World Made by Hand

Fifty-one

Britney was still up with Sarah when I returned home. They were both in the big stuffed chair, reading a book together by the light of a candle. It was The Wind in the Willows, which I had read to Daniel and then Genna years ago, the wonderful friendships of Rat, Mole, Badger, and Mr. Toad of Toad Hall. I closed the front door and stood there awkwardly, in my own house.

“Are you hungry?” Britney said.

“Yes, I am.”

“Mr. Schmidt came by with a stewing hen. It’s in the Dutch oven out there.”

“How did he know you were here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that was kind of him,” I said. “I suppose you two have already eaten.”

“Well, yes.”

“Maybe I’ll have a look, then.”

“There’s some beer too.”

I went out to the summer kitchen and lit a candle. The beer was in a plastic gallon jug. We reused them endlessly. It was a pale ale, very hoppy and strong. I felt the glow in my stomach immediately. The Dutch oven still retained some warmth. I lifted the heavy cast-iron lid. Britney had deboned the meat. Plenty was left and it was swimming in a cream-thickened sauce with new onions and peas along with some cornmeal dumplings flecked with thyme. I spooned out a bowlful and brought it back inside the house along with a tumbler of beer.

“I hope you didn’t wait up for me,” I said.

“I feel safer if you’re here.”

“You could lock the door.”

“But then you’d have to wake me up to get in,” she said.

“Is the beer from Mr. Schmidt too?”

“Yes.”

“This is delicious,” I said, holding up my bowl. “You’re a very good cook.”

“Thank you.”

“Mr. Toad got arrested and they put him in the jail,” Sarah said.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “He’ll get out before long.”

“Did you have a motorcar in the old days?”

“I certainly did. We just called them cars, though.”

“Do you think we’ll ever have them again?”

I chewed for a minute and glugged down some beer.

“No, I don’t think we’ll have them again, Sarah,” I said.

“Ever?”

“Probably not.”

“Oh…” She seemed hugely disappointed.

“Do you know what happened to them?”

“Not really,” Sarah said.

“Well, I’ll try to explain. Here’s what happened. Cars had engines, and the engines needed a certain kind of magic liquid to run on, and—”

“What’s an engine?”

“It’s a machine that makes things go. You put the magic liquid in it and then the engine can do work. It can turn wheels and make the car go.”

“What’s the magic liquid?”

“It’s called fuel.”

“What’s fuel?”

“It’s like… Do you see this chicken stew that I’m eating?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is fuel for my body. It gives me energy, makes me strong, powers my muscles and my brain, makes it possible for me to do things like saw wood and carry stuff from one place to another.”

“Do you have an engine?”

“My whole body is a kind of engine. A living engine. And yours is too. We all need food and water to run our bodies. That’s what food is for.”

“It tastes good,” Sarah said. “That’s why I like food.”

“That’s true. It can taste very good if there is a good cook around.”

“My favorite food is pudding. What’s yours?”

“Right now, this is my favorite food.”

“Did the motorcars run out of food?”

“The cars needed a very special kind of food to run in their engines. It was called gasoline. It was made of oil, which came out of the ground. We had a lot of oil in the old days, but then we used so much that we had a problem getting it. We had to get more and more of the stuff from faraway places across the ocean. And that led to a lot of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“People in other countries like China and Japan and Germany needed oil too, and there wasn’t enough to go around, so they fought over what was left. And soon, the fighting caused more problems with money and getting all the other things we needed to live, like steel and rubber. And there were such big problems with money that a lot of people couldn’t buy cars, and even if they could, the gasoline was very expensive, or else sometimes you couldn’t get it at all, even if you had enough money—”

“How come?”

“Because we couldn’t get the oil to make the gasoline from those faraway lands anymore. So people had to stop using the cars.”

“What happened to all the cars?”

“They were made from steel and people needed the steel for other things, so over the years they took the cars away and melted them down.”

Sarah started rubbing her eyes.

“It’s time for you to go to sleep,” Britney said.

“But what about Rat, and Mole, and Mr. Toad?”

“They’ll be here tomorrow,” Britney said.

“What if people come and take all the books away and melt them like they did to the motorcars.”

“Books don’t melt,” Britney said.