouldn't drive their cars too close. Mrs. Jackson had to park her car down the block. They got out of the car and went over to look. Baartock thought he saw Jason, but he wasn't sure. Besides, seeing the bridge was more important, right then.

The water hadn't really gotten that high, though the stream was moving very quickly. It was easy to see what had happened. The water had washed away the dirt around the supports, and then the supports had started to move, and the span had fallen down. It was lying, broken and twisted, in the rus.h.i.+ng water.

Baartock's mother was interested, but she could see what she wanted from where she was standing. Baartock and his father walked right to the edge to examine the wreckage.

"Don't get so close to the edge!" a man in uniform shouted at them. He started to come over to tell them to move back.

"I look at bridge," Baartock's father growled at the man.

"Yes sir," said the man, backing away. Most of the other humans nearby backed away also.

His father looked at the way the bridge had been built from where he was standing, then suddenly, he jumped into the stream.

"Hey! Help him! Get a rope, somebody!" the man in uniform was shouting. He came rus.h.i.+ng to the edge to find Baartock's father standing, quite calmly, waist deep in the rus.h.i.+ng water, examining where the supports had been.

"Hey! Catch this," the man shouted, starting to throw the rope.

"Stop!" Baartock's mother had come over. "He working. You stop or he get angry."

"But he's going to . . ." the man started to say, looking up at her.

"You stop," his mother said again.

"Yes ma'am," the man said, and he took the rope and went back where he had been standing. He just stood there watching, and not knowing what to do.

Mrs. Jackson went over to talk to him. Soon the man walked over to his car and got out a blanket and gave it to Mrs. Jackson.

When he had seen enough, Baartock's father climbed up on the broken bridge span and calmly stepped up onto the road. Several people in the crowd cheered when he came up, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Where she?" he asked.

Baartock pointed out Mrs. Jackson, still standing next to the man in uniform. They all walked over to her. Mrs. Jackson handed him the blanket, and he used it to dry off.

"Can fix," his father said. "Build right this time. Not fall down again."

"You can build a new bridge?" asked Mrs. Jackson.

Baartock thought that was a silly question. He had been sure that he could have built a better bridge, and he wasn't even old enough to have a name. "Hey! Baartock!" came a shout from the crowd. Jason was standing there waving at him.

Baartock waved back. The adults were talking about things that didn't seem to have anything to do with building bridges, so he went over to talk to Jason.

"Isn't this really something. Are those your folks? Everybody was sure surprised when your dad jumped in like that," Jason just went on in a rush. "Your dad knows about bridges?"

"Can build better bridge," Baartock answered.

Soon, Baartock's mother called him over and they got back in the car and went home.

Chapter 17

The next day was Friday, but there wasn't any school. Mrs. s...o...b..chner had said that a lot of the roads were under water, just like the road near Baartock's home. But even though there wasn't any school, the next morning Baartock was going to town.

Early in the morning, his father got him up, and they had something to eat. Baartock got the big lunch bag and his father picked up his bag of tools and they left and walked down to the 'old Howard house' and waited. The sun wasn't up very high when Mrs. Jackson came driving up the hill.

"Good morning," she called, as she stopped the car.

"Go bridge now," said his father.

Mrs. Jackson had decided that was just the way trolls were. With bridges, they were all business.

"Good morning," said Baartock. He thought any morning he could go help work on a bridge was a good morning.

They got into the car. Baartock sat in the front and put on the seat belt. His father stretched out along the back seat. He wasn't squeezed into the back, like he had been the day before. They still had to drive the long way around, but it wasn't too long before Mrs.

Jackson was parking the car.

There wasn't a crowd at the bridge, it was too early in the morning.

The man in uniform was there again. He didn't say anything to Baartock's father, but he did wave to Mrs. Jackson, and she waved back.

His father didn't want to waste any time getting started replacing the old bridge. As soon as they got there, he climbed out of the car and carrying his bag of tools, went to the edge of the road. He jumped down into the water, and Baartock started handing him hammers and chisels, as he called for them. He would dry and put away the ones that his father was finished with and threw back to him.

While they were working, people came to watch, but the man in uniform kept them back. Jason came down too, but the man wouldn't let him come over.

At lunch time, his father climbed back up and dried himself off with the blanket, and they sat under a tree to eat. Baartock was hungry, but his father ate four sandwiches to his one. Lunch was quickly over, and they were ready to go back to work.

This time, after his father jumped down, he told Baartock to hand him the bag of tools. Then he walked carefully through the rus.h.i.+ng stream, across the wrecked bridge to the other side and tossed the bag up on the road. Then he came back and told Baartock to climb onto his shoulders. He crossed the stream again, and Baartock scrambled up the other side. Then just as before, he handed down tools or put them away.

During the afternoon, a man came to talk to Baartock's father. He was on the other side, and Baartock couldn't hear what they were talking about. After a while, the man left and his father came back to work.

"Stone," his father said. That was enough. Baartock knew they had been talking about how much stone would be needed to rebuild the bridge.

His father was going to rebuild the bridge the right way, the troll way, with stone and not concrete.

It wasn't dark when Baartock was carried back across the stream. They were finished for the day.

The next day, Mrs. Jackson couldn't come to get them. When they got down to the house, Mr. Fennis was waiting for them. He didn't say a word, but he stared at Baartock's father. He looked as if his eyes were going to pop out.

There were a few people already there, when they got to the bridge.

And the man in uniform was there too.

The water had gone down a lot, and they worked on something new. This time, they didn't work where the supports had been, but spent the day breaking up the old bridge. Some pieces his father piled up, to keep the stream from was.h.i.+ng away his new supports. The rest of the pieces he tossed up to Baartock, who piled them beside the road. It was a long hard day, and Baartock fell asleep in the car on the way home.

The next day, both of Baartock's parents went off with Mrs. Jackson to look at the stone they were going to build with. Baartock didn't go along. He wanted to work on his bridge. Now that the stream had gone down, he could fix it the way he wanted to. It was fun, but now that he was working on a real bridge, his own seemed very small.

He went to school the next morning, but after school, instead of riding home on Mr. Barnes' bus, he went to help his parents work on the new bridge. He spent the rest of the afternoon helping pile up the broken pieces of the old bridge.