Three Fingered Willie

"Billy, come on, hurry up, you're gonna miss the bus." his mother hollered from the kitchen. She could hear his pounding footsteps, first from the closet to the bed then from the attic to the hall.

"Mom, where's my hat? Mom did you see my gloves?" Billy grumbled in a panicked frenzy.

"The last I saw them your brother was wearing them." His mother shouted, now obviously annoyed. Billy marched in to his Brother Jimmy's room and demanded his hat and gloves.

"Give me, those are mine!"

"Mom said I could use them."

"You know I'm going away today, I need them!"

Jimmy, being older, couldn't resist teasing his little brother.

Billy, at the point of tears cries out, "Mom, tell him to give them to me!"

"Don't you boys make me come up there. I have a lot to do before I take Billy to the bus. Jimmy, give your brother his hat and gloves. Billy, come on, we have to leave or you'll be late. You don't want to be late for such a special day."

Today Billy is going on a class trip. He and his sixth grade classmates are going to a small town in the Catskill Mountains called Ashokan where they will learn how to live as the early pilgrims did. They will have to chop wood to cook with and for heat. They will be taught how to make candles, work in the tinsmith shop and how the

Blacksmith works the white-hot iron into horseshoes and tools. This is also Billy's first time away from home for more than a day. Sure, he has often slept over night at his friend Ken's house right next door, and sometimes his Aunt May would take him to the beach house she owns in South Hampton, but never has he been without his family for this length of time. Billy told his mom he was all right, but she could tell he was a little scared, especially since she knew the fussing Jimmy had done when his class had gone on an overnight trip a few years before.

Finally, Billy and all his schoolmates are aboard the bus. You can hear the soft sniffling coming both from the bus and sidewalk as the mothers stand ankle deep in snow and wave goodbye to their babies. It's a long bus ride through snow capped peaks. The frozen trees form a crystal palace with the cool winter's sun glistening and shimmering off the jewels of ice. Billy can do nothing but stare out the window, anxiously awaiting his arrival into this winter paradise. He is still a little nervous about being so far away from home.

The bus comes to a stop on the crunchy white snow and sparks a big cheer from the class. They know they have arrived. It all seems so wonderful; none of them have ever seen anything like it. Several small log cabins with snowy roofs, casually placed on the banks of a clear gray lake, seem dwarfed by the towering peaks of the Catskill Mountain range. A great field, deep with snow, stretches for as far as the eye can see. The flurry of wows, oohs and ahs spawns a demanding settle down people; we have work to do from the teacher. The all form a line in front of the bus and gather their things.

Billy commented to one of his classmates that the scene looks like a Hallmark greeting card, and they all laugh. One of the counselors and caretaker of this winter wonderland greets them.