The Best Summer Yet - Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR
　
One Monday afternoon two of our lovely neighborhood ladies stopped by to talk to Mr. Cummings about his house not having numbers displayed. He was sitting under a tree in his yard when they approached him and I think they caught him on a good day. He was wearing clean baggy Khaki pants and a cleaner dirty undershirt. He was wearing a straw hat and he tipped it towards them and said, “Mighty purty day ladies, almost as purty as the two of you!”
The ladies smiled and shook his hand as he got to his feet. Mrs. Wyatt told him that they were part of the neighborhood watch committee and they were going by to remind every neighbor who did not have house numbers up to please do so by the end of the following month or they would have to pay a fine.
　
Mr. Cummings thanked them for coming by, saying how he didn’t even notice there were no numbers when he bought the house. He also asked for any suggestions as to where the numbers should go and what size or color they should be.
Mrs. Stanley complimented him on his beautiful yard and said how lovely it would be to have a wrought iron frame made to hold porcelain blocks with the numbers painted on.
He smiled sweetly and said, “Lovely. Yes.”
Mrs. Wyatt said how nice it would look to have brass house numbers put right on the front door.
“Oh, yes! Why yes indeed, I can see how very nice that would look.” Oh, he had such a sly glint in his eyes! Fooled them both.
The ladies thanked him for his time and again said how nice the yard looked. Mrs. Wyatt added, “Very refreshing to see someone move into such a well-kept place and have that same dedication as the former owners.”
“Yes,” added Mrs. Stanley, “Especially since there is an ordinance stating that your grass cannot be taller than 10 inches high.”
“That a fact?” asked Mr. C. “Good day ladies.” As an afterthought he waved and invited them to stop by any time.
I went to tell Mom and Dad what had taken place and then asked if I could call the twins. Mom said, “Oh yeah! Call the twins. This is gonna be good!” When I told them what was going on Mom took the phone and asked their Mom if they could come and spend the week with us.
Mom and Jack and I drove over and picked up the twins. What a great afternoon we spent telling them all that Mr. Cummings had been up to. Chett laughed so hard he fell right out of his chair when we described the new mailbox. Their Mom said she can’t imagine him getting away with that for very long. Mom asked if we would like to go bowling or to a movie but we all said no thanks, we could hardly wait to get home.
We got home around 4:00 and we took their bags straight out to the fort. As soon as we were up there we could see him sitting in his yard under the tree. He seemed to be working on something but it was too
small for us to see what it was.
“What do you think he’s doing?” asked Chett.
“I don’t know but it must be something to do with the house numbers. Come on!” I said.
The three of us ran down the stairs and told Mom we were heading out to Benny’s and to please leave Jack in until we got back. Instead of going on bikes, we decided to walk, so we could walk right by his yard.
As we passed by I waved and said, “Hello, sir.”
“Howdy boys,” he said.
We took that as an invitation and walked over to chat. We introduced ourselves to him and he said we call him MR. C.
“Cool mailbox you have there, Mr. C.” I said. “Did you build it yourself?”
“Yes I did Mac.”
“What are you working on now, sir?” asked Brett.
“House numbers. Neighborhood ladies came by to remind me to put them up,” said Mr. Cummings.
“Interesting,” said Chett.
“Think so?” asked the old man.
“Very,” added Brett.
“Excuse me, but we have to go down the street to meet our friend Benny. Would it be alright if we stop by on our way back?” I asked.
“I’d like that, boys,” said Mr. C.
We all waved and said nice to meet you and went on down the street. Once we were out of earshot, we started talking again and trying to stifle our laughter, because what he was making was hilarious!
The man had a thin paint stick and he had cut the end of it in a point. He had painted the stick black and he had some tiny wooden numbers about ½ an inch high, painted white. We figured he was gonna glue the numbers to the stick, but then wondered where he would put it.
By the time we got to Benny’s his mom had received a call about her sister getting sick, so she had called my mom to ask if Benny could stay with us until she came back. My mom is great about that. She said she was going to ask if Benny could stay for a few days anyway. Benny was packed and waiting when we got there. We filled him in on the way back to the fort. We stopped by to introduce him to Mr. Cummings, and he was tapping the paint stick with the numbers glued on into the edge of his flower bed.
You just don’t know how badly we wanted to laugh!
I mean, there was this tiny little paint stick, only about an inch wide, and he put 3 tiny white numbers on it as house numbers, and he expected people to be able to see it from the road.
　
We all told him what a great job he had done and I told him we were going to be baking cookies later and we would bring some over. He said he would like that.
The four of us ran to the house and told Mom that we needed cookies, fast, and we told her what Mr. C had done. She nearly cried from laughing when we told her about the paint stick. Then she heated the oven and we started making cookies.
An hour and a half later, we all walked over with a large platter of cookies and we introduced Mom to Mr. C. We had tried to dare her to ask him what the C stood for but she said not just yet. We had seen him in action.
Mr. Cummings was so nice and polite to my mom. He even asked her if she would like to come in for coffee and share some of the cookies, but she said she had to get back and start making meatloaf for dinner. She told him to save room for it and she would send over a plate for his dinner. We saw his eyes soften and tear up at that. He took Mom’s hand and patted it gently and said, “Bless you, Ma’am.”
We all went back to the house and watched t.v. and helped Mom to prepare a nice meal. When it was done we brought over a nice plate of meat loaf, roasted potatoes, and boiled carrots and sugared peas and homemade bread.
Mr. C was so grateful he looked like he was gonna cry.
The next afternoon Mrs. Wyatt, who was out for a walk, saw that there still were no house numbers on Mr. C’s house, so she stopped to ask him if there was a problem. He politely showed her his house numbers on the paint stick and said, “See? I made it myself.”
Taken by surprise, Mrs. Wyatt blurted out that it was too small. She reminded him that the purpose of having the house numbers displayed was to be able to see them in case of an emergency. She turned and walked away in a huff, without waiting for a response. Mr. Cummings just stood there grinning.
The next morning we awoke to someone hammering. We stepped out onto the porch to see Mr. C putting up numbers on his front door. Mind you, they were only 2 inches high, and he had painted them the same color as his door, but they were on there.
That afternoon Mrs. Wyatt and Mrs. Stanley stopped by and they were telling him that the numbers had to be larger and more of a contrasting color so as to be seen from the street. As soon as they left, he put up 3 inch numbers and painted them about one shade darker than the door.
　
　
　
The two ladies had walked around the block and watched him, so they were right back over there and told him that the numbers still were not acceptable, that they must be easily seen from the street.
“So you said,” replied Mr. Cummings.
“We’ll be back!” snapped Mrs. Wyatt.
“I’ll await your return,” said Mr. C, and he unnerved her with his steely glare.
The next morning, his front door had been painted black and the numbers 321 were painted in silver metallic paint about 7 or 8 inches high. Sure enough, the ladies came back. They handed him a letter from the neighborhood watch committee, stating that he had five days to put the proper house numbers on his house or he would have to pay a fine. He took the letter from her, looked at it and handed it back. Mrs. Wyatt wouldn’t take it and told him to read it, do what it stated, or he would be reported to the neighborhood housing committee if he did not comply. He wadded up the letter, threw it at her, hitting her on the chin, and said hatefully, “Comply with that, you old bat!”
Furious now, she called the police as she left his driveway. Mr. C went straight to his shed and came back with some kind of goo and spread it all over the floor of his carport.
He was getting ready for the cops. The police came, but did not fall for the slick carport trick. He would not come to the door, so they left.
The next morning the mail carrier brought a letter to his door, which he had to sign for. It was from the homeowner’s association, demanding that he do something about his front door and his house numbers. A note was added at the bottom, reminding him that his grass could be no more than 10 inches high. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a tape measure, wrote on the form 6 3/4 , and handed it back to the mail man and told him to give it to the homeowner’s association. The poor mailman just turned away.
Early in the afternoon, we saw him with a can of red spray paint. He painted the house numbers on the front of his house in fire engine red, 6 ft. high. It was hideous. He made the numbers at least 2 feet wide. Right on the front of his house!
When he was done, he painted the numbers on his roof. Since it was a white metal roof, he painted them red too, but he let it drip so that it looked as though the roof were bleeding! Oh boy! Wait till the neighborhood committee sees that! F. Y. I.----He painted it on the back side of the house and roof too, and on each side.
　
Benny was able to stay with us for 5 days and the twins didn’t want to go home at all, so they talked their mom into letting them stay with their grandparents. We begged so much that they just let them stay over here anyway.
On Saturday morning at 10:00, a local grocery store sent a van over to our house and it backed up to the fort and began to unload groceries! They filled our pantry and the fridge, and we had to call Mom to ask her where to put the rest of it. This had to be a mistake. They filled our freezer with all kinds of ice creams and popsicles, and our cabinets were packed with all kinds of snacks and canned goods, boxes of macaroni and cheese. Cases of pop corn, drinks, 6 gallons of milk, and some vouchers for 10 free gallons as they needed it, and all kinds of fruits and sandwich meats and bread, cookies, cereals, filled the floor. It was unbelievable. Mom talked to the delivery man and he handed her a note and she began to cry. It was from the Grahams, the Horton’s (the twins’ parents) and from the Landon’s (Benny’s parents), to thank us and to try to pay back some of the expenses we had incurred by taking care of the boys all the time. We were set for the whole summer!
We were tired after helping to haul in and put away all of the groceries and we went to sit on the porch and for the time being, we forgot about Mr. C. To our shock, he had painted his entire driveway LSU gold and 8 ft. high purple numbers, 321, in the middle.
On the corner post of his front porch, he had nailed a 2 X 4, which he painted Florida gator’s blue, with 6 inch high bright orange numbers.
The street in front of his house had been painted in bright green letters, CAN YOU SEE ‘EM NOW?!
We called Mom to come and see what he had done.
We asked if we could go over and maybe offer him a snack so we could find out if anything else was going on. We decided to pop some popcorn since it was the quickest thing we could do, and we put it in a big bowl and brought it over.
He opened the door even before we reached it and seemed very happy to see us. We asked if he’d like to sit under the tree with us and share some popcorn and to our surprise he said yes.
Benny asked if he needed help getting his grass cut, and he took his tape measure out and measured the grass. It was now at 9 and ½ inches. He seemed to be thrilled with that and said, “Thanks, son, but I’ll cut it in due time.” We all offered to help if he needed anything done and he thanked us all and said that he just may call on us some day.
We were enjoying sharing part of our afternoon with him when a car drove up and parked across the street. A tall man got out and started over to Mr. C’s yard.
“Hello, fellows,” he called out.
Mr. C was giving him the eagle eye and said,
“Afternoon.”
“I am looking for a Mr. C. M. Cummings.” No one said a word.
“Mr. Cummings? Is that you?” A pause, then he said,
“My name is Adam Burrows and I am with the housing committee.” After another pause, he said that the housing committee had asked him to come by to speak with him about the changes in the appearance of his property. By the way, Mr. Cummings, may I ask what the C and the M stand for?”
As quick as a lightening strike, he was on his feet and his eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he screamed, “Why you mealy mouthed little punk! It stands fer “Ya SEE ME COMIN’, ya better get the hell outta my way! Now GIT offa my propity!”
“But, Mr. Cum…..,” stammered Mr. Burrows.
“What’s that? Burrows? Is that your name? Ya better take yur stupid deaf self and git outta here before I ‘burrow’ your pitiful lopsided carcass in the middle of my back yard!”
Mr. Burrows turned and hurried to his car. Mr. Cummings sat back down as though nothing had happened and said, “Very tasty popcorn.” We thanked him and assured him that there was a lot more whenever he wanted it. We decided we had better get on home and let him have some peace and quiet, and he told us we could back any time.