Free (2006) When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin Page A

jigsaws, a punch saw, a handheld power planer, two entire sets of hand tools like screwdrivers, end wrenches, ratchets, and sockets, four rolling three-piece tool chests standing almost six feet tall, and every voltage of cordless power tool they offered. In short, when I made it to the checkout counter with four hourly employees pushing or pulling five overstuffed carts, every man standing in line stood with his bottom jaw at his toes.
    While I enjoyed the tools, Charlie loved them. But, like Georgia, they did little to ease my guilt.
    I spent three days thinking about placement and organization. Everything had a place and everything was in its place. Once organized, each tool was either within arm's reach or just a few steps away. Meaning we wasted little effort once work began.
    As a finishing touch, I hung a dozen or so rolls of duct tape on well-placed hooks scattered about the workshop. Used by the Allies as a treatment for wounds in World War I, duct tape started as a medical dressing and has since grown to having several thousand uses-and it seemed like a day never went by that we didn't find a new one.
    While I finished off the inside of both the workshop and the dockhouse, Charlie hired a team of talented laborers to help him build the stone bulkhead and steps that led from where the house would be down to the dock. Dropping a plumb line from the corner of the original fish camp, I staked out the slab for the rest of the house, called in the concrete trucks, and managed the guys pouring concrete while Charlie oversaw the stone team. At night we compared notes.

    Charlie told me that every good house was built around a fireplace, so when his crew finished the bulkhead in a week, Charlie set them to working on the fireplace in the den, just off the kitchen. Before they left, the crew chief looked at Charlie and then at the leftover rock and said, "You got enough stone for a pit; you want one?"
    Charlie knew what he was talking about. "Yeah." He pointed. "Put it right there."
    The crew cleared a twelve-by-twelve flat between the house and workshop, poured their own slab, and built a barbecue pit big enough to smoke an entire pig and all the chickens and Boston butts you could manage.
    With the workshop up and running, I turned my attention toward the dock. During the winter, when the lake was low, we sank twenty-four pilings and strung them with two-by-six stringers. Although we didn't own any boats at the time, we were planning ahead, so we built a two-story, three-bay, drive-in dock with remotecontrol garage doors and electric lifts. Off to the side we put a large platform three feet above the summer's normal water level, and dotted it with six rocking chairs. The second story was open, covered with a green aluminum sheeting roof, surrounded by a railing and centered with a huge picnic table. Next to the table hung Emma's hammock. It gave one of the best southward views on the lake. From my perch atop the dockhouse, I could see nearly five miles down the lake before it turned southeast toward the dam.
    Having cut our teeth on the workshop and the dock, both admittedly allowing for more raw workmanship than the house, and with a cured slab and stone fireplace standing all alone, we started looking over Emma's sketches of the house. Her plan called for incorporating the old two-room fish camp into a two-story lake house. So, staying true to the plans, we kept the original kitchen, den, and porch.

    Charlie was a big believer in overbuilding, so when we started framing the house, he studded it with two-by-eights, just ten inches center to center. Overkill, yes, but why not? Charlie was happy, and so was I. We only planned to do this once. Emma's painting was growing off the canvas, and we intended to give it all the texture and color we could imagine.
    With the framing up, we walked through the empty inside of an unfinished house, and Charlie reminded me of what Emma had said as she stood over that bare ground and