Chapter Three Two days later, Gus was in the barn admiring the brooder he had built with his grandfather. They had constructed it of boards salvaged from a pile of lumber long abandoned in the barn loft. The brooder looked like the sandbox he had played in as a toddler in the park, but with higher sides. To keep the ducklings warm once they hatched, Gus and his grandfather planned to take the light bulb from the incubator and suspend it about a foot above the brooder. Otherwise, everything was ready. Gus''s grandfather had sent him all over the barn hunting for an old chicken waterer. Finally, Gus had been lucky to find it, buried in hay and covered with dirt, but with its glass jar unbroken. As long as the war was going on, even ordinary things like glass were scarce.
Gus scrubbed the waterer until it shone, and he filled the jar with fresh water and screwed on the top, which was really an upside-down tray. Then he inverted the whole thing, and air bubbled up into the jar and water filled the tray. A twenty-pound bag of poultry meal was propped against the near wall. He''d buy two bags of meal, his grandfather said; after that, the ducks would have to learn to scavenge for insects and grass. At first, Gus didn''t pay any attention to the sound coming from the incubator. He was sitting beside it on his upturned milk pail, a book balanced on his knees, writing a letter to his mother. He had very little news to share about himself. The garden was growing as crazily as Jack''s beanstalk, and the eggs--well, they were still just eggs.
He imagined his mother lying as placidly as an egg in her chaise hour after hour, and it made him want to write something that would make her laugh. Dear Mom, Knock, knock. Who''s there? Dodo. Dodo who? Dodo what to say. Ha, ha! Dad wrote and said that all rookie pilots are called dodos, because they''re big and heavy and can''t fly. I guess that makes you and me dodos, too. He also says he has room inspection every morning. So do I.
Where did Grandma learn how to be a drill sergeant?" Gus turned the piece of paper sideways and started to write across what he''d already written, something his grandmother had taught him so he could squeeze as much news as possible onto a single sheet. Grandpa and I built a brooder for the ducklings for when they hatch, which I hope will be soon. Then I''ll have news. I hope you are feeling better. I miss you. Love, Your son, Gus Gus was rereading his note when he finally paid attention to the sound. It was so faint and small that he assumed it was coming from the nest of one of the phoebes that favored the intersecting rafters high overhead. From waiting patiently below and observing them, Gus could tell that most of the phoebe eggs had hatched.
Now the phoebes passed their days busily flying in and out of the barn, their mouths no doubt filled with squished mosquitos and beetles for their demanding broods. But the chirping didn''t stop, as it often did when even insatiable baby birds finally settled down to sleep. Gus perked up to listen better. Hardly daring to trust his hearing, he leaned over the incubator. The sound was coming from the eggs, faint chirps that struck his ears with a desperate urgency. His heart racing, he leaned farther over and looked closely at the eggs, and now he could see cracks that hadn''t been there yesterday. In two eggs, he could see tiny holes, not much bigger than pinheads, and beaks pushing in and out, working away like tiny hammers to chip away at the fragile shells. "They''re hatching!" Gus shouted.
He raced to the doorway and shouted again. "They''re hatching!" His grandmother arrived first, panting and fanning herself with her apron. His grandfather was second, limping into the barn as fast as his tired knees would allow. All three of them leaned over the incubator and stared. "Heaven''s mercy," his grandmother said. "Who would have thought! Hope does have feathers." His grandfather just chuckled. "You''re in for it now, Gus.
" They stood around for perhaps fifteen minutes, waiting for the first miracle, but the ducklings were taking their time. Eventually, Gus''s grandmother said she had to get back to the kitchen. She was stewing rhubarb, and it needed attention or it would burn the bottom of the pot. Gus''s grandfather started to leave, too. "I can''t stand like I used to, Gus. You''ll just have to be patient. This could take all afternoon, maybe longer. That shell is so thin you could crush it with your fingers just by snappiing them, but to those ducklings that shell is as solid as a wall.
Just don''t help them," he warned sternly. "If a duckling''s not strong enough to break out of the egg on its own, it won''t survive anyway." As his grandfather approached the door, Gus had an inspiration. "Can I go get Louise?" he asked. "How will you get there and back in time?" his grandfather asked. "If you walk the whole four miles, you might just miss the great spectacle yourself." "I''ll take that bike." Gus pointed to a shadowy corner of the barn where he''d found an old bike while rummaging around for the chicken waterer.
The long- forgotten bike was leaning against one of the stalls. There was little grace in the design, but it had everything it needed. Enormous fenders, most of the red paint long since chipped away, bloomed over the spoked wheels, and the handlebars stuck out like praying mantis elbows. The bike was dusty and covered with rust, but it still had its tires, though they needed some air. "Well, I''ll be," his grandfather said. He took off his hat and scratched his head. "That was your father''s bicycle. I had no idea it was still around.
And if I had, I''d probably have turned it in during the last scrap drive." "Can I take it?" Gus asked. "Does it have brakes? Can you ride it?" his grandfather asked. "Yep," Gus assured him. He had scooted around the barn on it the day before. "But the tires are flat. Can you put air in them?" "I think I can handle that," his grandfather said. He limped over to his workshelves and rummaged around under them until he found the tire pump.
"Bring it over here." Gus wheeled the bike over, and his grandfather unscrewed the nozzle caps on both tires. While Gus held the bike, his grandfather pushed down on the pump handle. They both watched the tires grow firm and taut. "I don''t know whether they''ll hold, but that''s the best I can do," his grandfather declared. "Do you know how to get to the Lavictoires''?" "Not really," Gus said, aware that precious time was passing. His grandfather pointed down the hill. "Go straight for about one mile.
You''ll see the turn for Cherry Hill. Go left, up that hill for about another mile. When you come to the sorriest farm in all of Miller''s Run, you''re there," he said. Gus took off pedaling furiously. The first part was easy, all downhill from his grandparents'' farm. When he saw the turn for Cherry Hill, he started uphill. After ten minutes, he wondered if there was any top to this spine-rattling road of rocks. His face burned, and he could feel his shirt clinging to his sweaty back.
Then he saw it--the sorriest farm in all of Miller''s Run, maybe in all of creation. Looking around, he tried to imagine the accumulation of stuff inside his grandfather''s barn, multiplied tenfold and turned inside out. The yard, such as it was, was strewn with wreckage: broken mowers, washing machines, and unidentifiable pieces of farm machinery; splintered wooden tubs that had once served who-knows-what purposes; a tipped over sewing machine treadle; barbed wire; a truck sunk to its axles in dried mud with grass grown up around it as if it had taken root. The house itself was much like his grandparents'' house--an old farmhouse one-story high, with slanted windows in the gables--but the roof on this one sagged, and it could not have been wearing more than one gallon of paint spread across its cracked and warped clapboards. Fields surrounded the house on three sides, separated from the house and vegetable garden by rail wood fences that were falling down. In one place, a bony cow had stepped over the fallen fence and found some shade under an old apple tree. It was contentedly munching grass next to an old wagon that listed on broken axles like a ship gone aground. Laundry flapped on a line out back, but the clothes and sheets looked gray and dingy.
Everywhere, the place looked unkempt and uncared for. Even the vegetable garden looked untidy, overrun with weeds and vines strangling the young plants. In the middle of it stood a scarecrow wearing a faded blue- flowered dress, but the crosstie was broken and the arms hung down, as if the scarecrow itself had given up. Gus could hear the shrieks of young children coming from inside the house. Mustering his courage, he leaned his bicycle against the truck marooned in the front yard and knocked on the door. No one answered. He knocked again, louder. This time someone yanked the door open so hard that Gus stumbled backward.
The sound of shrieking increased, but it was not frightened shrieking; it was more the sound Gus could remember making himself when he was little and in high spirits. "Eh?" asked a dirty little child of about seven or eight, boy or girl he could not tell. Like Louise the day she visited the barn, this child wore patched coveralls and a torn plaid shirt. "I want to talk to Louise," Gus explained. The door slammed in his face, and he stood there feeling stupid, unsure if the child had even understood him. He shifted from one foot to another, trying to decide whether to go or stay. The ducks might be hatching at this very moment. Suddenly, the door opened again.
Louise stood in the doorway. She grinned when she saw him. "Hi," she said, as if she''d been expecting him. "The--the eggs are hatching," he stammered. ".