Gib Rides Home (17 page)

But when the guests began to arrive he was too busy to care about it. And when all the barn visitors, nine extra horses that day, were unharnessed or unsaddled, rubbed down, fed, and watered and Gib and Hy stood in the central corridor, looking at the almost full rows of stalls, they grinned at each other.

“I guess it almost looks like the old days, huh?” Gib asked.

Hy laughed and agreed. “Mighty close,” he said.

“Looks good,” Gib said, and Hy agreed with that too.

After Hy went back to his cabin Gib stayed in the barn a while longer, getting acquainted with each of the visitors and then spending some time with Lightning and Silky so they wouldn’t feel left out. It was a real good Christmas afternoon.

Miss Hooper’s Rocking M Institute of Higher Learning went right on operating through January and February. And even during an early thaw in March, Livy went on studying at home, which, according to Miss Hooper, wasn’t how it had been in other years. In fact, she complained about it from time to time. About how hard being a teacher was and how she was getting to be too old for the job.

One day when Livy and Gib had just had a long argument about President Taft, Miss Hooper really got fed up. Livy said she would have voted for Taft if she’d been old enough, and Gib started quoting an article he’d read about some of the dumb things Taft had done and how he had to have a special bathtub built when he moved into the White House because he was too fat to fit in a regular one. When Livy wound up not speaking to Gib again, Miss Hooper threw up her hands.

“I give up,” Miss Hooper said with a fierce frown. “I give up on both of you. And you, missy,” she said to Livy, “weather’s not been too bad. Thought you’d be back full-time at Longford School by now. Don’t you miss seeing all your school friends?”

Livy shrugged and said she got to see all the ones she liked when she spent weekends in town at Alicia’s. “Besides,” she said, smiling the too-sweet smile she sometimes used to get forgiven for being particularly hardheaded, “you’re a much better teacher.”

“Don’t use your wiles on me, Miss Thornton,” Miss Hooper said. “I don’t think my teaching has anything to do with it. What I think is that you just like being around our friend Gib here.”

Gib wasn’t pleased. It was clear that Miss Hooper was teasing Livy. Trying to get a rise out of her. And he didn’t appreciate being part of the teasing. But Livy surprised Miss Hooper—and Gib too. Instead of getting mad and saying how wrong Miss Hooper was, Livy just shrugged and said, “That’s right. I like arguing with Gib. No one at Longford School is nearly as much fun to argue with.” Then she went back to not speaking, to anybody this time, and Gib went back to wishing that girls weren’t so hard to understand.

So Gib continued to be a part of the lessons in the library, at least when no outdoors work needed to be done. During spells of better weather he took some time off in the middle of the day to exercise Silky. And now and then he and Hy, who was riding Lightning again nowadays, took both the horses out onto the prairie.

Those early spring rides with Hy were real workouts for Gib and Silky. Hy would locate a herd of Herefords, mostly cows and calves belonging to the Lazy L, a spread that included a lot of the land that had once belonged to the Rocking M. And then there would be a different kind of school, a stock-handling school with lessons in cutting and roping. Both Gib and Silky had a lot to learn.

With her quick starts and fantastic speed Silky could overtake a calf in no time, but when it came to cutting him out of the herd and heading him in the right direction, Lightning could beat her all to pieces. And as for roping, even though Gib had been doing some extra practicing in the barn, he still had a ways to go. Watching Hy snake out his lasso and catch a steer by his front feet, Gib wondered if he’d ever get the hang of it.

It did occur to Gib now and then to wonder why Hy was bothering to teach him how to be a ranch hand. If the Rocking M were still running cattle, there’d be a reason for it, but as it was ...

They were on their way back to the barn one day when he asked Hy about it. Hy nodded and grinned, but they’d reached the gate by then, and Hy pulled up to watch how well Silky lined herself up so Gib could lean down and reach the latch. It wasn’t until they were through the gate and riding side by side again that Hy said, “Cain’t say as I blame you for askin’ about that, seein’ as how being a crackerjack stock handler don’t cut much ice on a spread that’s down to one old milk cow and a bunch of chickens.”

They both laughed, but Hy’s wrinkled face sobered down in a hurry. “Don’t exactly know why I’m pestering you with all this cowhand stuff ’ceptin’ it seems to me it’s still a mighty useful thing to know. You gettin’ tired of it?”

Gib quickly said, “Oh no, I’m not tired of it. I won’t be tired of it until—” He grinned. “Until I’m the best cowhand in the whole world.”

L
IVY WENT RIGHT ON
studying at home until the snow had melted and the bare leafless trees began to show soft green nubs where leaves would soon be sprouting. Gib was still studying in the library, too, even though he hadn’t been able to spend as much time there since work had begun in the greenhouse.

He and Hy were planting the sprouting beds so all kinds of vegetables would be up and ready for transplanting as soon as the danger of frost had passed. According to Hy, the greenhouse was mostly Mrs. Perry’s idea. Besides being a great cook, Mrs. Perry was practically famous for the blue ribbons her vegetables always won at the county fair. “
Her
vegetables,” Hy snorted sarcastically. “Well, they’re her blue ribbons, I reckon, but look who has to do the work.”

“I’m looking,” Gib said, just barely managing to keep a straight face, because Hy was sitting at the end of a row of tomato plants at the time, and had been for an hour or so. As a matter of fact, Hy spent most of the day sitting around grumbling about how disgraceful it was for a top-notch wrangler to wind up scratching in the dirt like a dangbusted gopher, and in the meantime Gib did most of the scratching.

But it was easy work actually, and Gib didn’t mind it so long as it left him time to keep up with other things. Like ancient Rome, for instance. It was a test on the Roman Empire that he and Livy were taking one day in late April, when Mr. Thornton came home early and unexpectedly.

It was very quiet in the library. Miss Hooper was reading a book and Gib and Livy were bent over their essays when the library door opened and Mr. Thornton came in. Gib looked up, surprised and shocked. Mr. Thornton came home early now and then when he wasn’t feeling well, but he’d never before arrived without the warning clop of hooves and jangle of harness as Caesar and Comet came down the long driveway to the house.

“Well, well. Hard at work, I see,” Mr. Thornton said to no one in particular as he took off his overcoat and hung it on the back of a chair.

“Yes, indeed,” Miss Hooper said, looking almost as surprised as Gib was feeling. “Finishing up an essay test.” She turned then and looked out the window at the hitching rack. “How did you ... ?”

Mr. Thornton’s gray beard split open on his thin smile. “No, not in the buggy,” he said. “Mr. Appleton was taking a trial run in a new Model T Ford. Dropped me off out by the gate.”

“A Model T?” Livy asked quickly. “Alicia says her folks might be getting a Model T.”

“Is that so,” Mr. Thornton said. “Well, it’s an amazing machine for the price. And a much more comfortable ride than that outdated old Packard Appleton’s been trying to sell me. Quieter, too.” He turned to Miss Hooper and asked, “Did you hear anything? A car motor out on the road?”

Miss Hooper shook her head. “Not a thing,” she said. “But then I wasn’t listening for a motorcar. Not after what happened the last time one paid us a visit.”

Of course, Miss Hooper was talking about how the team had spooked and run over Hy, but Mr. Thornton only shrugged. “Nonsense,” he said. “Can’t afford to go on living in the nineteenth century just because of an accident caused by a couple of poorly trained horses. Besides, Caesar and Comet are getting quite used to the sounds of progress. Mr. Appleton’s had one of his men working on them while I’m at the bank every day. Getting them used to being around all kinds of motors.”

Mr. Thornton walked right past Gib’s end of the table and over to the window. “Edgar will stop by shortly to take me back to town,” he said over his shoulder. “I told him to come right on down the drive.”

Gib had been trying to catch Miss Hooper’s eye, hoping to make his face ask, “What now? Am I in trouble or not?” When he finally did, Miss Hooper seemed to think not; at least she frowned back in the phony fierce way that said that as far as she was concerned, the whole thing was pretty amusing. But Livy’s face was harder to read. Right at first, when her father suddenly appeared in the library, she’d only shrugged and looked bored, but now, as she went on staring at his back, her eyes began to widen excitedly.

“Papa,” she said in a whispery voice, “are we going to get a Model T?”

Mr. Thornton turned back from the window. “I’m thinking about it, Olivia,” he said. “I’m giving the matter some serious thought.” He smiled again, and on his way to the door he patted Livy’s head before he picked up his overcoat and went out.

When the library door swung shut Gib wiped his forehead, and said, “Whew!”

But Livy only laughed. “I told you he knew,” she said. “I told you he knew Miss Hooper was teaching you too.”

Miss Hooper nodded. “He knew,” she agreed. She picked up the tests, first Livy’s and then Gib’s. “I think we’ll call it a day, however. Don’t suppose we can expect ancient Rome to compete with a brand-new motorcar.” Livy immediately ran out of the room, and after Miss Hooper told Gib the pages he should read that night, she went out, too.

Gib went on sitting at the library table for a few minutes longer, sorting out an uncomfortable mixture of feelings. Relief was there. Relief that Mr. Thornton hadn’t objected to his being there, or at least hadn’t made a scene, shouting and ordering him out of the room. But in a mysterious way what
had
happened seemed even worse.

He was still sitting there trying to figure out what Mr. Thornton had done and hadn’t done, and why it mattered so much, when he heard voices on the front veranda. Lots of voices. Mr. Thornton’s first, and then his wife’s, and Miss Hooper’s, and, a few seconds later, Mrs. Perry’s too. Next there was a clatter of rapid footsteps as Livy ran down the veranda steps and her excited voice saying, “He’s coming. I can hear it. Can’t you?” Gib got up slowly and went to the window just as a big, shiny motorcar roared and bounced its way down the drive.

The Model T was longer than a big buckboard. It had a high windshield made of glass, with a lantern on each side, front and back seats, and a leathery black roof to keep off the rain and sun. Mr. Appleton, a fattish man with a sporty motoring cap on his bald, dome-shaped head, drove right up to the hitching rack. The moment he climbed down, Livy was all over the Model T, sitting in one seat and then the other, and jabbering away like an excited chipmunk.

Gib went on watching while the Thorntons talked to Mr. Appleton and then while Mr. Appleton helped get Mrs. Thornton’s chair down the steps and over to the Model T. But when they were all gathered around the gleaming motorcar, talking and staring and pointing, Gib suddenly didn’t want to watch anymore.

It was quiet in the barn. Silky looked up and nickered softly as he entered her stall. He let her rub her soft nose against his cheek, and then he stretched his arms up around the arching curve of her neck. For a while he rested his face against her neck and then, using the edge of the feed trough as a mounting block, he climbed up onto her back. She looked back questioningly for a moment, as if asking if they were going somewhere, and then went back to nuzzling around in her feed bucket, looking for the last crumbs of oats. Tucking his feet up behind him, Gib stretched out on his stomach with his head on his arms. Lying there on the mare’s strong, warm back, it wasn’t too hard to keep his mind there with her. With Silky, there in the barn at first and then, in his imagination, out on the prairie, letting her outrun the wind.

It must have been almost an hour later when he heard the distant hiccups of a starting motor, and then a steady roar that faded slowly away down the drive and out onto the road to Longford.

“Hey,” he told Silky, “must be almost milking time.” Sliding down off her back, he was reaching over to unlatch the gate when she nickered and shoved him gently with her nose—and suddenly, for no reason at all, he was crying. Crying like an Infant Room baby. Burying his face against the mare’s soft neck, he clenched his teeth until the tears stopped and the ache in his throat died away. When he finally raised his head, Silky was looking at him curiously.

“Yeah,” he told her. “Pretty silly, huh?” Giving her a last pat, he whispered against her tear-wet neck, “Nothing to cry about, is there? It’s a whole lot better than Mr. Bean’s, anyway.”

Halfway across the barnyard he ran into Hy carrying the milking pail. It was time to get back to work.

I
T WAS RIGHT AFTER
the Thorntons bought the Model T that Livy started going back to Longford School, riding in again with her father every morning. Except that now she was riding in a brand-new motorcar instead of a buggy. She had some new clothes too, a motoring hat with a long, thin scarf to tie under her chin to keep the hat from flying away, and a long coat that she called a duster.

And on the east side of the house, as far away from the barn as possible, a Longford construction company was putting up a fancy new building. When Gib told Hy that the new building was called a garage and that it was where the Model T would be parked, Hy scowled and grunted, “Garage, huh. Well, leastways it’s a good thing he’s not goin’ to try to keep it here in the barn with the horses. If he did that, I’d have to shoot.”

“Shoot?” Gib asked uneasily. “Who’d you shoot, Hy?”

Hy grinned and pretended to draw a six-shooter. “I’d have to shoot the dadburned thing right between the headlights.”