The Thanksgiving Treasure (6 page)

“Go on!” I shouted. “Shoot me! I'm not afraid of you, you old misanthrope!”

“What?” he said. “The law is on my side. Law says people keep off my property!”

“I'm not hurting your darn old property.”

“Go on!” he said. “Get out of here!”

I was about to lose the heavy bags, and he still had the gun leveled at me.

“Hurry up and shoot me,” I said defiantly, “because I'm about to drop your dinner.”

“What dinner?” he asked.

“I've brought you a Thanksgiving feast. I knew you wouldn't make a turkey, so I brought you some of ours.”

“And candied sweet potatoes,” said Carla Mae meekly, “and cranberry sauce …”

“And two pieces of pie!” I added.

“One pumpkin and one apple,” said Carla Mae.

“What are you bringing me dinner for?” he said, slowly lowering the gun and squinting suspiciously at us.

“Because we're celebrating the spirit of Thanksgiving,” I said. “The way the Pilgrims did with the Indians.”

“We're the Pilgrims, and you're the Indian,” said Carla Mae idiotically, still hiding behind me. I elbowed her to shut up.

“Tell your folks I don't need no charity,” he said irritably.

“My folks?” I said. “Are you kidding? If my father knew I was here,
he'd
probably shoot me. You're a mean old hermit who won't pay him.”

“Who's your father?”

“He dug out your pond.”

“You Jim Mills' kid?” he asked.

I nodded. “And I had to steal this dinner practically out of my father's mouth. Didn't I, Carla Mae?” She nodded. “Now that I've gone to all that trouble, the least you can do is eat it.”

For a second, he seemed to be thinking all that over, and I took the opportunity to race past him and right into the house.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Come on back here …!” Before he could figure out what to do, Carla Mae had run past him too, and we were both inside his dingy old kitchen, dragging all the stuff out of the bags.

I had tried to guess what his house would look like inside, but it was even worse than I had imagined. It looked as though it hadn't really been cleaned since his wife had died fifteen years ago. There was an incredible clutter around the kitchen—dirty dishes, pots and pans, tools and parts of farm machinery, old newspapers, beat-up jackets and sweaters thrown here and there, peeling wallpaper, sagging cabinets and a rusty old pump in the sink. It was gloomy and scary, and later I realized it was sad to think of him living in that depressing place all alone.

There was an old concertina on the table, and as I was about to pick it up and move it, he grabbed it away from me.

“Hands off!” he said.

“Do you play that, Mr. Rehnquist?” I asked politely.

“No!” he said. “Why are you taking off your coats? I didn't ask you to stay.”

“We want to serve you dinner,” I said, and we grabbed a plate and some silverware from the pile on the sink and started laying out the dinner at his rickety old table.

“Dad-blamed kids!” he growled. “I said hands off. Go on, git outta here!” He put the gun down behind the door and came toward us.

Carla Mae backed away from the table a bit, but I could see he was looking with some interest at all the food, even while he was yelling at us, so I kept on dishing it out.

“I said git your hands off my stuff,” he said, looking at me fiercely.

“This is all going to be cold if you don't sit down now and eat it,” I said, using the same tone of voice my grandmother always used with me when I was late for supper.

“Don't boss me,” he said, sounding almost pouty.

I kept on putting the food on his plate. He squinted down at it. “What's that yellow-looking stuff?” he asked.

“Creamed onions,” I said brightly. “They're delicious!”

He tentatively poked a finger in the onions and licked it off. “Yeah,” he said sounding annoyed. “Well … I suppose I'll have to eat up this junk to git the table cleared off.” He glared at us again, then sat down, trying to look as uninterested as possible. I knew we had him hooked.

“Better get yourself a napkin,” I said.

“Don't have any napkins!” he snapped.

“Not even paper?”

“No!” he said angrily.

“Well,” I said, reaching for a dishtowel, “this will have to do.”

“Hands off!” he shouted. “You're too bossy! I don't like bossy kids.”

I shrugged and came back to the table, and Carla Mae and I sat down to watch him.

He looked over at us defiantly, as though he wasn't going to eat while we were watching, so we wouldn't have the satisfaction of getting the best of him. There was a long silence while he glared at us, and we stared back. He squirmed in his chair and grunted and looked down at the food and up at us and finally, he angrily grabbed a fork and jammed it into a hunk of turkey and wolfed it down as though he hadn't eaten in days. He glared at us the whole time, and we tried to look pleasant.

“How is it, Mr. Rehnquist?” I asked, after he had eaten a few bites.

“Not bad,” he said grudgingly.

“That's my grandma's famous chestnut dressing.”

“Not bad,” he said again.

“There's not one store-bought thing in this dinner. I helped my grandma make that cranberry sauce. I grated the orange rind in it.”

He looked at the jar and then stuck his finger right in and got a big glob and tasted it. Carla Mae and I gave each other a disgusted look.

“I had it before,” he said. “My wife used to make it.”

“Does it taste like oranges?” I asked.

“Yep. Your grandma's almost as good at cranberry sauce as my wife was,” he said.

Then he reached into the sack to see if there was anything else, and he found the lump of wax paper with a carrot and two sugar lumps in it.

“What's this?” he asked.

“Oh, don't eat that!” I said. “That's for Marble Cake!”

“Who?”

“Your horse.”

“What do you know about my horse?” he asked, looking suspicious.

“Uh … we saw her …”

“When was that?”

“The other day,” said Carla Mae without thinking. “When we were here.” I gave her a kick under the table.

Rehnquist looked at us sharply. “You the two I caught sneaking around here the other day?”

“We had to sneak,” I said. “We were afraid of you. We're not afraid of you now, though.” I gave him a weak smile.

“Ya sure?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said, and Carla Mae nodded in agreement.

“Well, don't be so sure,” he said. “I might shoot ya yet, if I catch you sneakin' around here again.”

“We have no intention of sneaking, now that we're friends,” I said. “We'll just come to your front door and knock.”

“You stay away from my front door! Who says we're friends?”

“Well, aren't we?” I asked. “We brought you this terrific dinner, didn't we?”

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, because …”

“Because why?”

“Tell him again, Addie,” said Carla Mae. “You know, about the spirit of Thanksgiving …”

I looked at him.

“I'm a pretty smart old gink,” he said. “So don't fool around with me, sister. Tell me the truth!”

“I told you, it's the spirit of Thanksgiving, and … I was worried about your horse.”

“You're worried about Treasure?” he said, looking at me curiously.

“Treasure?” I said. “Is that her name? That's nifty!”

“What are you worried about Treasure for?”

“She's in awful condition, Mr. Rehnquist. She's too fat. Someone ought to exercise her.”

“I used to ride her when I had cows up to the north pasture,” he said. “Now I don't have no cows, so she don't get rid.”

“Well,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, “someone ought to care for her. Did you know that some people who have horses that need exercising actually pay someone to ride them?”

“Well,” he said, squinting at me, “did you know that some people who got horses actually
get
paid for letting people ride them?”

“That sounds backward to me,” I said, “but I'd be willing to exercise her for a fair trade in tadpoles and a couple of turtles out of your stream, and it seems to me that you'd be getting the better part of the deal … if you want to know the truth.”

“Not so fast there,” he said. “Turtles are worth money. They get as high as ten cents fer 'em down at the dime store!”

“That's because they have paintings on their backs,” I answered quickly. “Yours are just plain.”

“Why don't you get that father of yours to buy my horse,” he said, “then you can exercise her whenever you want.”

“My father won't buy me a horse,” I said. “He won't even let me ride one.”

“Your father won't let you ride a horse?” he asked, giving me a sly look.

“Nope.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay, what?”

“We got a deal,” he said. “You can exercise her if you don't come around the house bothering me none.”

“Honest?” I asked, not believing my ears.

“Yeah,” he said.

To make sure he was going to stick to it, I spit on my hand and held it out for him to shake. Much to my surprise, he spit on his hand too and slapped it up against mine and shook. I drew back my hand, all wet and sticky, and tried not to make a face.

Then Carla Mae and I got up and cleared the table and gathered up the glass jars, because I knew Grandma would miss them. As we went out the door, Rehnquist said it was the best dinner he'd et in some time. He didn't exactly thank us, but we decided that's what he had meant to say.

Chapter Nine

I went back to rehnquist's the very next afternoon. I leaned my bike up against the front porch, but didn't knock on the door, so he couldn't accuse me of disturbing him. I thought I saw him watching from behind the curtains as I went toward the barn.

Treasure was standing quietly in her stall, munching hay. I had brought her carrots and sugar again, and when I showed them to her, she came right to me. I talked to her, and let her get used to me a bit, then I found a brush and started to work on her. She was a little fidgety at first, but finally settled down and seemed to enjoy being groomed.

After that, I was out there almost every day after school and on weekend afternoons. I told my folks that I was going bike riding, which was partly true. Carla Mae came with me once or twice, but she wasn't much interested in horses, and was still a little afraid of Rehnquist. Eventually she stopped coming with me, but swore to keep my secret.

At first, Rehnquist had come out to the barn to see that I knew what I was doing, and then when he saw that I had the hang of it and wasn't going to kill myself, he left me pretty much on my own. I arranged a nice little tack room in the back of the barn, with all Treasure's things—brushes, liniment, saddle and bridle. Once Treasure was used to me, I saddled her up and walked her around behind the barn. As we got better acquainted, I rode her farther and faster, until we were galloping around like Roy Rogers himself.

Sometimes I would come into the barn and Rehnquist would be there, rubbing Treasure's nose and talking softly to her. When he saw me, he would look embarrassed and pretend that he had been talking to himself, and he'd suddenly get real busy with some chores somewhere else. I could tell the horse was a real pet to him, and that he missed riding her, now that he was too old.

I always took my sketch pad out to Rehnquist's, and would draw Treasure. One cold day I was sitting on the porch drawing, when I heard him playing his concertina inside. I wanted to go in and warm up, so I went up and knocked on the door. He grumped about how I was pestering him, but he let me in.

“You do play your concertina, don't you?” I said.

“No!” he said.

“I heard you!” I said, going over to the table where he had left it.

“Hands off!”

“I wasn't touching it.”

“Yeah, well, don't!”

“You don't have to be so rude about it,” I said.

He sat down with his face behind a newspaper and paid no more attention to me, so I went over and showed him my drawing of Treasure.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Not bad.”

I sat down in a chair facing him. “I'm going to draw a picture of you.”

“Oh no you ain't!”

“Why not?”

“Go home!” he said, irritably.

“Just let me draw your picture!” I said, and started to sketch the outline of his face.

He squirmed away from me in his chair. “Stop that …”

“Sit still!” I ordered him.

“You're going to make some man a terrible wife someday!” he said angrily. “You're too bossy!”

“I'm not going to
be
a wife! I'm going to be a
painter!
” I kept on drawing.

“When you grow up, you'll get married,” he said.

“Want to bet?”

“How will I know if I win?” he asked. “I won't be here when you grow up.”

“Don't sit so stiffly. Relax!”

“I told you, I don't want you to draw my picture!”

“Now smile!”

“Smile?” he said. “What have I got to smile about? I've got a lot of hard work here, and nobody to help me. People cheat me, you come around pestering me. What have I got to smile about?”

“My father didn't cheat you!” I said, annoyed.

“Never mind about your father,” he said, and hid his face behind his paper again.

“I can't see your face,” I complained.

“Go on home. I got things to do!”

“Just let me finish this. I want to get the lines in your face right.” I reached forward and pulled the newspaper away.