When Rebekah emerged from the kitchen with the steaming food in hand, she discovered six quivering boys, with forks and knives at the ready, staring at her expectantly. A smile tilted her mouth ever-so-slightly. “Thanks for setting the table, Jeremiah.”
Almost as soon as she’d placed the food on their plates, it was inhaled.
After her multitude of brothers were served, Rebekah retrieved the tray she’d wisely reserved for her and Elnora and took to the stairs.
After a light knock on the door with her elbow, she heard her mother’s weak voice. “Come in.”
“Ma, are you all right?” Rebekah tried to keep the worried tone from coloring her words. She placed the tray of flapjacks, salt pork, and buttermilk on the wooden nightstand Pa carved for her ma as a wedding present. In the sole drawer, crude block letters spelled out Samuel and Elnora Stoll 1864. The year they married.
“Thank you, Rebekah. I am a lucky woman to have such a sweet daughter.” Elnora’s voice strained as she tried to push herself up in the bed.
“But are you all right.” Rebekah eased down on the bed to avoid any jostling her mother unnecessarily. She didn’t ask the question so much as stated it as if that would assure its truth. “Right? Ma?”
Her mother’s lips thinned as she reached for the cup of buttermilk.
Oh no. Her fingers are trembling.
“Here, Ma, I’ll get it.” Worry creased her brow as she passed the frothy liquid to her.
Elnora took a big sip. “I’m fine. The baby is acting like it wants to come.” She lay back onto the pillows. “You may be a big sister again before too long.”
As much as she loved babies, especially new ones, Rebekah couldn’t feign happiness. Instead, a peppering of questions flew off her tongue. “How do you know the baby is coming? Are you in pain? Is something wrong?”
She flung the words at her mother in much the same manner that Jeremiah flung dirt clods at their little brothers during one of their many “you-can’t-hit-me-with-that-dirt-clod-ouch-maybe-you-can” games.
“I began feeling pain early this morning.”
Rebekah’s eyes widened. Before she could open her mouth, Elnora continued. “Then the bleeding started.”
“Oh, Ma, I should fetch Heloise.” Rebekah rose from the bed. Her mind was already way ahead of her body.
“No, child.” Elnora tried to make her voice firm. It didn’t work.
“Why not?”
“We mustn’t bother her yet. The pains have stopped and to make the baby come, they must be regular. And hard.” It appeared that merely speaking of the process that would bring a baby sapped the very life from her mother. Rebekah patted her pale hand.
“Just tell me what you need, Ma. I’ll do it.”
Elnora’s closed her eyes. “I know you will, Rebekah. Thank you.” Her words trailed off in a yawn.
“Rebekah!” a shrill voice shrieked from downstairs. “Help!”
“Ma, I’ll be back.” She rushed downstairs.
The voice shrilled through the house again. “Rebek-ahhhhhhhh!”
“Oh, my.” Rebekah froze at the bottom of the stairs and gaped in horror at the scene before her. Her barefoot, school-aged brothers stood huddled in the corner of the common room at the mercy of Tom the Rooster.
“How did he get in here?” She eyed the notorious rooster as she edged along the far wall. “Where’s Jeremiah?”
“We dunno.”
The mass of smallish hats and suspenders appeared to quake as Tom dropped his wing and started in their direction. “Rebekah!”
She slipped her apron off. “Hush now.”
Cautiously, she slid along the wall like a snake through the grass. “Boys, when I say go, I want you all to holler out as loud as you can. Understand?”
Some nodded. Others had their eyes scrunched shut.
Rebekah advanced on the white and silver rooster who, until then, paid her no mind. Then, with a threatening squawk, Tom charged her.
“Now, boys!”
Nobody made a sound.
“I mean go!”
All six brothers let out a cacophonous roar. Thankfully, Tom stopped short and turned to face the din, his silly head cocked to one side.
“A-ha.” Rebekah flung the apron over his scarlet-combed head. She fell to her knees and scooped the whole feathery conglomeration into her arms.
“I’ll hold him, boys. You get on to school. Hurry.”
The six youngest Stolls scrambled over one another as each tried to be the first out the door and far from the cranky rooster’s territory.
“Thanks, sissy!” Thomas, the youngest, called as the lot of them dashed down the road.
“You’re welcome!” Rebekah yelled and held the hooded fowl tightly. “Now to turn you out near the barn.”
She hurried to the dirt patch outside. Breathless, she gave the rooster-apron package a fling before skipping backward, safely out of the range of angry rooster claws.
A little breathless, she stopped beside a bush and watched as Tom stamped angrily about. His beady eyes glistened as though he knew someone had bested him.
“Gotta get up early in the morning to get one over on me, you silly bird.”
The old rooster pointed his beak skyward and let out a disgruntled cock-a-doodle-doooooooo.
She covered her mouth and laughed until tears streamed down her face and her sides ached. She doubled over and gasped in a failed attempt to catch her breath.
Rebekah regained her composure as images of Joseph flashed in her mind “Thank goodness nobody, especially Joseph, was here to see that.”
No sooner had the strangled words escaped her lips than Tom strutted back into her vision. He looked embarrassed and a sad coo roiled in his throat. Without warning, her giggles were loosed again.
Rebekah sank into a squat and dropped her head into her hands. Instead of attempting to be ladylike, she welcomed the hilarity that overtook her.
“He’s a queer animal, but he doesn’t seem to enjoy your amusement at his situation.”
