The Homeplace Page 6

  "I don't understand. What could I possibly do to help him?"

  His gaze firmly held hers. "You told Tad once that you used to spend your summers on the farm. I can barely persuade him to walk in the barn door, and if it weren't for that little yellow kitten that lives in' the barn, I wouldn't get him that far."

  "And you think I might be able to talk him into being more adventurous," Cathie finished his thought.

  "Let's put it this way. Tad is intrigued by the tree house in the grove opposite the house. He asked me once if I thought you used to play in it as a child, but he won't venture over there. Several other times he's inquired whether you might have done something or other when you were on the farm."

  "So what are you asking? That I take him on a grand tour of the place?" She had to make her voice sarcastic to hide the ache in her heart brought on by her cherished memories of the Homeplace.

  "To see it a few times through your eyes might make it seem less alien to Tad," Rob said quietly.

  "That won't help him get along any better with the other children," Cathie pointed out desperately.

  "If we can get Tad to accept his surroundings, we might be able to get him to accept the people that live here."

  Why did he persist in coupling their names together, Cathie thought in irritation. "It's impossible," she said aloud, shoving her chair back from the table and rising to her feet.

  "I'm not asking very much, only a few trips to the farm to visit my son." An eyebrow quirked arrogantly in her direction.

  Put that way, it didn't sound like very much, and she would seem terribly churlish to refuse. "I'll do it," Cathie agreed ungraciously, "for Tad's sake."

  "It never occurred to me that you would do it for any other reason," said Rob, an arrogant, mocking glitter in his eyes. He rose from his chair and walked over to the table near where Cathie was standing. She was looking out the window at the orange dusk laced with streaks of purpling pink, but she turned at his approach.

  "Is that all you wanted, Mr. Douglas?" she demanded, glad of the shadows that prevented her from seeing his face clearly, all too aware of the thudding of her heart brought on by the resentment he always generated in her.

  "Yes, that's all. I didn't think our discussion would take up so much time. I've really made you late for your so-called appointment now." Amusement lurked in his voice as Rob Douglas recalled her fictitious excuse when he had arrived.

  "You know very well I had no such appointment,'' Cathie retorted sharply and bitterly, taking the now empty glass from his hand.

  "You just didn't want my company, is that right?" That knowledge didn't seem to upset him too much.

  "Yes, that is exactly right," she agreed, tilting her chin upward in defiance.

  "I wonder why? Do you know?" He evidently meant his question to be rhetorical because he continued talking, a hand reaching out to hold Cathie's and examine the diamond ring on her third finger. "You don't have the look of a woman in love," he mused. "When is the wedding?"

  "We haven't set a date yet, if it's any of your business."

  "What day would you like to come out to the farm?" Rob asked, ignoring the deliberate snub.

  He was pinning her down, as if he doubted that she would keep her word to come out. "Would next Tuesday be convenient?" she inquired haughtily, knowing she was delaying the time for as long as she could to give herself an opportunity to gather her defenses around her before she had to meet up with him again.

  "Around one-thirty would be fine," Rob agreed, taking his leave of her.

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  Chapter Five

  THE WILD ROSES were in bloom along the roadside, their pink petals accented by the green, green grasses. A wild canary flew among the grove of trees, his yellow body like a shaft of sunlight in the shade. The familiar cry of a meadowlark sounded in the distance. There was that indescribable feeling of coming home as Cathie turned her car into the farm lane. Even Duchess recognized it, becoming a whining, wiggling mass of ecstasy from her place in the back seat.

  The dog tumbled out of the car the minute Cathie parked it and opened the door. Her russet gold and white body was a quivering mass of happiness as she raced from the car to the house and back again. Her feathery tail that had seemed to be perpetually tucked between her legs since Cathie had taken Duchess away from the farm was now wagging merrily in the air. A tightness gripped Cathie's throat because she knew her heart gave a similar leap of joy when she gazed around the familiar and beloved surroundings.

  This was her second visit with Tad. The first she had kept short so she could ease out of the role of teacher. Rob Douglas had not mentioned that Cathie was going to visit them, and Tad had been pleased and surprised when she did. Much of his reserve vanished at the discovery that she had stopped to see him and not anyone else. They had taken a short walk around the house and yard with an excursion across the road to the grove of trees where the tree house was, but Cathie wasn't able to persuade Tad to climb the tree for a closer look. She was glad that his father had been out in the fields and she hadn't had to encounter him during the visit. It had made it all the more enjoyable for her.

  It looked as if she wasn't going to be as lucky on this visit as Rob Douglas followed his son out of the house. Duchess intercepted, them as they reached the halfway point between the house and Cathie. The dog sniffed Tad's feet before greeting the boy enthusiastically, much to Cathie's delight. She had always known the shepherd liked children, but she had particularly been anxious that the dog make friends with Tad. The boy was hesitant to touch the red gold head until a quiet word from his father prompted the movement. Duchess attached herself proprietorially to Tad's heels and accompanied him to Cathie.

  "Good afternoon, Miss Carlsen. Tad told me you came last week," Rob Douglas greeted her smoothly without even a gleam of conspiracy in his eyes.

  "How do you do, Mr. Douglas," she returned before turning to smile at Tad. "Hi, Tad. I see you've met Duchess. I hope you don't mind my bringing her along, but she was terribly homesick for the farm. She used to live here, too."

  "She seems to be a very nice dog," Tad observed solemnly, gazing down at the graying muzzle that was turned adoringly toward him.

  "If you two will excuse me," Rob broke in, "I have a lot of work to be done and I'm sure you want to plan what you're going to do this afternoon."

  Cathie breathed a silent sigh of relief as he walked away. She was always so stiff and uncomfortable around him, as if she were constantly holding her breath in anticipation of something. Besides, he was so infuriatingly male.

  "As you can see by the way I'm dressed," Cathie began brightly the minute Rob was out of hearing, "I thought I'd take you on a tour of some of the places where I used to play."

  Tad inspected her patched blue jeans and the scuffed tennis shoes, passing over the faded red-checked blouse to stop on her face.

  "Do you have some old clothes to change into?" she asked. She could tell from the doubtful expression on his face that the neat slacks and bright print shirt were repeated in the rest of his wardrobe. She could have bitten off her tongue for making such a mistake. "It doesn't matter," Cathie hurried on. "I don't imagine we'll get all that messed up just walking."

  "Maybe we can go fishing instead," Tad suggested with marked hesitation. "You told me the last time that you used to do that lots of times and I've never been fishing. Do you suppose we could, Miss Carlsen?"

  "School is out, Tad. You can call me Cathie." The smile on her face was genuine, but it didn't reassure the boy.

  "I was always told that it wasn't proper to call your elders by their first name," he said solemnly, his eyes gazing earnestly into the depths of her green ones.

  "That's old-fashioned. Besides, you make me feel like an old maid," Cathie teased, drawing the smile from his face that she had been seeking. "And I think fishing is a great idea. I'm sure my old poles are still in the garage. I'll go and check while you run in and ask Mrs. Carver if she has a container
of some sort that we can put worms in."

  Tad was off like a flash with Duchess running excitedly beside him, while Cathie walked to the large double garage. There, amid the open rafters, she spied the old bamboo poles that she and Clay had used so many times before. It took a few tricky maneuvers before she was able to get them down. Surprisingly the hooks weren't rusted and the red and white bobbers, although a little dirty, were still serviceable. There was a garden spade leaning against the corner of the garage and Cathie picked it up and joined Tad in the front yard. He was trying to appear as calm and serf-possessed as always, but Cathie saw the glimmer of excitement in his hazel eyes.

  "The next stop is for Mr. Worm," she announced gaily as Tad proudly held an empty coffee can out for her to see.

  "Where do we find him?"

  "In the ground, silly," she laughed. "Out behind the machine shed is the best place."

  "Which one is the machine shed?" Ted asked, glancing around at the mixture of buildings that comprised the barnyard.

  "That one there by the drive where your dad keeps his tractors and plows," Cathie pointed. They set off toward it with Duchess trotting contentedly alongside.

  "What's that big white building next to it?"

  Cathie smiled to herself. At last he was expressing an interest in his new home, and she felt slightly guilty for being the person he asked instead of his father. "That's the corn crib. Do you see the weather vane on top of the cupola?" Tad nodded. "The direction the rooster is facing tells us which way the wind is blowing. Today it's from the west. 'When the wind is from the west, the fish bite the best,'" she chanted, remembering the old rhyme that had been her and Clay's byword.

  "Do you really think we'll catch some fish?"

  "The Boyer has a lot of catfish, bullheads and carp in it. And if we can find us some worms, I don't know why we won't."

  "What's the Boyer?"

  "That's the name of the river that runs through the pasture," Cathie explained patiently as they rounded the corner of the machine shed. Propping the fishing poles against the side of the building, she carried the spade over to where some old lumber was piled. "Help me lift this plank, Tad."

  Once the board was lifted and set on top of some others, she set about digging up clumps of moist, black sod. She smiled to herself as Tad rather hesitantly helped her break up the clumps and capture the quicksilver worms trying to escape.

  "I think that's enough," she said, glancing into the coffee can where fat, wriggling worms tried to bury themselves in the few chunks of earth she had thrown in.

  "My hands are all dirty." He was staring at them and the slime and dirt that coated them. "I'd better go and wash."

  Cathie checked herself just in time from saying that his hands were going to get a lot dirtier. "If you rub your hands together like this," she showed him, "you can get the worst of it off and we can rinse the rest off in the water trough."

  Reluctantly Tad followed her suggestion while Cathie knocked the dirt off the spade arid set it to the front of the machine shed so she could carry it back to the garage when they returned. It was difficult not to watch his meticulous efforts to clean as much of the grime off as possible. It was a strain on the imagination that here was a boy who didn't like to get dirty, but Cathie kept her amusement concealed.

  "Are you ready?" she called, picking up the bamboo poles and resting them against her shoulder.

  With a skeptical look in his eye, Tad picked up the can of worms and joined Cathie. Together they set off toward the pasture gate, pausing at the concrete water trough to rinse off their hands. Instead of taking the gate that led into the pasture, Cathie chose to walk the rutted track along the pasture fence line that bordered the cornfield.

  "Why aren't we going that way?" Tad inquired, hopping to keep up with her longer strides.

  "I was getting thirsty, and if we go this way, we can stop off at the spring for a drink." Cathie was determined to introduce Tad to all the simple treasures of the farm. "Here's the spring." She stopped, pointing to the sliver of gleaming silver water on the other side of the fence. "You go first, Tad."

  Stepping on the bottom strand of barbed wire with her tennis shoe, Cathie held the top strand up for Tad to crawl through. She was a bit more of an expert at dodging the thorny wire and wiggled through on her own.

  Clumps of grass were sneaking onto the pebble strewn area surrounding the tile through which the spring water came, but there was still enough open dry sand for Cathie to kneel on and scoop up handfuls of the refreshing water. She stepped back and watched Tad mimic her movements.

  "Mmm, that's really cold," he declared, wiping the driplets of water from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Almost colder than the water Mrs. Carver keeps in the refrigerator."

  Tad's grimy hands were forgotten as he once again entered into the spirit of adventure. The dullness was gone from his hazel eyes, making them sparkle with gold flecks introduced by the brilliance of the sun. He picked up the can of worms and set out with Cathie to follow the tiny ribbon of spring water to where it joined the Boyer River. There was an unaccustomed lightness in his walk that brought a satisfied smile to her face.

  At any place they could have stepped across the rivulet of water, but Cathie led him to the weeping willow tree whose main trunk lay horizontally over the spring. "Follow me," she ordered, glancing back at the boy behind her as she began her balancing walk across the rough bark of the trunk. A foot or so on the other side of the spring, the trunk began rising upward to the sun, and that was where Cathie hopped off onto the ground.

  Tad followed a bit more slowly, but landed on the ground near her with a proud smile of accomplishment on his face. Where the spring dumped into the river, the water was smooth, reflecting the bright sun like a mirror. A multitude of wild flowers dotted the pasture grass with honey bees busily gathering their sweet nectar. Cathie felt incredibly like a child again as she led Tad along the river bank on one of the many trails the cattle had carved into the hillside.

  "The cows won't bother us, will they?" Tad inquired, glancing across the river where a scattered group of dairy cows was grazing.

  "No, they're gentle," Cathie assured him in an offhand manner to lend emphasis to her words. They were approaching the singing rapids. "We'll cross the river here, that way we can fish on the other side where the water is deeper and have the sun at our backs."

  "How are we going to get across?"

  The poles were already lying on the ground as Cathie bent to remove her tennis shoes. "We'll wade. The water is only a foot or so deep. Clay used to be able to cross with his shoes on by hopping from stone to stone. Every time I tried, my foot slipped into the water and I got my shoes wet. Now I play it safe by taking them off."

  As soon as her shoes and socks were off and her jeans rolled up, Cathie turned to help Tad, showing him how to tie the laces of his shoes together so he could carry them around his neck. Then the pair waded into the bubbling water racing over the collection of rocks. After his first hesitant steps and exclamations of the water's coolness, Tad enjoyed the refreshing and uninhibited sensation of the swiftly running river curling around his ankles. They paused at the small sandbar sitting in the middle of the river, a partial cause of the rapids, and Cathie pointed out a school of minnows gathered in the protective shallow waters.

  The teacher instinct was strong and unwittingly she began turning the excursion into a biology trip, starting with the minnows, then the snails and explaining the functions of other larger fish in the balance of nature in the river. His inquisitive mind readily took to the subject, his questions continuing as they stopped on the opposite bank to wipe their wet feet with their socks and put their shoes back on.

  "Where does this river go?"

  "It flows on south and dumps into the Missouri River north of Omaha, Nebraska. Did you know, Tad, that the state of Iowa has the mighty Mississippi River as its eastern boundary and most of the muddy Missouri River at its western boundary? And the waters from this v
ery river end up in the Gulf of Mexico."

  Arriving at the spot where she had decided they would fish, Cathie slid down the steep bank to a lower shelf, then took the can of worms from Tad and helped him down. The geography lesson was set aside as Cathie showed him the fine art of putting a protesting worm on a hook. Her distaste of the job was similar to his but, as she explained, necessary if they wanted to catch any fish. An expert cast was easy with the bamboo poles and soon they were both leaning against the black soil of the bank watching the red and white bobbers floating on the dark waters of the river.

  "Once Clay and I decided to make a raft and float all the way down to the mouth of the Mississippi River. We launched it up on the river by that far island." She was resting her chin on her knees as she indicated an island upriver.

  "How far did you get? Did you go all the way?" Tad asked eagerly, caught up by the excitement of the idea.

  "Clay and I weren't very good boat-builders," Cathie laughed. "Tree houses and huts were more our line. The raft sank the very minute it went into the water."

  "You must have really had a lot of fun here," Tad sighed, resting his chin on his knees in mimicry of Cathie.

  She wanted to convince him that he could have a lot of fun, too, but that was something he had to realize himself. "What was it like where you used to live?" she asked, changing the subject to get Tad's comparison to his previous home and the farm.

  "It was different. A lot different." A scowl covered his young face as he concentrated his gaze on the hypnotically bobbing bobber. "There were flowers and roses all over the lawns and gigantic trees and hedges all over. It was beautiful, like a painting. I picked some flowers once for my mother, but they were prize flowers or something. Everybody was really mad at me. I don't suppose I could have ever had a tree house there. My grandfather told me the oak trees were hundreds of years old and very valuable. Most all the furniture in the house was antique, even the bed I slept in. Grandmother was always afraid I would scratch it, but I never did. My mother's room was the most beautiful of all. Some nights she used to let me come in and sit while she listened to records."