Chapter: AT HOME


Jess and Henry had a short committee meeting next morning before the
others awoke. It was agreed that nobody should be allowed to stray off
into the woods alone, not even the dog. And with much mystery Henry left
some orders with all of them, as to what they should build for him
during the morning.

"What for?" asked Benny.

"Shan't tell, old fellow," teased Henry. "You just build it, and you'll
see later."

So Henry walked briskly through the woods, feeling sure that the noise
in the night had been made by a rabbit.

Having no watch, Henry made a slight mistake by appearing at the young
doctor's door before eight o'clock. He was just in time to meet the
doctor coming in from a night call.

If Henry had not been so eager to begin work, he would have noticed how
the young man's dark eyes examined him from head to foot, even to his
plastered hair, wet with brook water. It was not the doctor who directed
his work, but the doctor's mother--the sweet-faced Mrs. McAllister,
whose heart was centered in her son and her vegetable garden.

Her heart warmed to the boy when she saw how carefully he thinned out
the carrots, which had been sadly neglected.

"I have been so busy," she declared, "that I have actually stayed awake
nights worrying about these carrots. There--see that?" She pulled out a
fairly good-sized carrot as she spoke. It had to come out, for it was
much too near its neighbors. In fact, when Henry had thinned out half a
row he had quite a little pile of eatable carrots, each as large as his
thumb. When Mrs. McAllister saw Henry deftly press the earth back again
around the carrots which remained standing, she left him quietly with a
smile. Here was a gardener whom she could trust.

Henry worked steadily in the hot sun, completing row after row of
carrots, parsnips, and onions. When the mill bells rang at noon he
worked on, without noticing that his employer was again watching him.

When he did at last notice her he asked her, smiling, what she wanted
done with the things he had pulled up.

"Oh, throw them away," she said indifferently. "Toss them over into the
orchard, and sometime we'll burn them when they get dry."

"Do you mind if I take them myself?" asked Henry, hesitatingly.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. McAllister cordially. "Have you chickens? That will
be fine."

Henry was thankful that she went right along without waiting for an
answer. But in a way he did have chickens, he thought.

"You must stop working now," she said. "Any time you want to do
something, there will be a place for you here." She gave him a dollar
bill, and left the delighted boy with the piles of precious little
vegetables. As long as Henry expected to return so soon, he hastily
selected an orderly bunch of the largest of the carrots and the smallest
of the onions. He added a few of the miniature parsnips for good
measure. They looked like dolls' vegetables. When Henry walked down the
drive with his "bouquet," he would have seen a face at the window if he
had looked up. But he did not look up. He was too anxious to get to the
little old man's shop and order his meat.

So it happened that Henry walked in upon his little family at about two
o'clock with all the materials for a feast. The feast could not be made
ready before night, Jess hastened to explain to Benny, who was perfectly
satisfied anyway with bread and milk in his pink cup.

"Your building is done," Benny informed his brother. "I builded lots of
it."

"He really did," agreed Violet, leading the way to the sunny open spot a
trifle behind the house. The "building" was a fireplace. With an
enormous amount of labor, the children had made quite a hollow at the
base of a rock. This was lined completely with flat stones. More flat
stones had been set on end to keep out the wind. On top of the stones
lay the most wonderful collection of firewood that you can imagine, all
ready to light. There were chips and bits of crumpled paper, pine cones,
and dry twigs. Beside the big rock was a woodpile. The children had
apparently been working like beavers all the morning. Jess had found a
heavy wire in the dump, and had fastened it between two trees. On the
wire the kettle swung merrily.

"Fine! Fine!" shouted Henry when he saw it. "I couldn't have done it so
well myself." And he honestly believed it.

"We have dinner at night, here," observed Jess impressively. "What did
you buy?"

When the girls saw the tiny vegetables they began with cries of delight
to cut them from their stalks with Henry's knife and a broken paring
knife. They scrubbed them in the "washtub," filled the kettle half full
of water from the "well," and proceeded in great excitement to cut the
raw meat into cubes. When this had been dropped into the kettle, Henry
lighted the fire. It burned frantically, as if it were trying to
encourage the stew to do its best. Violet laid the tin plate over the
top for a cover, and they all stood by to hear the first bubble. Soon
the savory stuff in the kettle began to boil in good earnest. Watch sat
down gravely near it, and gave an approving sniff at intervals.

"Keep it boiling," advised Henry as he departed again. "When I come home
tonight I'll bring some salt. And for mercy's sake, don't get on fire."

Violet pointed silently at the big teapot. The little girl had filled it
with water in case of emergency. "That's if Benny gets on fire," she
explained--"or Watch."

Henry laughed and went on his way happily enough. He wished he might
share the delightful task of keeping the fire going and sniffing the
stew, but when he found out his afternoon's duties, he changed his mind
abruptly.

"Think you can clean up this garage?" asked Dr. McAllister quizzically
when he appeared.

Henry flashed a look around the place, and met the young man's eyes with
a smile. It did need cleaning rather badly. When its owner purred out in
his high-powered little car, Henry drew a long breath and began in
earnest. He opened all the chests of drawers to begin with. Then he
arranged all the tools in the largest deep drawer, and with a
long-handled brush and a can of black paint that was nearly dry, he
labeled the drawer TOOLS with neat lettering. Another drawer he lettered
NAILS, and assorted its contents into a few of the many boxes that were
lying around. He folded up the robes he found, swept off the shelves and
arranged the oil cans in orderly ranks, sorted out innumerable pairs of
gloves, and then swept the floor. He washed the cement floor with the
hose, and while waiting for it to dry he rinsed his brushes in
turpentine.

To tell the truth, Henry had found a few things in the rubbish which he
had stored in his own pocket. The treasure consisted in this case of a
quantity of bent and rusty nails of all sizes, and a few screws and
nuts.

When Dr. McAllister returned at six o'clock he found Henry corking up
the turpentine and arranging the brushes on the shelf.

"My word!" he exclaimed, staring at his garage with his mouth open. Then
he threw back his head and laughed till his mother came down the walk to
see what the matter was.

"Look at my gloves, Mother," he said, wiping his eyes. "All mated up.
They never met each other before, that I remember."

Mrs. McAllister looked the garage over, and observed the newly labeled
drawers. Her son opened one of them, and looked at his four hammers.

"My tack hammer, Mother," he said, "your tack hammer, and two other
hammers! That last one I never expected to see again. If you can use it,
you may have it, my boy."

Now, it is no exaggeration to say that at that moment if Henry had been
asked what he wanted most of anything in the world he would have
answered without any hesitation whatever, "A hammer."

He accepted it gratefully, hardly able to stand still, so anxious was he
to put it into use on the hill he called home.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," said the doctor. "Shall I see you on Monday?"

"Oh, yes," replied Henry, who had lost all track of the days.

"The cherries need picking," said his new friend. "We could use any
number of cherry pickers, if they were as careful as you." He gave him
an odd look.

"Could you?" asked Henry eagerly. "I'll surely come down."

With that, he bade his friends good-by and started for home, richer by
another dollar, two doughnuts the cook had given him, a pocket full of
crooked nails, and the rest of the vegetables.

When he reached his freight-car home a delicious savor greeted him.

"Onions!" he shouted, running up to the kettle. The cook stood by and
took off the cover and put in the salt. It was absolutely the most
tantalizing odor that Henry had ever smelled. Years afterward Jess tried
to duplicate it with the same kettle, vegetables from the same garden
and all stirred with the same spoon, but it didn't equal this stew in
flavor.

"A ladle, as sure as I live!" gasped Henry. Jess had found a tin cup in
the dump, and fastened on a wooden handle with a bit of wire. And when
she ladled out four portions on four plates of all sizes, some of them
tin, and laid a spoon in each, the children felt that the world held no
greater riches. The tiny onions floated around like pearls; the carrots
melted in your mouth; and the shreds of meat were as tender as possible
from long boiling. A bit of bread in one hand helped the feast along
wonderfully. The little wanderers ate until they could eat no more.

"I have time before dark to make Benny's cart," observed Henry, biting a
crisp, sweet carrot.

"With my wheels?" asked Benny.

"Yes, sir, with your wheels," agreed Henry. "Only, when it's done,
you'll have to cart stones in it."

"Sure," said Benny with satisfaction. "Cart stones or _anything_."

"We'll need it in making the dam," explained Henry for the benefit of
his sisters. "Tomorrow's Sunday, so I shan't work down in the town. Do
you think it's all right to build the pool on Sunday, Jess?"

"I certainly do," replied Jess with emphasis. "We're just building the
dam so we can keep clean. I guess if Sunday is your only day off, it'll
be all right."

Henry's conscience was set at rest as he began with great delight to
hammer out his bent nails. He and Benny ran about finding pieces of wood
to fasten the wheels on. A visit to the dump was necessary at last, in
order to find just the right piece of timber for a tongue, but before it
was too dark to see, Henry had pounded the last nail in place and
trundled the flat cart back and forth just to see it go. The cart seemed
valuable enough to all of them to take into the house for the night. And
Henry could not afford to laugh at Benny for going to sleep with his
hand upon one of his precious wheels, for he himself had tucked his new
hammer under his pillow.

 It's morning, and Jessie and Henry are discussing the excitement from the night before. They don't say anything about it to the younger kids, though. Jessie wonders if the "intruder" was a rabbit, but Henry thinks it might have been a person. Henry says the dog will protect them. They'll just carry on as if nothing happened, though they can't let Benny go into the woods by himself. Henry is very excited to get to work, so he runs the whole way to the doctor's house. It's garden day, and the doctor's mother, Mrs. Moore, is going to tell Henry what's up in the garden. Mrs. Moore thins vegetables with Henry for a while before leaving him to work on his own. Eventually, she comes back and sends Henry home for lunch. She doesn't want any of the vegetables he pulled, so he's taking those with him. Henry goes back to the boxcar, where Benny has been building a fireplace all day. Jessie and Violet helped, and they've set up the kettle over it and everything. The fireplace was good timing because Henry brought home all of those vegetables along with some meat he picked up at the store. The children prepare the food and start the fire. They're going to have stew for dinner, but in the meantime, it's another lunch of milk-soaked bread. Henry heads back to the doctor's house. Dr. Moore wants him to clean the garage. What a treat. No, seriously--Henry thinks that's a treat. Henry begins to organize the garage, setting aside a pile of bent nails for his own use. When the doctor gets home, he's very excited to find the garage so organized. The doctor notices he has four hammers and, deciding he doesn't need that many, gives one to Henry. The doctor asks Henry to return on Monday to pick cherries from his orchard. He says he could use a few extra sets of hands. Hmm, do you think he knows about Henry's brother and sisters? Back to the boxcar. Henry smells the stew. Oh, and look--Jessie has made a ladle from more garbage. The children feast on the stew. When they're finished, Henry begins to make Benny's cart. He decides he'll build the swimming pool the next day, which is Sunday. After Henry builds the cart, the children bed down in the boxcar. Fingers crossed they don't hear that strange noise again tonight.

