Come Home

Battle the Heat (ch 5)

Chapter Five


Battle the Heat          


         Sis is strong, but she still hadn't grown very tall. She has not had to go to the hospital or doctor in the two years we have lived here. She still spent a lot of time alone.


         Slowly the beautiful house begins to change. The color of the paint is beginning to fade. It's not chipping. It is like the house is transforming into its former state. The flower garden and vegetables were dying. They were being well cared for everyday by my mother and sisters, but they were still withering away. In the time we had been here this time, the house seemed to know that we were not going anywhere.


         The strange thing was that Less (the Baby) was not behaving like most toddlers. He would rarely cries, and was already walking wobbly along. He was laughing most of the time. Most of the time he is hidden behind things in the house playing.


         So one day he had not made an appearance for about an hour, we went looking. We normally hear him playing or see him in passing, but today was frightening. Mom's only son, our only brother, was missing. A baby gone. He is a smart baby, yet barely past being an infant.


         Dad runs to the river bank. Surely, he hasn't found the water. He hasn't fallen into the current. It was the time of year when the water ran very swift. If Less had fallen in an hour ago, he would be in the next county. I am getting very scared. Mom s cowers the house. She starts in our bedroom where all the toys are. Then taking the place a part from the forbidden up stairs, and every room down stairs. She turns over couches, chairs, and turns up blankets. Bub was no where to be found. This brings the water back to our thoughts. Was he gone forever?


         This could not be the case. I take Sis and Rose. "Come!"


         "Where are we going?" Asks Rose crying from the fear of loosing a brother.


         "We will walk up the road toward Howard's house. He may have followed Blunder somewhere, and just not find his way back." I explain. I am hoping that I was right.


         We walk with the worst thoughts in our heads. What would Less do if he cave across a Copperhead snake? He would probably try to pick it up and play with it like a toy. This thought made me almost run leaving my sisters behind.


         "What?" I ask.


         "We did not say anything." one of my sisters explain. Beginning to speak again, I stop them. "Sh....I hear something!" I say trying to locate a voice. I walk closer and closer to the hidden entrance of the old grave yard. "Momma!" I hear a small voice. I keep walking in to the opening. My sisters follow. I still don't know why, but pass the angel. There Less was sitting on the grave of Sara smiling and playing with a butterfly.


         "Less!" I yell running toward him. "You are not supposed to leave the house." I pick him up, but had to place him on the ground. My sisters were attacking us with hugs of concern. I took one hand and Rose too the other. We walking home singing trying to not think of our baby brother playing on Sara's grave.


                   When we brought Less home, Mom ran up and scooped him up into his arms. "Go tell you dad that we have found him." Off Rose went to inform Dad.


         "Where were you young man?" Mom asks knowing that we would have to be the ones to answer for him.


         Not wanting to worry her, I scanned my mind for an answer that would be true but not so frightening. "He was up the road. I guess that he just wanted to explore." Sis was looking up at me. I have told her a million times how important that it is that we never lie. Now she is looking at me, and I can just look back at her like a deer in the head lights. I will have to worry about explaining my actions to her later. Right now I am keeping the peace between Mom and Dad. If she gets afraid to stay here, she will want to leave. Dad, Of course, will not. After all there had not been any disturbances since we moved back into the house. What do we have to worry about? We would soon enough have the answer.


         Mom put a leash on my brother when she was busy. If he got bored, she had us to take him out to play with us. We were always hold on to the leash. There were times that he did not mind the restrictions. Other times he just cry out to be allow to do his own thing. He was pretty happy outside, but in the house he did not want to be tied to that rope. So he was only on it when mom had to use both her arms to work or cook. Other than that my baby brother was either out side with us on his leash or in my mother's arms. There she knew that he was safe and at home.


         It was only a weak after the visit to Sara's resting place, that she started to visit us looking out our window. One night I see her move. She walked to the bed where Mom, Dad, and Less lay sleeping. I think that I see her brush his fine hair from his forehead. Then my mom begins to wake. Sara disappears.


         "John," Mom shakes dad. "John."


         "Huh" Dad replies being not quite awake.


         "The baby is sick."


         "What."


         "He is burning up." She explains in a worried voice.


         Dad sits up and touches the forehead of my sleeping brother. He goes to the stove, puts more coal on the fire, and tells mom to make sure to keep him wrapped up. My parents believe that if you roll up in covers, you could sweat a fever. I see the commotion through the door that separates our rooms. I lay quietly praying for my only brother. Then I get up, walk to my dresser, and clench my Bible to my chest. This is the first time I had slept with it in a long time. I did not think that I would have to again.


         It was a long night. Day brakes. Mom is fixing us breakfast. Everyone is still a sleep. I see that we were only going to have eggs to eat this morning.


         "Mom, how is Less?"


         "He is not hot any more, but he can not go out today. He probably has a cold, and I don't want it to get worse." The girls come running into the kitchen. "Sh!" she tells them. "Your dad and the baby are still sleeping."


         We sit there well behaved for hyper little girls, but we respected our parents.


         "Do you girls think that you can do, Mom, a favor?"


         "Yea," we all said at the same time. We were hoping that she would send us on a important mission like go two miles to our neighbors to borrow the phone, or maybe she is going to send us to pick berries for tonight's supper.


         "Can you play together nice and quite so that I can take a nap. It had been a very long and frightful night."


         I remembered the night. "Sure." Then I ask, "Can we play on the river bank?" I was hoping that she would allow us to to keep the house quite.


                   "There is no one that can save you if you fall in the water. No!" She answered.


         So we went to our bedroom. This time we were aloud to shut the door. We three played well into the evening. Mom came in and asked us to eat as she lit a lamp in our room.


         Less ate just as much as we did. We were all sure that he had beaten the illness. "It must have been one of those twenty four hours things." Mom told us.


         After dinner, Mom aloud Less to play with us. We played in the dim light of the oil lamp. Less way my baby one time, the the next he was the child of Rose. Sis stayed babysitter. We loved playing like this. We admired our parents, and when we played we got to be them for a little while. Rose and I would take turns wearing our mother's dress and hills. We would dress Less differently too. Rose and I definitely had different styles. Sometimes Rose made him into her daughter. She put one of Sis' old pink dresses on him, and then she put his hair in a little pony tail on the top of his head. If Dad caught us with his son dressed this feminine, we would truly get the switch (a spanking with a limb off a Willow Tree).


         Mom comes in to the room about ten o’clock. She lifts Less onto her hip. "Don't you all have enough sisters to play with?" She asks as she turns Less back from our baby girl into her only son. She blows out the lamp. "Go to sleep. I will leave the door open. " She leans over each of us and kisses us. "Good night, I love you."


                   My sisters slept through the night, but I was a waken with the sound of bed springs rocking. Mom was at the end of her bed with my brother all wrapped in blankets again. Dad was stoking the fire. "John, His fever is 103. We need to get him to a doctor."


         Dad looks at the glass thermometer. "Yea, he is hot." I can not see my father's face, but he sounds worried. It has to be bad for dad to react with emotion. "Call your mother and ask if she and your sister can give you a ride to Dr. Pride's office."


         Mom felt better that she was going to take the child to see Dr. Pride. Dr. Pride had delivered all her children, and was her doctor for about twenty years. He had saved more children than any other doctor in the state. Less went to sleep still hot, but mom had to sleep while she could. She pulled Less, blankets and all, close to her chest as she lay back on the bed to sweat right along with him.


         About five thirty, I felt a tug on my cover. "Sissy, Sissy." It was Less looking as healthy as he ever did. "Come play." He says. Everyone else is still sleeping. So I go over to the corner and grab a few toy cars to keep us occupied until Mom and Dad wakes up.


         Mom comes running into the room at 7:15 am. "Have" she begins. "There you are. Don't run off like that. You scared me to death." She said. Less smiles up at her, but she looks at me. "Please, wake me when he gets up. You can play. I just don't want to have another fright like this one. OK?"


         I agreed. After we ate our morning oats, mom does ask me and Rose to go to the neighbor's to call our grandmother. We liked to feel responsible, but not really the neighbors.


                   We arrived at Bill and Ted's house. They were brothers that lived together. Both of them were easily in their sixties. The house was not painted. Old cars and many dogs filled their yard. Some of the dogs were not so friendly. Ted always ran out and put them in an old building when we need to use the phone or came up with dad for well water. This time Ted did not see us coming, and Butch (the most hateful dog on the planet) had us treed near an old door less car.


         "Ted," I scream. Rose however picks a old hub cap and hits Butch square in the nose. He went running along with his cohorts Rex and Shane.


         When Ted came out of the house, the dogs had all ready run into the barn. I wonder how Ted red horse like the company of three crazy old dogs. The always chased the horse around the pasture, and Butch once bit her.          


                   Ted opens the screen door with a loud squeak. "Hey, girls," He smiles showing his dirty teeth. I would not judge that from other people, but I didn't like or trust these 'good ole boys'. There was something about the way they looked at me and Rose.


         "Come on in," he says as he moves back from the door. Rose walks in first. When I followed, I felt Ted run his hand down my back. I got chills of horror. I could not be sure that he had done this on purpose, and if I told my dad nothing would save Ted innocent or guilty.


         "Can we use your phone?" I ask still looking past Ted to Bill. "Less has been sick, and we need to get him to the doctor."


         "Sure," Ted answers. He stands between my sister and myself. He guides me to the phone. When I did not pick the receiver up, he knew that I did not want him there while I made the call.          








                   


         








         





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