Summary:  A plea for help turns into an urgent ride home, and a situation no one foresaw.

Rating:  K (1,615 words)

Battle for the Ponderosa (aka Springtime Chaos)

Ben Cartwright smiled as he and his two oldest sons mounted their horses to head for their home, The Ponderosa. For early April, the weather was unseasonably warm and in wanting to spare their horses that had yet to begin shedding their winter coats from working up an unnecessary sweat, Ben insisted in keeping them to a walk.

The proud father listened as his middle son discussed his day; told how Adam helped him with his math problems.

“Them numbers Mr. Dowlrimple wrote on the board didn’t make no sense, but when Adam told me ta think about them bein’ cattle, well… I didn’t have no trouble comin’ up with the right answer,” seven year old Hoss explained.

“I’m sure your teacher was pleased with your results,” Ben smiled.

“He gave me an A- on my paper… Ya want ta see it?”

“When we get home, I’d be happy to see your paper, son.”

“Good… Ya think Hop Sing has a cookie or two to reward me for my hard work?”

“I’m sure Hop Sing will have a batch of cookies for you.” Ben thought on the simple pleasures a man could enjoy; riding home with his two sons, and how some day, he would be riding home with all three of his sons. “How about you Adam?”

“I did okay today…”

“Okay?” The boy was usually very verbose in his description of his day at school. “That doesn’t sound like you. Did something happen?”

“No.”

“That ain’t right Adam. Mr. Dowlrimple…”

“Shut up Hoss!”

“Adam, that’s no way to speak to your brother.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Adam stared across to where his brother rode on the other side of their father. His apology to his brother was less than sincere, “Sorry Hoss.”

“Sounds to me like something happened at school. Would you care to explain?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s not what I’m asking, Adam.”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“If you don’t, I will,” Hoss added.

“Hoss…” Adam growled.

“Weren’t your fault that Betsy wrote that note and that Abigail ratted you out to the teacher.”

“What about this note?” When Adam didn’t answer, Ben added, “Do I need to go and ask Mr. Dowlrimple?”

Realizing he had no other choice, Adam explained, “She wanted me to ask her to the Spring Dance at the end of next month.”

“That ain’t all.” Hoss added, “She wrote where she’d let him kiss her if he did.”

“And how do you know this?” Ben raised an eyebrow in response to his middle son.

“That’s what Abigail said when she told the teacher about the note,” Hoss innocently explained.

“I’m not taking any girl to any dance. Don’t care about no dance, either,” Adam angrily mumbled.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief, his son was only soon to be fourteen years old and he wasn’t ready to have that talk with his son, not yet.

*****

All three Cartwrights looked ahead upon hearing the sounds of a rider approaching fast.

“MR. CARTWRIGHT!” the rider yelled. “Ya gotta get home!”

“What’s wrong?!” Ben worriedly asked as the rider halted his horse.

“I don’t know, there’s all sorts of yelling and screaming coming from the house.”

“Adam, take care of Hoss.” Ben kicked Buck into a mad gallop.

*****

Later the worried husband and father would regret the mistreatment of his horse as he urged the animal to a greater speed. Upon arriving in the yard, he roughly hauled on the reins to the bit in the horse’s mouth, hauling it to a stop.

The family had only moved into the majestic structure of their new home the month before. Marie was still busy putting everything in its place and then re-deciding where it should go; another reason Ben was thankful to ride into town to accompany his two oldest sons from school. But now Ben worried, having left his wife and mother of his youngest son home alone; he fear bandits had entered their home.

Slowly Ben drew his gun from his holster as fear drove him to run to the house in hopes of surprising any perpetrators. Quietly he stepped upon the wooden entryway and slipped open the door latch. Ben’s stomach plummeted at the sight of the devastation in the great room. The room looked worse than the cabin the father had shared with his two sons had ever looked. Even after Ben returned home with a new wife and finally, after Joe’s birth, their little cabin had never looked as bad as what appeared before his eyes.

“Mr. Cartwright,” Hop Sing demanded as he stepped from the dining room area, covered in what had been a white powder, and now soaked into his clothes. “I quit! I go back China!”

“Hop Sing, please? What happened?” Ben slipped his gun back into his holster.

“Hop Sing work hard. Hop Sing clean house. Hop Sing cook good food. Hop Sing no work like this!”

“Hop Sing, you’ve always done a good job, but please… what happened? Where’s Marie? Where’s Joseph?”

“You deal with mess!”

Grabbing the smaller man by his upper arm and squeezing, Ben demanded, “Where are my wife and my son?”

“They there,” Hop Sing pointed.

Ben hurried to find his family.

*****

Adam, Hoss, and the ranch hand entered the yard to find the house strangely quiet. The worker took the horses from the boys, who slowly made their way into their home.

“Gee Adam, would ya look at this?” Hoss gaped at the destruction of the room.

“I wonder what happened?” Adam set his hat on the sideboard behind the door.

Unwilling to move any farther into the room, the boys stood side by side and waited.

“There you are,” Ben announced as he came through the dining room into the great room.

Hesitant to speak at first, Adam finally answered, “Pa, what happened? It looks like one of those tornadoes we experienced in Missouri struck.”

“You’re not too far wrong,” Ben admitted.

“Mon Cher, please,” Marie yelled from beyond the dining room.

“What’s wrong with Ma,” Hoss asked.

“Nothing’s wrong with your Ma. She’s just trying to deal with your brother,” Ben mused.

“Little Joe?” Adam asked.

“Isn’t anything little about what he did today,” Ben answered, trying to keep the smile from his face as he remembered the look of his wife in the bath house, trying to subdue their son.

“He did all this? How?” Adam looked to his father.

Minutes earlier, Ben listened as his wife berated him for ‘his’ son’s antics. She had described in great detail how the child had cried to be allowed to help Hop Sing. As the cook placed the last of the dry ingredients into the vessel, the child pulled the bowl away and when Hop Sing reached for it, Joe pushed it back, sending the flour, sugar, and other ingredients all over the Oriental man. And then making a daring escape, he collided with his mother, knocking the clean laundry from her arms as she struggled to balance herself.

Joe giggled loudly as the laundry flew up into the air and floated down. He grabbed a towel in one hand and his father’s shirt in another, and ran around the room with them flying out behind him like flags. Items were knocked from where Marie had set them in the great room. He kept up his escape as he ran around the dining room table, and into the kitchen again.

When finally cornered and ushered into the bath house, he made even more of a mess by splashing the water and soaking Marie and Hop Sing.

“Well, after learning how to walk this past fall,” Ben looked to both of his sons who nodded. “Evidently today he wanted to help and also decided to show Marie and Hop Sing how he could run… and this is the result.”

“Did Ma blister his hide?” Hoss asked with a look of eagerness on his face.

“No, he’s not yet eighteen months old,” Ben answered.

“Hop Sing quit! No one help Hop Sing fix, Hop Sing go back China where children mind elders.”

“Now Hop Sing, you can’t quit. We need you,” pleaded Ben. “What if Adam and Hoss help you clean up the mess?”

Looking from his employer to the two oldest sons, Hop Sing kept a smile to himself upon seeing the pensive look of the youngest boy standing beside his brother. “Hop Sing stay.” The small man promptly walked an about face as he returned to his domain.

“MON CHER!”

“COMING!” Ben hollered in reply. “Boys please, do everything you can to help Hop Sing clean up the chaos your brother created.”

Ben ran up the stairs to obtain dry clothes for Marie and Joseph. As the dutiful husband hurriedly returned to the first floor, the house quieted only to hear Marie scream, “JOSEPH NO!!!” just before the crash. The father and both sons cringed.

“Adam, do ya get the feelin’ we’re always gonna be cleanin’ up after Joe?”

“Not if we run away.”

Hop Sing yelled from the kitchen. “Boys eat? Boys clean kitchen!”

“Adam, I’m hungry. Do ya think Hop Sing had time to bake the cookies he promised me?”

“I’m thinking that was the flour for your cookies he was wearing.”

“Dagburn Little Joe’s ornery hide… I worked hard on my math problems for them cookies.”

“BOYS!” Hop Sing yelled one last time.

~The End

 Welcome to spring! Let the spring cleaning begin!

Tags: Adam Cartwright, Ben Cartwright, Hoss Cartwright, Joe / Little Joe Cartwright, Marie Cartwright