by Tamara Bundy
“Mr. Grayson—it’s what he used to feed the little guy. Wanna try?”
As much as I tried, though, the lamb didn’t seem to want to cooperate. I held the bottle out to him, and he ran around the box like he was looking for an exit. Bleh! Bleh! Bleh!
“Come on, little lamb.” I paused. “Daddy, what’s his name?”
“He’s a livestock lamb. Doesn’t have a name.”
That wouldn’t do, but first things first. I offered him the bottle again. “Come on, baby. It’s milk.” I tried to reason with him. “It’s warm and good.”
“Try to catch him and squirt some in his mouth,” Daddy suggested.
I leaned over the box to reach him, but he was too fast, slipping out of my hands like he was covered in soap.
“I can’t, Daddy. I don’t know how.” I choked back tears, knowing I was the worst person to ever raise a lamb.
“You’ll get the hang of it. Remember, nobody knows anything . . . till they know it.” And with those words, Daddy went up the cellar stairs, leaving me with a very noisy and very scared lamb.
Each cry of the baby lamb made my heart hurt more than the last. If Charlotte was here, she would surely know what to do, I thought. And of course, thinking of Charlotte made more tears come.
So there I stood, crying in the cellar with my crying baby lamb.
I wiped my tears away on the back of my sleeve, took a deep breath, and decided the least I could do was find the little guy a name.
“Here, Lamby!” That was pretty boring, so I kept going.
“Here, Snowball!”
“Here, Baby!”
“Here, Sweetie!”
But the lamb just kept on running back and forth in the box.
“Calm down, buster!” I pleaded, and all at once he did. I laughed. “You like that one? Buster?”
Again, he looked at me, and I decided to try once more to give him his bottle. I climbed inside the box and sat cross-legged next to him. “It’s okay, Buster. You’ll like this.” I wrapped my free arm around him while my hand with the bottle made another unsuccessful attempt at reaching his mouth. Some of the milk spilled.
He licked up the spilled milk in a hurry, as if someone was going to make him stop. I put the bottle where he was licking and tipped it fast into his mouth. His eyes met mine for one second before he started sucking on that bottle. His little head was bucking up and down, making more milk spill out than end up in him, but we were kind of working it out. When the milk was almost gone, he was calmer and sat down next to me. I noticed my hand was bleeding a little bit where his head had bumped my knuckles into the bottle, but right then I didn’t care if my whole arm fell off.
I petted his head as he lay close. His wool wasn’t as soft as I thought it would be—more like a sweater Granddaddy had that was a little scratchy. But still, I loved the feel of him, and I petted him as his eyes blinked open and shut.
My heart felt squeezed while I was looking at him. He was so little. “It’s okay, little lamb,” I whispered. “I’m sorry your mama wouldn’t take care of you. But don’t worry. I’m here. I don’t have a mama either, so we’ll figure things out together.”
CHAPTER 22
“Just what I need—another mouth to feed,” Grandma said, letting out a sigh.
Grandma was, of course, referring to Buster. I didn’t know—and neither did Daddy—that little lambs like to eat every four hours. That created a problem of what we’d do when I had to go back to school. I volunteered to quit school to take care of my lamb all day long, but Daddy said that wasn’t the answer.
That first day I had to go back to school, I got up extra early to feed Buster and to show Grandma what to do when I wasn’t home.
I sat cross-legged in the box, with Buster squirming in my arms. I’d figured out if I kept him still, he had a better chance of getting more milk in his mouth. “You hold him like this,” I told Grandma as I reached for the bottle.
She laughed. “Good grief! Nobody needs to tell me how to hold a lamb.” She whisked Buster out of my arms and held him with one arm tucked under him as she shoved the bottle into his waiting mouth. Buster began gulping it down neatly for Grandma.
“You know about lambs?”
“Sweetie, I was raised on a farm. I know about all animals. Did you think I was born and raised in a kitchen?”
Guess I hadn’t thought about it. At that moment, I pictured Grandma as a young girl feeding her lambs like she was feeding mine. Grandma must have been picturing herself doing that, too, since she smiled at him. “This here’s the scrawniest excuse for a lamb I ever did see.” Buster looked right at her and blinked a few times. Grandma smiled bigger. “But I suppose with the right care, he might have the makings of a decent lamb.”
Right then, Buster let out a sound that was half burp and half bleh and neither of us could keep from laughing.
Grandma put Buster down and straightened her housedress like she’d just remembered she was a grown-up. “Now, let’s scoot upstairs so you can finish your own breakfast . . . and try to have a few more manners than this one here.”
“His name’s Buster,” I told her.
“Buster’s a fine name. But remember, he’s a farm animal,” Grandma said. “He is not a pet.” She looked at Buster in his coffin box. “Prudence, exactly what is my sheet doing in there?”
“Sorry, Grandma, but I was afraid he’d get cold.”
“He’s an animal with a wool coat, even if it is just a baby coat right now. He doesn’t need a sheet.” She shook her head but left the sheet where it was before heading upstairs.
* * *
* * *
When I got home from school, Buster was asleep all curled up on the sheet and the pile of straw. I didn’t go all the way down the cellar steps, afraid I’d wake him.
Since Buster was nice and quiet for the time being, to show my appreciation for Grandma giving him his noontime feeding, I decided to gather the eggs without being asked.
The minute I walked in the henhouse, Teacher squawked at me with her mean old sound, which started in her belly and worked its way out, like a teakettle coming to a slow ear-piercing boil.
Bwaaaaaak!
“Yeah, I’m back, you rotten old hen.”
I turned away from her to gather the eggs of the hens that had scattered the minute the door opened, letting in the icy winds. I’d gathered eight eggs in the basket when I turned around and saw Teacher staring at me.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, you mean old bird? Git, now.” I waved my free hand at her, and that’s when the dang bird decided to do something I never saw her do before.
She decided to fly.
Her flying away would’ve been a great chance for me to grab her eggs, but there was one big problem: she decided to fly right at me.
I threw up my arms to take cover, and all the eggs in my basket went sailing through the air, including two that sailed right back down onto my head.
The henhouse was alive with cackling as another gust of wind shook the door. I looked up to see Ricky there.
“Good grief!” he said. “What’s going on here? Teacher?”
I was so frazzled I couldn’t even answer. Ricky covered his mouth, as if he could hide the big grin growing there. A minute later, laughter bubbled up and spit right out of him.
And as much as I was mad, I had to admit I must’ve looked a sight. I couldn’t hold back my laughter either.
When we’d stopped laughing enough to catch our breath, Ricky helped me grab the eggs that weren’t smashed on me or the ground.
“So other than covered in eggs,” Ricky asked, bending down, “how do you feel?”
“I’m all better now.”
“Good. I was . . . I don’t know . . .” His voice was so soft, I had to move closer to him to hear. “I guess I was . . . worried about you.” He was so serious
it was hard to believe he was the same boy who was laughing a minute ago.
But I was touched. “I’m really fine. I promise.”
“I’m glad.” He nodded, but I got the feeling either he didn’t believe me—or there was something else bothering him.
I wanted to see him laugh again, but I didn’t want to get covered in more eggs to make that happen. That’s when I remembered there was something back in our cellar that was sure to make Ricky smile.
CHAPTER 23
The minute I opened the cellar door, I heard Buster making a noise that didn’t sound like his usual bleh at all. This sound sounded like a cry. Ricky stood at the top of the cellar steps, waiting for me to walk down first.
“Smells a bit,” he said as we got closer.
And he was right.
Buster was lying on his side, trembling, and all over the coffin box crib was evidence that he’d been sick. I ran upstairs, yelling, “Grandma! Grandma! Something’s wrong with Buster!”
I found her in the kitchen, slicing potatoes. “What in tarnation is in your hair?” she said. I had already forgot about the eggs, and when Grandma saw the worry on my face, she dropped everything and followed me back to the cellar.
“This lamb needs warming up, quick!” she told us.
Grandma boiled pans of water to add to the washtub Granddaddy brought in from the porch. When the tub was half full, I picked Buster up and lowered him into the warm water. At first, he tried to jump back out, his eyes bulging, looking spooked as he splashed water everywhere. I suspected Grandma was worried about him, ’cause she never once mentioned the mess he was making.
I tried hard not to think my bad luck had already got to my little lamb as I swished and rubbed the warm water over his wool with a sponge. Ricky was standing in the door frame, keeping his distance. “You can help,” I said, “if you want.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head as he spoke. “I’m not sure . . .” But then his words stopped, and he came over to the tub and started swishing the water on Buster too.
Grandma freshened up the tub by adding more boiling water until it was almost over Buster’s head. At the end of his bath, he looked better and was definitely not shaking like before.
Grandma brought a towel for him and told us to sit by the wood-burning stove for a while with him. “Just till he gets warmed, y’all hear? I’m not turning my living room into a barn.”
“Should I feed him again?” I asked before she left.
“Let’s give him some time to settle first. Keep him warm for now. I’ll bring the bottle in a bit. He’ll know whether he should eat.”
Buster nestled down in my lap, wrapped in the towel. Ricky sat next to us and reached out to pet him. “So how long you had the little guy?”
“His name’s Buster.”
“How long you had Buster?”
“Two whole days.”
“Seems like he likes you already.” Ricky said this as more of an observation than a compliment, but I couldn’t help puffin’ with pride.
We sat there, the three of us, by the fire long enough for Buster to dry. He started bleating again, returning to his strong bleh from before.
Grandma brought in the bottle.
Buster took it straight into his mouth this time and started drinking down the milk like he was starvin’.
Ricky sat there watching and smiling.
“Wanna try?”
He moved backward, as if Buster was gonna jump into his arms or something. “Nah, that’s okay.”
But he kept staring at Buster with eyes that told me he might actually want to. “Here.” I showed him. “Keep one finger on the top so it stays on the bottle, and the rest just kind of happens.”
Ricky scooted even closer to us, and a minute later he was feeding the last few drops of milk to Buster. “That-a-boy, Buster. That-a-boy.”
Buster acted like he might eat the bottle itself if we let him. So Ricky put the bottle down and picked Buster up with both hands. In only a few seconds, Buster’s hind legs had tangled in his scarf.
“Hey, Buster, hooves off—that’s mine.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
I sat on my knees next to where Ricky sat with Buster on his lap. He petted him as he kept talking. “Bill would like you. He all the time begged Ma and Pa for animals. They said we couldn’t afford to raise ’em long enough to have ’em make us money.”
“What about Mud?”
Ricky laughed. “The only way we got him was he come to our house one day and wouldn’t leave. Daddy tried to make him scram, but he kept comin’ back.” Ricky sniffled. “Yeah, Bill would like this here little guy.”
“Any new letters from Bill?” I asked.
Ricky didn’t answer, just lowered his head to rest it on Buster.
“I bet you get one soon. Don’t worry—he’ll write again.”
But when his shoulders started shaking up and down, I realized he was crying into my lamb.
Sitting there, I didn’t know what to say. So after a minute of not knowing what to do, I finally put my hand on his shoulder the way I remembered Mama doing when someone was sad. We sat like that, with Ricky crying into my lamb and me holding on to his shoulder, for a few minutes before Ricky reached into his pocket and handed me a wadded-up piece of paper.
I smoothed it out and opened it up.
On the top in big letters it read “Western Union.” The first address was somewhere in Washington, DC. The second address I recognized as Ricky’s. It was addressed to his mama and was hard to read at first, since Miss Beany would’ve said the punctuation was wrong, but I soon figured out what was making Ricky cry.
Regret to inform you your son was seriously wounded in France Four January until new address is received address mail to him, quote, Pvt. First Class William A. Reynolds, serial number, Hospitalized, Central Postal Directory A P O 640 care Post Master New York New York, unquote, you will be advised as reports of condition are received
Dunlap
Acting Adjunct General
1105 PM.
In spite of being used as a living hankie, Buster had fallen asleep in Ricky’s lap by the time I figured out the telegram. I kept my voice soft, almost a whisper. “When did you get this?”
“Found it on Ma’s dresser. She’s been even more quiet than usual lately. Guess this explains why.”
“I’m so sorry.” I recognized the woeful look on his face as one I’d felt many times, and I tried hard to find a bright spot for him. “At least he’s not as far away now. He’s in New York.”
“Might’s well be on the moon. I can’t go to New York any more than I can get to France . . . or the moon.”
“Maybe it’s not too bad?” I didn’t want my voice to come out like a question, but I couldn’t help it. Guess it didn’t matter what came out of my mouth right then. What mattered was what was already in both our heads.
He knew. We both knew.
It was bad.
CHAPTER 24
The snowflakes looked pretty falling from the sky, but when they hit the car, they turned to slush, and the windows started fogging up something fierce. Grandma kept wiping them clean, but it didn’t seem to help clear up the window—or her bad feelings about riding in a car.
My window fogged up so much I didn’t even know where we were until Granddaddy stopped the car and Grandma reached in the back seat to get the eggs we were delivering to Mr. Green, the grocer. She looked at me. “You joining me?”
“Coming,” I said right as she opened the door and the blast of cold air hit me.
“I’m heading over to the grain elevator.” Granddaddy kept the car running as he talked. “Gonna see what Emory says about that hybrid seed corn.” I understood that meant Granddaddy was considering more of Daddy’s ideas for the farm, and that made me happy. The other day, I even heard
them talking about saving up the coffee can money for a down payment on a tractor.
The bell on the door jingled as Grandma and I walked into the shop. And wouldn’t you know, Big-Mouth Berta was the first thing I saw, sitting on a bench by a window.
She didn’t look up as I walked by with Grandma to drop off the eggs, but when Grandma started shopping for her rations, I glanced back at Berta. Seeing a big mess of yarn next to her lap, I got curious, so I moved closer.
“What ya got there?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she answered, grabbing the yarn in her arms and dropping a crochet needle onto the floor.
“Are you . . . crocheting?”
Berta looked close to tears as she sat back down. “Yeah. I mean . . . no. I’m trying to teach myself. But it’s not working. I just don’t know how to do it.”
And seeing her sitting there so clueless with a tangle of yarn, I started to see her as something other than Big-Mouth Berta. I took a deep breath, repeating what Daddy had told me not long ago. “Nobody knows anything . . . till they know it.” And before I knew it, I heard my mouth add, “Want me to show you how?”
She looked up at me like she was surprised I’d offered. I might have been surprised too. “Would you? I mean . . . you don’t have to. But if you’re bored or something . . . that would be nice.”
I looked over and saw Grandma smiling and nodding at me. So I sat down on that bench next to . . . Berta.
“First, you have to untangle this yarn,” I told her, trying to find part of it that didn’t look like a bird’s nest.
She shrugged. “I think it came that way. Gonna have to tell Daddy not to buy this kind anymore.”
When we finally managed to get it pretty near untangled, I showed her how to make a loop of yarn to get started and then how to hold the hook. And after a few minutes, I crocheted a chain and then had her do one. Before long, I’d taught her how to do a whole row. Had to admit she picked it up pretty fast.
Her tongue stuck out a bit as she worked—I could tell it wasn’t in a mean way, but more like she was concentrating so hard she was biting her tongue for focus. Her hands picked up speed with each stitch.
