The Wonder of Charlie Anne Read Free Page B

says Thomas. “Charlie Anne can show Peter.” Thomas is already on his second piece of pie. Food must run right through his belly, because he eats more than anyone and looks like a hickory stick. “I have to go get those traps.”
    Thomas and our neighbors, the Thatcher boys, trap on a spot upriver where I am not allowed to go. They trap otter and beaver, and I hate them for all the suffering.
    “Show Peter,” Papa tells Thomas, “and you can get the traps tomorrow before we go.”
    “And, Peter, I want you to keep a chart while I’m gone. Measure the corn and watch how high it is getting, week by week. I’ll be interested to see that when I get home. And also how much milk Anna May is giving. I want you to keep track, okay?”
    I look over at Papa. “But I do not want to do all the cooking and washing and ironing and everything. I hate inside chores. I know Anna May better than anyone. She’d give us more milk if I milked her.”
    Ivy giggles. Mirabel clears her throat. Her frown is very big. Papa keeps running his hand through his hair. He is looking all worn out. “Only until I get back,” he says softly.
    I give him my most terrible mad look. We’ll just see about that.
    After breakfast the next morning, Ivy gets up from the table and says she has to go to the privy awful bad. She said this after lunch yesterday and the day before.
    “You get back here,” I tell her.
    “Shush,” Papa says.
    “But she never helps or anything,” I tell him. “How many times does one person have to pee?”
    “Charlie Anne,” he says, “today is not the day for fighting.”
    I turn and face him. “You cannot leave me with her. I hate her, I really do.”
    “Charlie Anne,” says Papa, his voice getting allsharp. “Ivy is missing Mama, too. It is hard on everyone. You are not the only one.” He gives me his most exasperated-with-Charlie Anne look, and I give him the one I save for only Ivy. Then he walks away and goes out to the barn to check on Thomas and Peter, and I shove my hands into the dishpan and hurry before the soap starts to sting.
    When I am done, Mirabel says it is time to pack the lunch for Papa and Thomas. I go get the big basket Mama used to bring on picnics, where she would bring
Huckleberry Finn
and read to us while we ate cucumber sandwiches. Even Ivy was happy then. I would try and follow Mama’s finger along while she read, but the letters would muddle together, and she would say it was all right, everything takes time.
    I fill up the basket with biscuits and pie and baked potatoes and things that will keep overnight. When I go out to the barn to get the last of the apples from the apple barrel, Thomas is coming down the hill with the traps.
    “You better not put them where Birdie can get them,” I say.
    He rolls his eyes. “What do you think, Charlie Anne, I don’t have any sense at all?”
    Then he dumps the traps in his wooden box, and they clang so loud Anna May jumps. Thomas hooks the latch shut and I watch to make sure he snaps it tight.
    *    *    *
    I give Anna May a real good look. She is lonely. I named her newest calf Belle, and now that calf is almost grown and living with Old Mr. Jolly across the road. I keep an eye on his fields to make sure he is treating her right, see if she’s getting too skinny. Sometimes I go over and ask Old Mr. Jolly if he is treating her right. He tells me, “She is a cow, Charlie Anne.” I tell him, “She is a good cow and her name is Belle and you better take good care of her, or else.” He tells me I better mind my manners and stop telling him what to do or he will tell my papa that I am not respecting my elders.
    We’ll just see about that. I tell on Old Mr. Jolly.
    Papa says Old Mr. Jolly has been lonely since his wife died all those years ago. But maybe he’ll cheer up because he is getting a new wife, a cousin of the wife he buried. She is from Mississippi. I tell Papa I do not care about a new wife. Old Mr. Jolly better be good