Summary:  It’s bed time in 1848.

Rating:  K  (4,420 words)

Bed Time Series:

Before Bed Time
Before Bed Time Too
Bed Time 1848

Bed Time  1848

It was late spring and it was getting dark a bit later each evening. Little Joe had been sent to his bed when there was still a bit of daylight despite his pleading with his oldest brother, Adam. The small boy had hardly fallen asleep when the sounds of horses and loud voices awakened him. Little Joe Cartwright jumped out from under the barely rumpled covers and peered out of his bedroom window. In the shadowy yard below, he saw his older brothers greeting their father as he climbed wearily off his horse.

 

“It’s good to be home!” Ben Cartwright announced. “I’m starving!”

 

“It’s good to have you home. I’ll tend to your horse, Pa!” twelve-year-old Hoss offered. He led his father’s mount into the barn.

 

“Come inside Pa! There is still some stew on the stove and it will be piping hot by the time you wash up. Corn bread is still on the table. Did you have a good day? We got lots done around here.” Adam said taking his father’s gear.

 

His father had finally arrived home after being gone all day. Joe hadn‘t seen him for a few days because he had been coming home after the boy was sent to bed and had ridden out to the range before dawn.

 

“Welcome home, Pa!” Joe heard his brothers exclaim in the yard below him.

 

“Pa!” Joe lifted the window and screamed out. The small boy slammed down the sash, barely missing his fingers and dashed down the stairs as fast as his bare feet could carry him. The child ran out of the house, his night shirt billowing around his slender legs. Dashing out the front door and across the porch in one fell swoop, he leaped into his father’s arms and hugged him tightly around his neck.  Ben kissed him and carried the six-year-old back into the house.  “It’s much too cold for you to be out here in your nightshirt, son. Go back upstairs to sleep; I’ll see you in the morning. I will be working closer to the house for the next few days and will be here when you wake up.” Ben suddenly noticed his youngest son had lost the soft rounded look of a sweet baby and was quickly growing into an impish school boy.

 

“No Pa!” Joe clung to his father.  “Please, Pa! Let me sit with you while you eat your dinner!”
Ben nodded. “Just while I eat dinner. You go back to bed as soon as I finish, son. No dawdling and go right to your own bed, not mine or one of your brothers.” Joe was amazed that Pa knew exactly what he was thinking.

 

The boy stood balanced on a hard, cold wooden kitchen chair and watched his father as he washed up. “Yes, Pa. I’ll go right up as soon as you finish your dinner.” Little Joe hoped that his father didn’t see he had his fingers crossed behind his back.

 

”Were you a good boy today, Little Joe?” Ben rinsed the soap off his neck and face. He flicked some water at the boy who giggled.
“Yes sir. I helped Adam with the corral fence. I handed him the nails and held the boards while he hammered. Just like he told me, Pa.”
Ben nodded.” And the fire wood?”

 

“Me and Hoss did that. But he wouldn’t let me use the axe, Pa. Tell him to let me use the axe.”

Ben shook his head. The boy was always struggling to keep up with his older and much larger brothers. “Soon, Little Joe. You need to be a bit bigger. That axe is almost as big as you are.”
“I’m not a sissy, Pa. I can do it.”
“It isn’t a matter of courage, Joe. Just size. I want you to keep all your fingers and toes, son. You need to be about this much taller.” Ben raised his hand about six inches above the boys head. Joe wriggled a bit futilely trying to make his head touch his father’s palm. He jumped off the chair with a thud.

 

“And I collected the eggs too,” Joe reported passing his father the towel. ”I only broke one egg, Pa.”
“That’s better than last time. No juggling?”
“No sir, no juggling,” Joe slid his little hand into his father’s large one and walked with him to the dining room table. “You must be hungry. I saved you some of the boiled carrots. I said ‘Don’t give me no carrots. Give all my carrots to my Pa’.”

 

“Very generous and noble of you, Little Joe. Did you save me your dessert too?” Ben smiled.” I am mighty hungry.”

 

“Er…no sir. Next time.” Little Joe pulled his chair close to Pa’s. He sat with his bare feet pressed against his father’s knee. He was getting cold but would never say anything as someone would tell him to get back into his bed.

 

“I didn’t think I would be back so late, boys, but there was a problem at the branding. We had some of the Circle D cattle mixed in with ours and Mr. Duprey made us count the beeves over four times.” explained Ben Cartwright. “That man is despicable!”

 

Little Joe nodded in agreement even though he had no idea what the word meant. If Pa said it, it must be so. Pa was the bravest and smartest man in the world.

 

“Despicable Mr. Duprey gave you a bad time?” Adam said as he slid a plate of steaming stew in front of his father and poured him some cider.
Ben nodded. “The man had to count and recount and then count the cattle again. Duprey finally agreed to what I said in the first place. I’m surprised you didn‘t hear him yelling all the way up here at the house.”

 

“Duprey has a real big, nasty mouth, Pa. He coulda stampeded the herd with his shouting,” Adam remarked.

 

“He hates us Cartwrights no matter what,” Little Joe added remembering how often Mr. Duprey argued with Pa or complained about the behavior of the boys every time he saw them. He especially yelled at Little Joe every time he wiggled or turned around in church.  When Little Joe politely wanted to play with the pretty little Duprey girls after services, Mr. Duprey chased him away and called him bad, rude names. All Little Joe wanted to do was be friendly with the pretty blond Duprey sisters and ask if the new baby was a girl baby or a boy baby.
“You shoulda punched him in the nose, Pa.” Hoss said as he came in the front door. “Punch Mr. Duprey good.” He swung his hand as if he was punching Mr. Duprey. He smacked his fist into the palm of his left hand with a smack.

 

“He just hates anything and everything about us Cartwrights and the Ponderosa. Carl J. Duprey just has that idea firmly planted in his fool head and there is no changing him, boys,” Ben said.

 

“The man is just prejudiced.” Adam observed. He had read that word just last week in an editorial in the Enterprise about the mistreatment of the Paiutes and the Bannocks and had hoped to work it into a conversation.
“Prejudiced? Mr. Duprey says he got his convictions.” Hoss said. “Ain’t that the same thing?”
“No, its quite different. It’s not at all the same thing is it Pa?” Adam couldn’t come up with the words to explain what he meant. “Having convictions is a good thing. Prejudice is bad, really bad and evil.” Adam pulled his chair closer to Ben’s and leaned on the table.

 

“Is that so, Pa?” Little Joe asked trying to draw his father out. The more Pa kept eating and talking, the longer he got to stay at the table with him.

 

“I thought having convictions was good, Pa,” Hoss scratched his head.

 

Ben said looking up from his plate. He wiped his chin with the red checkered napkin. ”Do you boys know the difference between a conviction and prejudice?”

 

“No sir,” Hoss said.

 

Little Joe shrugged. ”Is it like being a sissy?”

 

“You can talk about your convictions with out getting mad and loosing your temper and yelling so loud that you almost stir up a cattle stampede and then find out that you can’t count your own calves proper. And a prejudiced man don‘t even apologize for his own churn headed stupidity,” Ben stated.

 

Adam smiled at his father’s biting comment. His father had a fine way with words. He would try to remember exactly how Pa had said that so he could write it down in his journal when he went up to his room later.

 

“So Mr. Duprey is prejudiced against all of us Cartwrights?” Hoss said. He glanced at the plate of corn bread and then back at his father. “Just because we are Cartwrights?”
“Yeah, Pa. Carl J. Duprey won’t stop until you whup him,” Adam added as he sat opposite his father. He leaned forward and pushed the plate of corn bread closer to his father. He wanted Ben to finish it before Hoss gobbled up the remainder. His younger brother was as big as he was and still growing. “You should teach him a lesson. Punch him in the nose, Pa.”
Ben shook his head and chewed a piece of potato. “No son, beating someone won’t solve any problem. Always take the high road. Be civilized and let the law handle it. Duprey knew he was wrong but he will never admit it. Never. But it takes two sides to make a feud. And it takes both sides to keep it going.”
“Sort of like a tug of war? If one side lays down their end of the rope, the others can’t keep on pulling,” Hoss observed. “They’ll fall on their durn fool prejudiced rear ends if they keep tugging.”
Little Joe giggled imagining his Pa dropping a rope and Mr. Duprey falling into a big pile of steaming manure.

 

“No sense starting a range war over a few head of stock. Always take the high road, boys, and you won‘t regret it.” Ben urged.

 

“Does it go to Carson City?” Little Joe asked.

 

“Does what go to Carson City?” Hoss asked pulling his own chair close to their father. Ben looked up for an instant and noticed all three boys had inched closer and closer to him like chicks around the mother hen.

 

“The high road. Does the high road take you to Carson City? Or just the low road?” Little Joe asked.

 

Everyone laughed and Adam tried to explain the difference of literal and figurative to his brothers. Neither boy listened to his long-winded explanation but that didn‘t stop Adam. Hoss was too worried about his school work. He could see his books still ominously waiting for him on the hall console.

 

Little Joe was just glad he was sitting next to his Pa and tried to memorize every movement his father made. The boy picked up a fork and imitated the way his father held it in his right hand. It just didn’t feel right no matter how he gripped it. He tried again and it slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

 

“Little Joe! Don’t throw the cutlery on the floor!” his father corrected him. “Time you should be back in bed anyway, son. Your own bed, Joseph.”

 

“But Pa!” Joe pleaded.

 

“Joseph! It is well past your bed time.” Ben pointed toward the stairs.
Hoss leaned to his left and whispered to his older brother. “Now Little Joe is gonna say ‘How come Hoss and Adam are still up?’.”

 

“No, he’ll say ‘but Pa I hardly got to see you.’. Then he will say ‘But how come Hoss and Adam are still up?’.” Adam whispered back.

 

“But Pa, I hardly got to see you for a real long time.” Joe said walking slowly toward the stairs. If he moved his bare feet any slower, he would have been standing still. “Pa?”
“Joseph, you were already in bed when I came home. I let you sit with me while I had my dinner now you must go back to bed, son.”

 

“See, I was right,” Adam winked. Hoss chuckled and grabbed the last piece of corn bread from the platter. Adam loved to show he was always right. Hoss loved corn bread.

 

“How come Hoss and Adam…” Joe started.

 

“Get to stay up!” his brothers finished for him in unison.

 

Joe grabbed the newel post with both hands. He lifted his feet off the floor and attempted to stretch himself. Maybe he could grow taller soon. Then he could stay up later like his big brothers and get to use the axe like Pa promised. He hung like a monkey in a tree.
“Joseph! Go to bed right now!” Ben said firmly. Adam put another portion of stew on his father’s plate and carried the empty bowl into the kitchen.

 

“Please, Pa. Just a bit more. I am not at all tired now. Not one little bit at all at all,” Joe pleaded. He sat down on the bottom step and gazed at his bare toes. If he didn’t look up and watch his father, maybe his father wouldn’t notice him sitting there. He wiggled the toes on his left foot and then the toes on his right foot. Then he did it again. Maybe he would be totally invisible if he didn’t say anything. “Toe-tall- ly invisible.” Joe whispered a secret magic wish. Tall and invisible.

 

Hoss went back to his dreaded homework. Adam scooped up his baby brother and slung him over his broad shoulder like a sack of feed. He carried the little boy back upstairs.

 

”But Adam! I’m not tired. Not one wee bit at all,” Joe protested as he did every night. Little Joe was sure he was missing out on something important and wonderful downstairs every night when he was banished to his bed. He made his body limp and dangled his arms and legs. “Not one bit!”

 

“Pa is tired. Go to bed.” Adam resisted tickling the boy under his arms. It would only stir Little Joe up more and Adam would never get him settled for the night.
“That don’t make any sense. No sense, Adam.” Joe appealed to his brother’s logical side. “Why should I go to bed if I’m not tired? If Pa is tired, he should go to bed. I am not one bit tired. Not one bit Adam!”
Adam tucked the boy in his bed and went back down stairs.
Five minutes later, as Ben swallowed the last of his coffee, they all heard Joe’s voice again. “Pa….”Little Joe called again from upstairs.

 

“What?” Ben called back.

 

“I’m thirsty. Can you bring a drink of water? Please, Papa, dear.”
“Good night Joseph.”
“I‘m dying of thirst up here. All alone, lying here dying, dying, dying.” They all heard a dramatic groan. “Dying. It ain’t nice to let a sweet little boy die all alone up here. Dying from thirst. Reverend Felcher said so.”

 

Adam rolled his eyes. “Never heard that sermon. Guess I had must have dozed off that Sunday.”
Hoss laughed loudly and tossed an apple at his older brother. Adam casually caught it with one hand. He flipped it up in the air, caught it behind his back and tossed it back to the other hand. Then he took a loud bite out of it. “You got to be fast boy, smart.”

 

“Hoss, go see to him.” Ben was too tired to move and he still had all the ledgers to deal with. He had to transfer all the tallies from the little note book he had in his shirt pocket.

 

“But Pa, I got all this arithmetic and I can’t make heads or tails from none of it.” Hoss had a miserable, defeated look on his face. He had been struggling since dinner time over the same page of sums and was almost in tears. “Adam, you do it for me and I’ll hand it in.”
“Can’t do that, Hoss. Didn’t you hear what Pa said about Cartwrights always taking the high ground. That goes for school work too, brother,” Adam walked over to Ben’s desk and stood looking over his shoulder.

 

“Paaaa!” A plaintive little voice moaned from upstairs. “I’m dying.”

 

“I’ll go.” Adam offered knowing his father was worn out.
“No, Adam, you go help Hoss. Joe doesn’t need any water. And next thing he will need the outhouse,”
“Or worse,” Hoss muttered knowing that when Joe wet his bed he would wind up crawling in with Hoss for the rest of the night. “He’s gonna piss his bed.”

 

“That’s right, Pa. He’s afraid to go out side in the dark on his own and won’t use the chamber pot if he figures you will take a walk with him out to the privy.”

 

“Paaa!” Joe bleated like a maverick calf. “Paaaaaaaaa!”

 

“No. You had your chance..” Ben said firmly as he tried to enter the count from the round up in his ledger. His weary eyes had trouble seeing the narrow lined pages in the dim flickering lamp light. It looked like they had done very well this time, but he was not sure he was seeing the rows of numbers correctly. He double checked the figures and added them for a second time. The total seemed too good to be true.

 

Five minutes later, as Hoss finally finished the homework with Adam’s help, they heard another plaintive call. “Paaa….” Joe called again. Hoss stacked up his book and paper and put them on the console near the door.

 

“What?” Ben tried to add the next column of expenses.

 

“I’m still thirsty. Can’t I have a drink of water?” They could see Little Joe lying on his belly, peeping down from the top of the stairs. Then the boy coughed a dry, forced choke. It sounded like the dramatic death rattle of a consumption victim.

 

“I told you ‘NO!’ Joseph, if you ask again, I’ll have to tan your hide!!”

 

They heard little feet running down the hall and a door slam.

 

Five minutes later, Ben sat back in his desk chair. “Adam, do me a favor — check my addition here, on this page and the next. I don‘t want to count our chickens before they hatch but it looks like we did very well on the cattle. Very well.”
Adam smiled widely. If that was true, that might mean Pa had enough reserve to let him go east to college at the end of the summer. He rushed over to his father’s desk and leaned over his father’s shoulder. He held his breath as he added the long columns.

 

“Paaaaa-aaaa…..”

 

“WHAT! I told you if you call me again I will spank you, Little Joe.”

 

“When you come up to spank me, can you bring a drink of water?” Joe pleaded from the top of the stairs.

 

“Pa, he really wants you,” Hoss said looking up from carving some more little horses for his brother. He chewed on his lip. He hated to think Joe was distressed. “He don’t usually carry on so for so long.”
“Yeah Pa, Joe isn’t interested in either of us. He missed you while you were gone. He’s going to keep this up all night.” Adam couldn’t stand it any more. Joe’s whining was like a finger nail on the school room slate. He desperately needed to add those columns and verify Pa’s numbers. Then he could write a letter to his grandfather with the good news before he went to sleep.

 

Ben sighed and stood up from his desk. He went into the kitchen and filled a tin cup with water and brought it upstairs to his baby son’s room.

 

As he walked down the hall, Ben saw a flash of white nightshirt as the boy galloped down the hall into his room, leaped into his bed with a crash and awkwardly tried to pull the quilt up to his chin. Ben handed him the water and stood watching him drain it. “And don’t forget to use the chamber pot if you need. Use it even if you don‘t need.”
Joe nodded. “Yes sir. I know. I ain’t a baby, Pa.”
“Yes Joseph. You aren‘t a baby any more.” Ben corrected his grammar.

 

“That’s what I just said. I ain’t a baby.”

 

Ben sighed and shook his head. He didn’t remember either of his other boys being so talkative so late at night.
“I ain’t a sissy neither, Pa.” Joe bragged trying to make his brave father proud.

 

Ben sighed wearily.

 

“Sit down a few minutes. I need to talk to you a bit,” Little Joe urged. He patted the side of his bed.
Ben knew he was caught. “What about, son?” The tall man perched on the edge of his small son’s bed.

 

Little Joe hadn‘t really planned this far. The boy hadn’t expected Pa really to sit down with him.  He quickly fished up something that had happened recently. “Pa, I found a rabbit the other day. Hoss and me was riding from school and I saw it on the ground. It was kind of chewed on and real still. You can sit back here if you want.” Joe patted the mattress next to him and fluffed up the pillow. Ben slid over, leaned against the headboard, his boots hanging off the side of the bed.

 

Ben asked him if the rabbit was dead or alive. Before the child answered, Little Joe threw the covers back and rushed over to his father’s side of the bed. He tugged off his father’s boots. “If you take off your boots, you can put your feet up her and get much more comfortable, Pa.”
Ben nodded and swung his long legs up on the bed. His tiny son pulled the quilt over him. “It’s kind of cold. You will be much warmer under the blankets, Pa.”

 

“Thanks.” Little Joe was right. It was more comfortable under the covers. “Was that rabbit you saw still alive, son?” Ben rested his head on the pillow as Little Joe scrambled over him and got back in bed.

 

“Dead. The rabbit was dead,” Ben was informed. “Very, extremely dead, Pa. Want to know how I knew?”

 

“Do you think I really want to know, son?“ Ben asked rolling to his side to face Joe. The boy snuggled next to his father. He rested his curly head on Ben’s chest.

 

“Yes, Pa. You really want to know. It was real dead, Pa. Real dead.” Little Joe played with the button on his father’s cuff. “You know how I knowed that rabbit was dead, Pa?”
Ben yawned. His eyes were very heavy. He would rest a few minutes with Little Joe and when the boy fell asleep he would go back down stairs and finish his up work. “How did you know, son?” He yawned again and wrapped his arms around the boy. Joe snuggled into him.

 

“Because I pissed in its ear and the rabbit didn’t move,” answered the child innocently.

 

“You did what?” Ben exclaimed in surprise. He cringed at the thought of his son behaving in such a disgusting fashion. He would have to talk to Hoss about how he was supervising the child. His beloved Marie would have been scandalized at her son growing up as an ill mannered ruffian. It was bad enough that the older boys taught him to sing rowdy songs and he would sneak into the bunk house and try to learn how to play poker and chew tobacco. The last time Ben asked Little Joe to count, the boy said ‘Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace.’ Then he spit.

 

“What did you do to that rabbit, Joseph?” Ben cringed to think of the answer. “Tell me again, Joseph.”

 

Joe rolled over so he was facing his father.  “You know,” explained the boy climbing up his father‘s chest until his face was level with the man‘s cheek, “I pissed. I leaned over and went ‘Pssst!’ and it didn’t move. That chewed rabbit just lay there in the dust. Din‘t hop off or nothing.”

 

“Guess you were right son. It was dead.” Ben tried not to laugh.

 

“Pa, Hoss said a cougar or a wolf must have caught it and been chewing on it for dinner and runned off when we rode through. Maybe a fox.”
“Uh huh,” Ben agreed.

 

Little Joe kissed his father’s whiskery cheeks. “Can I watch you shave tomorrow?”
“I’m not shaving tomorrow; on Saturday, you can watch.“ He stroked Little Joe’s curly hair. “You need a hair cut, son, I’ll trim it on Saturday night when you boys get baths.”

 

“I missed you an awful lot, Pa,” Little Joe said sincerely. He would figure out how to avoid that hair cut by Saturday. Pa always said he wiggled so much he would get his ears snipped off. Joe wanted both of his ears. He didn’t mind taking a bath but he sure could do without a haircut. Besides, Little Joe liked when all the ladies in town kissed him and patted his head told him how pretty his curls were whenever he was in Virginia City.
“I missed you too, Little Joe,” Ben said yawning again. He pulled his son closer.  In an instant, Ben fell sound asleep holding his son cozily in his arms.

 

An hour later when Adam and Hoss headed up to bed, they found Little Joe in bed next to Pa who was snoring loudly. Joe was happily playing with his little carved horses. Pa made a good mountain under the covers and he had all the horses lined up balanced up on his father’s stomach. Each time Ben inhaled and his chest expanded, a horse slid down his shirt into the valley created by the bumps in the coverlet. Joe pretended the horse was galloping and made soft whinnying sounds.  Pa was sound asleep and totally oblivious to his belly forming the slope of a horse race.

 

“Shhh, Pa is real tired and I made him go to sleep.” Little Joe grinned. ”Wanna play with my horses? Or maybe cards? I know how to play cards real good.”

 

*****End*****

 

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