Roll Out The Barrel

We were taking a trip down memory lane one evening,like you do, when we remembered the evening with the barrel. The talk had been about children being taken into care. Apparently one evening my offspring told me they were going to report me to the Children's Aid for my cruel behaviour. It seems I wouldn't let them stay up late to watch T.V. or something along those lines. I remember nothing of this.Evidently I told them to go right ahead and call, bearing in mind it might take them a while to get to us, it being late at night and out in the middle of nowhere. A lot could happen in that time. They thought better of it and went to bed.
Right... the barrel.
We were providing a barrel for the pantomime Ali Baba that was being put on by the Milford Mummers for their Christmas play. I was doing sets and props and the girls both had parts.We had a dress rehersal after supper and there we were, me and two small girls trying to heave a wet wooden full sized barrel into the back of our sedan. Of course it didn't fit. The best we could do was prop it at the edge of the trunk, lash it down and hope it stayed put.
Off we went into the night,Toria on point keeping an eye on the road behind and Hannah in the front saying Hail Marys. We did this in heavy fog and blizzards too. One driving, one watching for mail boxes and one saying her prayers. Teamwork.
As we poked along I began to ruminate about what would happen if the barrel got loose and rolled into whoever might be behind us. I couldn't see a thing out the back , the trunk was up hence Toria spotting. It basically came down to the police locking me up and throwing away the key and the nippers going to the Childrens Aid if the worst should happen.That was all little Hannah needed to hear never mind that she was all set to rat me out to the CAS a few nights before. The sobs and howls started up and kept up until we got to Milford.By the time we had wrestled the barrel out of the car and rolled it into the church hall the wails were now snuffles.We weren't going to lose Ma that night anyway so she was safe for a little bit longer.Very quiet on the way home though.