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  “I believe it will be acceptable, Mr. Flood, as long as you understand I’ll not tolerate any drunkenness in my home or around my sons. Knowing you no doubt emptied most of the bottle you purchased yesterday, I was a rather discomfited knowing my sons spent several hours yesterday afternoon up here with you.”

  “Nay, Mrs. McNair, I’ll not be having you spread rumors I’m a drunkard. I may betimes take a drink after work with the men I work with, but I’ve too much to do to spend my time in the pubs. And, in spite of the reputation of the Irish, you’ll not be finding me drinking myself under the table. And, ’tis sure I be I meet your other requirements.”

  Ona blinked and took a step back. “Other requirements? I don’t recall discussing any other requirements with you, Mr. Flood.”

  “Nay, but your sons be looking out for you, now don’t they? ‘Tis true I was with the Army for a year fighting against Mexico, but ‘twas not the life for me. And, being raised a good Irishman, I be not joining with the Presbyterians anytime soon. If I was to be a church-going man, ‘twould be to the church down on Gold Street I be going.”

  “I see. You’re Catholic, then?” Ona said, eyeing her sons with a look telling them they could expect to hear more from her on the subject later.

  “Aye. You be not expecting any different, be you?”

  Ona dropped her eyes and shook her head. “I must be going, Mr. Flood. If you’ll make arrangements with the butcher and the mercantile, I’ll have Jesse bring your soup up to you later today.”

  “Aye, I be taking care of it once I get myself back together, Mrs. McNair. And, if it be all right with you, feed them some of the soup afore they come. They be visiting the mules when they be here, so ‘tis best you not be looking for them to come back home too soon.”

  Ona looked at him askance, but continued speaking. “I believe I can spare them for awhile this afternoon. And, if you feel well enough, Mr. Flood, I would be honored if you would join us at our home tomorrow shortly after noon, it being Sunday. The boys can come get you to show you where we live.”

  Mayhap I be on my deathbed, but I still be coming.

  “As for paying me…” Ona took a deep breath and continued hesitantly, “Especially with tomorrow being Sunday, providing the food for the three of us should cover the cost of me preparing it. I just hope you aren’t disappointed with what I fix for you.”

  “’Twill be better than I’d be fixing for myself, Mrs. McNair. If ‘twill help you feel better about it, you can be cooking our meals on Sundays without pay and I’ll be helping your boys learn how to build things. But the other days you be cooking for me, I’ll be paying you for your work, same as I’d be paying at the American.”

  Ona pursed her lips. “It’s not necessary. I’m unable to provide the quality of service you would find at the hotel restaurant.” She inhaled in preparation to continue her argument, but Sean cut her off before she could get a word out.

  “’Twill be looking forward to the soup this day and dinner tomorrow. Now, if you’ll not be having a need of your sons, I’ll be putting them to work for a few hours after I return from town. Appears they be needing to earn new coats for the winter.”

  “I can take care of my family,” Ona said quietly, her eyes stricken with embarrassment.

  “Aye, sure I am ‘tis true. But the boys be needing to start earning their own way, now don’t they? ‘Twas how ‘twas when I was their age. ‘Twill do them good.”

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  Chapter 4

  ~o0o~

  A

  t the sound of someone kicking pebbles and leaves as they approached his cabin, Sean pulled his hand away from his face. He had been absorbed in poking his cheek next to where his tooth had been extracted to get a sense of how quickly his gums were healing. He ignored the faint taste of blood as he watched Jesse and Benjy trudging towards him. Each boy held a canning bottle of a yellow liquid with suspended bits of white and color throughout.

  Aye, my chicken soup.

  With his free hand, Jesse also gripped the wood handle of a shovel propped on his shoulder.

  “Here’s your chicken soup Ma made you.” Jesse said as he held out his jar.

  Sean noticed the boy’s unhappy expression. “Aye, and I thank you and your ma, Jesse.” Sean also reached out to take the jar Benjy handed him. “Why so glum, Jesse? I could have come get my own soup if I’d known ‘twas a burden for you.”

  “It’s not that, Mr. Flood.” The boy heaved a sigh of resignation.

  Benjy chimed in. “Jesse don’t like digging holes. Ma sent him up to dig a pit for your necessary.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow as he turned back to study Jesse. “Nay, I’ll be digging my own, Jesse. There be no need you doing it for me. Just haven’t gotten around to it, now have I? ‘Til I do, we’ll just stand next to a friendly tree, now won’t we?”

  “Benjy doesn’t know how to tell if a tree is friendly or not, Mr. Flood.” Jesse wrinkled his brow. “I’m not so sure I can always tell this time of year, either, now the poison oaks have dropped their leaves. Ma won’t let us come here anymore unless you have a necessary so she doesn’t have to worry we’ll get into something to make us all blistery and itchy.”

  ’Tis what you get for getting involved with a woman and her sons, boyo.

  “Then give over the shovel and I’ll start to digging.”

  Jesse thought about it for a second, a concerned look on his face, before he shook his head. “Ma said it wasn’t her place to tell you what to do, especially while you’re not feeling so good. She told me to just find out where you want it and for me to do the digging.”

  “If you don’t tell her ‘twas me doing the digging, she’ll never know, now will she?”

  “No, Mr. Flood, I don’t dare. She’s bound to ask if I did what she told me, and she always can tell if I’m lying. So, I better just do it or I’ll end up in trouble. Maybe you can eat your soup after you show me where you want it.”

  Aye, for a woman not wanting to tell a man what to do, sure it is she has a funny way of going about it.

  Benjy grinned and pointed to a jar of soup. “It’s really good soup, Mr. Flood. Ma already gave us some so we wouldn’t ask for any of yours. We even had some of the big pieces of meat she pulled off the bones.”

  With his arms akimbo Sean studied the two boys before him.

  This soup be costing you, boyo. She be conniving her way into running your life.

  “Aye, I’ll be eating my soup whilst Jesse, here, starts to digging. ‘Tis soft dirt on top due to the rain yesterday. But I’ll be taking over when the digging gets hard. And you, young Benjy, can be dragging brush in for kindling. But first, you boys can use my cup to share some of my soup, enough to keep you going whilst we harness up Hattie and Boomtown to drag some logs in.”

  “But, ma said…”

  “’Tis my land, Jesse boy, and I’m offering. I’ll not be hearing it from you or your ma about what I do with my soup I paid for, now will I?”

  Sean grinned back at the smiles lighting up both the boys’ faces. Jesse dropped the shovel as the boys scrambled to the wagon in the barn in search of Sean’s cup while Sean removed the lid to the jar and began to sip the soup. He rolled his eyes in ecstasy as the taste of the potato thickened chicken feast rolled over his tongue and the warmth of the semi-liquid meal soothed as it slid past the tender spot where his tooth had been pulled. With the healthy side of his mouth he used his gums to flatten the soft particles of carrot, onion and potato. He closed his eyes as he savored the small bursts of flavor.

  Aye, you did good, boyo, fixing it up to have the widow McNair make you soup.

  Too bad it wasn’t the only thing he found attractive about the determined, strong-willed woman.

  The boys raced each other back to Sean’s side with the prize of his tin cup clutched tightly in Jesse’s hand. Sean opened the other jar and poured out some soup.

  “Let your brother drink firs
t, Jesse.”

  The three quieted as they enjoyed the chicken soup. After only two cups full which the boys shared, Jesse insisted they’d had enough and didn’t want to eat all of Sean’s soup. While Benjy ran down to the creek to rinse the cup out, Jesse picked up the shovel and began to dig in the spot Sean pointed out to him on the north side of the house. After putting the cup back in the wagon, Benjy started gathering twigs and small branches of the black oak and pine blanketing the hills surrounding Columbia.

  Sean called to the younger boy. “And you’ll be staying where I can see you, Benjy. I be not wanting to explain to your ma you getting poison oak.”

  After Sean took over for Jesse and finished digging the ditch deep enough to feel confident it would meet Ona McNair’s standards, he called the boys to him while he harnessed the mules.

  An excited Benjy bounced in place. “Where are we going, Mr. Flood?”

  “We’ll be bringing back some logs I cut last week. ’Twas intended for my roof, but appears I be splitting them to build the necessary.”

  “Splitting them?” Benjy wrinkled his forehead in confusion. “Don’t you take the logs to the saw mill to be cut?”

  “Aye, I could. But, using my own tools, ‘tis cheaper ‘twill be splitting them into boards myself .”

  Sean lifted each boy on the backs of the mules, Benjy on Hattie and Jesse on Boomtown, before he led them up the hill and into unclaimed forest where he had felled some thick pines the weekend before. Using the mules and the chains he had brought, he secured two logs behind the mules before walking the mules dragging their load back to his property. The whole way the boys peppered Sean with questions about how he would split the logs, cut them to the same length or lift the heavy pieces of wood so he could work them.

  “My wedge and maul be doing the splitting, boys. And my mules hooked to the block and tackle be helping me move these wood beasties around to where I can saw them.”

  On the way to pick up the fourth log, Sean spotted a tangle of poison oak, its deep red branches twisted around a black oak as if waiting to snare any unsuspecting victim who brushed up against it.

  “You see over there, don’t you, boys? ‘Tis an unfriendly tree if there ever be one. You stay far away. And don’t be standing downwind from poison oak breathing in the plant’s poison or ‘twill sicken your lungs. Now, one more load of logs, then ‘twill be home you go to your ma.”

  “How come you have both mules pull the two logs, Mr. Flood? Couldn’t just one mule do two and the other pull two?”

  Sean turned to Jesse who had asked the question. “Aye, mayhap.”

  “Then why don’t you have Hattie bring two logs and Boomtown bring two? Then you would only need one trip.”

  “The mules have learned to pull as a pair, now haven’t they? Together they pull more than each of them alone can pull. ‘Tis easier for them this way, especially carrying a big load of boys the likes of you two.”

  The boys giggled and Sean grinned as he watched them.

  Aye, ‘tis more fun having the boys along than me doing it myself.

  Back at Sean’s property, he showed the boys the sawbuck constructed of stout logs he used to position the wood at a good height for him to saw the wood into the desired lengths. He also pointed out his block and tackle fastened to a sturdy oak branch and explained how he used it with the help of the mules to hoist the logs up onto the sawbuck or into the back of the wagon.

  “I be starting on splitting the boards tomorrow, boys.”

  Benjy craned his neck to study the canvas once again secured over the rafter joists. “Why don’t you just use the canvas for a roof? We do on our house.”

  Sean felt his heart drop at the reminder the McNairs lived in a log and canvas tent. Commonly used when a new town was being formed or an existing town burned down like had happened in Columbia five months earlier, canvas tents reinforced over a wood frame were a quick way to construct a building to provide privacy and some protection from the elements. But a vague recollection of Jesse’s comments about their home needing repairs due to rips in the canvas coursed through Sean’s memory. He suspected the McNairs were not living in a tent because the fire had burned them out of their home. They had probably been there for years, even from before the boys’ father had died.

  The canvas be rotted by now. The man should have been building his family a real house.

  “Nay, Benjy. ‘Twill be having a solid roof over my head afore I be done. But I can’t be having your ma refuse to let my helpers come for lack of a necessary, now can I? Find your shovel, Jesse, and off with you to home now. Sun’s setting, and sure it is your ma’ll be looking for the two of you.”

  “We’ll come get you tomorrow when ma’s ready for dinner, Mr. Flood,” Jesse assured Sean.

  “Aye, I be looking toward what your ma be fixing for us.”

  Admit it, boyo. You be looking to see more than the food.

  His feet spread and his fists resting on his hips, Sean watched the two boys as they scampered towards home, laughing and poking at each other in play. He could not fail to notice the difference in them compared to the two starving boys who sat at his campfire the day before. Used to being alone or around other grown men when he had to be, Sean felt pleasantly surprised at the realization of how much he had enjoyed the afternoon in the company of Jesse and Benjy.

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  Chapter 5

  ~o0o~

  S

  ean stopped his maul in mid-swing when he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He angled the heavy tool down and to the side, careful to not break his shin in the process. He stood with his hands on his hips as he waited for Jesse to walk up his hill, Benjy trudging behind him

  “What have we here, boys? Be you looking to help me build my cabin now?”

  Jesse nodded. “We can, Mr. Flood, if you need help. Mostly I hope to spend time with your mules.”

  “Not me,” piped up Benjy. “The mules are too big. They scare me a little bit. I want to watch what you’re doing, Mr. Flood.”

  “Aye, well, you won’t be seeing much this morning, now will you, boys? Hattie and Boomtown already be in the corral and I be just splitting these logs for the necessary.”

  Jesse dropped his head and shrugged in resignation. “Maybe I can brush them later when you get them back in the barn. Can we stay and watch for a little while, Mr. Flood? After we got back from visiting Pa and Mary Margaret, Ma told us to find something useful to do because she’s busy cooking.”

  Sean guessed if the McNair family visited the boys’ father, it must mean they made a trip to the cemetery.

  And who be Mary Margaret?

  “Aye, and ’tis already useful you’ve made yourselves hauling firewood and water for your ma, now haven’t you?”

  Benjy and Jesse glanced at each other, guilty looks plastered on their faces. Jesse answered for them both. “Pretty much. I guess we can do a bit more when we go back home before it’s time to get you for dinner. But, Ma always gets sad after our visits, so we thought it’d be best if we went somewhere else for a while.”

  “And who be Mary Margaret to you boys?”

  “She’s our little sister. She got real sick in the lungs and couldn’t breathe. Benjy got it, too, but he got better. Mary Margaret died. Ma buried her next to Pa.”

  Sean stood studying the boys, momentarily speechless. An awareness of the sorrow the boys’ mother had suffered in the few short years she had been in Columbia swept through his consciousness. She might have had an easier time finding work if she had moved down to Stockton or north to Sacramento, but maybe she had felt reluctant to leave the grave of her daughter behind.

  “Aye, ‘tis a sad tale, boys. ‘Tis good you can visit her grave and give comfort to your ma. Sit over yonder out of the way of flying wood chips, now, whilst I split a few more boards for the infernal necessary. Then I have some apples we can use to coax old Hattie and Boomtown into be
ing sociable before I send you on your way.”

  “You can afford to buy apples for the mules?”

  Sean recognized the envy in Jesse’s voice. He quirked an eyebrow at the boys, once again reminded of the dire circumstances in which they lived. “Aye, and also for hungry boys who visit my mules, too.”

  After Sean finished splitting the log on which he had been working, he took the boys to visit the mules and feed them their treat. Using his fingers, Benjy, excited with his treat, tried to recapture every drop of apple juice dripping down his chin. “Do we have to go home before it’s time for dinner?”

  “Aye, boys. ‘Tis Sunday and I be not dragging my stink into your ma’s home. You can help your ma whilst I visit the bathhouse and barber.”

  ~o0o~

  Sean returned to his cabin to find the two McNair boys waiting for him. A fretting Jessie pacing back and forth drew his attention. The boy heaved a visible sigh of relief once Benjy hollered out notice of Sean’s arrival.

  “Ma’s got dinner ready, Mr. Flood,” Jesse announced. “She doesn’t like it when we’re real late after she’s spent a lot of time fixing a good meal.”

  “Aye, sorry ‘tis I be late, boys. ‘Tis good I nay was taking the time dropping my dirties off at the laundry. ’Twill be tossing them into my cabin then be hurrying down there.”

  “Ma can do your laundry, Mr. Flood,” Jesse assured him. Then to explain, “I mean, she earns money doing people’s wash. But only if you want her to.”

  Sean pondered whether or not he wanted a woman he hoped to favorably impress to wash his stained shirts and faded underwear worn paper thin in spots. Then again, the previous day she had already witnessed his hung-over, bleary-eyed self stinking of sweat and gum sickness as he slithered out of his wagon.

  Too late to make a good impression on the widow, boyo.

  “Mayhap I be speaking with her about it, boys. We best be going or ‘tis my hide your ma will be having.”