Instead of “thirty thousand retail,” maybe that jeweler had really said “thirty now at retail,” meaning he could sell it for thirty dollars and would therefore offer Daddy twenty.
So it wasn’t Seth I should talk to. It was Will.
CHAPTER 14
Saturday morning is usually the beginning of a peaceful family weekend. Or so we always hope.
Cal rides his bike down to the mailboxes at the end of the lane to pick up the paper for us while Dwight and I take our time with second and third cups of coffee. Reading
After breakfast, Cal stacks the dishwasher and shakes out the blanket in Bandit’s crate while I straighten up the beds and tidy the house, and Dwight gives the bathrooms the lick and a promise that keep things halfway decent till Rhonda comes.
Dwight and I usually mind Kate and Rob’s older two on Saturdays because the Aussie nursemaid has the weekends off. As we were leaving to go pick them up, Cal asked if we could open one of the bluebird boxes scattered around the property.
“Sure,” I said.
He chose one out by the drive and lightly tapped on the side of the box so any adult birds would fly out, then pulled out the long nail that holds the front in place and tilted up the hinged board. Inside was a shallow plastic box that let him gently slide out the whole nest. There, huddled together in the center, were four tiny bluebirds, so young that we could still see their skin through the downy fuzz. Their eyes were not yet open and their yellow bills looked rubbery and way too big for their marble-sized heads.
“Awwww,” said Cal, and I smiled, too, as he slid them back inside, lowered the board, and put the nail back in its hole.
At Kate’s, I warned her that I might be a little late bringing the children back.
“Will and Amy are coming over and I thought we’d grill some steaks outside since it’s so warm and then let the kids roast marshmallows, if that’s okay?”
“Great,” she said. “Miss Emily’s going to sit with R.W. this afternoon so that Rob and I can go to a kiln opening at Jugtown.”
“Say hey to the Owenses for me,” I told her, turning the key in the ignition.
At home, as we drove back into the yard, Dwight was in front of the garage with a hose, washing his truck, with Bandit supervising. The little terrier danced toward us as we got near. Suddenly, Cal started yelling and opened the door before I’d come to a full stop.
“Dad! Dad!”
“Cal, wait!” I cried, but he was already out of his seat belt and there was no stopping him.
“
At that instant, a slender black snake no thicker than my thumb gained the top of the box and inserted its head into the hole. The adult birds were dive-bombing it in a brave, if hopeless, frenzy.
Dwight instantly realized what was happening and almost without thinking, he jumped over the low stone wall and in two strides reached the box, yanked on the snake’s tail, and sent it flying across the yard.
Bandit rushed back and forth between Dwight and Cal, but he hadn’t seen the snake and didn’t seem to understand what all the ruckus was about. Unfortunately, the rest of us saw a baby bird lodged in the snake’s mouth as it disappeared under a pink azalea bush.
Cal and Mary Pat were almost crying. Jake, who was still too young to comprehend the finality of death, was in awe that Dwight had actually grabbed a snake barehanded.
Truth be told, I was, too, even though I know that black snakes are harmless to humans. I was never one of those kids who stroked a snake at petting zoos.
Still don’t.
“Sorry,” Dwight told me. “I knew I should have put collars around the poles before now.”
“Can’t you just kill that mean ol’ snake?” Mary Pat asked, tears streaking down her pretty little face.
“Yeah, Dad,” said Cal, who stood on the wall and looked fearfully over at the bushes where the snake had gone to earth.
“He’s not mean, honey,” he told Mary Pat. “Black snakes eat a lot of mice and rats and other pests so we can’t blame them if they get a bird now and then. That’s just their nature. What we
After Cal came to live with us, all three of the kids began to call my brothers and their wives
