Everybody Has a Story: They remember when ‘baby fell in the creek’

It was a weekend summer afternoon. My parents were working lazily in the vegetable garden, and my older sister and I were sunning ourselves and watching our two younger sisters, ages 3 years and 18 months, who were running around the yard doing whatever kids do at that age.

We lived on a 5-acre property a mile or so from a small farming town. The country road that ran past our house went down a hill to a small creek (we pronounced it “crick”). The creek was a modest one. At the wettest of times, during the spring rains, it was maybe 4 feet across and 6 or 8 inches deep. Now, during the high summer, it was a 2- or 3-inch trickle running through a series of damp sandbanks. It wasn’t much to see, but it made a nice gurgling sound as it ran through the property.

My older sister and I decided to take the little sisters on a walk down to the creek. Just as we stepped onto the road, my mother called from the garden: “Don’t let the baby fall in the creek!” Oh, how I wish she hadn’t said that.

We sauntered down the hill, the little sisters running ahead and my older sister and I keeping a sharp eye on them. They eventually slowed down, and we reached the bridge over the creek at about the same time. Like any respectable bridge, this one had a series of guardrails, but some chance encounter had left a large dent in the lowest guardrail. Instead of being a straight line, it was shaped like a deep V, with the bottom of the V sinking almost down to the roadbed.

Even today, what happened next unfolds in my mind in slow motion: The 18-month-old, as if drawn by a magnet, walked over to the V, looked down, lost her balance and tumbled headfirst into the creek bed some 5 feet below.

I dashed around the guardrail and slid down the creek bank almost before she landed. And there she was, sitting on a sandbank, a look of total surprise on her face, not crying, totally silent. I picked her up and handed her up to my older sister, who by that time had also run around the guardrail and stood at the top of the bank. Because she was wearing nice clothes and didn’t want to get them dirty, my older sister held the baby at arm’s length as she walked back up the hill to the house, almost as one would carry a load of laundry just gathered from the clothesline.

The 3-year-old, in the meantime, was running back up the hill, singing “Baby fell in the creek, Baby fell in the creek,” over and over.

My parents heard the racket, rushed to the road, saw my older sister holding the still-silent baby at arms’ length and immediately feared the worst. Then, only then, did the baby make a sound. Suddenly realizing that something bad had happened to her, she started screaming. Then my parents knew she was alive, but feared dozens of broken bones and internal injuries.

In the end there were no injuries at all, not even a scratch. Heavily diapered under her little sunsuit, the baby had landed on her bottom on the soft sand, and a short session in the bathtub removed whatever dirt and sand she had picked up upon landing. In a few minutes, she was back outside, freshly diapered and dressed, running around like always.

There is a wonderful John Cheever short story, “The Day the Pig Fell into the Well.” It is not really about the day the pig fell in the well; indeed, we never learn much about that day at all. Rather, it is about how the shared experiences of a family, more so than mere blood and genetics, are what bind us together. In the story, as the children grow up and the parents grow old, when the family reunites for holidays and major events, someone will inevitably ask, “Remember the day the pig fell in the well?”

So it is with our family. Over the years, we grew up and moved away and formed our own families and settled in different states stretching from North Carolina to Washington. When we do get together, it is our shared experiences that bind us. “Remember when Mom did such-and-such? Remember when Cousin Harvey broke his leg trying to ride our horse? Remember mean Mrs. So-and-so in fourth grade?”

Of course, each of us remembers these events a little differently, or pretends to. And that is why, whenever we get together, my youngest sister, the “baby” who is now a well-respected business executive, will suddenly grin wickedly and say, “Remember the day Nancy pushed me in the creek?”

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