One night he had managed one night. He had no earthly idea how he was going to manage the second one or the hundred after that or the thousand after that. He had been a man who planned carefully and acted slowly, mostly except for the one moment on the platform when something inside him had moved faster than his planning could follow. He pulled out a piece of paper and started a list. Beds, mattresses, blankets, at least six more, larger cook pot, flour, 50 lb, sugar, cornmeal, lard, dried beans, salt, pork, lamp oil, more nails, rope, boys clothing, ages 6 through 13.
Girls clothing, he stopped and thought. He had no idea what sizes. He was going to have to ask Clara because Clara clearly knew these things, and asking Clara seemed likely to be more efficient than guessing. He added, "Ask Clara about sizes to the list and kept going. " He wrote until midnight. Morning came harder than he expected.
Not the waking up Calder had been rising at 5 in the morning for 20 years, and his body did not consult his preferences about that. What was hard was the moment he stepped out of his room into the main room, and nearly walked directly into Nelly, who was standing in the exact center of the room in her night gown with both fists pressed to her mouth, making no sound. "Nelly? " He stopped. "What is it? " Nelly looked at him with enormous eyes. "There's a sound," she whispered.
What kind of sound? Outside near the chickens. Calder was out the door in 12 seconds. The coupe was on the east side of the barn, and when he got there, the source of the problem was immediately apparent. One of the boards on the south wall had come loose at the bottom.
It had been loose for weeks. He'd noted it and then gotten distracted by the fence, and something had been added in the night. One hen was dead. The others were fine but agitated, clustering in the far corner of the coupe and raising a noise that Nelly from the house had heard of as something wrong even before she understood what it meant. Calder stood and looked at the dead hen in the loose board and thought about the fact that he had meant to fix that board two weeks ago.
Then he fixed it. He was still nailing the board back when Wesley appeared with the toolbox he'd found in the barn and set it beside Calder without being asked because Wesley was the kind of boy who found the toolbox first and asked questions after. Then he stood back and watched. Something got in, Wesley said. Something tried to got one hen.
Fox most likely. Called her hammered the last nail. This board should have been fixed a month ago. Why wasn't it? Calder glanced at him.
Because there was only me to notice it and I got busy. Wesley looked around the exterior of the coupe, slow and methodical the way he did most things. The board on the north side is soft, he said. Not broken yet, but it will be. I see it.
You want me to? I'll do it. You've got enough going. Wesley looked at him steadily. I don't have anything going.