By
Lynne C.
"Little Joe, answer me, boy. I know you're out here, somewhere, so
I'm
gonna find ya, sooner or later. And I'm on a pretty short fuse, after
lookin' fer ya, fer nigh on two days, so it'd make things a heck of a
lot easier, iffen ya jest show yourself, right now."
Hoss was tired and hungry. He'd ridden into the Ponderosa yard, a
couple of hours earlier, intending to have a hot meal and change his
clothes, before heading out, again, to continue the search for his
little brother. But a neighbour, who was waiting at the house, told
him that Joe had been spotted out at the old Appleton place. So, Hoss
just stayed at the Ponderosa, long enough, to saddle up a fresh horse,
and then he rode out to check if the information was true.
Little Joe was also tired and hungry and on top of that he was scared,
too. He couldn't recall a time when he'd ever been frightened of any
of his family, least of all Hoss, but he supposed there was always a
first time, and this was it.
`He's gonna kill me, I know he is,' thought the boy. `It's only a
matter of time, before he finds me, but I'm just too tired to run
anymore.'
The trouble first began, a few days earlier. Hoss and Little Joe were
the only Cartwrights on the Ponderosa, as Ben and Adam were on a horse
buying trip.
The whole time they'd been away, Joe had been giving Hoss a hard time.
"It's not fair, Pa said I could go on the next buying trip and then
he
changed his mind."
"Yeah, he did say you could go, but only iffen your grades were okay,
as it meant you missin' some school," said Hoss, trying to keep his
patience with his little brother. "And, when it was time ta go, they
weren't up ta scratch, so Pa said no to the trip. You know all this,
so I don't know why we havta keep goin' over it. Pa said you were ta
do all your chores, work hard at the schoolbooks and mind me, and, so
far, you ain't managed ta do any of them three things. If things don't
start improvin', young `un, I'm gonna be takin' you fer a trip over ma
knee, or I might havta be tellin' Pa how you've bin behavin', while
he's bin away."
"Great, so you're gonna start being as bad as Adam is, are you? Always
on my back and threatening to tell Pa, about everything I do, or don't
do. I never thought you'd be like Adam, Hoss. I thought you and me
were friends, buddies; now you're acting like a grown up, like you and
me are enemies."
"I ain't your enemy, Little Joe, I could never be that, but Pa's left
me in charge around here, and that means I gotta make sure you do the
things that Pa wants ya to do. Iffen I don't, then I'm gonna be in
trouble. You don't want that to happen, do ya?"
Joe could see Hoss' point, but was too stubborn to admit that he
could, and so said nothing.
Hoss sighed, patted his little brother on the back, and returned to
his chores.
The next morning, Little Joe headed off for school, as normal, but he
didn't go. Instead, he met up with his two friends, Mitch and Seth,
and the three boys went for a long ride, and then cooled off, by
having a swim in the lake, and doing some fishing.
They then began to ride home, and as they did so, it started to rain.
Joe's house was the closest, and as Joe knew that Hoss would not be
returning home, until suppertime, he felt it was safe for them to take
shelter in the barn.
Once inside, they dried themselves off, with a horse blanket, and then
flopped down in a fresh pile of straw.
"This has gotta be better than being in school, listening to ole
Jonesy droning on, all day," said Joe. "I could get real used
to this
kinda life. I wish Pa would let me leave school. After all, I wanna be
a top wrangler, and I sure can't learn those skills in a classroom."
"Well, if you can find out how to make your Pa let you leave, Joe,
then p'raps you can get him to work on mine," said Mitch. "I'd
love to
leave school, too."
"You two don't stand a chance of getting your Pa's to change their
minds," said Seth, who, at fourteen was two years older than Joe and
Mitch. "And, anyway, if you did leave school, then you'd havta go to
work full time, so you still wouldn't be able to spend your days doing
nothing. I'm happy to stay at school, a while longer, and just play
truant."
"Yeah, but you can't do that, too often, else notes start being sent
home, and you get busted," said Mitch.
"You sure do, right on the butt," said Joe, laughing.
The boys stayed in the barn, for quite a while, practising their
wrestling moves on each other, and talking about the girls, at school.
Seth was rather sweet on Sara, but Mitch and Joe, who regarded her as
one of the guys, being that they started school together, couldn't
understand the attraction.
"She's a nice enough girl," said Joe. "But I know how tough
she can
be. If you start courting her and then let her down, she's likely to
put you in a headlock."
"She might do that to you kids, but with me she acts so much more
grown up," said Seth.
"She might act grown up, but she's still only twelve and you'd better
remember that," said Mitch. "Try anything with her and her Daddy
will
be after you with a shotgun."
"As if I would," said Seth. "I know we are far too young
to be
thinking about marriage, but I really do like her, a lot."
Seth sat down on a bale of hay and produced several rather squashed
cigars from out of his jacket pocket.
"Where did ya get those from?" asked Mitch.
"My Ma's brother and his wife had a new baby, a couple of weeks ago,
and when we went to see it, Uncle Steve was handing `em out to
everyone, from a large box he had in his study. When no one was
looking, I went and helped myself to a few, they're a real smooth smoke."
"You've smoked some, already?" asked Joe, and Seth nodded.
"Sure have, and now I wanna share `em with my buddies, here you go,"
and Seth offered one to Mitch and Joe.
Neither boy was that sure about trying the cigars, but knew that Seth
would tease them, if they refused, and most likely tell the other boys
at school, that they were acting like babies, so they accepted.
All three lit up, and soon, both Mitch and Joe were choking. Seth was
having trouble, too, but managed to control his cough, as he wanted to
appear to be in control, in front of the younger boys.
"Just take it easy, fellas, and you'll soon get the hang of it," he said.
Both the boys tried, for a while longer, but then Mitch started to
feel sick, and he suddenly clutched his stomach, and threw up.
Both Seth and Joe jumped up off the hay bale, in order to put some
distance between them and Mitch, and so neither of them noticed that
Mitch had dropped the cigar onto the floor of the barn.
"Ugh, that was disgusting, Mitch," said Joe. "What on earth
have you
bin eating?"
"Sorry, fellas," said Mitch, wiping his sleeve across his mouth,
and
straightening up. "Can you get me a drink of water, please Joe, that
was foul."
Joe ran out to the water trough to fetch some water, and took the
opportunity to dispose of his cigar.
Once Mitch was feeling a bit better, he and Seth headed for home.
It was now past the time that Joe would have been returning from
school, so he retrieved his horse from the back of the barn, and rode
into the yard, making enough noise to alert Hop Sing that he was back.
He went into the house and, as usual, Hop Sing presented him with a
glass of milk and some cookies.
"Have snack, little boy, then get to chores, before Mistah Hoss get
home. Do not make him mad. Mistah Hoss doing his best to get things
right for fatha, little boy should help brother."
Joe rolled his eyes, earning himself a swat on the backside from the
towel, which Hop Sing held, in his hand.
"Hop Sing mean it, Little Joe, you help Mistah Hoss."
"Okay, I will," said Joe, who had a healthy respect for Hop Sing,
knowing that the cook could do a fair amount of damage to a little
boy's bottom, with a wooden spoon, if he was mad enough.
The boy was enjoying his snack, when suddenly he heard one of the
ranch hands, yelling, out in the yard.
"Quick, come help, the barn's on fire."
Several men were already back from their day's work and they soon
formed a chain, from the water trough, to the barn, and doused the
fire with buckets of water. Fortunately, it had been spotted, before
it got too great a hold on the building, and so there wasn't too much
damage done.
Joe did try to help, but Hop Sing refused to let him.
"There enough men to put out fire, little boy stay away," he
said, so
Joe stood on the porch, until the area was declared safe.
The hands stood around discussing the fire.
"Can't think how it started," said Dave. "It's daytime,
so there's no
lanterns lit, and the barn's been empty all day, so what caused it?"
"We'll havta check through the burnt area, and see if we can come
up
with anything," said Charlie. "Mr Cartwright's gonna want a full
report, when he gets back."
As they talked, Joe was listening, and a sick feeling came over him,
as he realised that it must have been Mitch's cigar.
Rather than wait around to see what the hands discovered, Joe decided
to put some distance between him and the house. His horse was still
saddled up, so he mounted up and rode out of the yard, with Hop Sing's
words ringing in his ears.
"Come back, little boy, you do chores, like Hop Sing tell you."
Joe stayed away, all night, and by the next day, he found himself out
at the Appleton spread. His horse had come up lame, with a stone
bruise, so he decided to rest there, for a while, until Shadow was fit
to ride again.
He searched through the uninhabited house and outbuildings for some
food, but found nothing. Eventually, tiredness took over, and he fell
asleep, only waking up when he heard Hoss calling him.
Hoss found Shadow in the barn and could see that the pony had a sore leg.
"Rest easy, boy, and I'll go find your master."
Hoss eventually tracked Joe down, and the boy stood in front of his
big brother, tears rolling down his cheeks.
"I'm really, really sorry, Hoss," he said. "I guess I was
just mad
about Pa not taking me on the trip, so I played hooky, and then it
started raining, so we took shelter in the barn, and Mitch was sick
and that's when he must've dropped the cigar. Did the fire do a lot of
damage? Pa's gonna kill me, that is if you don't first."
Hoss listened to what Joe had to say, and a look of bewilderment came
over his face.
"I'm real mad at ya for runnin' off like ya did, and fer not doin'
yer
chores, but I knew nothin' `bout ya playin' hooky and smokin' in the
barn. The fire was started, by a stray spark, from the bunkhouse
chimney. It blew in through the open window and landed in a pile of
straw, which was soon ablaze. The boys did find a cigar butt, in
another part of the barn, but that didn't cause the fire. Although,
what in tarnation were ya doin', Joseph, smokin' in the barn? For a
start ya ain't allowed to smoke and you know, full well, that no one
ever smokes in a barn, it's far too dangerous. Come on, let's get you
home, and I can call off the search. We've bin worried clear outta our
minds about you."
Joe was too tired and hungry to say anymore, so allowed Hoss to lift
him up on Chubb and they rode home, leading Shadow.
As they entered the yard, Joe discovered that Ben and Adam were now
home, and they came running out of the house, to greet Joe and Hoss.
"Thank goodness you found him," said Ben, lifting Joe down off
Chubb.
"Adam and I got back just a little while ago, and Frank told us that
Joe was missing and you'd gone over to the Appleton place. What were
you thinking of, son? Running off like that was just plain stupid."
Ben could see that Joe was tired, so he helped him into the house and
Hop Sing prepared some food for him. Ben then insisted that Joe went
to bed, and for once, the boy didn't argue against this suggestion.
After he'd gone upstairs, Ben asked Hoss to explain what had been
going on.
Hoss was reluctant to tell his father the whole story, but felt he had
to, and so he told Ben how Joe had run away, after thinking that it
was him and his friends, who had set fire to the barn.
"Why, the little devil," said Ben, once he knew all the facts.
"Playing hooky and smoking, just you wait until he wakes up; he and
I
are going to be having a very necessary talk."
"Not that I'm sayin' he don't deserve a hidin', Pa, but he's bin
punishin' himself, sure enough, these past twenty four hours. He's
been out all alone, with no food and no sleep, worryin' hisself into a
right state, thinkin' he was responsible for the fire."
"That's as maybe, Hoss," said Ben. "But it's no more than
he deserves,
after all his carelessness and disobedience. At least it proves that
he knew he was in the wrong, if he was worrying about it."
Ben allowed Joe to sleep, for a couple of hours, then he went upstairs
and administered the hiding that Joe knew he was due for.
Later, Little Joe returned to the main room and apologised to Hoss for
all the trouble he'd caused. Hoss, being the generous young man he
was, very quickly forgave his little brother and once more, peace was
restored to the Ponderosa. But Hoss was very grateful that it was a
long time before he had to be in charge of the ranch and his little
brother, again.
THE END
Little Joe forever
Lynne
April 5th 2006