by Joan Carris
“True,” said Ernest, “but we think this one was in the fire. Maybe it’s in pain, and that’s why he pushed you away.”
Milly’s tail had become a quivering bottle brush. “But it’s in OUR bedroom! Looks like family to me!”
“Well, I’m going out there to help Grampa, just like always.”
Milly hunkered down stubbornly on the bed of blankets, but Gabby hopped onto Ernest’s head.
“Take me to the office,” she ordered. “I have work to do.”
“What do you mean? Are you answering the office phone again?”
“When Grampa’s away I run the office,” Gabby said.
Stunned, Ernest repeated, “You run the office?”
“Why not? I can sound just like Grampa. And that ringing phone is hard on my nerves!”
Ernest knew she could make any sound she wanted. Her imitation of a garbage truck backing up was his favorite. But now he said, “Gabby, you know you shouldn’t be answering that phone!”
Gabby flapped one wing, dismissing the advice.
“Is it fun to talk on the phone?” Milly asked.
“Oh, yes! I say, ‘Welcome to the Bed and Biscuit,’ and people say, ‘How’s life treating you, Dr. Bender?’”
“Um, what do you say then?” asked Ernest, alarmed.
“Oh, it varies,” she replied. “Sometimes I say life is treating me like a bowl of fruit.”
“How creative!” said Milly.
Gabby nodded happily. “Other times I say life is treating me like a dead pigeon. It all depends on my mood.”
“Oh, dear, dear,” Ernest mumbled. “Gabby,” he went on, “do you take calls from people who want to board their pets?”
“Of course,” she said, ruffling her feathers importantly.
Milly quivered with awe. “This is so impressive, Gabby!”
Ernest kept on. “Do you take reservations for boarding?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because this is Grampa’s business, not some game with a phone!”
“Oooh!” squawked Gabby. “Mr. Self-Important Pig again! Picking on a poor senior-citizen bird!”
Ernest waited. He said nothing.
“Oh, all right,” Gabby admitted. “Usually I say we’re full. ‘Call back tomorrow,’ I tell them.”
Ernest said, “Well, then, that’s fine.”
“Sometimes I say, ‘Toodle-OO to you!’ at the end.”
Of course Grampa would never say that. “Anything else?” Ernest asked.
Gabby broke into a noisy cackle. “Yesterday I did make a joke, but only on one call.”
“Go on,” Ernest said, steeling himself.
“I think it’s very original,” she began. “I said, ‘Hello, Comfort Inn. But we’re all out of comfort!’” She cackled proudly.
Milly gave a small, sad mew. “You reminded me,” she said. “‘All out of comfort.’ That’s just how I feel.”
Ernest fumed with anger. It’s a wonder we get any business at all if Gabby talks like that on the phone, he thought.
“Gabby,” he said firmly, “let the answering machine in the office take those phone calls. That’s its job!”
“Arrk! You mean I’m being replaced by a machine?”
“‘Being replaced,’” echoed Milly with another mournful mew.
TWO DAYS WENT BY. Grampa ran from the office to the house and back again. Ernest followed him upstairs once, even though he loathed steps, like all pigs. He wanted to see exactly what was going on.
Grampa was feeding the tiny bundle, talking to it, holding it against his chest. He even hummed to it now and then.
A baby for sure, thought Ernest, turning away. And still in Grampa’s room. Here in our house. But Ernest told no one what he’d seen. Instead, he tried to pretend that nothing had changed.
During this time, Milly sat on Ernest’s bed and watched Grampa come and go without her. The autumn days were growing cooler, but apparently he no longer needed his living cat scarf.
After supper on the second day, Milly scooted out the pet door. She did not return until almost bedtime. Then, wet and bedraggled, with a dead mole clutched in her teeth, she pushed her way through the pet door. Inside, she laid the mole on the mat in front of the little door. She went back out, returning with another mole, which she arranged beside the first.
“Good job!” Ernest said. “Grampa hates moles in the yard. And you got a double-header!”
“Thank you,” Milly said. “It’s what cats do for their humans. And only cats do this, as far as I know.”
“Right! I don’t know any pigs who catch mice and moles for their humans.”
At bedtime Grampa appeared briefly in the kitchen. Just long enough to say, “’Night, troops. See you in the morning. Come on, Milly, bed-time!” He snapped off the light and was gone.
Ernest heard Milly’s disappointed mew. “Now, Milly,” he said, “Grampa had no chance to even see those moles. Just wait till morning. And he did call you to come to bed, you know. Just like last night.”
Milly sat like a statue. She didn’t even blink.
The next morning was the third one after the fire, and it started fast. The phone rang twice before Grampa could even get downstairs. By then the cows were bawling again.
“Dang telephones,” Grampa said, dashing into the kitchen. “My grandparents lived on this farm and did fine without them. If you needed to ask somebody’s advice, you rode over there on your horse. It was friendlier and the folks always fed you something good.”
By this time he was in his jacket, with his red cap on his head. He jerked open the heavy door and clattered down the porch steps. The big old door simply brushed aside Milly’s moles that lay on the mat.
“Now, Milly,” Ernest began, but it was no good. Milly had seen everything. Those were full-grown moles, and Ernest knew she had fought hard for them. They were special gifts, and they had been overlooked.
Milly crept over to the pet door, picked up a mole, and pushed open the door.
“Bad kitty!” Gabby squawked after her. “You put that back where Grampa can find it!”
Gabby kept on squawking. Milly ignored her as she returned, then left with the second mole. This time she stayed outside.
“Well, wouldn’t that frost —”
“Oh, put a sock in it,” Ernest said. “I’m going to talk to Sherlock.”
Gabby’s voice shrilled after him. “Bad pig! Bad pig!”
At the kennels Ernest flopped down on the other side of the fence from the sleeping bluetick hound. Guess I’ll wait till he wakes up, Ernest thought.
Sherlock’s large, round nose twitched, then snuffled. He opened one eye. “Smelled you,” he said. “Cleanest pig I ever met.”
“Of course. I have my own shower. Give any pig a shower, and he’ll be just as clean as I am.”
Sherlock rippled his skin, stretched, and sat up inch by inch. “So why do pigs roll in mud?”
“To keep the hot sun from burning us up. If we overheat, we die. Mud keeps us cool. Of course, a shower is better.”
“I hate baths. Did I tell you about my last coon hunt?”
Ernest shook his head no, which was a lie. He had heard this particular story many times, about how Sherlock had treed six coons all by himself in one night. But Ernest would listen again to be polite. It was important to keep the boarders happy. Grampa often said that.
After lunch that day, Grampa did not just doze in his rocking chair. He took off his glasses and lay down on the couch in the family room, next to the kitchen.
Gabby flew in to check and came back to the kitchen. “Snoring,” she said. “Out like a light.”
“Of course,” came a small voice. “He’s up at night fussing with that baby.”
“Awwk!” went Gabby. “Where are you?”
“She’s behind the stove,” Ernest said.
Now Milly oozed out from behind the wood stove, an enormous, black stove that had been in Grampa’s family forever. It sat i
n the same place, angled in the corner where air could circulate around it. No one cleaned behind it, because only bugs or a small animal could get back there.
“Milly,” Ernest said, “any day now, things will be back to normal around here. We just have to be patient.”
Milly sniffed. “Until then I’ll be behind the stove. It’s a good place for thinking.” She stood up and gave Ernest a lick on his head. Almost like a farewell lick.
She nodded at Gabby, who never permitted any licking from cats, and said, “I want to be alone. Nothing’s the same anymore, and it makes me sad.”
Milly was behind the stove again before Gabby or Ernest could reply.
THE NEXT DAY AT BREAKFAST, Grampa called for Milly, but he was too busy to do more than call. When he left for the office, he set out food and water for her.
This was barn-cleaning day. Grampa called it “mucking out.” As he finished mucking out a stall, Ernest nosed in piles of fresh straw. Ernest added a pail of fresh water, and they moved on to the next stall.
Grampa was not whistling. He always whistled when he was cleaning up stinky stuff, but not today. He went over to the house regularly, but he did not talk about it. That evening after supper, he put his head down on the table and began snoring.
Up on her curtain rod, Gabby sang, “Rock-a-bye, BAAY-BEEE, on the TREE-TOPPP!” Only an exhausted man could have slept through it.
Ernest settled on his blankets and ordered his brain to get busy on their problem. He had talked to his brain other times, with excellent results. The idea was to relax, to let the mind operate at its own speed. Trusting in this, he stretched out and promptly fell asleep.
After a short doze, Ernest woke up. Grampa was still at the table, but now he was talking to himself. “No use hunting for her. She’s avoiding me on purpose. So jealous she can’t see . . . and all cats hate changes. Dangit, she’s apt to run off!”
Elbows on his knees, Grampa leaned over toward Ernest. “Have you seen Milly? I’ve looked everywhere. Her food’s still there, too.”
“Wrunk.” Ernest went to rub against Grampa’s leg.
“Go find her, Ernest. Please? Find Milly.”
Like most pigs, Ernest could find things that humans or other animals couldn’t. Just last week his marvelous snout had found Grampa’s missing wallet, under the seat in the pickup.
But right now Ernest knew Milly was hurt and hiding on purpose. Of course, Grampa was hurting, too.
Ernest made up his mind. He had a duty to the family. And so he posed like a pointer at the back corner of the wood stove. The hanging lamp over the stove gave just enough light to reveal a furry golden ball in the dark corner.
Gabby landed on Ernest’s head and peered into the dimness. “Aack! Filthy!”
Her eyes big, Milly went, “Sssss!”
Grampa knelt on creaky knees and looked behind the stove. “Ah, you did it, Ernest!” He reached one hand in, toward his cat.
“Milly, girl, I sure miss you,” he began. “Don’t hide back there!”
No answer. Only silence in the kitchen.
Grampa kept coaxing, but Milly did not move, and finally he stood up. He put out fresh food and water, close to the stove corner.
He set Gabby on his finger, told her what a fine bird she was, and stroked her iridescent feathers. He patted Ernest for a long time.
“Poor Milly,” he said at last. “I guess I’ll leave her alone for now. She’s just being a cat after all.”
“Wrunk,” said Ernest.
“But you’re my pig, thank goodness, and we understand each other.”
Grampa was slow getting to the kitchen the next morning. He’d had only a sip of coffee when the phone rang.
“’Morning!” he said. Then, “Oh, I’m fine, AnnaLee. Just too busy. If it gets any busier, I’ll put you back on the payroll for after school, okay?
“How are your folks?” he went on. “I know it’ll take a long time to get over your loss. Fire’s a terrible thing.”
Grampa listened quite awhile. “You’re rebuilding right there? Well, hallelujah!”
“Hal-le-LU-jah! Hal-le-LU-jah!” crowed Gabby, savoring the new word.
Grampa continued, more serious now. “Well, AnnaLee, it’s been five days, you know. He’s still in the incubator. I’ve had a new idea, but I’m not promising a thing.”
Hmm, Ernest thought. Our mystery baby is a he. Ernest saw the flick of Milly’s marmalade tail at the back corner of the stove.
“INC-u-ba-tor! INC-u-ba-tor!” Gabby sang.
When Grampa hung up the phone and left for milking, Ernest hurried over to the stove. “For corn’s sake, Milly,” he said, “come on out here! Grampa is miserable without you.”
Ernest went on urging her to use her head — to think of Grampa — to remember how folks in a family helped one another. When Milly did not reply, he gave up and went outdoors.
Sherlock’s lugubrious howl called him to the hound’s pen.
Ernest jogged right over. “Hi. How’s it going?”
“Awful slow,” Sherlock said. “And that dust mop never shuts up. Whines all the time. Spoiled rotten.”
Ernest had been trying to ignore the yipping Frou-Frou, but it was impossible. “Maybe she’s bored, like you,” he suggested. “What if you told her some of your exciting stories about coon hunts? You could explain possum hunting, too. It would be a fine, educational way to pass the time.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows lifted. “Well . . . if you think . . .”
“Oh, I do!” Ernest assured him. “And you’d be doing Grampa — the whole place, really — a real service by keeping her quiet.”
“Be more like a miracle,” Sherlock observed. “But I’m happy to help out.” He turned his attention to the Pekingese, and Ernest went on to the barn to help with milking.
After breakfast Grampa said, “Gabby, Ernest — stay right where you are. I’ve got something to show you.” He loped toward the stairs and was soon back, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Ta-da! What do you think? It was up in the attic — left over from our last child.” Grampa was wearing a green flannel baby-snuggler.
“Very handy, see? I can sit down to feed him wherever I am. He’ll hear my heartbeat and be warm, too.”
Gabby flew to Grampa’s shoulder. Ernest stood by Grampa’s feet and let his snout go to work. Mm-hmm, he thought, it’s burned, all right.
“Okay, troops, no touching, but you can have a peek.” Grampa knelt so Ernest could see, and opened the flap on the green snuggler.
QUIVERING WITH CURIOSITY, Ernest and Gabby gazed down into the baby-snuggler.
“It’s a wee Scottie,” whispered Grampa. “Like I had when I was a boy.”
Ernest saw a black furry mite of a dog at the bottom of the snuggler. With its closed eyes and singed fur, it seemed more dead than alive.
This thing hasn’t a chance, thought Ernest. Grampa shouldn’t get his hopes up. Ernest sagged back onto his haunches.
Gabby examined the puppy and gave a puzzled “Awwwk?” She looked from Grampa to Ernest and back at Grampa, her beak tilted to one side.
“I see you’re not impressed,” Grampa said. “But this is a miracle here! We don’t know how his mother got him out of the barn the day of the fire!”
Grampa stood up. “And he won’t make it unless he takes more formula. I sure wish his mama had lived to nurse him.”
“Wrunk,” Ernest said softly, wishing yet again that he and Grampa could talk. It was a pity humans had so little skill with languages.
Grampa took a tiny bottle out of the refrigerator and warmed it under hot running water. “Chow time, buddy.” He settled into the kitchen’s plaid overstuffed chair with the puppy.
Ernest glanced under the stove and watched Milly’s thrashing tail.
The clock ticked and Grampa talked. “You’re my wee Scotch laddie,” he crooned to the puppy. “A braw wee laddie, for sure. And you’re going to drink all this formula, aren’t you?”
&nb
sp; Hmm, Ernest thought. He never called me a braw wee laddie.
Later that day, after chores were finished, Ernest trotted off to the barn alone. I’m still waiting patiently, he told his brain as he selected apples from a feed bin.
Gabby flew in and settled on the rim of the bin. “‘Wee laddie, wee laddie,’” she mimicked. “It’s sickening! If I hear it one more time, I’m moving to the woods with the crows.”
Ernest stopped eating. Gabby hates those crows, he thought, just like I do. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“I might! This morning they took more of my shiny stones,” she said. “My shiny picture stones! They’re always taking something!”
“You mean those stones under my shower?”
“Those are my picture stones. I make beautiful designs with them. When I move to the woods, I’ll find them and bring them back where they belong!”
Ernest said, “Those crows are tough. And huge. You be careful.”
Gabby hopped to the barn floor and walked off, tailfeathers high. “Well, I’m tough too, so I just might go live with them. And I might not.”
Ernest watched her leave as he crunched his last apple. Now both Milly and Gabby are mad, he thought. And Grampa’s grumpy because he’s tired.
Ernest went home for a shower. He stood under the soothing water a long time before going inside to dry off on his blankets. First, though, he checked behind the stove for Milly.
“She’s there,” Grampa said from his chair by the window. “Poor little pussycat. I don’t know where Gabby went. But look here, Ernest. Seems to me our laddie is perkier. He’s taken more formula today.”
The pup quivered a little and tried to melt into Grampa’s chest — or so it seemed to Ernest — but he made no sound.
“Poor wee orphan,” Grampa said. “Lost everything, didn’t you? Right down to a few chimney bricks. But you’re a miracle, laddie.”
Jealousy ate into Ernest’s heart. Now he knew exactly how Milly and Gabby felt. It was a mean feeling.
