'What a pretty child,' Clara said, coming closer to look at Teresa in the light from the station window.
'You must have traveled hard--you got here quicker than us, and we was in Texas to begin with,' Lorena said. She freed an arm and hugged Clara. To her eye Clara looked older, and too thin.
Even with Pea Eye's help, Captain Call had difficulty getting down the steps with his crutches. He was embarrassed that he had to be met, and particularly by Clara Allen, who had never liked him. But she had traveled from Nebraska to bring Pea Eye and Lorena their children. That was doing them a considerable favor, he recognized.
'Pea, you've got to go back and get the other goat and Teresa's chickens,' Lorena said.
'I don't know what Tessie would do if we left that rooster on the train.' 'I'll fetch the goat,' Goodnight said.
He was glad to have something to help with. The sight of Woodrow Call was a shock to him, though he was no stranger to wounded men. It was not so much the missing limbs as the look on the man's face that bothered him. But it was shadowy, on the platform; perhaps in the daylight he wouldn't look so ruined.
'I'm not much of a hand with fowl,' he said.
'Hello, Woodrow.' 'Yes, hello, Captain,' Clara said.
'I'll get the chickens, Charlie.' 'Why didn't he just die?' she asked Goodnight, when they were on the train.
Goodnight had already picked up the goat, but looked as if he didn't know quite what to do about the chickens.
'I was never much of a hand with fowl,' he remarked, again.
'I told you I'd get the chickens,' Clara said, annoyed that he had simply ignored her question about Call. Goodnight had happened to be in the station in Amarillo, when she and the children arrived from Omaha. Clara remembered Goodnight from her childhood, for he had known her father well. He had been in Nebraska once and had bought ten horses from her. She went over and said hello.
Since they were going to be on the same train, she thought he might be some help with the little ones, but that proved a false hope. Not only was Goodnight hard to make conversation with, he was as scared of the children as if they had been wildcats.
Clara picked the chickens up by their legs and carried them off the train. The hens and the rooster were outraged--Teresa had never carried them upside down. The hens began to squawk and the rooster to protest.
'What's wrong with my chickens? Don't carry them that way, give them to me,' Teresa said. She had realized from the sound that the chickens were upside down.
It was only when Teresa reached for her chickens that Clara realized the little girl was blind.
The five children were asleep in a heap on the floor, in a corner of the station. Clarie had her arms around them all. At the sight of his daughter holding her brothers and her sister, Pea Eye broke down. In his time of danger he had almost given up hope of seeing his children again. Yet there they were, all alive, all sleeping, on the floor of a railroad station. His big daughter was looking after them. It was more than he deserved, more even than he had hoped for, and he began to cry.
Teresa's hens were still squawking, even though she had set them down. They were running around the station; one brown hen jumped up on the stationmaster's desk and scattered his papers.
'Here, scat--who are you?' he said. He was not used to such commotion at that hour. Usually no more than a cowboy or two got off the Fort Worth train.
'Oh, Pa,' Clarie said, when she awoke and saw her father. Ben got awake and hugged his father, but waking up proved too much for Georgie and August. Both yawned heavily and went back to sleep. Laurie, the baby, opened her eyes and started to cry. She didn't know who the strange man was, hugging Clarie. Then her mother reached down and took her. There was an old man standing near who had only sticks for legs. Laurie looked at him curiously, as her mother hugged her.
Goodnight had arranged for a cowboy to bring a wagon. The cowboy arrived at sunup, driving the wagon and leading two horses. The boys were awake by then. They chased the hens and played with the goats. They took to Rafael right away but were a little shy with Teresa, who held her rooster in her arms.
'There must be a doctor somewhere who could help that girl see,' Clara told Lorena.
Although she had just arrived in Texas, she was already beginning to dread the trip home, by herself. She had grown used to Lorena's children, and to having laughter and fusses in her house. There had been life in her house again; since her daughters left, it seemed to her, there had been no life in her house. It was hard for her, one aging woman, to bring life to a home. Yet how she missed it!
Goodnight mounted one of the horses; the cowboy mounted the other. Pea Eye took the reins of the team. It was still all he could do to keep from bawling, at the sight of his children and the familiar country.
'Many thanks for the loan of the wagon,' he said, to Mr. Goodnight.
'You're welcome,' Goodnight replied.
He had not quite mastered his shock at the change in Woodrow Call.
'I'll soon repay that loan,' Lorena told him. She had not told Pea Eye she had borrowed money. She intended to discuss it with Mr.
Goodnight privately, but there had not been a moment when she could speak to him alone. She was a little worried about Pea Eye's reaction, but Pea Eye let Georgie sit on his lap and pretend to drive the team--he didn't hear the remark about the loan.
'We're branding today,' Goodnight said. 'In fact, we're branding all this week. When we're done, I'll trot over and check on the bunch of you.' He tipped his hat to the two ladies and turned his horse; he rode a few steps and then turned back to Lorena.
'Mrs. Parker, I hope you'll be opening the school again,' he said.
