TO MAKE AMENDS
Ben held up his hand in the hope of silencing his boys. When that
failed, he added his voice to the gesture.
"That's ENOUGH, boys," he yelled. "I've heard all I need to
hear on
the subject. It appears to me that you are all equally responsible
and so you will work together to put things right."
Adam was about to speak again, but Ben stopped him.
"I know that you will find it difficult, working as a team, in light
of the way you have been getting along, recently, but that is what I
expect you to do. And if you don't make amends, sufficiently, to
meet
with Hop Sing's approval, then I might have to come up with some
ways
of my own to punish you for what you did."
Ben wasn't sure when it had all begun, but the hot weather and the
extra work that it brought, had definitely been instrumental in
causing his three boys to argue so much. Things had come to a head
while Ben was in town, and when he returned to the ranch, he found
the three of them, in the yard, with Hop Sing berating them in his
native tongue. All three boys were covered in flour and eggs and
their Chinese cook was beyond cross; he was furious.
When Ben was finally able to make sense out of what Hop Sing was
saying, it transpired that Joe had played a trick on Adam, who had
then chased the 10 year old into the kitchen, where Hoss was
attempting to bandage up an injured racoon's leg. The little wild
creature, already scared and in pain, took fright, as the two boys
ran into the room, one yelling, and the other laughing, at the top
of
his voice. Hoss was unable to hold onto the animal and it ran across
the table, where Hop Sing had laid out the ingredients to make a
cake, and scrambled up onto the top of one of the cupboards. All
three boys tried to catch it, but only succeeded in covering
themselves, and the kitchen, in cake ingredients.
The racoon finally decided that these humans were far too crazy for
him to want to mix with, and he retreated into the cage that Hoss
had
built for him. Hoss took him out to the barn, and fell foul of
another of the traps that Joe had already caught Adam in, a bucket
of
water balanced over each of the barn doors.
The water caused the eggs and flour on Hoss' clothes to turn to a
sticky paste and as it dried in the hot sun in the yard, it began to
crack and flake off. The same thing was happening to Adam, as his
clothes were wet, from Joe's prank, before he got the flour and eggs
over him.
Both Adam and Hoss were ready to do some damage to their little
brother, as they both blamed him for getting them into trouble.
However, with Pa and Hop Sing keeping an eye on them, they knew that
revenge would have to wait. The boys spent the rest of the afternoon
cleaning up the kitchen and then they planned to head for the bath
house, in order to clean up themselves. A new family had moved into
the area and they were coming over to have dinner with the
Cartwright's, that evening.
Hop Sing heated up some water for the boys and they were going to
take a bath, in age order, eldest first.
Once Adam and Hoss were clean and dry, they called out to Joe, to
come and take his turn. The boy approached the bath house, warily,
not sure if his brothers had forgiven him, or not, but all seemed
okay, and so he removed his dirty clothes and stepped in the tub.
Like most ten year olds, Joe was not that keen on bathing and so he
quickly washed up and was soon pulling on his clean clothes. As he
went to leave the bath house, he found out that his brothers hadn't
forgiven him; they had rigged up a bucket of muddy water over the
bath house door and Joe was soaked to the skin. He stripped off his
wet clothes and ran inside the house, butt naked, only to find that
their guests had already arrived and were seated in the main room.
The female members of the Armstrong family, Mrs Armstrong and her
daughter, Lizzie, both screamed at the sight of Joe's naked form and
Mr Armstrong rose from his chair and demanded that the boy be
horsewhipped.
Ben was not about to do anything quite so violent, but he did apply
the palm of his large hand to Joe's little bottom, a couple of
times,
in order to hasten the boy's ascent of the stairs.
Adam and Hoss, with the aid of Ben's brandy, managed to calm down
their guests and the meal was able to proceed. However, Joe was
absent, as his father refused to allow him to join the rest of the
family, even when his body was covered by his nightshirt. Hop Sing
took Joe's supper up to his room, on a tray.
Once their guests had left, Ben called Joe downstairs, and he warned
all three of his sons that there were to be no more reprisals. He
made them all apologise to each other, and promise to try to get on.
Once all three boys were settled into bed, Ben sat down to enjoy a
nightcap. The brandy relaxed him and he went to bed, feeling that
things were likely to be a bit calmer on the ranch, from now on.
However, he had reckoned without the revenge of the racoon, but
that's another story !!!
THE END
Little Joe forever
Lynne