Heaven's Gate Bridge seventeen

HG seventeen

Catherine and Mrs. Hunt worked together very well as a team. Mrs. Hunt explained things about running a house and taking care of a family. With all of this information, Catherine thought that she still wanted to have a career in music. Then, she thought, she could have a maid or an assistant who would take care of those things for her, like cleaning a house, cooking food and decorating. The only thing that Catherine felt was her job was to have the babies. And that job was a long time in the future.

“Catherine, I think that I need to go back to my house for a few minutes. I’ll call William to see if he can help you hang up the sheets on the clothes line outside.” she said as she looked outside to see if there were any clouds. It seemed like there would be plenty of sunshine since there were few clouds at this time of the afternoon. She could also tell that there was a nice breeze on the outside by the way the budding leaves were gently moving. Mrs. Hunt went upstairs to see if the boys were really resting and reading as she told them to do. She knew that a promise of oatmeal raisin cookies and milk in an hour would be the best enticement to get the boys to cooperate.

As she walked slowly upstairs for the second time, Mrs. Hunt heard Buddy barking at something in the backyard. His little voice was becoming stronger and stronger each day. She smiled at the fact that they boys had shared the responsibilities of the dog’s care and training as they had promised their father. Buddy even seemed to walk around the yard and sniff at certain spots as if he had been there a while. But Buddy’s favorite spot was under the same tree that the squirrel was at on his first day in his new home. Poor little squirrel. She would have to wait until Buddy was inside before she could retrieve her food or run around the yard.

Mrs. Hunt walked up to the boy’s room door and listened to see if there was any unusual noise. It seemed very quiet inside the boy’s room. She knocked and waited for someone to answer.

“Come in.” came both boys’ voices in almost simultaneous response. “But please be careful. We have things on the floor.”

Mrs. Hunt entered slowly and saw that the boys were playing with the new building blocks toy that was in the store. There were a few pieces scattered there and the box was beside the bed. The basic parts were on the huge rug that was on the floor. The window curtains were pulled back to fill the room with the afternoon sunshine.

“My oh my. What is that?” she asked as she looked at the objects on the rug.

“This is what we got for Christmas last year. We like building things so we thought we could rest by doing this. We did not want to play with our jackstraws toys because we played with that yesterday. Do we still get the cookies?” asked William as he picked up a piece to look at.

“Well I did say rest and it looks like you both are resting nicely. I’ll bring cookies for all of us when I return. I want to go check on something at home so I would like you, William to help Catherine hang up the sheets to dry. Will you please do that for me?” she asked.

“Oh sure. I am almost as tall as Catherine so I can reach the line easy now.” he said as he stood up to show Mrs. Hunt how tall he was. The only thing that he needed to do was to put on a clean pair of socks and his shoes. Mrs. Hunt noticed that the hemline of the pants were almost an inch above his ankles indicating that Mrs. Miller would be buying a new pair of pants for him very soon.

“Okay. And Timothy can play for a few minutes more. Then come downstairs for some cookies and milk.” she said as she smiled and turned around to go downstairs.

Catherine was already pulling the sheets through the wringer of the washing machine and putting them into the basket to take them outside. She stopped and looked up. “I heard the mailman at the door. I put our mail on the hall table.”

“Thank you for telling me. That is just the reason that I wanted to go home. I am waiting for a letter from my sister. She has some news that she wanted to tell me and said that she would put it in a letter. William is coming down now. I’ll be back in about ten minutes. “ she said as she rushed out the front door and down the steps.

Catherine was just about to lift the heavy basket with freshly washed sheets, when she heard William coming down the stairs. He came in and tried to pick the basket up by himself. It was a large basket with handles. The children grabbed a handle each and walked slowly down the hall and out the back door. Buddy ran up to the door and jumped up on William’s leg.

“Hey Buddy. I can’t play now. Just wait a little and we’ll see.” he said as he put down the basket and petted the perky little dog.

“And don’t pull on the sheets. If they get dirty, William and Timothy will have to wash them again.” Catherine said with a smile. William turned around with a very surprised look on his face.

The children looked at the top of the house to notice which way the weather vane was moving. It was an old fashioned weather vane that had a chicken and the four directions on it. It looked like the wind was coming in from the north. The children did not study much weather in school yet but they knew that certain wind changes with big black clouds meant a little rain was on its way. Right now there were no big clouds but in about an hour, a few black cloud would start coming to their area of the community.