School Books and Shop Lofts

     One late summer day John and Sue Coffer stopped in for a short visit. Amid the course of conversation they were having over chocolate milk and cookies they mentioned the fact that one of their acquaintances was a teacher at a school that was getting rid of a lot of their older books that were no longer being used, and wondered if we'd be interested in them or at least storing them in the loft of our shop until they found someone who might be interested in them.
     Daddy and Mom agreed and several days later several vehicles came loaded with books and other school supplies. They carried everything up to the loft and then stayed for a few hours yet to visit and enjoy fresh peaches and cream.
     After they left we all went up into the loft and started digging through all the boxes. I had never seen so many books in my life and was thrilled with everything, there were boxes with paints, pastels, construction paper, microscopes, and any other school supply you could dream of.
     We took some of the things into the house and Mom got us started on some art projects. It was so exciting thinking of all the things we could do with everything we had.
     A few days later John, David, and I were playing in the sandbox when we decided to go up in the loft and look at more of the books and things that were waiting on us. We were soon settled contentedly amid the piles of boxes, looking at the pictures in the reading books, David soon got bored and started playing with the door knob. John and I didn't pay him any mind, the books and microscopes were much more interesting.
     After a while we noticed several wasps flying around and I told John to go get a fly swatter, he ran to the door but couldn't open it. I went to help him but couldn't turn the knob either. We tried to unlock it without success. The loft suddenly didn't look inviting as we started calling for Mom. She didn't answer and we started crying, the wasps kept buzzing around, the sun started going down, we were getting to be very warm, and our voices almost hoarse from crying by the time Mom heard us. She came with a key and released us from our prison.
     We were so happy to get back into fresh air again..
     We still enjoyed the days when Mom would say, lets go to the loft children. We would select some things to take into the house. We enjoyed the introduction of using a microscope and marveled at the way our hair looked and exclaimed over what was revealed when you looked at a drop of water. But we were never tempted to go to the loft without Mom.