Chapter 6

When Joe and I walked back into the house after our chat outside, I could feel a slight chill in the air. It felt as if the three women had been arguing over something, but none of them said anything to either Joe or me, so I decided to try to break the tension if I could.

I grinned at Lisa-Marie. "Do you know what Joe told me? He said that Pam insisted we needed a new bed so that you would have a decent workplace to make her a grandchild."

"Tom!" Pam laughed. "You weren't to tell her that. And Joe, you weren't supposed to tell Tom either."

Andrea was giggling and Lisa-Marie was blushing, but laughing as well. Joe just looked sheepish. I grinned and wrapped my arms around Pam to hug her tight.

"Thank you for the wonderful bed, Mommy-in-Law to be, but aren't you rushing things a bit? Shouldn't this kind of gift be given after the wedding?" I laughed, kissing her on the cheek.

"Ha, you two have been sleeping together for at least three years, and don't try to tell me differently. After all, I'm the one who got my daughter started on pills, so I know better than to take any BS. Now I'm hinting that she can stop using them."

"That's what we were arguing about when you came in." Lisa-Marie snapped. "Mom thinks that if all three of us are pregnant at the same time, it would be better somehow."

"It seems to me that you help each other already." I shrugged, then swung over and wrapped one arm around Lisa-Marie while still holding Pam with the other. "Besides, I'd have thought that one holdout could help the other two if there was a reason, but I'm going to leave this one up to the two of you."

"Mom doesn't like the idea of Andrea staying here for a few weeks either." Lisa-Marie added. "She thinks with Fred still around, it might be dangerous for her."

"Well, maybe I should spread the rumour that I've loaned Willy a twelve-gauge shotgun, a bag of rock salt, and asked him to sleep over here when I'm away." I grinned.

"Don't let Willy hear that, or he'll get ideas." Andrea snorted. "Heck, I'm getting ideas."

"Yeah, and the problem is that I think Willy really is looking for him." I sighed. "A rumour like that could be dangerous for Willy."

"You aren't worried about Fred?" Joe asked.

"No." I said flatly. "He knew Uncle Silas and he knows that I'm a blood relative. So by now, I'd imagine he's got an idea that I might be looking for him too. I'm not, but if I do meet up with him, I may give him a bit of free advice."

"Just as long as it isn't anything more than advice." Lisa-Marie said quickly.

I just grinned.

"Well, I don't think we're going to change anyone's mind and we need to head back toward home soon if we're going to get to our evening chores in time." Joe changed the subject. "So, do you suppose we could move that bed inside now?"

"Good idea." I nodded.

By the time we had struggled to get the queen-sized bed upstairs and into the bedroom, Joe and I were beat. The problem was that the old house just wasn't meant to have objects moved up and down the stairs that were the size of a box spring for a queen sized bed. Actually, the stairs weren't that difficult, it was trying to get the box spring around the corners from the stairs to the upstairs hallway that was the problem. The mattress was no problem, it bent, but not that darn box spring.

No matter what we tried, it seemed we had an inch too little hallway or an inch too much box spring, we couldn't decide which. We could almost get it past the point of lockup, but not quite. The frustrating part was that it almost looked like someone had tried to get something large up the stairs before because there was an attic hatch in the ceiling at the top of the stairs, but even that didn't give us enough clearance. Thinking it might help, I pulled off the wooden trim around that hatch, then carefully tried again. Still, no joy.

In the long run, I tore out the old hatch completely and used a saw to open it up enough to take the corner of the box spring, then it was no problem at all. We managed to get the box spring up far enough that we could tilt it and get one corner into a doorway across the hall. After that it was simply a matter of adjusting our moves to shuffle it back and forth and around corners. I think all three women were totally flabbergasted, but Joe and I just grinned and winked at each other as we finally carried that huge box spring down the hall to the bedroom.

"But now there's a huge hole in the ceiling of the hallway." Andrea sounded almost ready to cry.

"Yep." I nodded, trying to look intelligent. "And by tomorrow, there will be a new hatch in its place, then I can get in and out of the attic more easily too."

"Oh sure, and how many times do you expect to get into the attic?" Lisa-Marie asked.

"Who knows?" Pam laughed. "But he'll find reasons to have to get up there now that you mention it. Besides, you shouldn't complain too much, after all, they did get your bed into your bedroom."

Lisa-Marie just shook her head and sighed deeply. "Yeah, and he's the one who has to fix the mess. Now, how does this frame fit together?"

An hour later, the bed was all made up, Joe and I had put a temporary patch over the hole in the hallway ceiling and we'd even cleaned up the mess that cutting out the hatch and fixing it afterward had made. After we waved our goodbyes to Joe and Pam as they'd driven away, Lisa-Marie turned to me and hugged me gently.

"You're going to want to carry on tearing up the wall in the box room, aren't you?"

"Unh huh, if I can. Why?"

"Well, while you're doing that, I'm going to ask Andrea to help me upstairs. I think we should christen our new bed tonight and I'd like to move all our other stuff into that room too."

"I thought we were going to paint that room first?"

"To heck with that." She giggled. "I want to try out my new workbench."

I'd gotten the piping in the walls exposed and was carrying the plastic garbage bags of lath and plaster outside to get rid of them when I saw Willy and his parents drive up in Willy's beat up old pickup truck.

"Oh boy, this is going to get interesting." I thought to myself, then slipped a smile on my face and went to greet my neighbours.

I swear Willy's Dad was stepping out of the truck before it stopped.

"Look, I came to apologise to you for how I..." He started to say.

"You don't owe me an apology." I interrupted. "Lisa-Marie and Andrea are a different matter, but I'm sure you understand what I mean."

"Umm, yeah. I guess I do." He nodded slowly, then to my surprise he turned and helped his wife out of the pickup.

"I'll do the chores." Willy announced and headed for the barn.

"I think I'll go help Willy." I announced. "The women folk are in the house if you want to talk to them."

I caught up with Willy just as he opened the barn door.

"Here I thought I was being chicken." He grinned at me.

"Willy, that's one thing I'm not being is chicken. I know that Lisa-Marie and your sister are quite capable of handling anything your Dad will throw at them and I'm trying to isolate myself from a situation where one of my neighbours has to back-peddle to keep his head above water." I sighed. "One piece of advice that Dad gave me comes to mind. He said 'Never stick around when a man is about to have the law read to him by his woman if you can help it. Let him at least keep the dignity of not having you see him eat crow.' Or something along those lines."

"Your dad is a wise man. Mom is hopping mad at Dad and she's ready to wade in on Andrea's side."

"I could see that when she got out of the truck." I grinned. "When I saw the way your dad went to help her out of the truck, I decided it was time to make myself scarce. Besides, I thought it was about time for you to show me what you're doing to collect your wages."

"Not much, this is a soft touch." He grinned. "You've only got two cows and two calves plus a few yearlings so they need feed and I have to check that the water is okay. Then there's a few chickens to feed. Right now your pig is down at our place driving our boar up the wall because she's not quite ready for him to come visiting. I toss out some extra straw each night and toss all the manure in a pile for the morning when I'll wheel it out on the manure pile. After that there's only milking and feeding the calves. I don't imagine milking them a bit early today will hurt them any."

"I wouldn't think so."I said quietly.

I looked around the barn closer than I had before as Willy settled down to milking. It looked good. Willy was doing a good job of looking after things. Then in one corner of the barn I finally noticed a pen that I'd missed before which had obviously been set up for keeping a pig or two.

"So I've got a pig do I?"

"Yeah, you've got a Yorkshire sow. A good animal too. Silas bought her as a bred gilt, the spring before last and since then he's got three good litters from her. A few weeks ago he was sure she was coming into season and he made a deal with Dad to have her bred to our boar. She just hasn't been cooperating." He chuckled, then sobered. "Can't say I'm too happy about keeping a pig in here with the cows and chickens, too much chance of diseases crossing over, but that was Silas' way of doing things in the winter. Say, I've been meaning to ask, are you planning on making many changes here on the farm?"

"Not much as far as animals are concerned, except maybe get a few of turkeys and probably more chickens. I'm thinking of building a decent little chicken coop on skids and arranging it as a free range setup with moveable fences during the summer. Then too, I might feed out a few cattle. The organic farm prices are getting better all the time and I'd like to give that a try."

"You can't get much more organic than this place." Willy agreed. "The problem is that without fertilizer, Silas' grain yields were way below ours the last few years."

"Yeah, but he was doing summer fallow, not crop rotation. I'm looking at clover or alfalfa for two years out of five and running a continuous crop rotation. They've been doing a quarter section at the Ag. College for ten years that way and their yields are higher now than those of the neighbours using fertilizer and summer fallow."

Willy's dad came into the barn about then and Willy immediately told him about some of my ideas. We settled into a discussion on that and never did get around to talking about Andrea or Lisa-Marie. When the chores were done, we went back to the house, then after only moments, Willy and his folks left to go home and do their own chores. That's when Lisa-Marie rounded on me looking a bit upset.

"What's the idea of bailing out while I talked to Andrea's dad?" She demanded.

"Just letting him keep his dignity and letting you express your righteous anger without any interference." I grinned. "I thought that I'd let her dad at least keep the dignity of not having me see him eat crow. After all, he's my neighbour and one day I might be the one that you're chewing out for doing something stupid. I wouldn't want him to watch that."

She tried to stay looking angry, but she couldn't help breaking into a giggle. "It wasn't me that chewed him out. Andrea and her Mom did too good a job of that."

"No more than he deserved." Andrea spoke up for the first time. "Actually, Mom did most of the talking."

"I thought he looked a bit frayed around the edges when he came out to the barn." I nodded. "It takes someone who loves you to really chew you out so it hurts. Of course it takes someone who loves you to forgive you for screwing up too."

"You're just full of wit and wisdom today aren't you? " Lisa-Marie chided me gently. "But to change the subject, what do you want to do for something to eat this evening?"

"Could I do an omelette and fried spuds?" Andrea suggested. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's something I really like to cook when I need some comfort food. I'm in the mood to cook, if you don't mind."

"Honey, if you want to cook, fill your boots." Lisa-Marie grinned. "Since you're cooking, I'll help Tom finish cleaning up his mess in the old box room and..."

"Hey, an omelette and fried spuds only takes a few minutes." Andrea laughed. "You two set the table, make some toast, and get the tea ready. Then you can sit down and talk while I do the rest."

Lisa-Marie and I just grinned and did as we were told. Not long later we were all eating and I had to admit, it was great tasting, not fancy, just simple farm food.

As we were sitting at the table, sipping our tea after eating, I was looking at Andrea and quietly comparing the person at the table to the frightened woman of only a day before. She must have seen me making a mental run down of the changes.

"Is something wrong?" She asked quietly.

"No." I smiled. "I was just thinking that you look much better than you did and wondering if you've made up your mind what you want to do?"

She smiled slowly. "Well, I'd like to stay here for a couple of weeks at least. Part of it is just to be away from my folks and on my own, but part of it is just a chance to think about what I want to do in the long run."

"Will you be okay here by yourself?" I had to ask, just to be certain.

"Oh yeah, I won't have a problem." She smiled again. "I'm not worried about Fred. Besides, Willy will be coming around twice a day to do the chores, so I'll probably help him with those. Then I've got the phone and Mom is just down the road. And you guys will be coming on the weekends. I'll be fine."

"Well, I suppose we should make a run to a grocery store in the morning..."

"Oh forget it." She laughed aloud. "Not for me, you shouldn't. You've got flour and all the staples in your cupboards, and you've got chickens and cows, so I'll have bread and milk with some eggs for a change. If I need anything else, Mom will see that I get it. I'm not about to cost you a bundle in food bills. In fact I was thinking that I'd be able to have a nice meal ready for you two next Friday night when you get back from your week at school."

"Now I like that." Lisa-Marie grinned. "Tom, maybe we should keep her around for a while. You know, general slave duties, She could cook, clean up, do the drudge work, that sort of thing. We've sure got enough work around here to do that we could keep her busy."

"Oh yeah, I can just see her putting up with our demands." I laughed. "Besides, weren't you the one who was so all fired up about doing things around the house by yourself so they'd be done your way."

"Well, we could still fix the house up my way." Lisa-Marie grinned and winked at Andrea. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I was the boss and had the final say in what we did."

"Well, I have spent all of my life training to be a farmer's wife and doing all the stuff around a house, so that part wouldn't be hard. That's darn near slavery anyway." Andrea tried to look as if she was thinking about it. "Of course, if I was doing half of the work, I might just ask for half of the rewards."

"Oooh, and what rewards would those be?" Lisa-Marie was still smiling but I could see a tenseness in the way she held herself.