The Cellar

Rain beat against the farmhouse roof. The McConnell family, now huddled in the safety of their cellar, could hear hail pelting the shutters. Each member of the family stared at the ceiling, the floorboards of the kitchen above them, listening as debris crashed against the house.

Kenneth McConnell recognized the sound of his mower hitting the porch, thrown by the force of the winds. The storm came quickly, before he had time to put things into the garage, before he had time to secure all of his family to the safety of the cellar.

His wife, Angie, and his son, Jimmie Ray were both there, leaning against the potatoes bins, starring at the ceiling of their shelter in fear the whole house would crash down around them. But, his twelve-year old, daughter, Jeanie was not on the property when the storm blew in, forcing them to take cover.

The wheelbarrow smashed through the picture window, the sound of glass loud enough to be heard below. Angie was using the wheelbarrow as she weeded her flowerbed outside the now broken, plate glass window. As it crashed through the glass, she clapped her hands over her ears.

“There goes the front window!” She called over the roar of the storm. “I just washed it yesterday!”

Kenneth stared at the ceiling. Were those tiles being ripped off the roof? He’d lose the TV antenna. Every storm that passed through Geary County claimed another one of his antennas.

“Mommy!” Jimmy Ray cried. The boy cuddled against his Mother.

“It’s all right, honey,” his Mother soothed him.

“The worst is over now, Jimmy Ray,” his Father stated flatly. “Now we have to clean up the mess.”

“I want Sissy,” the boy sobbed into his Mother’s apron

“Now don’t you worry about your sister, Jimmy Ray,” his Mother pushed him at arm’s length. She looked at his worried face. “She had plenty of time to get to town, and you know Sissy,” she pulled the boy back into her arms, patting his leg for comfort, “she knows these things are coming before they get here. Jeanie McConnell is one smart cookie.”

“The rain is easing off,” Kenneth stated. “I’m going up to check things out. You two stay right here.”

“Be careful,” Angie McConnell ordered her husband.

He grunted in response, and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. The door was blocked. Kenneth pushed hard to open it, sliding the kitchen table and one chair away from the door. Glass crunched beneath the soles of his shoes as he crossed the linoleum to the living room. The picture window was smashed, as he expected, but the wheelbarrow had not stopped there. The wind had thrown the snarled, twisted lump of metal across the room and straight into the Television set. No Bonanza tonight. Glass was everywhere. A quarter inch of water stood in spots on the carpet, and most of the furniture was destroyed, except for the right corner of the room.

Kenneth walked over to his wife’s chair. The blue rocker he gave her three years ago sat undisturbed. The book she laid on the footstool had not a mark on it. The table next to the chair was equally undisturbed. Angie’s reading glasses lay on the corner of the table. The storm forced it’s way into the room by exploding through the picture window, blew about the room breaking furniture and depositing water on the carpet and walls, and carefully avoiding a small corner- where a little blue rocker sat next to an end table, and then just as swiftly as it blew into the room it exited. Amazing. Miraculous. He had seen it before.

There was one storm, just a few years ago that drove wheat stalks through tree trunks. He’d seen a twister hit one house and jump right over the next. Never can tell what a twister will do, it has a mind of it’s own.

“Lord, have mercy,” Angie whispered behind him.

“Looks worst then it is,” Kenneth answered.

He pulled hard on the front door to free it from debris and stepped out on the porch. The barn was standing, the chicken coop wasn’t.

“Better check on the animals.”

“I’ll start in here,” Angie called after him, “Jimmy Ray! Jimmy Ray come on up here and lend a hand.”





Jeanie McConnell lay in a ditch as the storm passed over her, hail pelting her on the back. Water filled the ditch quickly, soaking her blue corduroy dress with mud. She pulled her arms over her head to protect herself from flying debris, and burying her face into the muddy water as the wind roared over her, she began to pray. It was the same prayer she said when she was five. She was caught in another storm then as well. That twister snatched her from the playground swing and threw her, along with the broken boards of a fence, twenty-five feet before dropping her again. At five, she was scared, but alive. And ever since that storm, she had a sense when the twisters were coming, until this storm. This time Jeanie had not known.

Walking to town along the dirt road, she was unaware of the storm until she turned to glance over her shoulder at an approaching car. The car sped past her sending dust into a huge cloud around her. Jeanie saw the black clouds then. Even witnessed the swirl as it dropped out of the clouds and came straight for her. She took the ditch and laid there still, rain pelting and stinging against her frail little body. She had not known this storm was coming.

She repeated her prayer three times during the duration of the storm. Once it passed over she was racing back to her house, to her family, in disbelief- because, this time she had not known.

“Daddy!” Jeanie called as she ran into the barn.

“Jeanie? You okay?” Kenneth asked her.

“Yes, I’m okay. Is everyone here okay?”

“We are fine. Took some damage to the house, but we are fine. Run to the house and call for the Doc, Bessie is birthing.”

Jeanie noticed the cow suddenly. Bessie was Jimmy Ray’s last year’s 4-H project. Instead of selling her at auction, Jimmy Ray convinced his father to keep the cow for possible milking. The cow never produced milk, but Kenneth didn’t have the heart to sell her. Jimmy Ray had such an attachment to the animal.

Jeanie raced to the house. “Mom! Mom!”

“Jeanie?” She stood in the middle of a crumpled house sweeping piles of glass into a dustpan. “Jeanie, are you all right?”

“Yes, Momma. We have to call the Doc- Bessie is birthing.” Jeanie barely finished the sentence before Jimmy Ray ran passed her for the barn.

“Oh Lord!” Angie dropped her dustpan and headed for the phone. The desk with the phone usually sat next to the fireplace, but as Angie reached instinctively for the phone she was struck with the knowledge that it was not there. The phone was gone, and the desk was gone. She turned to look at her daughter, a frown of hopelessness on her face, and then as quickly as the idea filled her mind she brightened.

“I know!” The keys to the car where lying on her undisturbed table. “Tell your father I’ll be back with the Doc as quick as I can.” And she raced out the door for the old, Ford station wagon.

Jeanie returned to the barn informing her father.

“Good for her,” Kenneth said. “Your mother is a thinker, all right.” Bessie mooed, drawing their attention back to her predicament. “You’ll be okay, girl,” Kenneth soothed the animal. “Jimmy Ray, you better go back to the house,”

“No Way! I’m staying with Bessie!” The boy stated.

“To get some old towels, sheets, whatever you can find,” Kenneth finished his sentence. He reached out to grab the boy’s arm as Jimmy Ray turned to bolt from the barn. “Jimmy Ray, make sure they are old, you hear me?”

“Yes, Sir, I understand,” Jimmy Ray answered. As his father released his arm, he raced for the house.

“Is Bessie going to be okay?” Jeanie asked.

Kenneth looked at her mud stained face. Jeanie’s hair was wet and hanging in a stringy mess about her shoulders, he wanted to shout, ‘I don’t know’.

Kenneth wasn’t sure if the animal was going to be okay; he didn’t know enough about birthing a cow to be sure. Kenneth McConnell grew up in the city limits of Chicago, a city boy moved to the farm so his children could have the benefits of country living. He had never even witnessed a cow, or any animal giving birth before. He looked down at the cow. She looked back at him. Did she know?

“Yes, honey, she’s going to be okay. Go to the house and help Jimmy Ray, and Jeanie better bring back some water.”

“Boiled?”

“What?”

“Should I boil it? They always boil it,” Jeanie stated flatly.

“Sure, we have time, boil it,” Kenneth smiled weakly at her. “Go on, now. Oh, and tell Jimmy Ray to find a flashlight, it’s fixing to get dark out here.” After his daughter left Kenneth turned back to the animal. “Well, girl, try to wait for the doctor, okay?”



“Whoa! That’s my quilt!” Jeanie stopped Jimmy Ray at the back door, his arms laden with blankets from the beds. “Hey, it’s okay,” she reassured her brother. The boy dropped the pile of blankets. He crumpled into one of the kitchen chairs. “Jimmy Ray?”

“She’s going to die!” the boy sobbed.

“Oh, Jimmy Ray,” his sister consoled. “Bessie is going to be okay. Daddy says she has time, and Momma’s gone for Doc Henley, she’s not going to die, she’s going to have a calf. Come on, I’ll help you get the old stuff.”

They carried the blankets back up to the bedrooms, throwing them on one of the beds. Jeanie pulled open the linen closet door, and pulled out a box sitting on the floor of the closet. It was filled with old pillowcases, towels, torn sheets, stained tablecloths.

“Here’s the old stuff. Momma keeps it for cleaning, and patching, and things like that.” She smiled at her brother. “Oh,” remembering her father’s last instructions, “and Daddy wants you get a flashlight too, you go look in the cellar for it, and I’ll bring these down.”

Jeanie gathered some of the linens and started for the stairs. Suddenly she stopped and looked around. Jeanie could see into her parent’s bedroom from the hallway. Everything was in perfect order, she pushed her bedroom door open, and that room was also in order. The same storm that raged havoc on the downstairs, eluded destruction on the top floor of the house. No windows were broken. No wind disturbed the curtains, or blew her ceramics from their shelf. She shivered. The storm had left a state of eeriness in its wake.

“Jeanie,” Jimmy Ray returned to the kitchen carrying a flashlight.

Jeanie was piling the linens on the table. She turned to put a pan of water on the stove.

“You didn’t know, did ya? Why didn’t you know?”

Jeanie turned to her brother. She stared at him. Finally she shrugged her shoulders, turned back to the stove and turned on the burner.

“Did you lose it?” he asked.

Again, Jeanie shrugged. She stared at the pan of water as small bubbles formed at the edges. Jimmy Ray searched the kitchen drawers for flashlight batteries.

“Jimmy Ray,” she turned to her brother. “This will be done in a minute, take the linens and flashlight out to Daddy.”

The boy was out the door before she finished her sentence.

“I’ll be along in a minute!” Jeanie called after him.

The pan’s content was rolling now, steam drifting upwards. She turned off the burner and with a potholder lifted the pan.

Her mother’s station wagon sped into the driveway and pulled up in front of the barn. Doctor Henley pulled in behind her in his truck. He jumped from the driver seat and rushed into the barn. Jeanie hurried with the pan of boiling water, as fast as she could without spilling any on her hands. Unable to steady the pan and walk fast, Jeanie finally stopped, sat the hot pan in the dirt and ran to the car.

“What’s the water for?” Her mother asked.

“Daddy told me to get it.”

“Well, leave it there, we’ll get it if we need it.”

Angie led the way into the barn. “How’s Bessie?”

The cow lay on a bed of straw, and resting beside her on an old green tablecloth of Angie’s was a beautiful little calf.

“Look, Momma! Daddy had a calf!” Jimmy Ray announced.

“He sure did,” laughed Doc Henley. The Vet was kneeling next to Bessie, inspecting the newborn. As he stood he rubbed Jimmy Ray’s head.

“Don’t know what I’m doing here. Kenneth has everything under control.”

“You delivered a cow?” His wife asked.

Kenneth McConnell grinned, that is exactly what he had done. He turned back to Bessie. The cow looked up at him, quietly mooed and then licked her baby.

“Your welcome,” Kenneth said to the cow. “What a day!” He exclaimed to his family. “What an incredible day!” He gave Angie a bear hug. “Let’s go out to dinner, what ya say? Eh?”

“Kenneth,” Angie patted his chest, pushed away from his grip. “Look around you.”

Jeanie stood next to the barn entrance, covered in mud from head to toe. Kenneth turned his attention to Jimmy Ray, who hung on the sides of the stall gazing at his new calf. He looked at Angie, her hair hanging from missing hairpins, dust on her face, and her apron torn.

“Yea, we are a sight. Okay, tomorrow, we’ll go out for dinner and celebrate our new addition. What are we going to do for food tonight? That kitchen is a mess.”

“We could have a picnic in the cellar,” Jeanie offered.

Her parents turned to look at her.

“Sounds like a fine idea to me,” her father finally answered. “We’ll make sandwiches and have a picnic in the cellar. Come on, son, let’s give Bessie a rest.” Kenneth urged his son out the barn. “You’ll have to think up a good name for the calf.”

“Jeanie,” Kenneth called to her, allowing the others to walk ahead of them to the house. “What’s troubling you?”

“Nothing,” Jeanie answered.

“Jeanie,” his voice deepened with sternness that Jeanie knew meant, ‘tell me, now’. He stopped walking, “I want to know what is troubling you, and until you tell me we are going to stand right here.”

“I didn’t know,” Jeanie couldn’t finish. She began to cry.

Kenneth knew how much it meant to his daughter, it was important to her, an identity, something that made her special. Hell, he didn’t even know if there was such a thing as a power to predict the future, most of the time it was just an excuse to go down to the cellar for family night.

“Honey, maybe it doesn’t mean anything. You know you are still special, Jeanie, you know that, don’t you?”

Kenneth again urged his daughter to look at him by raising her chin. Tears were evident. He wrapped his arms around her.

“What if I lost it?”

“Tell me about it, Jeanie. What are you afraid of?”

“I like being the only kid in school that could sense when a bad storm was coming.” Jeanie cried. “And, now I lost it. I can’t tell.”

Kenneth sighed. “You know, honey, they say that eighty-four year old, Etta Mallory can tell too. Etta says she can feel it in her bones. I know it isn’t like that for you. It is just a feeling that something isn’t right.”

“Yeah, like when the horses become uneasy at the sky getting dark. They know it too.”

“I also know that when you tell us a storm’s coming we listen to you, and you like that too, don’t you? You like being important and helping you’re your family?” Kenneth smiled at her.

Jeanie nodded. “I like that you trust me.”

“And, you know that sometimes there is a twister, and sometimes there isn’t. But, we always go to the cellar anyway, don’t we?”

Jeannie nodded.

“Do you know why that is?” Kenneth asked. “Because the cellar is like a second home during the tornado season. We have that old couch down there to sit on, and a box of games to pass the time. And it is fun, isn’t it? Just playing games and being together?”

He looked down her, Jeanie was fidgeting, fighting back tears and wishing she could be released from his inquires.

“What do you do at four thirty every day?” Her father placed his arm around her shoulder and began walking, this time away from the house, toward the back of the barn.

Jeanie wasn’t sure what he meant. Four thirty? She gathered the eggs. That was it. Jeanie gathered the eggs.

“The best I can figure it was about four thirty when we ran for the cellar,” he rounded the back of the barn where the chicken coop used to sit. Jeanie stared opened mouth at the empty field.

“We lost ten good laying hens, and a pompous rooster, but it would have been the end of the world, if you had been in that chicken coop gathering the eggs at four thirty. You knew enough not to be there.”

They stood starring at the empty spot, filled with broken planks of wood and feathers.

“Do I really have a power, Daddy?”

Kenneth looked at his daughter. “Yes, honey, you do. You have the power of prayer, the power of the angels, the power of the Lord, and the good sense to listen to it. I hope you never stop listening to that voice inside of you that tells you things aren’t right, and it’s time to get to the cellar.” He smiled at her. “Do you understand?”

Jeanie nodded.

“And, I’ll tell you this, honey, you will always be special in this family.”

Jeanie accepted a hug. She stared at Kenneth’s face.

“Do you ever get scared?” Jeanie looked up at him.

He patted her shoulder and turned her toward the house. “Only when I am a midwife,” he grinned at her. “Come on, let’s go eat some baloney sandwiches and play scrabble.”