Taken from Deep in the Woods -- Novel

It was hardly a novelty for nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser to walk
home from school without adult supervision. The idea wouldn’t have
raised eyebrows or caused whispers of questionable parenting, especially
in that neighborhood, only a five-minute drive from arguably one of the
toniest stretches of Tacoma, Washington. The students who lived nearby
liked to go home for lunch. Technically the boy wasn’t alone anyway, at
least for part of his walk. There was a trio who left Lowell Grammar School
together. George was accompanied by his two friends, Bruce Bowman and
Joseph Whealdon.
The boys were in high spirits, and why not? It was a fine spring day,
mostly clear and just a few ticks under seventy degrees, only slightly out of
character for this time of year in the notoriously gray Pacific Northwest.

George most likely didn’t need the sweater he was wearing, but his grand-
mother had insisted. “You’ll catch your death!” she had tut-tutted him just

that morning. Only Grammy would think you could catch a cold on a day like
today, George had thought. She doted on him insistently; he sometimes
protested, but secretly he was glad for it.
They were a gangly crew, the boys, thin and bright-eyed. George stood
out if for no other reason than his shock of dark brown curly hair. From a
block away that hair was a dead giveaway.
He shuffled along, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his brown
knickers. The three friends chatted, talking about the fine and manly art
of jumping—which of them could jump the highest, the farthest. They

compared their skills and argued the results before their attention spans
waned and they shifted the topic of conversation to a clearly more urgent
matter: baseball. They played on the same team. Bruce was the team
captain, but George could play a mean first base. However, their talk was
of a higher caliber brand of ball.
“Arky got two more hits yesterday,” said George. Arky was Arky
Vaughan, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ shortstop, who was tearing it up a month
in on his way to winning the batting title.
“Against who?” asked Joe, taking a swipe with his sneakered foot,
kicking a small rock down the street.
“The Braves,” George replied, launching a similar stone and proudly
noting it skipping past Joe’s.
“Did the Babe do anything?” asked Joe, his eyes down, scanning for
another rock. Forty-year-old Babe Ruth was winding down his storied
career on the lowly Boston Braves. The aging Bambino was hitting a paltry
buck forty.
“Naw,” said George. “You think he’s through?”
“No way,” said Joe confidently. “It’s the Babe!” The boys hadn’t seen
Ruth in his prime, but Babe Ruth was still Babe Ruth. Even at the end
of his career, he was a larger-than-life character and still one of the most
famous people on the planet.
“Did ya hear, they’re playing a night game tonight?” said Bruce. “The
Phillies and the Reds. First one ever.”

George and Joe simply nodded to this, the full force of their atten-
tion now on searching for the ideal kicking rock. The ballgame “under the

lights” was just another of many firsts in their young lives. At nine years
old they were still young enough to take them for granted.