Man of the Family (17 page)

Doctor Browne's voice was always deep and rumbly, no matter how quietly he spoke. He was a great big man, more than a foot taller than Mother. He put one arm around her shoulder, and said, “Don't you worry, Mrs. Moody, I won't leave this house until she's out of danger.”

After that, they moved my cot out into the dining room, so about all I know is that Doctor Browne stayed at our house three days. In the daytime he'd sit by the south windows and read, or talk with Mother a few minutes when he wasn't in the parlor with Grace. And at night, he'd sleep on the sofa. He never did take his clothes off, and every little while during the nights I'd hear him get up and go in to see Grace. If Mother ever slept, I don't know when it was. Every time I woke up I'd hear her somewhere around the house. I couldn't tell what the weather was really like, but when Sheriff McGrath came to do my morning chores I'd always hear him shout, “Mornin', Miz Moody. Fine mornin'; ain't it? How's the little fellas?”

By the time Doctor Browne went back to Denver, Muriel, Philip, and Hal were well enough to come downstairs. I felt well enough to be up, too, but Mother made me stay in bed for three more days. The sheriff seemed kind of sorry when I started to do the chores again. He told me I was apt to have a relapse, and had better let him keep on coming to milk Ducklegs.

19

Everyone Is Good to Us

G
RACE
had to stay in bed two weeks longer than I. During the first week, she was sick enough so that Doctor Crysler came to see her every day, and Mother slept on the sofa to tend her during the nights. Then, when the doctor did let Grace get up, she was so skinny and weak she could only sit in the Morris chair or shuffle around the house a little.

Mother looked almost as sick as Grace, and I don't know how many pounds she had lost. Her eyes were sunk deep in her face, and the circles around them were so black that it almost looked as though she were wearing goggles. I didn't go back to school till after Grace was well enough to sit up. I tried to help Mother as much as I could, but sometimes I guess I was more bother than help. I felt all right, but I got tired awfully quick, and I didn't have much strength in my hands. Two or three times I let things slip out of them when I was helping her in the kitchen.

Whenever Mother was worried or so tired that she could hardly go, she always got hymns on her mind. She never seemed to know it herself, but the same one would keep going over and over—sometimes for a whole day. She never sang them out loud, but either hummed the tune or sang the words—a few at a time—half under her breath. The Sunday before I started back to school, it was “Under His Wings.”

After supper that night, Mother looked up at me, and said, “Suppose you look after your chores, Ralph, while I put the children to bed. Then I would like to talk to you a little.”

I hurried with my chores as fast as I could, but I stripped Ducklegs to the very last drop. Even at that, I didn't get much more than half a bucket of milk. The juice was pretty well gone out of the grass, and we'd run all out of bran for her. She always dried up a little unless she had bran.

When I took the bucket into the house, Mother was just finishing the supper dishes. And she had her notebook and pencil laid out on the kitchen table. While she was straining the milk and setting the pans to cool, she said, “Ralph, you are awfully young to be burdened with responsibilities, but you are the man of the family now, and I think we should talk our problems over together.”

Then, when I'd hung up my coat and cap, she sat down at the table with me and opened her book. She had our bankbook with several bills tucked in between the leaves. As she spread them out on the table, she said, “Son, I have gone over everything carefully in my mind. We haven't had a bill yet from Doctor Crysler, but with the number of visits he's made, it can't be less than fifty dollars—possibly much more. We went deeply in debt to Mr. Shellabarger for the food we lost when you children became sick. I'm not sure how much we owe Mr. Hill at the drugstore, but it's considerable. Our rent was due the first of the month, but I haven't had a chance to go down to pay it. I believe we are out of grain for our stock, and, in your run-down condition, you children must have good, nourishing food and warm clothing this winter.”

Mother turned the notebook around so that I could see the figures she had written down. Then she ran her finger along the column, and said, “As near as I can tell, these are the amounts we owe, and this is the money we have in the bank. As you can see—without a penny for Doctor Browne—our debts are more than our bank balance.”

She waited while I added the column over, then she said, “With our cow giving so little milk now, I doubt if we can sell a drop; you children will need it all until you get built up again. And though I feel perfectly well, I have never fully regained my strength since Elizabeth was born, so we will have to start out with smaller cookery orders. Both Doctor Browne and Doctor Crysler say that Gracie must have complete rest for at least a month. And you . . .”

Mother's voice choked before she could say any more. Then she buried her face in her folded arms on the table, and cried, “Oh, I am so afraid that through my own stubbornness I have let you little children work yourselves nearly to death. Maybe I should have listened when Cousin Phil thought I was foolish in trying to keep the home together.”

I felt so sorry for her that I didn't know what to say. And I could only remember her feeling so discouraged once before in my life. That was the first time we saw the old shack on the ranch when we came to Colorado, so I said, “Do you remember what you said to Father that first day we went out to see the ranch?”

Mother lifted her head right up and wiped her face with her hands. “Yes, Son,” she said, “I do remember! I said, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.'”

“Well, we've been fed, haven't we?” I asked her.

Mother's voice was firm again. “Yes, Son,” she said, “we
have
been fed. Let us go to bed and thank Him for the care He has always given us. I feel much stronger. After school tomorrow you go and get your cookery orders.”

The next morning I went to school, but Mother let me stay out after lunch. She couldn't be happy while we had bills hanging over our heads, so I drove her down to draw our money out of the bank. Before we left the house, she had me go to the cellar and get two quarts of tomatoes and two of cherries. First she went in to pay Mr. Shellabarger, then Mr. Hill at the drugstore. After that she bought a money order for the rent, and took what was left up to Doctor Crysler. I just sat on the wagon and held Lady while Mother went in to pay the bills.

Everybody was good to Mother. When she came out of Doctor Crysler's office her eyes were all shiny with tears that didn't spill over. After I'd helped her up to the wagon seat, she said, “Did you ever think how fortunate we are to live among such fine people? Ralph, our creditors would have kept right on trusting us if we hadn't had a penny in the bank, and Doctor Crysler gave us a receipt in full for the thirty-eight dollars which were left from the other bills. I'm sure he would have given us a receipt in full if there had only been eight dollars left instead of thirty-eight. I did leave one dollar in the bank . . . sort of as a nest egg.”

I'd forgotten all about the tomatoes and cherries. After we left Doctor Crysler's, I turned Lady down Main Street toward the gristmill, but Mother reached over and put her hand on my arm. “Son,” she said, “do you know where Sheriff McGrath lives? He's been awfully good to us, and I thought he might enjoy some of our tomatoes and cherries.”

The sheriff was usually at Monahan's or the livery stable, so we stopped at the stable. He wasn't there, though, and Mr. Bemis said he was laid up with rheumatism in his back. Sheriff McGrath's house was out on the north side of town, and he was right when he said his flower garden had all gone to pot. Mother let me carry the jars, and she knocked on the front door.

Sheriff McGrath was all hunched over when he answered the door, but when he saw Mother he straightened right up. “Come right in, Miz Moody. Come right in,” he shouted. “Fine mor . . .” Then his voice got real quiet and he said, “Mighty fine weather we're havin', ain't it?” His parlor was as clean as a new penny.

We visited with the sheriff for fifteen or twenty minutes, and we both thanked him for doing my chores while I had the measles. He must have thanked Mother forty times for the tomatoes and cherries. He said the chores had been nothing at all, and that Mother should call on him whenever there was anything he could do. The last time he thanked her for the cherries, he said he was going to save them for his Christmas dinner. Before we went, Mother told him how to make a mustard plaster and put it over the lame place on his back.

All summer long I'd planned on the money I was going to make in the fall by helping drovers through town, but it didn't work out right. We'd had a real dry summer in the northern part of the state, and a lot of the range land had burned out. So most of the drovers took their cattle and sheep south during September while I was sick in bed. I did get a few days' work helping Mr. Batchlett drive some cows to Denver, but I only helped one drover through town during the whole month of October. Three days after I'd started back to school, I found a postal card in our mailbox. It was the one I'd given Sid Gibson that spring; the one that said I'd help him through town for ten dollars.

He came through late in the afternoon, so I was able to have the whole length of Rapp Avenue lined with fellows and girls from school. Everybody wanted to help, and the biggest trouble I had was to see that the smaller children kept back away from the highroad. Sid was glad to see me when I rode Lady out toward Fort Logan to meet him. He and one of the hands were riding flank on the herd, and he saw me first. “Hi there, Little Britches!” he yelled as I rode up; and then after we'd shaken hands, he said, “Think we can risk it this late in the day, or had I best bed the herd down hereabouts and move on through town first thing in the mornin'?”

After I'd told him I was sure we wouldn't have any trouble, he called the hand over and said, “Ride on and tell the boys that Little Britches here is boss till we get through town; anything he says goes.”

I don't think I'd ever felt so proud in my life, but I tried not to let anybody find it out—and I tried to boss the job just the way Father would have, though I used one of Hi's tricks.

I'd noticed a skinny old cow with a calf not more than three or four days old, so I rode up beside one of the point men and said, “There's an old cow with a new calf back there-aways. Maybe, if you put him on the back of your saddle, the cow would follow you and bawl for him, then the others might come right along to see what the trouble was.”

After that, I went up to the gristmill corner where Dutch was waiting for me on his little horse, Blackie. I told him to go along Rapp Avenue ahead of us, and to tell all the kids to stay way back at the edge of the highroad, and not to move an eyelash unless the cattle started to break. Then I took Dutch's place myself. I'd only been there a couple of minutes when Sid and Sheriff McGrath rode up and stopped beside me. For once in his life, the sheriff kept quiet while the lead man rode past us with the calf dangling over the back of his saddle. The old cow was trailing along behind, hollering her head off, and a stream of curious steers was following her.

It was the easiest cattle drive I ever saw. Cattle poured up the River Road, turned onto the Colorado Springs highroad—it was Rapp Avenue, in Littleton—and trailed on through town like an army of ants on the march. The only sounds were the clacking of hoofs or a bellow from one of the cattle. By sunset, even the tenderfooted and lame were past the last cross street and on their way to the southern range.