Member-only story
WOLF TALE / SHORT STORY
The Tree Whisperer
A true cabinet maker
His grandfather was a cabinet maker. The rarely smiling old man who now had trouble walking and whose fingers struck the young boy as gnarled, helpless roots or branches of this moving-about-the-house-with-difficulty tree.
The grumpy old man who had trouble chewing most of his food for lack of teeth and who now and then drooled soup on his shirt at table and then pretended that he had not, even after mother would hand him a napkin, not even a thank you.
This old man’s name was Ljunge.
This was my father’s name, too; he would tell the young boy on those occasions when he was in a good enough mood to talk at all, and his legs and hands didn’t ache too badly.
My father was a good man, he would go on. Good in so many ways, he was, my father, he would add. He was trustworthy, never went back on his word. Never. And he was hard-working. All his life, he was hard-working. And he was good with his tools, his axes and awls and knives and planes and clamps and saws and chisels.
And mallets, he would sometimes add, as if running down some internal list and finally arriving at it. And his glue. He knew all about glue.
