Minnie Goes to Heaven (70)

(a novel continued)

 “It’s heavy,” Treasa warned as she handed Minnie and John's gift to Mary. 
Inside she found an oval-shaped piece of plywood bordered with thick black leather. “Okay, what am I looking at here?” Mary said.

“It’s upside down,” John said.

Mary turned the gift over. “I love it. Did you make this Dad?”

She ran over and hugged her father. John beamed as he remembered the hours he'd spent setting the mirror inside that old horse collar.

“Took me awhile to restore the collar.”

“I love it. Absolutely love it.”

“You said that already,” Bill said.

Treasa picked up the next gift which happened to be for Bill from his parents.

Although the large package was light, Treasa pretended to be carrying something even heavier than Mary's gift.  “Gotcha,” she said when the gift almost bounced out of Bill's hands.

Inside the outer wrapping Bill found another layer of wrapping paper. Inside that paper he found a l layer of wallpaper, and then a layer of newspaper. Eighteen layers of paper later he had a small black velvet box. “Finally,” he said pretending to be completely exhausted. 

He opened the box to discover a stream-lined watch with every kind of capability. It was a compass and a stop watch, a calendar and an alarm system. “Wow, thanks guys,” he said to his parents. “Where did you find this? I've been looking for one of these.”

Treasa handed the next gift to George. This was an equally large package, almost as light as Bill’s. George rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me I have to unwrap 2000 layers of paper as well? He looked at Henry. “You might as well go out and have a smoke—this could take a few minutes.”

“And, I wouldn't want to miss it.” Henry said.