"Watch the rings. Can we catch them with the right gear? Sure. Do you have the right gear? I have a length of line and some hooks somewhere in the barn.
Benny turned to look at him with an expression of such uncomplicated delight that Calder found himself slightly wrong-footed. He had been braced for problems this morning, for something complicated, for the inevitable moment when the reality of nine children on a working ranch began to generate the friction he knew it was going to generate. He hadn't been braced for a six-year-old on a creek bank being happy about fish. After chores, Calder said, "Everything has its order. What are my chores? " "We'll figure it out. " He stood up.
But step one, don't disappear without telling someone. Benny scrambled to his feet. "Okay," he paused. "That's a real rule, not just today. " "Real rule? What if I forget? " "You won't," Calder said.
"Because you're going to tie a string around your wrist to remind you. " Benny looked at his wrist. "I don't have a string. " "I do. " Calder pulled a short length of twine from his jacket pocket. He always had twine in his jacket pocket, the same way some men always had matches and tied it loosely around Benny's wrist. Every time you think about going somewhere, you look at this first. Then you come find me or Wesley.
Benny looked at the twine with the gravity of a boy being invested with a serious responsibility. "Okay," he said. They walked back to the house together and for the first 70 ft Benny was quiet, which was so unprecedented that Calder actually checked to make sure he was still there. He was. He was looking at the twine on his wrist.
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?