Free Crawlspace by Herbert Lieberman

winter, and his sleeping in that drafty manger with the animals and all—” Suddenly she turned and embraced me in a way she hadn’t done in years. “Oh, Albert. I know it sounds foolish—but I feel like a new mother. Like a blessed infant has been given to me.”
    I took her hand in mine and kissed it, and we stood there in the darkened room in front of the window with the stars in the northern sky shining down upon us.
    In the next moment I saw a small gray spot appear at the bottom of the garden. It stood out clearly in the white snow with the moon pouring light down upon it. Alice saw it at the same moment that I did, and as we watched it, I felt her hand tighten around mine and squeeze. Breathlessly we followed the spot as it stole across the garden, moving toward the door beneath the window, our hearts beating madly in our chests.
    The following morning I drove the car to town along an icy road. Driving conditions were hazardous. The roads had been slicked over by icy rains the night before. It was like traveling down a narrow strip of glass in roller skates. You could feel no bottom beneath you. There was nothing to hold on to. I had no chains, only snow tires that spun and whined sickeningly as I crept up hills.
    Knowing my general condition, I wondered why on earth I was making such a trip. But the answer was quite simple. I had a mission. Alice and I, walking around the house a week or two earlier, had found a wide fissure in the foundation surrounding the crawlspace. It was not new but apparently had been there for several months and gone undetected. It now appeared to be widening. That afternoon we went down to the cellar, and standing at the square we peered into the crawl. I spotted the chink immediately. It was at the far end of the crawl, light pouring through it. A narrow stream of air moving at a high velocity swept through the chink making the sound of a thin, shrill whistle. When I reported this to Alice she was horrified—not because of the danger to the foundation, but rather, the danger to Richard.
    My mission on that icy morning was to plaster up the chink so as to spare Richard the discomfort of icy drafts pouring through the crawl at night.
    Reaching town, late in the morning, I went quickly to the local hardware store and bought a bag of cement, a mixing basin, and a trowel, which was all carried out of the store by a clerk and loaded into my car.
    I wasn’t eager to get back on the icy roads, so I delayed it by driving over to my service station to get gas and have the oil checked.
    The service station I went to was the one I had suggested Richard apply to for a job. It was the only service station in town and run by a gloomy, taciturn man by the name of Washburn, whom I had grown strangely fond of, chiefly, I suppose, for his frankly antisocial ways. Talking to Washburn was like conversing with a block of ice.
    When I drove up that day and gave a light punch to my horn, I could see him through the long windows of the repair shop, stretching his arms upward beneath a car hoisted on a hydraulic lift. For a moment he looked curiously like a man in an attitude of worship.
    I punched my horn lightly again. This time he looked at me through the glass windows, then went back to the underparts of the car. He took his time coming out, primarily because I’d punched my horn two times and he simply had to put me in my place.
    When he finally came out he was dressed in a mackinaw and a peaked leather cap, with the ear laps of it flapping foolishly about his stormy temples. Coming up to the car, he scarcely nodded at me, although he knew me quite well and had serviced the car on numerous occasions. But that was Washburn. He simply felt he had to put everyone in their place, particularly rude, city-bred types who were always in a rush. He specialized in city-bred types, and he had long ago fixed his sights on me. I rather admired his rudeness. It had a noble honesty about it. He was not the least bit