“Mother, I think we should plan to attend this field trip, it sounds interesting,” said Mr. Frank to Mrs. Frank as he sipped his tea at the breakfast table. He was fingering an issue of “Fly-By”, the newsletter of the local Audubon chapter. Therein was described an expedition to a winter-coated marsh and icy flood plain forest.

“Yes,” Mrs. Frank cordially agreed, looking up from her knitting. She was making a sweater for her beloved lap-dog, Poodles. “Yes, let’s plan on going. How enchanting it all will be, with the ice sparkling in the sun and the stark, grey, leafless trees stretching all akimbo into the azure blue sky.” And Mrs. Frank smiled so sweetly and dreamily that Mr. Frank was overcome with emotion and anticipation.

This scene was repeated in several other households around town, with various degrees of enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the leader of the trip, Katchka, was worried. He had scheduled the date months in advance of winter, but the weather was not cooperating. One needed to have several days and nights of sub-zero temperatures to set up the ice fields; yet the weeks went by and winter lounged about as if it were still infatuated with the charm of autumn. Finally, a few days before the trip was scheduled, a heavy cold front settled in. But Katchka knew that it would still be a bit dicey out on the floodplain.

To make matters worse, the day before the trip, Katchka, who was hiking through the woods and had discovered an old farmstead, lost his sunglasses out of his pocket when he leaned over to inspect a well-hole. In order to retrieve them, he had to enlist the help of a friend with ropes who lowered Katchka down the crooked ten-foot deep hole that got substantially narrower and darker the farther down he descended. He had prepared himself by donning one leather boot for gaining a foothold on the rock-lined wall, and a rubber one to probe the water for the glasses. When he reached the water-filled bottom of the well he stepped into the mire with the wrong foot, the one clad in leather. Later, disgruntled and wet, Katchka went to a package store for a few quarts of beer to repay his friend. When he came out of the store, his car had somehow slipped gear and rolled down the street. Finally, a good samaritan backed his truck into the car to stop it from rolling across a bridge. All of this caused the already tempermental Katchka to partake of too much “pain-reliever” and he awoke on the day of his field trip with a good case of neurasthenia.

The morning arrived with a bright but warmthless sun. The wind licked the brown frozen grasses of the meadow where the field trip participants had gathered.

Katchka eyed his charges a bit skeptically. There were Mr. and Mrs. Frank, bundled from head to toe, child-like, in snowsuits. Mr. Frank had covered his bald head in a red plaid “Mad Bomber” hat with the strings of the ear flaps tied firmly beneath his chin.

“Midge and Madge, the inseparable old maidens,” Katchka thought with chagrin when he spied them. Madge came on all of his trips and plagued him by correcting his pronunciations of botanical species and questioning him about everything. Midge could neither hear nor see the many bird species that he tried to point out, and he usually threw up his hands in frustration.

“Now, look at that one,” Katchka muttered, as he scrutinized a tall gentleman in a pork-pie hat, trench coat, and green rubber boots that went to the knees. He had on a pair of antique binoculars that were better suited for an opera house, where Katchka imagined the man peering down from the balcony searching for the soprano’s cleavage as she screeched an aria from Puccini.

“Well, there’s a couple,” Katchka wondered. “He’s sensible, with a wool cap and all, but his lady friend, pretty thing, too vain to cover her hairdo. The devil take it, it’s her skin.”

Then, trying to shrug off the affects of a bad night’s sleep, Katchka said to his people, “Well, we finally have ice. Let’s set out. I’ll step ahead to make sure everything’s firm.”

The troops moved forward. Katchka testily ignored the chit-chat rising up behind him. “I want to see the Great blue heron nests you wrote about,” Mr. Frank said. “And I would like to peer through the ice and see the waving fronds of grass and floating pickerelweed,” opined the tall gentleman in the trench coat. Midge scuffed along, talking incessantly about her trip to Europe, while Madge’s walking sticks click-clacked rhythmically and taxed Katchka’s tattered nerves.

They proceeded through the flood plain over the ice. Buttonbush protruded here and there. Bulging crusts of light-colored ice surrounded them. “Keep away from those bubbles,” Katchka warned. “That’s where the ice is weakest.”

They came out from the trees onto the open marsh. A few hundred yards farther was the peninsula where the heron nests perched in the green ash and silver maple trees.

Katchka took a few preliminary steps, stamping like a horse, turned, and said, “It’s fine. It’s opaque ice—dull gray. It’s safe.”

“Oh, my, I don’t know,” Madge stopped and said in a worried voice. “I think it’s cracking.”
“Yes, it’s cracking; it’s cracking,” Midge echoed nervously.

“It’s alright,” Katchka replied impatiently. “Look, look, I’m walking on it.” And he jumped up and down. “I wish it would open up,” he thought, “so I could soak my aching head in it.”

Aloud he coaxed, “Come along, pilgrims.”

Sure enough, after everyone had stepped forward, the ice cap gave out a teasing groan, and sharp, cracking sounds, like zippers being pulled, filled the air. Everyone let out a shout, “Oh, oh, oh!”

“Never mind, never mind,” Katchka repeated assuringly. “It’s safe, I’m telling you.”

Trembling and giggling with the tension, the pilgrims moved forward. They lost their fear while they were under the herons’ nests and were looking at the muskrat dens made of sedges and cat tails. But when Katchka led them on the return run over the open ice, he had to cajole them along once again. The click-clacking of Madge’s walking sticks tormented Katchka’s brain. He scoffed at the tall gentleman’s boots under his breath. “What, you think those things are going to protect your pinkies if you fall through? The water’s deep enough here to go right over them!”

Katchka glared at Mr. and Mrs. Frank as they waddled along the ice, arms held akimbo like tightrope walkers, and he wondered at the bare-headed young woman whose hair fluttered in the cold wind. Her ears were as red as the devil’s tail.

When they had retraced their steps back to the meadow without incident, everyone laughed with relief and congratulated themselves.

“Oh, my goodness!” Madge suddenly let out. “I believe I’ve left my little camera behind somewhere. It was in my pack, but now it’s not there. Maybe I should go back?” she asked pleadingly.

Katchka frowned. He just wanted to go home and go to bed. “I’ll go,” he said brusquely. “I can’t be worried about losing people. Where did you think you left it?”

Katchka, his head throbbing now, swiftly raced through the forest and over the ice. He ignored the bellowing, the crinkling and cracking of the ice, as he went forward. Then, not finding anything under the trees or along the marsh, he wearily returned. But he was hasty and careless. Disregarding his own advice, he got too near a bubble beside a fallen log and broke through, falling into the cold muck up to his hips. Swearing audibly, he high-stepped through the broken sheets of weed-encrusted ice like a Prussian soldier on parade, until he found firm ground. He sloshed dejectedly back to where the group had been.

No one was in sight. On the windshield of his automobile he found this spare missive:

Katchka,
Found the camera. It was in the car all the time. Had a wonderful trip. Can't wait 'til your next adventure!

Madge

L.C.