There’s a question I am asking, and it is only this – Will summer ever come for Little Bit? It was 1980, in the spring, and it was cold and windy. In the northwest, the skies had been overcast for many weeks. It stayed gray. It was dark and rainy. Everyone waited for it to get warm. In April there were a few warm days. Maybe summer would come soon. But the gray came back, and the cold. Winter was still here. Now there was a little puppy who was waiting for summer. Her name was Little Bit. She was called that because she was so small when she arrived. She was a retriever, and loved to play. She was almost 2, and quite beautiful. She didn’t mind the cold, and would sit out in the rain, but still she wanted summer. She’d only had one summer. But summer didn’t come. May was cold and rainy, and into June. Everything was gray. Where was summer? In the meantime in March, something happened that nobody could remember. One of the mountains in the Cascade range gave off steam. It surprised everybody, for she was the loveliest of them all, beautiful Mt. St. Helens. How could this lovely lady do this? But that was not all. As time went on she did many things, and gave off steam and ash. There were earthquakes and rumblings. People found out she was a volcano, and had erupted before. Even her dome was hard lava, covered with snow. What a surprise. What would she do? Every so often she gave off steam and ash. Then on May 18 she exploded. The whole top blew off, and a cloud of ash rose far in the sky. Lightning played below, and trees were blown down. Rivers of mud came down the sides, and carried everything with it. Even a lake was filled with mud. Nothing lived. The wind carried the ash many miles, and it was as dark as night in places where it fell. Now Little Bit didn’t know about the mountain. She was too far away, but she did make its acquaintance. A week after the mountain exploded, it let off steam and ash again. This time the wind carried it where Little Bit was, and for many miles around. As it was rainy, the ash came down like mud. When she went outside, she was surprised. What was this? She knew that it was different. Everything was gray and strange. The ground was gray, the leaves were gray, the fence and roof were gray, and there was gray in her water. Wet, gray mud. She hadn’t seen it before. It dampened her spirits. It wasn’t nice like the grass. Everywhere was wet, gray ash. The sky was gray and the ash was gray. Everything was gray, and it was gray for a long time. She did not want to stay out in the wet gray. When the rain finally stopped, and the ash dried, it was all over the chairs outside, and in the birdbath, and their water. They didn’t want to drink the water. It really wasn’t as nice to play, and she didn’t play. It got all over her fur, and on her nose. Mother and Daddy hose the yard, but it was everywhere. It was inside, too, on the floors. She tried to ask what it was, but they could not say. More that the ash, were the gray skies. It seemed they would never go away. Even when a lot of the ash was gone, they stayed gray. It always looked like bedtime, all day. Where was summer? Where was a nice day? It was not nice anymore. Everything stayed gray. In the middle of July, the sun came, and it got warmer. Little Bit played. She got up early and played out all day. Gradually the mud washed away, tho there was a lot of dust. It was better. The apples got large and fell. The fruit was pretty. Summer became nice. Altho the mountain went off twice more, no ash came, and the summer was pretty. She played all day. And so Little Bit has her summer after all, and her world was good again.
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Carolyn W.