Prairie Evers (10 page)

PUP

The gray cat Minerva
had babies in October, and I let Ivy name her favorite one. She called it Pup. Pup was smoke colored with a white dot on the top of his head and had large feet like a puppy does before it has grown into dog size. I didn’t say a thing to anyone, but I had it in my mind to send Pup home with Ivy the minute he was old enough. That would be at eight weeks of age, so he could go with her at Christmas.

I got Mama to take me to town on a day when Ivy wasn’t with me, thinking to spend some of my
egg money on a collar. I thought it would set Pup off, giftlike. I picked out a red collar in the store, thinking it would look handsome against his gray fur.

Mama came up beside me and said, “What’s that you’ve got there?”

“It’s a collar for Pup. I’m going to give him to Ivy for a present.” Mama got a funny look on her face, and I thought maybe she didn’t like me to give away one of our own without asking. Maybe she was attached to Pup herself. “Is that all right?”

“Oh, Prairie.” Mama put her arm around my shoulders.

“Isn’t it all right? Ivy likes him in particular.”

“I’m going to tell you this plainly. I don’t think Ivy’s mama will let her have a kitten.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, honey. Ivy’s mama just strikes me as very unhappy. Very—closed off.”

“Selfish, you mean. And mean.”

“Well—” Mama looked pained. She doesn’t like to speak unkindly of anyone, no matter how much they deserve it. “I don’t know about that. But I can’t imagine her saying okay to a kitten. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“How about a fish then?” I had a kind of hard time blurting it out, I so wanted to give Ivy that kitten. A fish isn’t the same as a cat, but it’s something living to take notice of and maybe give notice of you in return. Fish are peaceful and quiet, maybe Ivy would like that.

But Mama said real soft, “I don’t think so, Prairie. I don’t think her mother would allow it.”

I started to get angry then; it seemed like she was saying no just to say it. “Why not?” I said, quite loud. “That’s dumb. A fish doesn’t bother anyone.”

An old lady who was looking at tinned cat food glanced over to see what the ruckus was about. Mama didn’t take any notice of her. She hunkered down and put her hands on my shoulders. “Prairie Evers, you’re a good friend to think of giving Ivy such nice gifts. She could use a friend at home like Pup, or even a fish. But trust me when I say her mama won’t allow it. It would only upset Ivy. That’s why I’m telling you no.”

I bit my bottom lip. I’m not much of a crybaby but I felt like I had lost my last friend in the world. I don’t know why. I wasn’t the one who had lost something; Ivy was and she didn’t even know it, so how could it hurt her? That’s the way I felt, anyway.

Mama said, “Sometimes the truth is a real sad thing.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to bawl right there in the pet supplies aisle.

“Can you think of some other gift you’d like to get Ivy? Maybe a game?”

I shook my head. Anybody could give a game. I wanted something special. Then I did think of something and I said, “Maybe.”

Mama took my hand. “Come on and show me. I’ll help you buy it if you haven’t got enough.”

I wasn’t aggravated with her anymore, but I wanted to look for Ivy’s present by myself. “I’ve got enough. I know what I’ll get, it’s not something living.”

“All right then. You meet me at the checkout in ten minutes.”

What I did was get some pretty things for Ivy’s hair. I got her ribbons and headbands and barrettes and all manner of things because her hair is so pretty and she didn’t have any of those things. It was a gift that was useful and special at the same time, and that seemed right to me.

When I came up behind Mama at the checkout, she was carrying a big old ivy in a clay pot. She didn’t say anything about it until we were in the truck. Daddy was driving and I sat in between them like always. Mama was hidden behind that big plant.

“You know I did a lot of rambling around before I met your daddy,” she said.

I kept quiet. It didn’t seem like a question, really.

“I left home the minute I graduated high school. I couldn’t wait to get gone. I must’ve broken my mother’s heart.”

I kept quiet some more.

“I found out pretty quickly that life can get hard and lonesome on your own, but I was too proud to go running back home. And then I met your daddy.” She smiled across at him. “He was such a kind person. My parents never did take the trouble to get to know him like they should have.”

I kept quiet again because it seemed like she was talking to Daddy more than me.

“The day I met him at the craft fair in Asheville was a great day in my life.”

“And you bought one of his birdhouses, even though you didn’t have a yard or anywhere to put it. You just rented a room in a house in Asheville, above the café where you were washing dishes. A room that only had one little bitty window that looked over some rooftops.” I knew this part of the story by heart.

“That’s right. And when I lived there by myself, without a friend or relation within five hundred miles, I learned that a plant can be good company. A plant is something to care for. It needs you. It’s company, funny as that might seem.”

“It doesn’t seem funny to me.” I grabbed hold of Mama’s hand and held it tight.

“I got this for Ivy,” she said. “It’s her namesake.”

Daddy put his arm across me and laid a hand on Mama’s shoulder. We rode on home like that.

I was glad we got Ivy those gifts. I believed she would like them. But still I didn’t like to think of her falling asleep at night in her bed without Pup curled in beside her. I will tell you what I did not tell Mama. I got that red collar because I was determined to make Pup Ivy’s own, even if she couldn’t haul him home with her.

SILVER LINING

Since Mama
was pretty certain Ivy wouldn’t be able to take Pup home, I figured I didn’t have to wait for Christmas to give him to her. I told myself that was the silver lining in the cloud. Grammy always told me to look for the good even in bad situations. It’s a challenge, but pretty often you can find something if you look hard.

Not always, though. I’d looked and looked for the good in Grammy moving back to Vine’s Cove, but I couldn’t see it. I could’ve put “meeting Ivy” in the good column, only I didn’t see why Grammy
would’ve had to leave for me to do that. It seemed like Mama and Daddy were going to send me to school anyway. I could’ve put “getting mail in the mailbox,” which I did love, but I’d have loved Grammy being here in person even better. I could’ve put “chickens” down on the silver-lining list, but I might have thought of that anyway.

Then again, I might not.

So I guess that’s it, the silver lining in my cloud of Grammy’s moving: my hens and Fiddle. Even on the worst day you ever had—a day when your favorite shirt’s in the wash and you almost miss the bus because you spent so much time looking for it, a day when your best friend misses school because she’s got the flu—it’s hard not to get a kick out of a chicken.

It’s just like I imagined. Every morning Fiddle crows at sunrise, crows and crows until it’s full light, and I love that. I can’t imagine the day beginning without it. I can’t imagine the flock without Fiddle at all. The way he acts, so proud and sure, you’d think he’d invented the whole world and then put himself in charge of it.

The hens spend their time scratching around the yard and Fiddle is always nearby, watching over them. They have their arguments about who is who, and Fiddle marches over to settle it. If there’s the shadow of a hawk swooping overhead, or even just a butterfly, he rounds them up and herds them all to safety. Then when the danger seems past, he goes back to scouting for bugs and grubs. When he finds something, he shepherds
the hens to the feast like a gentleman instead of gobbling it up himself, and they set into eating as if they’d never encountered food before. Another scuffle erupts, Fiddle settles it, the hens settle down, and everyone goes back to thinking about lunch.

I love the fact that they will go on this way forever, doing the same things every day. And every day I get the same thrill out of it.

When I gather the eggs each afternoon I feel like I’ve really done something, no matter that it’s really them who’ve done the work. And at night when I let them back in the coop to roost—counting to make sure I’ve got everyone, because the hen I named Sneaky likes to stay out if she can, which isn’t safe even though I do leave food out for the coyote—I shut the door real soft and then stand there for a minute, listening to them shift around as they get ready for the night. It makes me feel peaceful. Chickens are just themselves, without ever trying to be anything else. I’ll bet it’s the same way with a dog or a cat or a hamster even.

That’s what I was thinking when I said to Ivy after supper the next Friday night, “I want Pup to be your cat. I think he ought to be, you love him so much and he loves you too. He hardly pays any mind to me at all.” I exaggerated a little to be sure she wouldn’t argue with me.

“I don’t think—” Ivy began, but I cut in.

“I’ve got too many cats already and I’m afraid this one might not ever grow into those big clumsy feet.”

“That’s really nice of you, but—”

“You’d be doing me a favor, taking the responsibility for this cat off my hands,” I said firmly.

She went still then, and hugged Pup to her and buried her face in his fur. When she looked up, her eyes were bright, like she was going to cry. “My mom will never let me have a cat. Never, not in a million years. I won a fish at the fair one time and it even came in its own tiny fishbowl and she wouldn’t let me keep it. She made me give it to the neighbor.”

I was glad Mama had prepared me for this. I shrugged, as if this was no tragedy but just the usual way of things. “Well, Pup will just have to stay here then. But I don’t want to be the one who is his owner. He is
not
my cat. I’ve got too many cats. He’s yours.”

“Really?” Ivy looked as if I had just handed her the moon on a silver platter.

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

Ivy flopped down on the floor and started dragging a string around for Pup to chase. “I’m going to teach him to fetch,” she said. “I’m going to find a little rubber ball, or a catnip mouse, and start training him.”

“You can’t teach a cat to fetch!”

“Bet I can.” She wasn’t paying any attention to me. She wiggled the string and Pup leaped onto it with his paws splayed out and his tail twitching. “Good kitty,” she whispered. Pup started purring as loud as a freight train.

I watched them and felt very satisfied. Partly I was just happy that Ivy was happy. But also I was proud of myself for arranging this for Ivy. Right that minute I started making another plan for something I knew Ivy should do, something that she so far had resisted.

HUNTING

Later that night
Ivy and I made new signs for my eggs, to advertise them better. That was Ivy’s idea.
FRESH FARM EGGS
, we wrote out in shadow-box letters that we colored in with all different shades of markers.
SPECIAL! $4.00 A DOZEN!
(Four dollars is what we always charged, but Ivy was right, it looked more interesting with the word
special
out front.) We made tags for each dozen that said
EGGS BY TILLIE, EGGS BY ELMIRA, EGGS BY SNOWBALL.
We didn’t really know whose eggs were whose—it was impossible to tell because we almost never caught
them actually laying—but it was close enough to the truth and we thought people would get a kick out of it.

Before bed we watched for the coyote at the far edge of the woods and caught sight of him eating what we left. Then we stayed up late, scaring each other crazy with ghost stories. It was just a day like any other, really. But I had my plan for Ivy and I was set on making it happen.

The next morning I set in to badgering her about going hunting, which is something she’s never wanted to do. I’d been plaguing her about it for weeks. I knew she’d like it, if only she’d give it a chance.

So that day I set in again, and after a while she said, “Fine. We’ll go.”