Saturday

Saturday morning was pure bliss. After an entire undisturbed night’s rest, filled with pleasant dreams about a tiny little queen wearing a red, black-spotted mantle and carrying a penholder for a sceptre, who had walked all the way up his arm, sat down comfortably on his shoulder, leaned her back against his neck and dozed off, Adam had woken up on his own account, feeling rested and content. When he stretched his side didn’t bother him as much as it had the previous days, the room didn’t seem so hot anymore, and for once he was alone. He was looking forward to a day spent in the entertaining company of the book Juliet had lent him, and to some more of the regal-cut carrots in Mrs. Hawkins’ stew.

Adam decided not to let his family know he was awake, but to give Mr. Dickens his full attention right now for as long as he’d have his peace. He reached out for the book he had enthroned on his nightstand, but when his fingers were only an inch from touching the promising leather binder, Hoss came into the room

“G’mornin’, big brother,” Hoss declared quite proudly. “I got’cha a real breakfast today.”

“Do I smell scrambled eggs? Bacon by chance?” Adam couldn’t believe his luck. This morning….

“Yep, an’ fried bread.”

Adam delayed his reading gladly to devour the desperately missed treat. Hoss sat on the rocker, watching Adam eat like one would watch a stray cat drinking a well-meant bowl of milk. When Adam had finished the dish to Hoss’ satisfaction, he was rewarded with a wide grin from his younger brother and a mocking, “Atta boy, Adam.”

Adam grinned back, took a sip of coffee (coffee! This was really his lucky day!) and reached for the book again.

“Nah, wait,” Hoss stopped him. “We hafta change them dressin’s first.”

Adam groaned. This was going to hurt, he knew that. Well, here goes a perfect morning, he thought. It had been too good to be true, anyway.

It did hurt, and it took Hoss quite some time to remove the blood stained bandage—soaking it in water to loosen it where it stuck to the stitches and prying it away bit by bit— to wash away all traces of blood and other more unpleasant things and finally to redress the wound. All the time Adam bit his lips so he would not cry out in pain and make Hoss’ assignment even more unpleasant, since his brother already cringed whenever he did something he knew hurt. When Hoss finally proclaimed his work done and eased Adam’s nightshirt back into place they were both drenched in sweat and shivering from exhaustion.

Hoss, noting Adam’s pale complexion, helped him to lie down and tucked his big brother in. That Adam didn’t complain about being treated like a small child was evidence enough for Hoss to understand that his big brother was done in.

“Ya jest rest fer a while, Adam. I get‘cha some more coffee when ya wake up,” he said softly and turned to pull the rocker closer to the bed. Adam was asleep before Hoss’ fundament had even touched the seat.

***

When Adam woke from his, for once dreamless, slumber he was feeling much improved and eager to finally start Mr. Dickens’ latest work. The rocker was abandoned, which should have made Adam suspicious, but he was so thrilled to have been granted some time for himself, that he missed the implication of this. Sure enough, though, the moment his hand touched the spine of the alluring volume, Joe entered the room, bearing a tray with sandwiches and a cup of coffee.

“You’re awake. Good.” Ignoring his brother’s protests, Joe snatched the book from Adam’s hand and placed it on the desk. He put the tray on the nightstand, handed Adam a plate and sat down, looking cheerfully at his sulking brother. “With best wishes from the kitchen-crew. They are just as you like ‘em, Adam, cheese and mustard and loads of crisp bacon.”

Adam finished the sandwiches in no time. He wasn’t hungry at all, but he knew Joe would try to get the food into him, quite certainly on Pa’s orders, at any cost, so Adam decided to play along. The sooner his lunch vanished from this planet the sooner he’d get to read his book.

Well, man proposes, God disposes. Or at least that was what Adam thought hours later. He couldn’t fathom what had driven Joe, but the boy had seemed determined to entertain his recuperating brother. He had talked at length about everything that had gone on at the ranch the past week, had asked Adam question after question about improving their breeding stock, had shared his thoughts about how Hoss really had a heart for the underdogs if he had bothered to teach high and mighty Miss Juliet how to shoot, and had not even spared his brother from a detailed synopsis of his latest dime novel. He had paused for a moment while describing Miss Molly Malone, saloon girl and the novel’s hero’s love interest, apparently to revel in an image he had conjured in his mind, and that was when Adam had ventured a try to get his book back.

“Uh, speaking of books, Joe, why don’t you just pass me the one you laid on the desk earlier?”

To his surprise, Joe had instantly obliged, and Adam, settling into a comfortable reading position, had opened the much longed for tome.

“What book is that, Adam?” Joe had asked.

“Great Expectations by Charles Dickens,” Adam had answered in a strained voice. “It’s brand new. From England.”

“Oh. What’s it about?”

“I don’t know, Joe. I haven’t read a word yet.”

“I see. I bet it’s boring. It looks boring. Is it like the other books you have of this Dickens guy?”

“I don’t know.” Adam had glared at Joe, and he had put some effort in it. “I’ll tell you once I read it.”

“Oh, yeah. Good.”

Adam had directed his attention to the book in his lap. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip—

“You do have an awful lot of books, don’ you, Adam?”

Argh! Adam had looked up to see Joe standing at his bookshelf, reading the titles on the spines.

“Yes, and I have read them all. The only book in this house I haven’t read yet is the one in my hands. And I would very much appreciate it when—”

“Um, what’s this one about, Adam? It sure looks interesting.”

“That’s…what is it? Ah, Moby Dick. That’s about a man who’s determined to hunt down a whale he feels is responsible for all the hardships in his life. In fact, the whale—”

“A whale? How can a whale be responsible for hardships? Unless it’s the whale that swallowed Jonah. Boy, Adam, imagine you have to live inside a whale!”

“I guess it’d be very dark in there, so you wouldn’t mind if you had no books with you. But most fortunately we are not living in a whale, and I have a book, and that means I can read. Now.”

“Yeah, sure.” Joe had actually ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right, Joe. Just let me read now.” And Adam had started anew. My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister—

Joe hadn’t said another word; it was merely his footsteps as he strolled through the room that had disturbed Adam. Sighing heavily, Adam had observed his brother meandering his way around the desk and the chair, over to the window, pausing there for a moment when his attention was caught by who knew what on the back yard, back to the desk, then to the wardrobe—

“Um, Joe, why don’t you go and, er, help Pa with…something?”

“No, I can’t do that.” Joe had looked at him with a rather sheepish expression. “Pa made me vow to stay in your room until suppertime.”

“What for in heaven’s name?”

“Well, yes, to make sure you won’t get up again.”

Adam had blinked several times and shaken his head. “That’s completely ridiculous. Why should I…. Well, I won’t get up, Joe. You can just as well leave.”

“You say that now….”

Adam had snorted and offered, “I promise?”

“No chance, Adam. You promise now, and then you decide there’s an emergency—”

Adam had felt anger rising. He would have loved to lash out and wipe that smug expression from Joe’s face—but he remembered the last time his anger had gotten the better of him, and it had resulted in another round of pain and blood and stitches. And, God knows, Paul had been called to the Ponderosa often enough these past few days. So Adam had restricted himself to spitting, “What about this – I will get up if you don’t leave.”

Joe hadn’t been impressed at all. “No way, Adam. I’d hold you down.”

“But I’m stronger than you.” Adam had known he was whistling in the graveyard, but maybe—

“You’re as weak as a kitten.”

Adam would have let him get away with that, but Joe had to go one better.

“I could hold you down with only one finger, big brother. Or I could just snatch that book you’re so fond of and—”

And, predictably, Joe had lunged at the book to demonstrate the momentary power over his brother he believed to have obtained. Adam, anticipating his move, had stretched out his long arm and held the book just out of Joe’s reach. Joe, who always reacted very impulsively to everything that reminded him of his inferior size, and quite often acted before he thought, had thrown himself on Adam, ripping at the sleeve of Adam’s nightshirt and trying to gain hold of his brother’s arm and to pull it down.

The agonised cry Adam had involuntarily let out when Joe’s weight had squeezed his injured side had instantly alerted Pa and Hoss. The wave of nauseating pain and dizziness that had followed the new aggravation of his wound had blurred Adam’s awareness of what happened, especially after Hoss had stomped into the room roaring, “Joe, geroff’n ‘im!” and Joe awkwardly had scrambled off him and, in doing so, had jarred his side even more.

When his vision eventually had cleared, the pain had subsided to a tolerable level, and he felt alert enough to follow what was going on, Adam found himself once again prone and neatly tucked in. His father had taken over the guard-rocker, and gazed at him with a strained smile.

“Well, at least this time we didn’t have to alert the doctor,” Pa said, somehow looking guilty. “Are you all right now, son? Do you need anything?”

Adam just wagged his head. He felt incredibly tired. He cautiously turned to his nightstand and looked longingly at the book that had been placed there by, well, whoever. He couldn’t find the strength, though, to reach out for it. He couldn’t find the strength to do anything, and so he constrained himself to staring at the ceiling until his eyes slowly closed.

He detected a short commotion, and then he heard his father’s deep voice, “My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister,—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair….”

And slowly Adam drifted into sleep on his father’s familiar soothing tones.