10 little Indians and the Mighty Machine

A blast from the past: 10 little Indian series are stories from when the Hendricks cousins were little kids.  Were a mighty force and always on the go.  The sad thing for those around us, we were always together too.   These stories, are just a few of my favorite memories.  I'll be popping them in here at random times.    Here is one of my favorites.




One afternoon we had been playing in the barn for hours.  We had not heard Uncle Lone Wolf, pull into the yard with the big dirt mover he was using to build a dam.  After hours of play we decided to head towards the house for a cold drink of water.  Emerging from the barn we see it.. The huge dirt mover, sitting there all alone.

We looked around and saw that no adults were in sight.  Hmmm.. what to do,, what to do..  Well, being Indians, we knew exactly what to do..ATTACK AND CAPTURE!

The dirt mover was a fort, and we attacked.  We over took the fort.  We climbed over every inch of that dirt mover exploring.  I'm pretty sure we captured many soldiers that day.  Remember, this was back in the day when you didn't have a play station or a Wi.  You had to make your own fun.

After an hour or so of capturing the fort, we were exhausted and hot.  We headed into the house for that drink, and then off to the woods to eat our apples or sandwiches.  Kids back then, just had to be on the move.

It was several hours later when Uncle Lone Wolf decided to fire up the dirt mover and head back to building the dam.  Imagine his horror when he turned the key and nothing happened.  Here he was in his fancy smancy power machine,, and it was dead in the water.  Oh the embarrassment of it all.

We heard him yell and we watched from our hidden camp in the woods as he struggled in the heat to figure out why his mighty machine would not start.  We spoke among ourselves of what could be wrong.  Surely, he had forgotten to turn the key.  No, I'm pretty sure the spark plugs are bad.  Might be the butterfly valve in the exhaust pipe locked shut.  Oh, we had all the answers.

The more the Lone Wolf struggled with the mighty machine, the madder he got.  He was not our favorite, so the madder he got, the more we giggled, as we stayed hidden in the woods.  This was very funny entertainment.

Then, it happened.  It seems the Ten Little Indians, had not considered how muddy their feet were when they climbed onto the mighty machine to capture it.  It seems, every place we stepped we left little Indian footprints.  It also appears, in our rush to capture the Mighty Fort, we had stepped on some pretty important wiring, ripping it from it's proper place in the Mighty Machine, thus, rendering it useless to the Lone Wolf.

Well, Lone Wolf lost his mind.  How dare these parents allow these Indians to run wild without supervision or discipline.  We could hear him yelling at our Moms and Dads as we cowered in the hidden camp in the woods.  The giggling was done, we had never heard Lone Wolf so mad.

Dad went to the shop, got the tools and proceeded to help lone wolf fix his Mighty Machine.  Then, he pulled out his hundred year old John Deere and gave the ole boy a jump start.  This, only added fuel to the fire that Lone Wolf had smoldering.  How humiliating it had to be for him to have his Mighty Machine, jump started by his little Brother's second generation, held together with baling wire, John Deere.

The Mighty Machine fired and Uncle Lone Wolf roared from the farm.  The Indians stayed hidden in the woods until long after they could no longer hear the Mighty Machine.  One by one, they exited the camp and appeared in front of Dad.

As we stood there, knowing we were caught, and in big trouble, we practiced in our heads the excuse we had formed in the woods.  " well, we saw this snake crawling in the cab and we did not want Uncle Lone Wolf to get bitten, so we were trying to catch it!"

Imagine our shock when Dad looked at us, shook his head, and walked away laughing, before we could even open our mouths.