Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 16 *

Summary: Adam intended to introduce his youngest brother to good literature, but you know Little Joe – instead of culture, he found trouble!
Rating:  G
Words:  4,500

Good Farmers

It had bothered him.

For one whole week it had bothered him.  He never told anyone, but as Christmas grew nearer, ten-year-old Joseph Francis Cartwright grew quieter and quieter…and quieter…until one day he made up his mind to do something about it.

This story is about what he chose to do.

———————-

“Mistah Ben?”

A very content and satisfied Ben Cartwright looked up from the pile of papers on his desk.  Eighteen fifty-two had proven to be a banner year.  The crops had been good, the cattle were fat and the horses lean, and all of his debts were settled.  The Ponderosa would begin the New Year with a clean slate!  It had been such a good year, in fact, that he had overindulged on Christmas presents for his boys.  Ben pivoted in his chair to peer through the window.  Outside a thick wet snow had begun to fall, so they would have snow for the holiday even if it was a bit, well…

Gooey.

The rancher turned back toward his Asian cook.  Hop Sing was obviously disturbed about something.  Most likely the turkey was too small or the stuffing too momentous, or maybe – just maybe – they’d run out of sugared cherries since Hoss was in a habit of sneaking into the pantry and devouring them.

Ben couldn’t help but chuckle.  Oh, that year Hop Sing had soaked them in rum!

“So sorry this one disturb you, Mistah Ben, when you in middle of working paper.”

The rancher dropped the pile to the desktop and leaned back in his chair.  “ ‘Working paper’ disturbs me far more than you ever could, my friend,” he said.  “What is it you want?”

“You see Little Joe soon?”

Hop Sing was still learning English, so there were times when Ben wasn’t quite sure that what he said was what he meant.  “Are you trying to tell me that Little Joe is coming to see me?’

The Asian man shook his head.  “No.  Not come.  Need see him soon.  No see him before.”

Ben thought that one through – more than once – before replying.   “Was Joseph supposed to help you with something?”

Hop Sing nodded.  “Huh-ee!”

That meant ‘yes’…he was pretty sure.  “And he didn’t show up?”

“Not like boy.  Make favorite cookies.  Little Joe come chop-chop to help when this one not want him.  Where boy now?”

Ben glanced at the tall case clock.  It was still early in the day.  In fact, the clock had not yet struck noon.  He chuckled again as he reached for the stack of papers.  “Most likely the boy lost track of the time.  Have you checked the barn?”

“Hop Sing check barn and chicken coop and field of hogs and corral with horses.  He look in boy’s room – even under bed!”  The Asian man let out a martyr’s sigh.  “Find plenty of missing socks.  Not find little Joe.”

Ben’s fingers traced the contour of his beardless chin.  “Did you check the bunkhouse?”

Hop Sing was nodding before he could finish.  “Check everywhere!  Boy nowhere!”  The Asian man’s gaze strayed to the window behind his desk.  “Hope he not go outside.  Look like yet velly much more snow fall.”

Ben rose from his chair.  “Joseph’s brothers and I have taught him to read the signs.  He would know better than to go out with a storm approaching.”

“What if boy leave before snow blow up?”

‘Then he won’t be sitting down for a month of Sundays!’ the rancher thought.  “When was the last time you saw Little Joe – and where?”

The Asian man frowned in concentration.  “Boy ask many questions while Hop Sing cooking.  Shoo out of kitchen so this one can work.  Mistah Little Joe look sad when he go.  Make Hop Sing feel bad.”

“I’m sure you had every right to do so,” Ben replied as he rounded the desk.  His youngest son was both loquacious and inquisitive, to put it mildly!  The boy’s ability to answer and ask questions at one and the same time was, at times, a wonder!  At other times, it was an annoyance.

Especially to his eldest brother.

“Have you checked with Adam?” Ben inquired.  Inger’s boy was staying with his late foreman’s family.  The teenager had asked if he could help them prepare for the holidays.  It was just Millie and her girls now since Bill had passed on the winter before.  Ben chuckled.  Of course, the fact that Millie and Bill had a daughter a year younger than Hoss who was quite a looker had nothing to do with it!

“Ask Mistah Adam.  He chase boy away too.  Ask too many questions.”

Ben stopped where he was.  “What kind of ‘questions’?”

“Why some men rich and others poor?  Why Cartwrights have so much when others have nothing?  Want to know if family ‘good’….”  The Asian man frowned.  “What mean word ‘undone’?”

“Undone?  Little Joe used that word?”

“Use plenty more.”

One black eyebrow peaked.  “Such as?”

“Words Hop Sing not know.” His cook scowled.  “What mean ‘drab and dice’?”

“Drab and dice?  Why in the world would a ten-year-old ask about gambling?”

“Er, Pa.  I think I might know.”

Ben turned to find his twenty-two-year-old son, freshly returned from college, coming down the stairs book in hand.

The older man scowled as well.  “Don’t tell me you and Hoss have been teaching your younger brother how to wager!”

“Of course not,” Adam replied solemnly, before adding with a wink, “I promise we’ll wait until he’s at least twelve.”  He held out the book.  “I think this might have something to do with all the questions Joe’s been asking.  It was last week’s bedtime reading.”

He recognized the book as a volume of seventeenth century poetry.   It was Marie’s last Christmas present to his oldest son.

“Poetry?’

Adam nodded.  “George Wither’s A Christmas Carol.  I thought it was a good choice considering how close we are to Christmas.  I had Joe memorize a couple of verses.”

Ben knew the poem.  It contrasted the merriment of those who had against the misery of those who had not; one of its most well known lines being ‘Good farmers in the country nurse the poor that else were undone.’

The rancher’s gaze shifted to the bountiful harvest under their heavily-ornamented Christmas tree.  His long legs took him to its side in less than a dozen strides.  A second later he was on his knees rifling through the presents.

“What are you looking for?” Adam asked as he trailed in his wake.

What was he looking for?

What he knew he would not find.

Ben rose.  His crossed to the front door and placed his hand on it, feeling the chill.  His gaze went through it then to the wild, wet, white land that lay beyond – a land he was certain now his youngest son walked.

“Your brother’s presents are gone.”

It was cold.  A lot colder than ten-year-old Little Joe thought it ought to be.  He knew when Hoss left a few days before that Pa had remarked how they were having such a mild winter a man could go about with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and be plenty warm.

He had his elbows covered now and they were cold.

Really cold.

Oh, he’d been smart enough to wear a coat, but he’d picked the lightweight one and not the one with fur on the inside.  This one was plaid and made of cotton.  He liked plaid though he wasn’t sure why.  Joe thought maybe it was because it reminded him of the big jolly – and sometimes scary – lumberjacks who worked for his pa.  They all had names like Mick Dougall and Mack Gregor and they wore plaid.  Joe looked down at his coat, the shoulders and arms of which were heavy with a thick coating of snow.  His was mostly blue.  One of the lumberjacks told him that meant he must be a Buchanan and he was sorry but his name was Ross and he was going to have to kill him since their clans were at war – before bursting out laughing and slapping him so hard on his back that he rolled halfway down the hill.

Joe frowned as he looked up at the tall dense trees that surrounded him, and then down at the lightweight fast-moving cutter sleigh he had borrowed.  He’d hitched it up to his own pony, Cadfan, hoping maybe the fact that he took his own horse would outweigh the fact that he’d ‘borrowed’ his pa’s sleigh.

Joe’s pert nose wrinkled.

Probably not.

The young boy looked back the way he had come.  His tracks were still visible in the wet snow, but they were filling up fast.  He let out a sigh and then shook his head to free both his high-brimmed hat and his golden-brown curls of snow.

He wasn’t gonna sit down for a month of Sundays once his pa found him.

He also wasn’t going to admit that, deep inside, he hoped it was soon.

Still, that old poem that Adam had read him about a week back kept gnawing at his innards.  It made him kind of mad that the one person who could have helped him understand that poem had gone off to help someone else, even though what he needed to ask Hoss about was helping others who were worse off than you.  He knew their pa did that kind of thing.  Everywhere they went all kinds of people came up to them and told them what a ‘Good Samaritan’ their pa was.  But that was pa.  Not him.

What had he ever done to help anyone but himself?

Oh, he helped his pa, but then he got wages for that.  Some people called it an allowance.  And he helped Hoss and Adam and Hop Sing, but then he knew what the Good Book said about helping those you love.  ‘For if ye love them which love you, what thanks have ye, for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thanks have ye, for sinners also do even the same.

‘Be merciful as your Father also is merciful.’

Joe chewed his lip as he surveyed the contents of his fast sleigh. Most years they got two or –  maybe – three presents for Christmas plus other things in their stockings like candy and coins. This year he had seven!  A couple of them were really big.  A few days before – when he’d snuck downstairs to shake them – he’d thought one of them might be a new saddle.  Gosh, he’d been excited!  Then, later, when he visited the lumber camp with his pa, he’d seen how one of the Mack’s boys was riding bareback on account of he couldn’t afford any kind of a saddle.  Another one of his presents was for sure a new coat.  The paper had been ripped and he’d seen the thick dyed wool fabric through the wrapping.  He already had two coats – the one he was wearing and an old one of Adam’s that was really warm.  He wanted that new one, but he didn’t need it.

He didn’t need much of anything to be honest.

So when Adam read him that poem of George Wither’s and he heard that line about ‘good farmers’ nursing the poor that else were ‘undone’, he decided he should do something about it.  Pa was a good rancher and a Good Samaritan.  What was he?  A little kid who had everything he needed and more.  It really hit him hard the day before when he’d been helping Hop Sing to harvest the garden, cutting and saving the herbs and vegetables before the cold could kill them.  Hop Sing had turned to him and thanked him for being a ‘good little farmer’.

So, he figured, he better not leave the poor he knew undone.

Joe clicked his tongue and Cadfan began to move again, dragging the present-laden cutter across the thick, wet snow.  It was slow going due to the weight of the cargo and the amount of mud kicking up with the snow.  Cadfan had been tired so they’d stopped to rest, but now they needed to get on their way.  He needed to make it to the camp, deliver the gifts, and then get home before supper, otherwise Pa would know he’d gone missing.

It was a dang shame middle brother had chosen the same time to be a ‘good farmer’ ‘cause that meant he wasn’t there to cover his tracks!

A trip to the camp took hours and hours by wagon.  Speeding over the snow on a sleigh took a lot less time.  The white stuff that had fallen made a good packing on the ground, or it had before the sun decided to come out midday and turn it into sludge.  He’d thought he could make it to the camp quick and be home even faster.  Joe glanced at the sun.  Its rusty bottom was anchored on the tall black silhouettes of the trees.  It would set soon.  He didn’t want to, but he had to admit that by the time he made it to the camp, it would be too late.  He’d have to stay overnight and wouldn’t get home until well after breakfast.

Oh well.  Since he was gonna give away all his presents, at least Pa couldn’t threaten to take them away!

Joe turned his attention back to the sleigh and his horse.  Cadfan had halted and was breathing hard.  He dropped the reins and approached the pony.  Keeping his voice low and even, the little boy asked, “Hey, fella.  What’s wrong?  Didn’t you get enough rest?”

Cadfan’s eyes were open so wide the whites were showing.  His soft ears flicked and he snorted.

The youngster tensed.  His pa had taught him a lot of things.  So had Hoss and Adam.  All three had told him that when a horse did that it meant one of two things – the animal was in pain.

Or terrified.

Joe wrapped his fingers around the Welsh pony’s bridle and drew its head close.  “What is it, boy?” he asked in a whisper, his voice shaking just a bit as he surveyed the shadowy land beside them.  “Is something out there?”

Then it came, an odd little ‘squeak’, kind of like you’d think a mouse would make – followed by a roar that was every bit as loud as his pa bellowing when he had his dander up.

Cadfan shied and pulled Joe off the ground as a sleek, four-footed mud-brown shape with pointed ears and a long tail appeared just outside of the trees.  The mountain cat paused, sniffed, and then crouched as if ready to spring.

That was all it took.  Cadfan shrieked and bolted.

Taking Joe with him and leaving the gift-laden sled behind.

Ben Cartwright rose to his feet, shaken.  He drew in a great breath of crisp frozen air, and then let it out as he turned toward his eldest son who crouched in the wet snow beside their abandoned cutter.  All around the lightweight sleigh the snow was covered in blood.

Lots of blood.

They’d had to wait until the sun rose to continue their search. By the time he’d figured out what direction his youngest had taken, it was too dark to pursue him.  Christmas Day dawned with their family split asunder.  Hoss remained at the Andersons, waiting for his brothers to pick him up.  Hop Sing sat in an empty Ponderosa, staring mournfully at the makings of the feast he had prepared for those he loved.  Adam had come with him.  They, at least, were together.

While Little Joe….

“It doesn’t mean the cat got him, Pa,” his eldest said softly.   “Joe’s quick on his feet – and smart; too smart to be taken off-guard.”  Adam placed his fingers in the impression of one of the numerous hoof prints driven deep into the muddy ground.  “It looks like Cadfan took off at a pace.  Maybe Joe was riding him.  You can’t –”

“Then where is your brother?!” he snapped.  Ben swallowed over his fear.  “And whose blood is this?”

“I don’t know, Pa.”  Adam chewed his lip as he rose and turned toward the woods. “Maybe the cat’s…?”

Ben stared at the blood.  He couldn’t look away from all that blood.

“Maybe.”

“Why don’t we go into the camp and see if anyone heard or saw anything?  We’re not that far away.”

The rancher nodded.  “Yes.  Yes, that’s wise.  Hopefully someone will know something.”

It didn’t take them long; ten, maybe fifteen minutes to reach the camp. Ben’s stomach tightened as they plodded through the wet snow.  Joe had almost made it there before whatever happened…happened.  The worried father was struck as they drew near by the sounds of merriment and laughter.  So far from his thoughts was any kind of joy,  that the exuberant noise struck him like a slap in the face. Some of the men who cut his timber would have been better used in the field than the forest.  Others had been born and bred to cut trees.  Many of them were of Scottish descent; strong, big-bodied, well-muscled and often bearded men who had left their burnt-out crofts behind when they struck out for the New World and a better life.  One was playing the pipes.  The mournful sound of the ancient tune washed over the wet, weary land, resounding from the pine trees’ snow-laden branches. He knew it.  Loved it in fact.

Today, he found its message hard to believe.

As they walked, Ben became aware that Adam was singing low, almost under his breath, so as not to disturb – or maybe perturb – him.  The words he heard became his prayer, repeated in earnest with each step that took him closer to his foreman’s rough home and whatever news awaited him there.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Death’s dark shadow.  It sought to overwhelm him now, as it had overwhelmed him only five short years before when Joseph’s mother had died so needlessly in front of his eyes. And yet, his God promised to put that dark shadow to ‘flight’ and to make safe ‘the way that leads to on high’, and ‘closes the path to misery’.

Adam’s hand rested on his arm.  “Have faith, Pa,” he said.  “Somehow I know Little Joe is all right.”

Ben knew it as well a moment later when the door to Alexander Ross’ rude cabin flew open and a small form appeared on the stoop.  His youngest son hesitated, and then shot out of it straight into his arms.

“I’m sorry, Pa!” Little Joe exclaimed as tears trailed down his ruddy cheeks.  “I’m so sorry I left without asking.  Can you forgive me?  Please, I….”

Ben placed a finger to the child’s lips to hush him.  Then he stretched out his arms and held him at length so he could get a good look at him.  There were no gashes.  No sign of a cat’s razor-sharp claws. There were a few cuts and bruises on his son’s face, watered by the river of tears of repentance that poured from the boy’s wide green eyes.

“Er…Pa….”

The rancher glanced over his shoulder.  Adam nodded at Little Joe.  Ben frowned, and then it dawned on him – the fact that he was pushing Joseph away might be misinterpreted by the boy as a sign of his displeasure and not his relief.

He moved one hand to his son’s face.  “Yes, Joseph, I forgive you.  Do you forgive me?”

The boy scowled. “Gosh, whatever for?  You didn’t steal a sleigh.”

He stifled his chuckle.  “No.  No, I didn’t.  I also didn’t listen to you.  None of this would have happened if I had.”

Little Joe considered that a moment.  “I guess I forgive you too then.  Pa?”

“Yes, son?”

“Can we go home?”

Ben stared at his boy for a moment before circling his small frame with his arms and crushing him to his chest.

So tightly that, for a moment, neither one of them could breathe.

He hadn’t had the heart to punish the child.  Little Joe’s choice to be a ‘good farmer’ had proven to be more than enough punishment.  The three of them returned home in silence – he and Joseph on Buck, with Adam following behind leading Cadfan and the empty cutter – not because he was angry, but because Little Joe fell asleep in his arms.

How do you fault someone for being generous?  How punish one who has chosen to be a ‘good farmer in the country’ and ‘nurse the poor that else were undone’?  He’d never forget the look on Alexander Ross’ young son’s face as he strode around the lumberjack’s rude cabin wearing the heavy wool coat with a fur collar he had hand-picked for his youngest boy, or Alec’s older boy showing off the fancy saddle that had cost a month’s wages. There were other clothes and a fine wooden chess set, as well as pile of the penny dreadful novels Adam so despised and promised would ruin his little brother for great literature.

If that literature was anything akin to George Withers’ ‘Christmas Carol’, Ben had decided that would be just fine!

Earlier that night, after they picked up Hoss at the Andersons and returned home, Joseph had watched stiff-lipped as his older brothers opened their gifts.  He had his stocking, which the boy said was enough, but Ben noticed how Little Joe asked to take his leave as soon as he could, citing how tired he was from his adventure.

It was nearly twelve now.  Christmas eighteen-fifty-two was almost over.  He couldn’t bear to let it pass and leave his youngest empty-handed.  Ben glanced at the box he held before tucking it behind his back.  Then he reached for the latch to open Little Joe’s bedroom door.  The boy wasn’t in bed – another violation he decided to let go.  Instead, Joseph sat on a chair by the window looking out.

“Hey, Pa,” came the quiet greeting.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“No.”  Little Joe glanced at him and then turned back to the window.

Ben sat on the edge of the bed.  “Are you sorry you gave all your fine things away?”

Joseph pivoted in the chair.  “Kind of, but not really,” he said, his nose twitching. “I get things all year long.  Archie and Finlay don’t even get them at Christmas.”

“That was a lovely thing you did, giving them your gifts – even if you should have asked permission first.”  His tone darkened.  “You could have been hurt going all the way up to the camp alone.  You almost were.”

Joe nodded – and swallowed hard.  “If Mr. Ross hadn’t been huntin’ that old cat….”

The blood had been the mountain lion’s as Adam suspected, left there when it sped away from the camp as Cadfan, dragging his son, galloped toward the woods and Ross’ hunting party.  The men were able to halt the Welsh pony and Little Joe came away with little more than scratches and a bruised pride.

Thank God!

“So, do I have your promise that you will never do such a thing again?”

Joe’s head dropped.  “I’m sorry, Pa.  I know you picked out all those things for me.  I’m sorry I made you mad when I gave them away.”

Ben stiffened.

Did his boy really think him so petty?

The rancher placed the box on the bed and went to kneel before his son. Taking one of the boy’s hands in his, he admitted, “Joseph, I am humbled by your generous heart.  I pay my men well, but I know as well that it supplies them with little more than they need to survive.  Next year I will remedy that.”

The boy looked up.  “So what I did was good?”  At his frown, Joe modified it.  “Sort of?”

The humbled father touched his son’s chest.  “Your heart was in the right place.”  Ben stood up and then cuffed him playfully on his head.  “Its’ too bad you seem to have misplaced you brain!”

Little Joe smiled.  “I wanted to be a Good Samaritan, Pa.  I want to be a good man just like you are when I grow up.”

It was quite a compliment, but the older man knew better.

Joe would be a better man than him.

“Pa?”

“Yes, son?”

That head of curls inclined toward the bed.  “What’s in the box?’

He’d almost forgotten.  The rancher went to the bed.  When he returned, he held the brightly wrapped box out to his son.  “Your Christmas present.”

“But, I gave them all away.”

He shook his head.  “Not all.  This is a special one.  It wasn’t under the tree.”

Joe took it and shook it.  “What’s in it?”

Ben laughed.  “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

When Joe opened the box, he gasped.  A second later he drew a neat, low-crown beaver-fur black hat just his size out of it.  His green eyes went wide as he ran his fingers over the finely fashioned fur.

“It’s a real one, isn’t it?” his son asked.  “I mean, it’s a hat for a man, not a boy.  Just like the one Adam wears….”

Not quite.  Joe had a bit of growing before he was a man.

No.  He took that back.  What his son had done the day before had shown just how much of a man he had become.

“Merry Christmas, son.

Little Joe stood up and went to his mirror.  He placed the hat square on his head and stared.  A moment later, he reached up and cocked it at a jaunty angle and then turned to look at him for his approval.

For a moment Ben saw not the boy, but the man his youngest would become – strong, honorable, confident and brave – and then Little Joe tipped the hat forward just a bit too much and it fell off of his head.  The boy reached for it, missed, and followed it to the floor landing nearly on top of it – which would have made it one very fine flat hat indeed!

And then he started giggling.

Ben tried, but he couldn’t resist.  Soon the two of them were laughing loud enough to bring the rafters down.  When Adam and Hoss appeared at the door, the pair stared at them like they had lost their minds.

Before they joined in.

Then wherefore in these merry days

Should we, I pray, be duller?

No, let us sing some roundelays

To make our mirth the fuller.

And whilst we thus inspired sing,

Let all the streets with echoes ring;

Woods, and hills, and everything

Bear witness we are merry.

END

My Phrase: “Good farmers in the country nurse the poor that else were undone” from a Christmas Carol by George Wither

My Character: Little Joe

Link to Bonanza Brand 2023 Advent Calendar – Day 17 – With Elizabeth by sklamb