Artemis and the Country Boy

My favorite place in the whole world is a clearing on the other side of Rainwater Creek. To get there I must balance on a fallen log suspended across the running stream. I don’t think about tumbling into the clear water that sounds like some kind of music rushing over the smooth round stones. At age eight, I’m pretty good at keeping my balance.

I go there on my way to the General Store to get a pouch of tobacco for grandpa, although Mama would scold if she knew the clearing was always my first destination.

“Thomas,” she’d say if she knew, wagging her finger at me, “that forest is wild and dangerous. There are water moccasins and black bears and pumas.” I know this to be true because I’ve seen these animals. But they just ignore me – and I don’t bother them. Laying in the clearing, I watch them with wonder and awe. No, mama wouldn’t understand.

The clearing is something out of a picture book. I heard mama say that once – as pretty as something out of a picture book. She was talking about the wildflowers papa had brought home, admiring them, placing them in the soup can she’d dug out of the trash bin. She’d set the pretty yellow flowers on the kitchen table.

In my meadow, there’s a big old oak tree, probably old as grandpa, and if you lay on your back and look up there’s a family of gray squirrels living on the branches. They chatter at me and I just laugh. I think laughing makes them madder, but I can’t help it.

One day in May, when that clearing had never been prettier, I’d stopped there on my way back from the General Store, instead of going there before I’d been shopping. It was late afternoon, a real nice time of day. I was lounging in a spot of sun, chewing on a sprig of Virginia Blue grass. That day mama had me get a bag of wheat flour besides grandpa’s tobacco, and because it was a bit heavier to carry, gave me two pennies to buy a molasses stick – which I’d stuffed in my pocket. I was saving that for later.

“You like this place, don’t you?” a soft voice said.

I turned my head. I didn’t think anyone else knew about the meadow but me. And there she was – a lovely lady standing in the shade of that old oak. She came closer and I sat up. I spit out that grass. Funny, but I wasn’t at all afraid. She wasn’t no ghost or spirit or anything like that. She was a real lady. She was dressed in a long, white robe tied at the waist with a golden tassel. There were ivy leaves circling her head, like a crown or a Christmas wreath. She carried a shiny silver bow and a quiver of gold-feathered arrows. She was almost as pretty as mama.

“Who are you?” I asked. “I haven’t never seen you before. And, well, everybody knows everybody around here.”

She laughed. But it wasn’t a making-fun-of-you laugh. It was like the music in the creek kind of laugh.

“Let me first ask who you are,” she said, “and then I’ll tell you my name.”

“My mother calls me Thomas,” I said, thinking of mama again. She’d often told me not to talk to strangers. But somehow, this seemed different – and okay. “But my sisters – I’ve got nine – they all call me TeeCee on account of my middle name starts with a ‘C’.”

“Nine sisters!”

“Yes, ma’am,” I sighed. “But you can call me Thomas like my mama does, if you want.”

“All right, Thomas. My name is Artemis.”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but are you sure? I mean, I know lots of girls and their mamas, not to mention my nine sisters, and well, it’s pretty and all, but none of them has a name like that.”

“It’s a very old name, to be sure,” the lady said, smiling. “It was given to me over three-thousand years ago.”

“Holy cow! That’s older than grandpa!” And the lady laughed in that singing way she had. “But … how can that be? Not to be disrespecting my elders or nothing, but don’t you think going around telling people you’re three-thousand years old would be hard for them to believe?”

“And yet it is true, Thomas. And I have had one important job for all those years.”

I looked at her with my head cocked to one side, still thinking on those three thousand years. I supposed she must be telling the truth. No one around here dressed the way she was dressed. It wasn’t at all like the dresses mama and my sisters wore, not even to church. Her gown was very white and clean. And there was a soft glow all around her.

Having accepted this, then, I wondered what kind of job she’d had for three thousand years. She must not be a farmer or scrub floors. When I could only sit there guessing in my head, she went on.

“I am the Mistress of Animals and the Protector of the Forest.”

“Wow! That’s a super job!” I cried. “I’ve never thought about it before, but now I think I’d like to have a job like that, too. When I grow up,” I added.

“But Thomas, you have that job already.”

“I do?”

“I’ve watched you when you come here. There is a kindness in your heart and a love of nature I don’t often see. You are still a child, Thomas, but you perform small acts of mercy when it comes to an animal in trouble. Like the time that fawn was caught in the brambles, and his mother hovered nearby.”

“Yes, I remember! The poor baby deer was so frightened – and his mother stayed right there while I freed him. She even seemed to give me a look that said thank you, although it might have only been my imagination.”

“She was thanking you, Thomas.”

I didn’t ask her how she knew this. But when you are the Protector of Animals, I suppose this was one her specialties.

“When you grow up your love for wildlife will lead you into a lifetime career of defending them full time. Thomas, your knowledge and research in science will achieve great things.”

I didn’t ask Artemis how she knew this, either. But it was nice to know.

She paused, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. “In your preservation of wildlife and nature, with your help, this earth will remember what most humans have forgotten.”

Artemis smiled and touched my shoulder. A blue mist rose from the nearby creek. I realized the sun was setting and thought of mama. She would be worried. But when I turned, the lady had disappeared in that mist.