The Prancing And Pawing Of Each Little Hoof

by Jeff Baker

The sirens were blaring, the wind was blowing and the clouds were dark in the sky that Kansas summer afternoon. The radio ant TV were telling everybody to get to their basements.

So, my Dad and I were on the front porch. Of course.

The minute the wind kicked in Dad told me to grab the little TV table while he pulled the box out of the hall closet.

“Front porch, now!” Dad said. I thought he was crazy.

We lived on a little suburban cul-de-sac with houses surrounding a rounded drive in a semi circle. Like the one in the opening credits of the TV show “Knots Landing.”

Dad stood on the porch for a moment looking up at the clouds.

“Dad, what are we…?” I started to say.

“Hang on,” Dad said. “I think the wind’s dying down for a minute.

“Is that…?” I asked nodding at the box Dad was holding.

“Your Great-Uncle Patrick’s ashes? Yup!” Dad said with a grin. “He’d wanted his ashes scattered to the Kansas winds and there’s no better time than now.”

My Dad’s Uncle Patrick had died right after New Years. Since Dad was his favorite nephew, he got custody of Patrick’s ashes, along with the instructions for their dispersal.

The wind had died down to a slight, echoing breeze. Not totally still but eerie. Greenish light from the clouds, tornado sirens still blaring.

“Okay…Now!” With that, Dad ran off the porch carrying the box and I followed with the little folding table. He stopped dead center in the middle of the cul-de-sac. “Set ‘er down right there,” he said. I quickly set up the little table while Dad opened the box and pulled out the bag. He poured the ashes in a pile onto the little table. It was about as much as would have been in a five pound bag of flour.

It had gotten deathly still except for the sirens and I could hear the wind in the distance.

“Now, in a few minutes we…what?” Dad said.

I must have gone deathly pale. I was looking west between the Smith house and the Myerbeer house. You get a good view all the way to Maize Road and the farmer’s field just outside of town. Mom always called it “Smithhenge” when the sun set right between the two houses. I pointed. I was shaking.

Off in the distance, Dad and I could see a strip of clear, sunlit sky on the western horizon. And the unmistakable dark cone of a tornado touching the ground.

How far away was that field?

We ran back to the house. In the instant before I slammed the door I glanced back and saw the pile of ashes swirling and fanning out in all directions in the wind.

We stayed in the basement, listening to the radio. Five minutes in I heard a clattering from the ceiling. I remembered the line from the poem:

And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

Twenty minutes later the radio gave the all clear and Dad and I went upstairs. No damage we could see and the sky was actually clearing. A couple of small tree branches down in the neighbor’s yard and an overturned trash can and some scattered paper blowing around in the dying breeze were the only signs of what had happened.

And the table and ashes were gone.

My Dad tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the house.

On the peak of the roof stood the little table, straddling the roof with its legs. It reminded me of Snoopy on his doghouse.

My Dad laughed.

“Uncle Patrick would have loved it!”

—end—

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