"The Stormy Night"
It was a sunny bright morning, the birds in a nest nearby tree where Joe's room is, they were chattering happily, but for Joe it wasn't a wonderful day. In fact he was very sick, sneezing and coughing, feeling feverish. Adam walked into his room, concerned seeing his brother ill, was about to leave and decided to get something to make Joe warm when Adam saw his wet clothes in the closet, he asked, "Joe, why is your clothes all wet?"
"Wet? Well, uh, maybe HopSing forgot to dry them yesterday and put them back in the closet, we should uh, have Pa talk to him about forgetting such a thing." Joe stumbled on his words nervously.
Adam took the chair that was by the window and sat down near Joe's bed, looked at him, crossed his arms asked, "HopSing didn't do any laundry yesterday, he never would put wet clothes that isn't ready to be placed back in the closet like that, now I thought I heard you come in late last night, but I decided to wait until morning before Pa would see you, he was sleeping like a log, I was up reading in bed, now is there anything you would like to tell me?"
Joe gulped, coughed some more, answered, "Well Adam, uh you see, uh the fellows and I at school decided to play hooky today when we found out yesterday that the circus was coming to Virginia City. Miss Jones was in a good mood for a change and over heard her telling one of the girls that she's taking us to there. Earlier I wrote a note that me and my buddies were sick and couldn't come in today. We had to break in the schoolhouse and try to retrieve that note before she comes in the morning, I was able to get that note but everything went from bad to worse. That Johnny decided to scare us, by doing that he woke up the caretaker, you know, Sam the ex slave that lives there? Johnny pretended to wear a sheet pretending to be a ghost, and Sam got scared ran out of the building, while me, Johnny and Hank followed out of there, the rain got us, it was thundering like crazy, that's how I got my clothes wet. I wanted to hide my clothes and hopeful they would get dry. Now I wish I never even thought about playing hooky, Miss Jones will find out for sure, she will probably punish me by doing something awful."
Adam listened as he took this all in, replied, "Well Joe, you shouldn't have tried that prank at all, now you got yourself badly sick with a cold, and you'll be in bed all day, not able to go to school and miss the circus."
"Adam, are you going to tell Pa abouy this?" Joe asked, gave a big sneeze.
"I'm going to leave it up to you Joe, Pa is heading this way, I can hear him, he'll wonder why you didn't come down to breakfast." Adam shook his head and walked out of the room.
Ben came in a few minutes, putting his hand on Joe's forehead, telling him that Doc Martin will be on his way when he sends Hoss to fetch him here. Joe nervously thought about what Adam said to him, decided to confess and told him everything, now as he finished, Joe shamefully looked up at Ben and asked, "Pa, are you angry with me? I'm sorry about what I did, I should never have did this, you must hate me very much?"
"Son, I'm glad you told me the truth, but I'm disappointed in you, I'm going over to the school and tell Miss Jones what happened, I was going you to take to the circus this Saturday which they will still be here, but now you'll have chores to do instead." Ben reproached Joe, but patted him on the shoulder and left the room.
Later Adam came with his breakfast and made sure that Joe ate it that HopSing prepared, he smiled at Joe, said, "Joe, I'm proud of you."
Joe smiled back, replied, "Oh Adam you're the greatest brother."
The End