Wonderful story!
I've never lived anywhere that had a root cellar (though if I had a larger garden I'm sure I would want one).
Your story does, however, bring back some childhood memories. Until I was around 10 1/2, we lived in this tenement 3-story apartment building in a large city. My dad was part-time caretaker, so it was up to him to battle the oil furnace down in the basement. (Think along the lines of the furnace in 'The Shining'.) Somehow I was always sent by my mom to "keep your dad company" on these furnace excursions.
Our apartment building was creepy anyway (there were dim corners by the stairs that terrified me), but I especially feared the trip to the furnace room. First we had to go downstairs, from the bottom common porch. We then turned right and there was this long narrow passageway that was underneath the sidewalk along one side of the building; at intervals there was a thick glass and/or grated ceiling (that memory is a bit dim) that you could look up and see the sky. One side was a wall of dirty old brick, the other side was a series of little storage areas, each with its own decrepit unpainted wood door, most of them padlocked. I always imagined that there was a monster - Frankenstein or a mummy or something - lurking behind those doors, just waiting to burst out and pounce on us. I couldn't wait until we got to the (relatively safe feeling) large dim furnace room at the end of that passage.
Of course I would get bored while my dad did battle with the beast, but I never wanted to stray far from him; that furnace room had its own dim anxiety-producing corners. And perish the thought that I would ever go out into that passageway on my own!
Thanks for reviving the memory... I think.
