So Jonah turned this information over in his mind and said nothing more. But his expression had shifted slightly. And if you'd known Jonah, you might have recognized it as the beginning of interest. When the wagon stopped in front of the house, Agnes climbed down first and walked a slow circle around the structure with her clipboard, making notes in her small, efficient hand. Calder unhitched the horse and sent it to the paddic without being dramatic about it.
And the children climbed down and stood in the yard and looked at the house that might be their house. It was not fancy. The porch had one board that bent wrong underfoot. The window on the east side of the main room had a crack in it that someone had patched with putty well enough, but not invisibly. The steps to the porch had no railing.
Porchboard's third from the right, Calder said. Step around it. He wasn't saying it to anyone in particular, just saying it. The way you say things about your own house that you've been meaning to fix and haven't gotten around to. The twins stepped around the board together.
Benny stepped on it on purpose to feel it flex, then looked up to see if anyone had noticed. Eddie had noticed and gave him a look that said he was going to get in trouble and he should be aware of that. Benny shrugged. Agnes finished her exterior notes and came to the front door. If you'll show me through the interior, Mr.
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.
He found three of them in the first 10 minutes. The split kindling pile was low. The water barrel on the east side of the house was almost empty, and one of the stall latches in the barn was hanging loose on one bolt. He started with the kindling. Calder found him there 20 minutes later working at the splitting block with an axe that was too heavy for him, but that he was managing through sheer bloody-mindedness, and he stopped in the doorway of the barn for a moment and watched the boy.
"You don't have to do that," Calder said. Wesley didn't stop. "Kindling piles low. I'll get to it tomorrow. I've got it. " Calder watched him for another moment.
Then he said, "You've been holding the group together since that platform, haven't you? " Wesley split a piece of wood. Someone has to. How long you been doing that? Wesley thought about it. Since we were all at the county house last year.
They put the young ones in with me. I don't know why. Maybe they just ran out of room and Maisie kept crying at night. So I He stopped. I just kept doing it.
How long's your leg been like that? Wesley's rhythm with the axe didn't change since I was nine. Had a fever. Does it hurt? Sometimes he split another piece.