Boon. The interior was clean but spare. The main room had a table, four chairs, a stone fireplace, a bookshelf with maybe 30 books standing in uneven rows. The kitchen was functional, a big iron stove, a pump at the sink, shelves with enough provisions to feed one person comfortably, and a slightly careful two. Not nine.
Agnes noted this. Called her noted her noting it. I'll need to go into town tomorrow for supplies. He said, I wasn't planning to have company when I left this morning. Agnes made a note, not judgmentally, just observationally.
There were four bedrooms. The main room with Calder's own bed, a second room with one frame bed, a third room with two narrow beds that had clearly not been slept in. Recently, the mattresses had a settled dusty quality, and a fourth room that was being used for storage. The storage room, Agnes said. I'll clear it today, he said it simply.
Can have two beds in there by tonight if I pull some things out of the barn. The children will need. I know what they'll need. He wasn't curd about it. I have a list in my head already.
I'll write it down and I'll go into town in the morning. Tell me what's required and I'll have it. Agnes looked at him over the top of her clipboard for a moment. She had been doing this work for 20 years, and in 20 years, she had developed a very reliable ability to tell the difference between a man who meant something and a man who thought he meant it. She was not at this particular moment entirely certain which category Calder Boon occupied.
The children will need to be settled before dark, she said finally. We'll manage. I'll need to conduct individual assessments. After supper, Calder said, let them eat first. Agnes paused.
All right, she said after supper. What happened next was not neat or organized or smooth in any of the ways children's books later made it seem. Calder had one pot big enough for a stew. And Clara immediately assessed the kitchen and asked if there was more onion because the one he had wasn't going to be sufficient for 11 people. And he said he thought there was another in the root cellar.
And Clara found it without being told where the root seller was because she had been feeding children in institutions for 3 years and she knew where root sellers usually were. Nelly found the chickens without anyone suggesting she go look. Benny fell in a mud puddle between the barn and the house and then tried to explain that it had been an experiment, not an accident. The twins sat at the kitchen table and started reorganizing the shelves without being asked because they were the kind of children who saw an untidy thing and found it genuinely uncomfortable to leave it untidy. Jonah walked to the south field and stood at the fence and looked at the horses.
Eddie climbed on the top rail of the fence beside him. Not the Southfield fence, a different fence, the one near the barn to see if it would hold. And it did. And Eddie filed this away as information that would probably be useful later. Wesley went looking for the things that needed doing.