A Long Way From Chicago (21 page)

At last she said, “Them Burdicks isn’t worth the powder and shot to blow them up. They’re like a pack of hound dogs. They’ll chase livestock, suck eggs, and lick the skillet. And steal? They’d steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke.”

“Grandma,” I said, “you’ll get me killed. She wants a dollar off me. Instead, you untied her horse and slung her boots around its neck and she has to walk home.”

“Barefoot,” Grandma said.

“Grandma, tomorrow at school she’ll take it out of my hide.”

“She won’t be in school tomorrow,” Grandma said.

“I don’t see why not. She’ll ride to school tomorrow just to skin me alive.”

“No, she won’t,” Grandma said. “That horse went home. I know that horse. It belongs to the Sensenbaughs. They live seven miles in the other direction, way over there past Milmine. A horse’ll go home if it gets the chance.”

“You mean—”

“Mildred’s paw stole every horse he ever had. And he won’t steal another till he gets out of the penitentiary. I don’t picture Mildred walkin’ five miles both ways for an education.”

“. . . Barefoot,” I said.

“Barefoot,” Grandma said. “I can’t fight all your battles for you, but I can give you a level start.”

A silence fell while I thought that over. Then I said, “And you acted real nice to her too, Grandma. You gave her buttermilk and that big slab of corn bread.”

“Oh well.” Grandma waved herself away. “Didn’t want to send her off hungry. I knew she had a long walk ahead of her.”

We sat there at the kitchen table, Grandma and I, while the shadows crept across the linoleum.

In this busy day I hadn’t had time to be homesick. But I thought about my brother. Joey. Always before, he’d come down here to Grandma’s with me, and stuck up for me. Now he was out west, planting trees, living in a tent. I thought about Joey, and Grandma was thinking about him too. I could tell.

Then I smacked my forehead, remembering Bootsie. “Grandma! Where’s Bootsie?”

“Who?”

“Bootsie, Grandma. My
cat.
”

“I won’t have a cat in the house,” she said. “They shed. She’s out in the cobhouse where she belongs.”

I sank in the chair. “Grandma, she won’t know where she is. She’ll be scared. She’ll run away. She’ll try to go home like Mildred’s horse.”

“No, she won’t,” Grandma said. “I buttered her paws.”

“You
what?
”

“I rubbed butter on all four of her paws. That’s what you do with a cat in a new place. By the time they’ve licked off all that butter, they’re right at home. Works every time.”

“Oh, Grandma,” I said, too worried to stir.

Now it was nearly evening. The sun setting down the west window glinted off Grandma’s spectacles. The toothpick made little lazy revolutions between her wrinkled lips. Something thumped out on the porch. They’d brought my trunk from the depot, and what a final sound that thump was.

Then Grandma said in a thoughtful voice, “And you better settle in too, girl. Or I’ll butter
your
paws.”

I just sat there without a sigh left in me. But I was past bawling now as Grandma began to edge out of her chair. “How about some supper? My stomach’s flapping against my backbone,” she said. “If I don’t eat, I get cranky.”

And heaven knows, we couldn’t have that.

G
RANDMA
D
OWDEL’S STORY CONTINUES IN
:

A Season of Gifts

“Peck affectionately nails small town life and the spirit of giving.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“Warm and funny family fare.”

—The Boston Globe

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