Sugar Plums for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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СКАЧАТЬ stuff they have at the senior center up by Miles City. This here is ballet. Who around here wants to learn ballet? You have to wear tights.”

      “Or a tutu,” another old man added. “Pink fluffy stuff.”

      “It isn’t decent, if you ask me,” still another man muttered. “Don’t know where she’ll buy all that netting around here anyway.”

      “The store here started carrying bug netting since the mosquitoes were so bad over the summer. They still have some left. Maybe she could use that,” the first old man offered.

      “She can’t use bug netting,” Charley said. “Not for ballet. Besides, she probably wants it to be pink, and that bug netting is black.”

      “Well, of course it’s black,” another old man said. “Mosquitoes don’t care if it’s some fancy color.”

      “Netting is the least of her worries. She isn’t going to have any students, so she won’t need any netting,” Jacob finally said.

      There was a moment’s silence.

      “Maybe she will take up baking—to keep herself busy if she doesn’t have any students,” Charley offered. “I heard she was trying to make some kind of cookies.”

      “They burnt,” another man said mournfully. “The smoke came clear over here. I went over and asked if maybe a pie would be easier to bake.”

      “She’s not going to be making pies. She’s going to go around trying to change the people of Dry Creek into something we’re not. It’s like trying to turn a pig into a silk purse. I say just let a pig be a pig—the way God intended,” Jacob said.

      Judd looked down at Amanda. She’d stopped holding on to his pants leg and was listening intently to the men. He was glad she was listening even if she wasn’t talking yet. In the three months that Judd had been taking care of the two kids, Amanda occasionally whispered something to her brother, but she never said anything to anyone else, not even Judd.

      Amanda leaned over to whisper in Bobby’s ear now.

      The boy smiled and nodded. “Yeah, she is awfully pretty.”

      Bobby looked up at the men. “Amanda thinks the woman looks like our mama.”

      Judd’s breath caught. Both kids had stopped talking about their mother a month ago. Barbara was his second cousin, but Judd hadn’t known her until she showed up on his doorstep one morning. She’d paid an agency to find him because she wanted to ask him to take care of her kids while she got settled in a place. She was on the run from an abusive husband and had the court papers to prove it.

      Judd had refused Barbara’s request at first. Sheer disbelief had cleared his mind of anything else. Judd had never known his mother, and the uncle who had raised him had been more interested in having a hired hand that he didn’t need to pay than in parenting an orphan. The stray dog Judd had taken in earlier in the summer probably knew more about family life than Judd did. Judd wasn’t someone anyone had ever thought to leave kids with before this. And one look at the kids showed him that they were still in the napping years.

      “You must have taken care of little ones before—” Barbara had said.

      “Not unless they had four feet and a tail,” Judd told her firmly. He’d nursed calves and stray dogs and even a pony or two. But kids? Never.

      No, Judd wasn’t the one his cousin needed. “You’ll need to find someone else. Believe me, it’s best.”

      “But—” Barbara said and then swallowed.

      Judd didn’t like the look of desperation he saw in her eyes.

      “You’re our only family,” she finally finished.

      Judd figured she probably had that about right. The Bowman family tree had always been more of a stump than anything. Ever since his uncle had died, Judd had thought he was the last of the line.

      Still, he hesitated.

      He thought of suggesting she turn to the state for help, but he knew what kind of trouble that could get her into. Once children were in the state system, it wasn’t all that easy to get them out again, and he could see by the way she kept looking at the kids that she loved them.

      He might not know much about a mother’s love himself, but he could at least recognize it when he saw it.

      “Maybe you could get a babysitter,” Judd finally offered. “Some nice grandmother or something.”

      “You know someone like that?”

      Judd had to admit he didn’t. He’d only moved to Dry Creek this past spring. He’d been working long and hard plowing and then seeding the alfalfa and wheat crops. He hadn’t taken time to get to know any of his neighbors yet.

      He wished now that he had accepted one of the invitations to church he’d received since he’d been here. An older woman, Mrs. Hargrove, had even driven out to the ranch one day and invited him. She’d looked so friendly he’d almost promised to go, but he didn’t.

      What would a man like him do in church anyway? He wouldn’t know when to kneel or when to sing or when to bow his head. No, church wasn’t for him.

      Now he wished he had gone to church anyway, even if he’d made a fool of himself doing so. Mrs. Hargrove would probably help someone who went to her church. She wasn’t likely to help a stranger though. Who would be?

      “Maybe we could put an ad in the paper.”

      Barbara just looked at him. “We don’t have time for that.”

      Judd had to admit she was right.

      “Besides, this is something big—the kind of thing family members do to help each other,” Barbara said with such conviction that Judd believed her.

      Not that he was an expert on what family members did to help each other. He couldn’t remember his uncle ever doing him a kindness, and the man was the only family Judd had ever known. His uncle had lost all contact with his cousin who was Barbara’s father.

      He had to admit he had been excited at first when Barbara had come to his doorstep. It was nice to think he had family somewhere in this world.

      He looked over at the kids and saw that they were sitting still as stones. Kids shouldn’t be so quiet.

      “Are they trained?” he asked.

      Barbara looked at him blankly for a moment. “You mean potty-trained?”

      He nodded.

      “Of course! Amanda here is five years old. And Bobby is six. They practically take care of themselves.”

      Barbara didn’t pause before she continued. “And it might only be for a few days. Just enough time for me to drive down to Denver and check out that women’s shelter. I want to be sure they’ll take us before I drag the kids all that way.”

      Barbara had arrived in an old car that had seen better days, but it had gotten her here, so Judd figured it would get her to Denver.

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