The next morning, taking some things from the box of items he had purchased, Ollie dressed and walked outdoors into the backyard. The low-hanging branches of the silver maple intrigued the four-year-old boy's imagination. One branch at a time, he climbed the tree until he found himself alarmingly far above the ground.
He might have been stuck there for, having lost his nerve, he feared climbing down the way he had climbed up, if not for his neighbor.
Old Man Robinson, as even adult Oliver referred to him, was only 42. He just seemed older, set in his ways, and suspicious of any deviation of routine in the neighborhood. So looking out his kitchen window and looking over the fence that divided his property from his neighbor'"Yes, Masters and seeing a boy climbing a tree was bound to get his attention.
When no adult, either parent or guardian, appeared in the yard to supervise the boy's antics, Robinson, or Edwin, for those on a first-name basis with him, stepped into the breach.
He walked out his back door, marched to the fence, and called up. "You there! What are you doing up that tree?" If he had shaken a walking stick at the boy, the picture would have been complete.
Ollie groaned inwardly at being discovered by Ol' Man Robinson. He also felt a bit cheeky. "Who wants to know?" Ollie chirped down from the branch.
Edwin's face darkened with an intense scowl. "Where's your father, young man?"
"At home," Ollie answered.
"Are you one of Oliver's nephews?" Edwin had met two nephews, but they were older tykes than this boy, but every bit ill-behaved as this one.
"Who wants to..." Ollie started and lost his grip. "Ohhhh!"
Ollie tumbled about eight feet to the ground. Not a great height and he landed on the lawn's soft overgrown grass — the basis of Edwin's complaints that his neighbor always let his lawn grow out of control before he mowed — with a loud "Ooomph."
He just had the wind knocked out of him, but the fall had been frightening, and his earlier attitude had been replaced by an instant by a sobbing kid that sounded like he might be choking as he fought to regain his breath.
"Darn fool kid," Edwin said and had to hurriedly make his way to his back gate so he could go outside his fence and check on the scamp.
Finding Ollie a bawling mess, he cradled the poor kid in his arms and blamed the parents... or the negligent uncle. "You're going to live," he said in a curt manner. "Let's get you inside and have a talk with your uncle."
Ollie needed to stop the man from going inside, but his crying was all too real, and he was still having trouble catching his breath. With Ollie in his arms, Edwin marched to the back door of Oliver's home and rapped loudly. "Is anyone home?" Edwin called out with a tone laden with exasperation.
The blubbering kid actually wiped his nose on Edwin's sleeve, which did nothing to endear him to the reluctant Good Samaritan neighbor.
Edwin rapped impatiently at the door a second time.