reached down to pet his silky-smooth feathers every once in a while.
The heat seemed to sizzle right up to them. Even the bees seemed too hot to buzz. Was this heat wave ever going to be over? And weren’t they ever going to reach home?
Finally, they rounded the last bend and could see Granny Nanny’s corncrib. Yea, home at last! She could even see Bear waiting for them in the front yard.
He saw them too. Barking joyously, he barreled down the road to greet them.
But when Cocky saw the dog, he squawked in panic and tried to pry himself out of Holly Jean’s arms to escape.
Oh, no! What now?
Chapter 7
What Was That?
By now Cocky was fighting so hard to get free, Holly Jean couldn’t hold him any longer. With one burst of his gorgeous red wings, he flew up and out of her arms. Then he went right up to Bear and stared hard at the big dog, his beak wide open.
Bear promptly flopped down on the ground, wagged his tail, and made soft, whimpering sounds.
Holly Jean felt around in her pocket. She still had a little bit of her bologna sandwich left! Carefully she broke it in two and handed half to each of the animals.
Cocky gulped his down while Bear waited. Then the big dog used his nose to push his piece over to Cocky. The rooster stared at it, then stared at Bear—then gulped that one down too! After that, Cocky happily stretched, fluffed his long feathers, crowed, rubbed against the big dog, and strutted off to explore his new home with Bear bounding after him!
Granny Nanny laughed. “Well, I do declare. That’s some rooster! Welcome home, Cocky!”
The day was still “hot as a firecracker.” After those big sandwiches Uncle Tom gave them, neither Holly Jean nor her grandmother wanted much to eat. They decided to have some sweet tea for lunch, along with the watermelon slices left over from yesterday’s big party. Granny Nanny had put them in a sealed jar down in the well to keep them cool. Yum!
As they sat eating on the front porch, Holly Jean remarked, “I’m so excited about Aunt Kate finally getting married, Granny Nanny!”
Her grandmother spat a watermelon seed all the way across the yard. “Me too, gal, me too. We all need some happiness in life.”
Holly Jean thought a minute. “Granny Nanny, it’s been a long time since Grandpa Ned died. I don’t even remember him. If you fell in love with someone, would you get married again?”
Her grandmother spat out another seed. “Well, child, I don’t rightly know. I fell in love hard at sixteen, and could hardly wait for Ned and me to get hitched. Sure, he was good-lookin’, but he was also a good man, Holly Jean. Hard worker too, and treated me like a queen. God led us to each other, and he honored God his whole life. But I suppose if God leads me to someone else someday…well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
Rising she said, “No dishes to wash today, gal, so I’m just gonna kick off these shoes and soak my poor, achin’ feet.” With that she went into the cabin.
Holly Jean followed her. “Sixteen. Is that the age when most girls around here get married, Granny?”
Her grandmother was already untying her Sunday shoes. “Well, mostly—sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—some young as thirteen.”
Holly Jean giggled. “Hey, that’s my age.”
Her grandmother frowned. “Now don’t you go getting any ideas, young lady. Married life’s for grown-up folks. There’s cooking and cleaning and scrubbing and hoeing and trying to make ends meet. Plus babies to care for ’n all the rest. You get your book larnin’ first, girl, like your pa and ma did, so your Papa Joe can be proud of you.
“You see,” Granny Nanny continued as she slipped her tired feet into a soothing pan of water, “when Ned and me was your age there wasn’t any way young folk from back here in the hills could make it into town every day to go to high school. But now they has school buses. So, promise me you’ll go on and finish high school—maybe college too, like Miss Linda did. And wait for the right one God has picked out for you? Promise?”
Holly Jean hugged her. “Promise.”
Then she hurried into her bedroom to change into everyday clothes. Whew! Even with the window wide open, the place was stifling hot. She had planned to spend Sunday afternoon doing more cleaning up in the attic, but with this heat that would be impossible.
Granny’s big old barn, however, would be cool. So why not go visit Domino and see how Cocky was getting along with his new friends? She could visit the rest of the animals too, while she was at it.
Searching through the stove’s overhead warming bins, Holly Jean found a big piece of Granny Nanny’s good cornbread left over from last night, plus several biscuits from this morning. Maybe she could share these goodies with the minnows in the creek and the kittens in the barn.
Although little Catfish Creek was so low right now she could have simply crossed on the stepping stones, Holly Jean climbed up onto the little footbridge instead. From there, she started breaking crumbs off the slice of cornbread and tossing them gently onto the water below. Instantly the creek was alive with tiny fish, all competing for her attention.
In a few minutes, Bear joined her. Holly Jean waved good-bye to the fish and headed on to the barn.
It wasn’t hard to find Cocky. The big red rooster was out front by the open barn door, showing the hens how to find worms and bugs, as if they didn’t already know! But none of them seemed to mind his bossiness. In fact, they probably enjoyed having a new chicken friend around.
Although Morgie and Star usually spent these warm days out in the pasture or under the weeping willows by Catfish Creek, today they had retreated to the shade inside the barn. Holly Jean gave them both a good hug and scratching around their ears, while she fed them some ears of dry corn. Then for dessert, she gave them fresh clover she found growing out by the barn door.
Finally, plopping down on a bale of hay, she took a shoestring out of her gym shoes and started dangling it. Instantly, several kittens appeared, including little Domino. They had fun playing with the string—and so, of course, did she!
Then just as she was ready to start sharing the leftover cornbread and biscuits with them, she heard a very strange sound from the back of the barn. It sounded like a squeal or a whine—or both of them together. What in world was making that weird noise?
Jumping up—which immediately scattered the frightened kittens—she and Bear hurried farther back into the barn and looked around. Nothing there except for some mosquitoes, flies, beetles, and mice, plus a lizard or two.
But, wait—did she see some initials carved up on the wall by the back door? She looked more closely. Yes, inside a heart shape she made out JAR + LML. JAR—say, maybe that was for Joseph Allen Roberts, Papa Joe’s official name. But who was that LML? For sure, those weren’t her Mama Jean’s initials! Well, she’d just have to ask Granny Nanny the minute she got back to the cabin.
Just then, she heard that strange sound again. Now it seemed to come from outside the back of the barn instead of inside it. She and Bear walked out through the barn’s back door. That’s where Granny’s old pigpen stood, which was now falling apart since it hadn’t been used for years.
And that’s where Holly Jean found them: two very dirty, very tired, very, very hungry little creatures. Creatures that looked very much like a black-and-white puppy and a still-pink baby pig!
She stared at them. They stared back, trembling. Poor things! They’re so thin. They must have been lost in the woods! They must be starved!
With that, Holly Jean remembered the leftover food in her pocket. Breaking it into pieces, she knelt down and held them out in her hands.
The piglet and puppy sniffed and sniffed. Still quivering, they slowly inched forward.