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 We
all know that someone will find Jenkins's cabin. Someday. Oh, it's
up there in those hills somewhere. We all know that.
It's become a friendly object of conjecture and speculation. No one
living has seen it, as far as we know. Jenkins himself died quietly
when he was on one of his infrequent trips to town for supplies.
Funny guy, that Jenkins.
He worked in the city for years, mostly as a night watchman in a
factory that made diapers. Didn't really enjoy people much, and told
us many times how nice it was to just be in the huge factory when it
was quiet. Then one day he decided to move to the mountains and make
pretty things out of leather. Once in a while he'd have his coffee
at the counter at the Mule Barn, but often as not, he'd camp out on
the edge of town for the two or three days it took him to sell his
crafts and buy supplies. He'd smile and wave from his campsite, then
he'd be gone one morning. We wouldn't see him again for months.
Now and then someone would ask him where his cabin was, and he'd
just point toward the mountains and say, "Up there." How far up
there? "A ways." What was his cabin like? "Not too big."
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And so we came to regard the
little cabin as an intriguing mystery, an object of local legend.
After he died, several of the fellows tried to backtrack him to find
the place, but Jenkins evidently didn't take the same trail each
time, as though he wanted his quiet times protected from even a
friendly visit from one of us. During his lifetime, we respected his
wishes. In this country, a man has a perfect right to be a little
strange. And, truth be known, we hold a certain admiration for those
of us who hear different instructions. But there is something in the
human spirit, also, that begs to have its mysteries solved. So now,
several times each year, one or two of us will use the mystery of
the lost cabin as an excuse to poke our noses into the nuances and
seclusions of these hills. We play off our curiosity against our
wishes to respect a man's privacy, even when he's gone.
We have yet to discover Jenkins's lost cabin. Maybe we never will.
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, either.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by
Whimsy Castle, a love story about a boy and a roof. It’s on Amazon
and most of the others.
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