BACKWOODS » Zarry ✅

🐄 26: Backwoods

"Harry.... Harry. You have to pay attention now."

Nine year old Harry looks up from the ground where a frog had captured his attention. "I'm paying attention, Papa."

"Okay. Now listen. When you swing an axe the first time, it's important to keep it slightly tilted like this when it meets the tree."

He holds out the axe to demonstrate how to do it. "Do you see this?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now if you look, you see I have on these gloves. To protect myself. That's why. And they help me get a good grip on the handle too."

The frog suddenly moves out of the corner of Harry's eye and he begins to chase after it.

"Come 'ere, frog."

"Harry. Harry!"

The frog hops away and Harry follows it, so his Papa follows him.

"Why don't you leave that frog alone? I'm tryin' to teach you an important lesson today. Me and Larry just started this business but it's never too early to think ahead. I'm gone have to retire at some point. And when I do, I want to leave my half of the business down to you. But I want you to have been learned something from me, son."

Suddenly Harry dives down to the ground.

"Harry, no!" His Papa shouts. "Aw shucks. Don't you know what you done did?"

"I got the frog." Harry says and he holds it up to show his Papa.

His Papa finally reaches him and he's wearing a scared, yet concerned look on his face. "And you're also going to get poison ivy. You just reached right into those ivy leaves to get it."

Suddenly Harry just drops the frog.

"Papa!"

"Oh, Harry, my boy." He says as the frog hops away. "It's going to be alright."

"I'm gonna itch real bad?"

"Most likely. But we're going to head back home so Mama can start treating you right away."

Suddenly Harry holds his arms out and bursts into tears.

"I don't want poison ivy."

"I know. But don't worry. We'll get you all fixed up soon."

"I'm sorry I wasn't listenin'."

"That's alright, son. Maybe next time you will. And I want you to. Unlike your Papa, you know how to read cause you're getting yourself some schoolin'. So I want you to use that schoolin' to take over my half of the business when I retire. Okay?"

He nods and speaks through his tears. "Okay."

➡️ ➡️ ➡️

Zayn's sitting on Harry's fourwheeler outside the barn when Harry comes out through the barn doors. He's holding an axe in his hands, which are also wearing work gloves.

"Uh... why do you have an axe?" Zayn asks.

"Cause we're gonna need it."

"What do we need it for?"

Harry places it in the basket at the back of the fourwheeler. "What I said we needed it for."

"But you didn't tell me we needed an axe at all. You just took me from the smell of your mother's homemade potpie, and told me to get on the fourwheeler because you wanted to show me something."