Chapter 7

I arrived a few minutes early for class and got looks from several female students and a wolf whistle from another one. Several of the guys looked at me and just shrugged. It was after my next class that one of the guys, who was particularly sloppily dressed, stopped me.

"What are you trying to prove, man?" he demanded.

"Nothing!" I answered. "Do I question your choice of clothes?"

"Ah ... no?"

"Why do you question mine then?" I asked. He just turned away after that. It was after my history class that the Professor, my faculty adviser, called me aside.

"Well, Mark! You certainly present a better appearance today," he remarked to me. "You're well dressed for a change. Those are very nice clothes!"

"Yes, sir. My new employers lent them to me. My other clothes were full of dirt and grease from work. They told me that a gentleman should always present a well dressed appearance," I told him.

"There may be hope for you yet, as a History professional that is," the professor told me.

After my last class for the day, I changed into more work clothes and loaded my things in the cab of the pickup and my bike in the back. After one last check of the dorm room, I set out for the women's house.

I stopped for gas at the station that they had mentioned. I had to ask the clerk to get the pump turned on.

"Hi, I need to get gas for my employers' tractor," I told him.

"Who would that be?" he asked.

"I'm working for the O'Connell sisters. I need gas for their MT tractor."

"Yes, they have gotten farm gas here often. We have their permit number recorded. How much do you need?"

"I have three 5-gallon cans, so fifteen gallons."

"OK, go ahead and pump it. Use pump three. You can pay for it when you're done," the attendant told me.

I wasn't too late arriving for work after filling the cans, and both sisters were out on the porch waiting for me when I arrived.

"If it's all right, I'll unload my things before starting work," I told them.

"Yes, that's fine," Katie told me.

"You can keep the motorcycle in the Carriage House," Margie told me. Both women helped me carry my things up to the bedroom. I just deposited everything there and would put it away later.

I pulled the pickup over to the stable, unloaded the gas cans there, and then the bike. I parked it in the Carriage House before backing the pickup in place there.

In the stable, I drained the oil from the MT's motor into a pan and removed the old oil filter. I replaced it with a new filter, reinstalled the oil plug, and added five quarts of motor oil to the engine. The Touch-o-Matic system required five quarts of SAE 10 weight oil, and I filled it, but would need to check it after the engine was running for a while.

With all of that accomplished, it was time to put some fuel in her and start this baby up. There was a nozzle for the fuel cans and I put five gallons of fuel in the tractor's nine gallon tank. I had added the correct amount of Redline lead supplement to all of the gas in the three cans before starting. I had finally reached the point that all of this work had been for.

I sat on the tractor's seat and turned the ignition switch on. The motor turned over for a minute or so. I was afraid that the battery didn't have sufficient power to handle the job, but she coughed, sputtered for a few seconds and then roared to life with a puff of black smoke coming from the exhaust stack. She sat there idling very nicely.

I quickly checked everything that I could, pushed the clutch in, put her in gear, and let the clutch out while giving it a little more gas. The MT started forward, I pulled her out of the stable, and took a spin around the outside of the garden area. Both sisters came out of the house with smiles on their faces. I pulled up beside them and put the tractor in neutral.

"You got it running!" Katie said with a big smile.

"Yes."

"Is everything working right"" Margie asked.

"As far as I can tell. I'll need to hook up some of the accessories to check everything, but it appears to be working just fine," I informed them.

"Good. What else do you have planned for today?" Katie asked.

"The accessory equipment still needs work, and I need to run this long enough for the battery to recharge. I thought I would take a spin around the fields to check on what shape they're in. I should be able to start plowing in a week or so," I told them.

"Yes, do that. We'll have dinner ready around 6:30, and you still need to get settled in your room."

The tour of the fields took an hour. There was some erosion evident in a few places and quite a bit of materiel to be plowed under, but the fields were generally in good shape. I backed the MT into the stable and checked over everything. I found a hydraulic connection that needed a little tightening and then topped off the Touch-o-Matic system with fluid until I got a little coming out the petcock on the back of the system, indicating that the system was full. I would get back to the garden tomorrow if the weather held, or work on the accessory equipment if it rained.

"You go wash up. We'll call you when dinner's ready," Katie told me when I came through the back door into the kitchen.

I found my other work clothes on the bed, clean, and pressed when I got up to my room. After a quick shower, I started putting my things away and arranged my school books on the small desk and my other personal items around the room. I put my clock radio on the nightstand and plugged it in. I was just finishing when Margie knocked on the open door.

"Dinner is ready," she told me with a smile.

"I'll be right down," I assured her. I had redressed in the slacks and short sleeve shirt after showering, and put on the the jacket before following her downstairs. Both sisters were dressed formally for dinner even though it was still eaten in the dinette.

"Do you have anything planned for Saint Patrick's Day?" I asked during dinner.

"We usually have a small party," Katie told me. "Will you be able to stay up that night?"

"Yes, spring break starts then and I'll be off for just over a week. I should be able to get a lot done in that time if the weather holds," I told them.

"Good! Three makes for a better party than two do," Margie told me with a large smile and a mischievous wink.

After dinner I did some studying for my classes before the sisters stopped by my room later.

"Did you learn anything from the 'Book of Dreams' last night?" Katie asked. I related what had happened in the dorm room that morning to them.

"Well, sleep with it for another night and see what else you can learn," Margie told me before the sisters left for bed. I called it a night shortly after that, brushed my teeth, and was soon asleep.

My clock radio woke me at 6:00 the next morning. Again I felt great, and didn't remember any dreams, or anything else from the previous night. I was beginning to wonder if the 'Book of Dreams' was doing anything.

I needed to shave again, but had my own razor now. I dressed after I had shaved and brushed my teeth, and went down to breakfast.

"What do you have planned for today?" Katie asked at breakfast.

"I need to see if I can get any of my dorm fees back. I was paid up till the end of school," I told them. "After school, I was going to work on the garden again if the weather holds."

"Yes, that's fine, but we need to go to the store again," Margie told me. "Three people go through a lot of groceries."

"OK. I can put the garden off until tomorrow," I told them. "I'll come out here and get you right after school."

"Yes, that will be fine," Katie told me.

"Will you need to stop for money?" I asked.

"No, we have enough," Margie assured me.

At school, I went to the administrative office and spoke to the people there in charge of the dorms about my moving out. I explained that I would be living with my new employer. The woman that I was dealing with didn't seem anxious to return any of the money I had already paid, and I was a bit upset about that, when a 'cooperation' spell popped into my mind. I repeated it but not very loudly. The woman turned to look at me.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

"No!" I replied. "Did you hear something?"

"It must have been something outside," she replied, and then said, "We can return all of the money for the remaining semester fees that you have already paid. It will take a week or so to have the check cut. You can pick it up here after spring break."

"Yes, that's fine," I told her and turned in my dorm key. Maybe I was learning something from the 'Book of Dreams' after all, I thought, as I headed toward my first class of the day.

On returning to the house after school, I told the two women about what happened at the administrative office.

"That spell just popped into my mind," I finished.

"You weren't aware that you knew the spell?" Katie asked, somewhat confused.

"No, it was only when I needed some cooperation that the spell just came to me. I wasn't aware of it previously," I told her.

"That's curious. We have always been aware of what spells we knew and how and when to use them. The 'Book of Dreams' seems to have had a strange effect on you," Margie told me.

"Perhaps I should investigate it more closely. I've only had it under my pillow," I told them. "Maybe I should try to read some of it."

"We didn't see much writing on the pages when we looked at it. There were many blank pages. We aren't sure how it works, but we were told that it was an easy and quick way to learn the basics of Magic for those who could use it," Katie told me.

"I'll check on it later - tonight," I told her.

We shopped at a store closer to the house this time and not all the way down at the large shopping center near the university. We got back in time for me to still do a little work on the garden before a late dinner.

Following that, I did some studying for my classes tomorrow before removing the book from under my pillow. It seemed somehow thicker now than it had been originally. I opened it to the first page and started reading.

It was some time later when I glanced up at my clock radio and saw that it was already well past midnight, but I was sure that I couldn't have been reading that long. When I glanced back down at the page again, I got another surprise. I saw that it was Gaelic in the Ogham alphabet.

BUT, how did I even know what that alphabet looked like, much less that I could not only read it, but understand what I was reading? I had never seen the Ogham alphabet before, and only remembered the sisters mentioning it once. What was going on here, I wondered?