Things We Treasure

(July 31, 2014)

From the Journals of Dipper Pines: I didn't expect it to happen this soon, but this morning while we were running, Wendy said, "I think I got a bone to pick with you, Dipper."

So we paused at the bonfire clearing—we'd been running our nature trail—and sat on the log to catch our breath. "What did I do?" I asked.

"I'm not sure you did it," Wendy said. "Where did you go the other day with Stanford? I mean, you left right after our run and didn't come home until after I'd already clocked out and gone back to Casa Catastrophe." Oh—that's what she sometimes calls the Corduroy house after her dad and brothers have been more than usually rambunctious.

I squirmed a little and rubbed the back of my neck. "Uh, we drove over to Portland, you know. Here and there. Nothing really exciting."

"Yeah? Well, explain this if you can. This morning I happened to go online to see how my college fund was standing, and all of a sudden, I've got like $7,500.00 more than I should have. What's up with that, man?"

So I had to confess what Grunkle Ford and I had been up to. I'd wanted to save it as a surprise, but . . . well, I didn't know Wendy is in the habit of checking her account balance every morning. I guess she really, really, really wants to go to college!

Anyway, I started, "Well, last weekend we found that pouch of gold flakes near the old covered bridge, remember . . . .

Stanford had found where the man lived: a famous musician back in the eighties and nineties, then the victim of a motorcycle accident, and now a rich and rather reclusive writer and collector living in a deceptively simple house on the outskirts of Portland. An apprehensive Dipper gulped down his fears and greeted the man when he rolled to the front storm door and said, "Come in, come on in. It's not locked."

He backed his wheelchair so Ford and Dipper could enter. Dipper recognized him at once—though he was heavier and grayer than he had been in the days when his music dazzled fans. Dipper looked away from his seamed, smiling, saddle-brown face and around at the gold and platinum records hanging on his wall. "It's an honor," he managed to say.

The guitarist chuckled. "Nice to meet somebody as young as you who even remembers me!" He nodded toward the instrument that Dipper held. "That the guitar you wanted me to look at?"

"Yes, sir." Dipper handed over the instrument, carefully.

"Nice, very nice," the guitarist told Dipper as he turned the guitar under the light of a desk lamp and admired it. "Brazilian rosewood and spruce. This is an 1860 model, manufactured in Philadelphia. Not very many of these left around. Playable?"

"I played it," Dipper said.

"These strings are shot. Let me re-string it."

That took about half an hour because he hunted up some strings that he thought would complement the guitar and handled the antique instrument with such tender care. Then he handed it to Dipper, surprising him. "Play something for me."

Dipper hesitated. "I'm not good. I'm just a beginner."

The guitarist chuckled. "I was too, once. Don't matter. I want to hear somebody else make a little music for a change, not myself. Go on, play anything."

"Well—this is the only tune I've done on it." And Dipper played "Shenandoah," slowly and humming along to it.

The guitarist nodded, his smile becoming broader. Quietly, he said, "Very nice tone, young man. You have a good touch. Value now . . . well, the insignia's faded, but it's an Amulet, all right. Rare instrument. Good condition, not great." From his wheelchair, he looked up at Ford. "Provenance OK?"

"My nephew retrieved it from an old mining town, long abandoned," Ford told him. "It must have been there for at least a hundred years—fortunately, it seems to have been protected from the weather. However, there'll be no problems about ownership."

"Let me see it." The guitarist played a sweetly gentle ballad and crooned along. His voice was a little hoarser than it had been in his glory days, but Dipper got a chill listening to him play and sing. "All right, man, I have to have it." He cocked his head at Dipper. "I'd guess this would fetch around seven thousand five hundred at auction," he said. "Little worn, but in great shape, all told, and man, I love the sound. I can offer you five thousand. Can't go higher than that."

"It's yours," Dipper said. "It ought to be. You can do so much more with it than anybody else."

"Thanks, man," the guitarist told him. "I like to play when I think I'm getting old and useless. Got a contract of sale here. You sign it, let your uncle Stanford witness it, and meanwhile, I'll write you a check."

Dipper told him how to make it out, and before they left, the guitarist asked, "Hey, man, could I throw in a little something?" He rolled to a glass-fronted bookshelf and took out a handful of CDs. "These are old-fashioned now that everything's digital, but I got a buttload of them. If you liked our music—"

"Yeah, my sister and I love it," Dipper said. "Uh—would you mind autographing them?"

"Not at all, my brother." The guitarist found a permanent marker and opened the jewel cases so he could sign the CD labels. "How do you want it made out?"

"To my sister," Dipper said. "She'll treasure them. To Mabel, please."

"You," the guitarist said with a broad white smile, "are a top-drawer brother, my brother!" And he signed all six of the CD's to Mabel, with short little warm messages.

As they left the big house, Ford asked, "Did he really make out the check to Wendy's college fund?"

"Yeah, he really did," Dipper said. "And she earned it. When that cannibal monster was coming for us, she went after it with her axe. And think of all the times she's saved our butts. Mabel and me."

"And others, too," Ford added with a smile. "Still—it could be your money."

Dipper shook his head. "Mabel and already I have enough to put us both through college in our accounts. Wendy's working hard to save up, but it's slow going and she needs all the help she can get. I'm glad to give it all to her, but she can't know I'm giving it to her, OK? So if you can handle the deposits and all—"

"I'll be pleased to do it, Mason," Ford said.

Then they visited a coin shop, because Dipper had exchanged some gold for coins when he and Mabel and Wendy had visited 1862. He'd spent a good deal of the ten dollars that the half-ounce of gold had brought, but he had some odd old coins left, a silver dollar, two quarters, three twenty-cent pieces, even a few strange-looking old pennies.

To his surprise, all together they brought in half what the guitar did. When they drove back, Dipper said, "Seven thousand five hundred. That's gonna mean a lot to her."

Ford spoke of other things on the drive back, but he tactfully didn't bring up the subjects of Wendy or money. Or of his brother Stan's plan to return to the old mine the twins and Wendy had discovered, on the off chance that there might be gold there.

"You know," Ford said later as they emerged from the Gravity Falls bank that held Wendy's college-fund account, "Wendy's not stupid. She'll figure out where the money came from, sooner or later."

"Maybe so," Dipper told him. "But—well, it won't matter after a while. Not if everything works out."

"I think I know what you and she are planning," Ford told him.

"Not . . . planning so much," Dipper said. It was hard for him to admit that—he was all about planning. "More sort of . . . hoping, I guess. We can't do anything about it, though, until the end of August, 2017."

"The day you turn eighteen," Ford said. "I see."

"I know we're young," Dipper said. "Me, especially. There are still days when I feel about eight years old. But—well, we've been through a lot together. And—well. You know."

"I know," Ford said softly. "Perhaps it's better to set your heart on things when you are young. I never had time for romance, really. And now that I've met someone I could spend the rest of my life with—well, the rest of my life won't be as long as I'd wish it to be now!"

Dipper smiled. "You've got a good many years left," he said.

"Well, like you, I can hope. Dipper—Stanley and I lost a big chunk of our time, you know? Me wandering for decades in the infinity of dimensions, Stanley dedicating everything to bringing me back for thirty long years. Make your time count, Dipper. Treasure it. Make it count."

"I've got one more stop," Dipper said. "But that can come later. Thanks for driving me, Grunkle Ford."

"My pleasure, Mason," Ford said, smiling.

"And that's the story," Dipper finished, shrugging. "Hope the money helps."

"Dude!" Wendy said, putting her arm around Dipper. "That is so sweet, man! But you know, I shouldn't take it."

"No, Mabel and I both want you to have it," Dipper said. "Also, there's a little of the gold left. Not much, but I'm saving it for something else, one of these days."

Wendy kissed him. "Not all that far off, I think. August is comin' on like a freight train, and you'll be fifteen on the thirty-first. Three more birthdays after that, and—maybe?"

"Not maybe! Better be!" Dipper told her.

"Gonna be," she said.

So for a time they sat close together, hugging, hearing birdsong and the rat-a-tat of woodpeckers all around them, seeing the grass dew-fresh like a scatter of diamonds in the new daylight, the morning flowers welcoming the sun. Dipper and Wendy sat warm together, touching, not speaking, and treasured every second. And each other.

The End