The Cow-Pie Chronicles (8 page)

“It's full of something heavy,” he said. Tim's dad carefully stepped down off his perch and with a grunt set the box on the barn's dirt floor. The top of the box was nailed shut. “That's odd. I've never seen one of these with the top nailed on, unless it's . . . uh oh,” Tim's dad said, looking at him. “Go get me a pry bar from the toolshed—fast!”

Tim ran out and across the barnyard to the tool shed, grabbed a pry bar and ran back to the barn, handing it to his dad. His dad then carefully pried the top off the wooden box and jumped back, alarmed. “Crud! It's full of dynamite!”

Tim leaned forward to look inside “Why is it wet?” he asked. The sticks were glistening, like they had just been sprayed with water.

“
Get back! That isn't water. When dynamite gets old, the
nitro
sweats out of it. You can toss a stone in there and the entire box will explode!” Dad said.

Tim quickly backed away. He had seen dynamite destroy an entire barn in the TV Westerns. “What're we going to do with it?” he asked.

“I can think of a few things.”

Mr. Slinger was excited over this surprise gift. There were many projects on a farm a
military-grade
explosive could be used for. But he wanted to make sure he didn't blow himself up, or anyone else, for that matter.

“
Get out of here and make sure your sister stays away, too. I need to call someone who knows how to handle this stuff,” Dad said. Later that day, Tim's Uncle Jack showed up. Uncle Jack had served in the Navy and was a
World War II
veteran who had been around his share of explosives.

The two men went into the barn, but Tim was not allowed to join them. About an hour later, they came out, with Uncle Jack carefully cradling the dynamite box in his arms.

“Come on!” Dad called to Tim.

Tim ran over to them and they all climbed onto the tractor. They drove to the old apple orchard on the backside of the barnyard.

Dad explained to Tim what they were going to do. “We're going to get rid of these big stumps and add some acreage to the wheat field.” For years, Mr. Slinger had been slowly chopping the stumps out with an ax and dragging them away with the tractor. Today, the stump removal process was about to be raised to a whole new level.

Tim watched as the two adults used a hand drill to bore a hole beneath each side of the largest stump in the apple orchard. Uncle Jack carefully took two sticks of dynamite out of the box, attached a three-foot-long fuse to them, and then inserted the dynamite into one of the holes. He repeated the process for the other hole. In the meantime, Tim's dad set the dynamite box safely behind one of the large tractor wheels and placed Tim next to it. “Stay here,” he said.

Tim crouched behind the huge tractor tire, feeling both excited and afraid. The dynamite explosions on TV were always as loud as fireworks on the Fourth of July, but more destructive. He wanted to see the stump blown to bits, but didn't want any of it heading in his direction.

Tim peeked around the tire as his dad and Uncle Jack prepared to light the fuses with cigarette lighters. The dynamite had old-fashioned fuses, which proved challenging—both fuses had to be exactly the same length and lit at exactly at the same moment in order for the two sticks of dynamite to blow up together.

“Now!” Uncle Jack said to Mr. Slinger.

Uncle Jack flicked his lighter and held it next to the fuse on his side of the stump. It took two flicks of Mr. Slinger's lighter before he could draw a flame to light his fuse. With both fuses lit, the men quickly joined Tim behind the tractor wheel. A few seconds later, there was a loud
wumph
, like the sound fireworks make when they come out of the launch tubes. But there wasn't a big explosion.

“That's it?” Tim asked. They all stood up to look.

“
Oh, no!” Uncle Jack said, pointing up in the air at the smoking stump arching high across the sky, burning
embers
and bits of wood trailing it.

“It's gonna hit the barn!” Dad said.

“No, it's going all the way over the barn, no problem,” Uncle Jack said.

“What about the house?” Tim asked.

“Crud!” Dad said.

Tim's dad and uncle took off running across the barnyard toward the lane to the house, with Tim chasing after them. When they spotted the house, they all skidded to a stop. Tim's mom was standing in the front yard, holding Dana's hand, and the two were staring at the stump sitting right in the middle of the front porch, still
smoldering
.

Dana spotted her brother and pointed at him. “I told you he wants to kill me,” she said.

There are times when no words come to mind. This was one of them. Tim, his dad and Uncle Jack turned around and slowly walked back to the tractor with the complete understanding that their stump-blowing operation was officially finished.

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Chapter 10

Things were pretty quiet around the farm for the next few days. The crops weren't ready to harvest. Tim's dad and uncle repaired the front porch after the dynamited tree stump destroyed part of it, and Tim helped his dad fix the broken manure spreader, much to Tim's dislike. Dana was busy in the garden with Mom, and Patsy was eating hay and grain now, so Tim didn't have to give her milk in a bucket anymore.

But something didn't feel right to Tim about his parents' behavior. He was a little suspicious when, before bedtime, Mom asked him and Dana to come out of their rooms to talk with her in the kitchen.

The two sat down at the kitchen table and Mom got them ice cream. Being served ice cream when they didn't have any visitors was never a good sign of things to come.

Mom sat down across the table from her children and watched them eat. Then she said, “You two are going to have to grow up a little now.”

Dana and Tim looked at each other then at their mom.

“I will when she does,” Tim said.

“You first,” Dana said.

“Both of you will quit fighting all the time and grow up right now!”

Dana and Tim put their spoons down and waited quietly for whatever lecture was coming.

“You two are going to have a new baby brother or sister in a few months,” Mom said.

Dana and Tim stared at her. They didn't know what to say. And Mom didn't say anything for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she asked, “Well, what do you think about that?”

“Is it going to be a brother or a sister?” Dana asked.

“We don't know yet.”

“Tell me when you find out, and then I will tell you how I feel about it,” Dana said. “I'm going to bed.” She got up and walked out of the room.

Mom watched her, frowned, and then looked at Tim. “Well, what about you?”

“Do you want another baby because Dana and I fight too much?” Tim asked.

“What? How could you think that?” She stood up, looked at her son then turned away. “Never mind. We'll talk about this again when it gets a little closer.”

Mom walked out the back door, clearly upset with Tim and Dana's reaction to her news.

Dana came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from her brother. “What are you going to do about this?” she asked him.

“Do about what?”

“Having a baby in the house.”

Tim couldn't figure out why he would have to do anything about it. “Are you worried about not being the baby in the family anymore or something?” Tim asked her.

“No, not me. But who has to take care of every baby born on this farm?”

Dana was right. Most of Tim's chores involved feeding or cleaning up after the newborn calves.

“I don't think Mom is going to ask me to take care of her baby,” Tim said.

“Somebody has to while she's working in the fields.”

“Maybe that's why Dad said he would teach me to drive the tractor, so I can work in the fields and Mom can stay home,” Tim said, nodding his head as if he had everything figured out.

“You? Operating a tractor? The poor cows will starve to death!” Dana said. The Slingers fed their cows hay, grain and corn from their fields.

“I don't want to talk about it right now,” Tim said. He didn't appreciate Dana making that comment—it wasn't very nice.
That's why I call her “Devil Dana
,” he fumed to himself as he got up and headed up to his room.

Tim wasn't sure how he felt about having a new baby in the house. He didn't really remember Dana as a baby, but he was already helping baby-sit some of his younger cousins. Sometimes it was fun. Other times, it was filled with crying, spilling food, poking eyes and just a lot of work.

But babysitting his cousins lasted only a couple of hours. Having a baby living with them all the time meant no escape. Still, if Tim had the opportunity to learn to drive the tractor and help in the fields instead of being a Poop Slinger all the time—including a Poop Slinger for a little baby brother or sister—it would be worth it.

As Tim climbed into bed, another thought came to him. He wondered if this baby news was somehow linked to Mom asking Dana about moving to town. Everything was starting to come together, everything was beginning to make sense. Tim felt very uneasy as he closed his eyes to sleep.

* * *

The new baby topic didn't come up again. Then one morning, the Slingers popped another surprise on their children—they walked into the kitchen, Dad carrying a large cardboard box.

“What's in there?” Dana asked.

Dad placed the box on top of the table. “Take a look,” he said.

Dana and Tim pulled the flaps back slowly and spotted a shiny little black nose between two bright eyes. “A puppy!” they both said.

“Her name is Bell. She's only six weeks old,” Mom said. She lifted the little ball of black-and-brown fur from the box and placed it on the table.

Dana ran her hand across Bell's back. “She's so cute!” Dana said.

Tim smiled as he reached out and touched Bell's little nose. It was soft, wet and cool.

“
She looks healthy, too. Why did you get a puppy?” Tim asked, knowing everything on the farm, no matter how cute, had to have a purpose. There were no free rides allowed.

“She's a hunting dog. She'll be worth a lot to us when she grows up,” Dad said.

“But for now, you and Dana are going to take care of Bell together. Both of you have responsibility for her,” Mom said to Tim.

“I told you,” Dana said.

“But we don't know how to take care of a puppy,” Tim said.

“You'll learn. It'll be easier than taking care of Patsy,” Dad said.

Dana noticed Bell walking in circles and sniffing the table. “I think she wants to pee.”

“Then take her outside,” Mom said.

Tim picked up Bell and went outside with Dana. He set the puppy down and she ran around sniffing the ground then squatted. When Bell was done, she ran over, bit Tim's shoelace, pulled on it, jumped back and barked.