The Climb

     Against the back wall of our barn was a ladder to the hayloft.  The ladder was a number of flat boards which served as rungs.  They were  attached to the wall next to the henhouse section, and just behind the two feed barrels, one of wood and the other of black metal, which held their provisions of cracked corn and scratch feed. We kids had no problem climbing up the ladder; the difficulty lay in what to do after we completed the climb.  I don't recall exactly what age we were when we first discovered we could climb to the hayloft.  We moved to the house shortly before the summer I turned six, and, except for not being allowed to cross the road, I don't think there were any restrictions on the  activities in our backyard.  At the top of the climb, where you were pretty much pressed against the wall, you could see out the small window at the top of the ladder.  The view opened on the right side to the  time-worn boards of the old hay barn, while directly ahead stood Dr. Sproat's  more modern cowbarn, where his Guernsey cows were milked by Patsy, his hired hand.  Beyond the cowbarn  if the light allowed you could see the altar section of Our Lady of Good Counsel. 
   But our goal in climbing the ladder was not to observe the view; that was incidental.  We climbed to gain access to the hayloft, and, as mentioned, therein lay the problem, at least at first.  The ladder led us to the wall, which was one side of the rectangular hole that was the access to the loft.  In order to get off the ladder and onto the floor of the loft, you had to release your hold on the rungs, and kind of jump backwards across the gaping hole.  A leap of faith at first, but we learned how to do it, though I'm sure no one ever taught us, except each other.
   I'm not sure now what the motivation was;  there was not much of value up there.  Oh, occasionally a cat would have her kittens up there in the hay, and that was a reason, but most of the times that was not the case.  There was stuff up there; I can almost recall it, but some is lost  in memory.  At one time, it was home to my father's old cigar-making tools, used during his stint of working for Dr. Sproat, who evidently had a cigar business located in previous years somewhere near Bill Ryan's Meat Market.  I wish I knew more now, but as kids we couldn't conceive of any time period that we were not a part of. One side of the loft held mainly bales of hay, food for the family milk cow in those few early years.  Against the bales of hay, I can see a blue crib, small and of wood, not used any time in my memory.  I had a white iron youth bed, and Dorothy a high-sided brown-painted metal crib. I can't remember what other treasures the loft held: I can almost visualize, but through  a haze of lost imagery, a pile of old books or magazines in a trunk. Maybe we would read up there, or pout and think of running away from home, at the times we felt misunderstood or unloved.  All kids do that, don't they? 
    For sure, there were hazards up there, even after we mastered the release and jump that brought us safely to our goal.  The floor was a series of boards laid across the supporting beams.  At one time, probably to construct a building for our dogs, my father appropriated some of the boards from the floor, leaving an area where no one should tread.  You could see the gaps of course, except for when the hay would loosen and spread out over the floor; then you just had to know where the danger lay.  We never fell through, but I remember one of the boys who lived up the road stepping through the hole, and dangling over the car area, but he caught himself with his arms and didn't hit the ground.  It seemed funny, like an episode  from our supply of comic books. 
   Some years later, when Dorothy and Sandy were young teens, verging on the restless years, they decided, on one of those balmy bittersweet summer evenings filled with unknown yearnings, that they wanted to sleep in the hayloft.  Just for something different to do.  And, with parental approval, they did. My father had a sense of humor, sometimes a little off beat, and later that night, he snuck out and threw stones or gravel, up on the roof of the barn. He thought it was funny.  I can't remember the outcome; I was asleep in my boring bedroom.  And there's no one to confirm or deny what happened.