Tine and Rubob Take a Walk

Today's title might seem a little odd for a blog about Tine and Rubob's walks, except for the fact that Tine and Rubob haven't been taking walks together lately. But today -- well, the headline speaks for itself: Tine and Rubob took a walk together. Not exactly together, though, come to think, because Rubob is in the habit of dawdling. He falls back thirty paces or so, absorbed in his own thoughts or perhaps finding it difficult to keep up with Tine.

Tine was preoccupied with thoughts of her own -- or at least one thought of her own. Tine's thoughts aren't as expansive as Rubob's. Her thought at the start of her walk this afternoon basically amounted to: "Snow!" As she proceeded farther along her walk, her thoughts might have consisted of snow, in fact. Certainly, the top of her head soon consisted of snow, and the chilly, wet stuff seemed to be working its way within.

She stopped to admire a snowy house as she started out on her walk, and her thought was: "Snow!"



There might have been an additional thought: "Where's Rubob?" He was sauntering along about thirty paces behind.

"Tine, slow down!" the straggler called out.

Tine sped up. Rubob would say she's contrary, and she is. And that explains why she hadn't been walking with Rubob lately, because she's of a contrary disposition. She's always remarkably even-tempered -- of "an equable nature," she tells Rubob -- but the fact is that she's easily riled. However, in the snow she was feeling very agreeable, and it was nice to have Rubob back with her on her daily walk.

"Where is that Rubob?" she thought.

Rubob, who was fussing with his mittens, caught up with her at the corner.

"Why don't we walk down to the river?" he said, and Tine thought that was a good idea, though she didn't let Rubob know that.

She was looking at some tiny white Christmas lights on a tree and thinking: "Lights!"



Rubob followed Tine down Mad Hatter's Lane to the Hysterical Society cottage, where people with hysterical natures evidently lived -- or so Tine thought. Perhaps they just gathered there -- Tine wasn't sure.



"It looks a little crooked to me," Rubob said.

"I'm sure it's all very much above board," Tine offered.

"I mean it leans to the right," Rubob clarified.

"I think their charter strictly prohibits their advocating any political positions," Tine said.

"I mean the building -- is it leaning to the right? Certainly its neighbor is."

"I don't involve myself in politics, Rubob, and I wonder about the advisability of hysterical people taking political stances. Do you think the caretaker for the hysterical society lives in the smaller cottage on the left? It must be a very demanding job. It looks like a lonely job in that wee cottage, too."

Rubob was looking at the smaller cottage with his head cocked to the left, as well he might. Tine was inclined to look askance at the Hysterical Society's cottages, too.

"We should hurry on," she thought. "The lights are out, but one never knows."

There was actually a light on at the back of the smaller cottage, and it looked all very cozy, Tine thought.



"No doubt the caretaker's enjoying a nice cup of tea," Tine said.

"What caretaker?" Rubob asked.

"For the hystericals," Tine said. "Don't you know anything?"

They continued on down the lane toward old man Winchell's estate, where Tine nipped in for a quick look.



"Snow transforms everything," Rubob said. "One could easily imagine that it was 100 or 150 years ago. The snow smooths out the differences in times. One could envision a horse-drawn cart coming up the street."

"Yes, indeed," Tine thought to herself -- "Rubob's thoughts are so expansive, and here I was simply thinking 'snow!'" again.

They continued down Garden Street and turned onto a snowy Meadow Road. They soon arrived at the old Eighty-Acre Bridge.



Tine slid down the hill to see the bridge from below.



The bridge used to cross over the Pequabuck River, but the river had been redirected in the 1980s. In 1841, the Amistad Africans had crossed over the bridge each day on their way to and from the fields they tilled in the Meadows.

"Why'd they build a bridge here, Tine, when the river is over there?" Rubob called down to Tine.

"They must not have known any better," she replied. "A bridge is always very nice anyway, don't you think? Perhaps they didn't build it for a river, but just for themselves."

Rubob continued to look somewhat perplexed. He rarely finds Tine's musings very persuasive, if he even listens to them.



The two walked down to the river and along the bank. Tine stopped to look at the steps leading up the bank to old man Winchell's estate.



They followed a bend in the Pequabuck around to a pathway leading down to the Farmington River.



"Ducks a dabbling" was Tine's thought. That was the extent of her thoughts. "I suppose one can't be expected to have more thoughts than that when it's so cold and wet," Tine thought. "But that's all I think all the time: Snow! Lights! Ducks! I'm simple-minded, I suppose. Do the hystericals take in the simple-minded, too? I should go live there. It looks quite nice."

Rubob, who might also be simple-minded, was still trying to make his way down the slippery pathway leading to the river. He seemed to be stuck halfway down, afraid to take another step.

"It's slippery, Rubob. Be careful."

She was waiting for him to go down so she could proceed back up. It was like a bottleneck at the Hillary step on Everest. Rubob needed a metal ladder and ropes -- or at least crampons.

He eventually made his way down and looked up at the Winchell Smith house overlooking the bend in the Farmington River.



There was a blob of melting snow on Tine's camera lens.

"You'll have to use a special lens cloth to get that off," Rubob opined.

Tine, who's always impatient, used a dirty Kleenex.

They turned back along the path on the riverbank.

"You know, Rubob, my Village Walks blog gets quite impressive statistics on the number of visitors. On average, it gets 1 visit a day, providing that I visit the site. If I don't visit it, the number is slightly less. If I visit the site once a month, the monthly statistic is 1. It adds up to one unique visitor a year."

"How many did you say, Tine?"

"One -- exactly one."

"Hmm," Rubob said.

"I think perhaps the site has too specific a target market. I'm appealing to too small a segment of our culture, our society. Perhaps it's because I don't have any thoughts," Tine said.



"I'd like to have as many thoughts as snowflakes," Tine thought. "The sky has no problem producing a seemingly infinite variety of flakes. And my only response is 'snow!' No wonder readership is marginal."

The bridge came back into view, through a tangle of branches.



"I need to write a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to boost readership," Tine said to Rubob, "but I only have one thought: 'snow.' How can I build a bridge to my readers when I have only one reader a month -- and when my one reader is simple-minded?"

Rubob cooed something vaguely encouraging, as he is wont to do, but Tine was unsatisfied.

"There's nothing I can do," she thought resignedly. "It's a bridge for myself. I can't upload all of these snowflakes to my blog to satisfy everyone. They might not like a snowstorm anyway -- even a virtual snowstorm. Lots of sensible people don't care for snow. I might as well continue on with a readership of one."

Tine's mind then turned to the business at hand, making way through the thickening snow.

She and Rubob walked back up Meadow Road to Main Street, where Tine pointed out a yellow house -- a newly yellow house that was white until recently. Rubob isn't very fond of yellow houses, as the one monthly reader of this blog knows.



"It looks a little strange," Rubob said. "But it's not nearly so novel as the color of the barn where the Amistad people stayed. That's a much brighter yellow."

"What do you mean yellow? That building is blue."

"No, I just passed it on a walk [Rubob had evidently been taking walks on his own last week, just as Tine had], and it's yellow. And a very novel yellow at that."

Tine thought how novel a word "novel" was. Rubob has a knack for the bon mot, inherited from his father, also a gentleman farmer.

Still, Rubob was mistaken, Tine thought. The barn is blue, with white trim. Tine reversed direction and sped off toward the old Austin house to see the barn.



"Oh my," Tine thought. "It is yellow."

"When the heck did they do that, Rubob?"

"It's always been that color."

"No, it hasn't. It used to be blue, with white trim. It's always been blue."

In fact, Rubob and Tine were both wrong. It used to be black.



"Snow certainly can't smooth out all the differences of time," Tine thought, contemplating the "novel" color of the barn at the Austin Williams house.

Tine and Rubob retreated from the Technicolor Austin Williams barn and set off back home. They soon passed the more traditional yellow of the Timothy Pitkin house.



Tine expected Rubob to say something critical about the yellow -- he usually prefers white houses, it seems -- but he'd been all yellowed out by the Williams barn.

"Beautiful, Tine," Rubob actually said about a yellow house. He was commenting more on the view of the house in the snow, Tine reflected, not on the color. Still, it was a lapse. Rubob had found it within him to praise a yellow house. Snow must indeed transform everything, "smooth everything out," as he had said -- everything but a bright orange-yellow resistant to the forces of nature.

Tine thought that she'd rather think "snow!" or "ducks!" than "bright orange-yellow."

"That's precisely what's wrong with my blog," she thought. "It needs 'bright orange yellow' to attract visitors in today's world of blogging. And it has nothing of the sort. Alas. A blog for the simple-minded. I must arrange to network with the hystericals."

Tine and Rubob passed a sensibly white house with doors -- and a bush -- that preferred a little more color.



"Would you like to walk to the library now?" Rubob asked a very worn-out Tine.

"Yes, let's go!" Tine said, showing absolutely no inclination to turn around and head for the library.

Rubob said, "You see, Tine, the slightest sign of assent always means 'no' with you. Nothing is such a dead giveaway as your easy assent."

"I'm contrary, Rubob," Tine said.

As they approached home, she thought, "All in all, a very pleasant walk -- even if it had only a smattering of bright orange-yellow."