Wanted

Chapter 62

So sorry friends and readers, but I have an injury on my arm and it slows me down so much, not only with writing but almost everything I do. And it's not even my dominant arm.  but here it is the next chapter.

In a panic, because Horace wouldn't stop his squealing, and because he didn't know what else to do to make him stop, John put his hand into the bucket a second time and threw more food at Horace, and when that didn't work, he just did it again, and again. The practice with his left arm had paid off, Matunaagd would have been proud of him. He didn't miss once.

It was of course a stupid thing to do, Jeremiah would not have been proud of him at all. Despite that and to his own surprise, it did work. Horace eventually did go quiet and slowly scratched the food of his woolen jumper with a puss on him that would have even made his father jealous. By the time he threw it back at John however, John was already running toward him as he had heard Mrs McCarthy approach from behind the back door. 

Horace, unlucky for him, neither reacted as swiftly nor was as good a shot as John, so that he hit his mother straight in the chest with the lump of food, just as she opened the door into the kitchen.

After that everything just happened too fast. In the panic that ensued, poor Horace who stood in front of the exit that led to the hallway, mistook John's coming at him as an attack, so that he held up his good arm in front of him as a defense which John ran straight into, sore shoulder first. The pain shot through John like a bullet and had him go down on his knees gasping for air, pulling Horace on his gammy legs down with him.

To Mrs McCarthy it must have looked as if they were fighting with each other, for as soon as she had recovered from the fright she'd gotten, she started to shout at them to stop, and then proceeded to hit them with her broom that she had only moments ago used to free her beloved porch of the freshly fallen snow. There was no room in her house for this kind of violence she shouted at them. "In this house, arguments are fought with words," she screeched bringing the wet bundle of twigs down onto their bodies again and again leaving melting snowflakes all over her floor and the boys. The irony of this statement went amiss on her of course, and her beatings although not that painful did not help one bit to stop the kerfuffle. The boys were not fighting but were merely trying to get up and scramble away from each other.

When at last she stopped and helped her son up onto his feet, John grabbed the opportunity and the bucket with what was left for the pigs and ran out to the barn as fast as his sore shoulder allowed it.

Exhausted and disappointed with himself, he fed the pigs and then instead of doing what he was told to do, he stayed at the window of the barn from where he was anxiously watching McCarthy, Phelps and the lads cut wood in the sizeable roofed over area at the side of the main house that they so generously called the woodshed. 

It was of course only a matter of time that the master would hear of his latest crime and he was not going to be left waiting for long. It was Mrs McCarthy who wrapped up in her large woolen shawl came out the front door to tell her husband all about it.

He couldn't hear what McCarthy was shouting but that he was angry as hell was obvious. Both Lee and Carter cautiously backed away from him as he pointed angrily in their direction berating them. Mrs McCarthy with her hands on her hip too seemed to be doing her own bit of giving out too, but not at the lads but McCarthy, while Phelps as if using the opportunity to take a break sat himself down on the saw-horse lighting his pipe as if none of this was any of his concern, which of course it wasn't.

John watched with a sinking heart and queasy feeling in his stomach as McCarthy drove his axe into the chopping block and then stomped off into the direction of the barn.