As I closed in on the prize I sought to pocket and carry home, I reasoned that even if I got caught, only one person had any right to admonish me: Ernest Hemingway. Well, his doppelganger nephew, Ernest Hemingway Mainland, anyway.
Sipping from a red plastic party cup, Ernest Mainland seemed reflective, his attention elsewhere as our group of 12 wandered the sacred literary grounds of Windemere, the Hemingway family’s northern Michigan cottage. Post-sip, his eyes scanned Walloon Lake. He reminisced about his uncle’s Michigan summers, and recalled how the author’s mother would row across the lake daily to set up her easel and paint.
“Grace Hall Hemingway gave birth to six children, but she didn’t raise six children,” Hemingway’s nephew shared.
As he spoke, I hovered over my quarry. Now! I told myself, about to make my move.
“Is that your Jeep?” a bearded guy in Teva sandals motioned toward what was, indeed, my Jeep.
“Yeah, that’s mine.”
Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia
“I love your license plate frame — ‘I’d Rather be Writing’ — that’s cool,” he smiled.
“Oh, thanks. I couldn’t resist it.”
He nodded and sauntered away.
Mainland shook the ice in his empty cup and looked toward the door to Windemere.
“Let’s go inside,” he said.
If I hang back from the rest, I can grab it, then catch up…
“Are you all right?” asked a white-haired woman in a tan cardigan.
“Oh, I’m fine,” I smiled. “I just got dizzy for a minute. Must’ve turned too fast or something. I’m OK now. Thank you for asking.”
“Here, take my arm,” she pointed her elbow at me. She was maybe 90 pounds. Were I to spin and drop, I’d take us both down.
“Aren’t you sweet,” I said, taking her arm.
I walked in half-steps to keep pace with her tiny canvas Keds. She went ahead up the first step, and I craned my neck. I could still see my treasure. I would get to it somehow.
Mainland disappeared into the kitchen and cracked an ice cube tray, then walked to the fireplace in the main room.
“Please don’t take any pictures inside. You can take as many as you want outside, but we’ve had trouble with people trying to break in here,” he said.
Rotten thieves, I thought.
“This is where Ernest and Hadley spent their honeymoon night, right here on the floor in front of this fireplace,” he said. “And over here is where every Hemingway child was measured each summer,” he noted, pointing out a closet door frame.
I found the name “Ernest” in faded script.
“Over this way … ” The rest of the group followed our host toward a bedroom. Then it happened.
“WAH-CHOOOOO!” I sneezed. It startled me more than anyone. “CHOO!” came the next note in my symphony. Just as quickly, inspiration hit!
My cacophonous sneezing paused the tour, as everyone turned to see the culprit who had interrupted an anecdote on Ernest Hemingway’s post-World War I respite.
“Excuse me! It’s just — it must be my allergies,” I babbled. “I’m gonna step outside for some fresh air.”
Out the screen door I went. A quick jog across the grass, a glance over my shoulder, and the prize was in my pocket.
In my garden this morning, as I write on my laptop, I have a red party cup filled with iced tea at the ready. I often think about that day on the shores of Walloon Lake and how I snuck away with an acorn that had fallen from a tree I was certain had witnessed the childhood antics of Hemingway, as well as perhaps his grief over the rejection letter from his first love after WWI. I always write here, feeling watched over by Ernest Hemingway, the Ernest Hemingway, in the shadow of what will one day surely be a mighty oak tree grown from a stolen acorn. 
