Then he started talking again and did not stop until breakfast. The first week was education in what Calder did not know. He did not know that Clara had a genuine gift for bread that was not evident from her first loaf, which came out dense and slightly sour, but revealed itself fully by the third loaf on the fourth day, which was so good that even Wesley ate two slices without saying anything, which Clara understood correctly as high praise. He did not know that the twins, Rose and Ruth, who were at eight and moved like a single organism, had an almost frightening ability to organize. By the end of the first week, they had reorganized the kitchen shelves in a way that made everything significantly more accessible, had reorganized the bookshelf by size, and then reconsidered and reorganized it by how often Calder seemed to reach for things, and had begun making a list of what the household needed that was more complete and better categorized than the one Calder had made himself.
He did not know that Jonah, who had said perhaps 30 words in the first 3 days, was spending every spare minute at the south fence watching December, the Palamino Mayor, and that December, who had been difficult with strangers since the previous spring when someone had startled her badly near. The barn had begun coming to the fence on her own when Jonah appeared, without being touched, just coming near. He noticed that on the fourth day and made himself not say anything because he understood somehow that commenting on it would be wrong would interrupt something that needed to happen quietly. He did not know and this was the one that hit him hardest that Eddie could not read. He found out because he'd sent Eddie to the barn for the feed register a simple ledger on the nail by the door and Eddie had come back with the wrong thing, the hay count from the previous season.
And when Calder said that wasn't it, Eddie had gone very still in the particular way that meant something was wrong. The one on the nail, Calder said. There are two things on the nail, Eddie said. His voice was entirely even. Calder looked at him.
I'll go get it, Clara said, already moving. Eddie did not look at her. He did not look at Calder either. He looked at the middle distance with a carefully maintained neutral expression that was doing a lot of work. Eddie Calder said when Clara had gone, "What?
It's all right. I know what all right is, Eddie said. You don't need to tell me when it is. Calder let a moment pass. Nobody taught you.
They started to. Eddie's jaw tightened slightly. Then we moved. All right. Calder kept his voice even.
We'll figure it out. I'm 10. Eddie said. Most kids my age already. Most kids your age didn't move four times in 3 years.
Calder looked at him directly. We'll figure it out. Eddie finally looked at him. His expression was still carefully controlled. But underneath the control there was something raw and a little angry and a little afraid, which was honest.
And Calder decided that honest was a better thing to see than the smooth compliance Eddie usually offered the world. I'm not stupid, Eddie said. I know you're not. You trained December to let you touch her shoulder yesterday after she shied away from me for 2 months. That's not a stupid person's work.
Eddie blinked. It was almost imperceptible that blink, but it was there. Clara can help you with the reading, Calder said. Or one of the twins. They're good at it.
But it's up to you. Eddie said nothing for a moment. Maybe Clara, he said finally. Talk to her. Eddie walked away and called her watched him go, and then he went back to what he'd been doing because making a performance of the moment seemed like exactly the wrong thing to do.
That afternoon, he saw Clara and Eddie sitting at the kitchen table with one of the books from the shelf between them. Clara's finger moving under a line of text, and Eddie's forehead furrowed in intense, almost combative concentration. Clare was not making it easy or soft. She was pointing at a word and waiting and waiting and then giving it only when Eddie's expression shifted toward something that was about to tip into humiliation. She had the instinct for it.
She knew exactly where the line was. Calder kept walking. On the fifth day, Margaret Vale arrived. Calder had heard of Margaret Vale the way you hear of anyone in a small territory, secondhand in pieces. She was the widow of a man who had left her well enough provided for that she'd had time to develop opinions, and her opinions about the proper ordering of charity and community in Red Hollow had been the organizing principle of the town's social welfare apparatus for nearly a decade.
She was, by general agreement, a woman who cared about things. The fact that caring about things had made her the most powerful person in any room she entered was, various people would tell you, entirely coincidental. She drove out in a buggy that was newer than Agnes', and sat straighter in the seat. Calder was at the water pump when she arrived, and he watched her climb down and survey the property with the practiced eye of someone who had been assessing situations and finding them wanting for a long time. Mr.
Boon," she said. "Ma'am. " She looked at the house, then at the barn, then at the children. Benny was visible near the creek bend, following a new rule about staying in sight. Technically, even if he pushed the definition, Eddie was at the fence. Rose and Ruth were on the porch with what appeared to be mending.
I heard Margaret said that you took nine children off an orphan train 4 days ago. I did on the spot. No preparation, no prior arrangement. That's right. Margaret looked at him steadily.
She was perhaps 55, with gray at her temples, and the kind of posture that had never been argued with successfully. That was reckless, Mr. Boon. Maybe, not maybe. Definitively.
She folded her gloved hands in front of her. You are a single man with a working ranch. You have no domestic help, no female presence in the household, and no experience with children beyond what I can only assume is very limited. Limited? Calder agreed.