“Still, she doesn’t have to be rude about it,” Mother said, as if that settled everything. Mother could forgive anything but rudeness. She’d always had a soft spot for distinguished gentlemanly crooks like Cary Grant’s character in To Catch a Thief. Several years ago, when she and Dad had a burglary, she complained far less about the loss of their new television set than the fact that the ill-mannered intruder had failed to wipe his feet and left muddy footprints all over her Oriental rug.
Just then, Lacie dashed back in.
“Forgot something,” she said with a nervous giggle. “So silly of me.”
Her own purse.
“Lacie, dear,” Mother said.
I grabbed a glass of lemonade and beat a retreat. Maybe Lacie needed rescuing after all.
Outside, I found that Dad had appropriated two of Farmer Early’s sheep and was trying to teach Spike the rudiments of herding them. At least I assumed that was why Dad was on his hands and knees, yipping like a small dog and pretending to nip at the heels of the sheep. The sheep ignored him. Spike sat with his head cocked to one side, clearly fascinated, but he didn’t seem interested in joining the fray.
“So how’s it going?” I asked.
“Slowly,” Dad said.
“I keep telling him it’s not the barking,” Horace said. “It’s all in the eyes.”
Dad sat back, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and mopped his forehead.
“Is that lemonade?” he asked.
“Here.” I handed him the glass. “You need this more than I do.”
“Thanks,” he said. He gulped half the lemonade without stopping, then sat back again to mop more slowly and frown at the sheep.
“Yes, going slowly,” he said. Then, as if afraid he’d sounded too discouraged, he straightened his spine. “Repetition is the key,” he added.
“All in the eyes,” Horace said.
“Repetition,” Dad repeated, with a small frown at Horace. “Repetition and patience.”
And a working sense of humor, I’d have added. One of the sheep contributed some manure to the lawn, a few inches from Dad’s foot. Dad sighed and gazed at it for a few moments, then stood up and tugged at the sheep. It resisted at first, then allowed itself to be led, one grudging step at a time, until they were about six feet away from the manure pile. Dad repeated the process with the second sheep, then drained the lemonade glass.
“Thanks,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll do another demonstration. Then you pick Spike up and put him right beside me. While I’m still herding. Let him get the idea that he’s supposed to do it, too.”
“Oh, I get to pick him up,” I said. “What have I ever done to you?”
But Spike was enjoying his lesson, or so I deduced from his perfunctory attempt to bite me. I took him closer, where he could get a good look at what Dad was doing, and Dad once again yipped, bared his teeth, and snapped at the heels of the oblivious sheep.
“Sheep, Spike,” I said in deliberate imitation of the command Rob used to set him in motion against cows. When I set him at Dad’s side, he sat down and curled his lip, as if protesting the smell.
“Rowrrrrrr!” Dad growled, and bent toward the sheeps’ legs again.
One of the sheep kicked him in the head.
It wasn’t a forceful kick; only the tip of the hoof grazed his forehead. But as Dad was so fond of pointing out, the skin of the face and scalp has a rich blood supply, causing cuts to the head to bleed more profusely than cuts anywhere else on the body.
“Oh my God!” Horace said. “Should we call a doctor?”
“I am a doctor,” Dad said. “Stay calm.”
Which was precisely what I’d heard him say a hundred times over the years while dealing with the minor injuries his children and grandchildren inflicted on themselves and one another. But usually by the time he said this, he was already staunching the bleeding with something, and now he was just sitting there with blood running down his face.
“Get some ice,” I said, grabbing the handkerchief Dad was holding and pressing it to the cut. “And some dish towels or something.”
Horace ran off.
“What’s wrong?” Rob said. He appeared at my elbow and abruptly disappeared. I heard the small thump as he hit the ground—Rob usually fainted at the sight of blood.
“Dad, can you hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you,” he said. “Stop shouting.”
“Dish towels,” Horace said, dumping several of them in my lap.
“I actually meant clean ones,” I muttered.
“What’s going on?” Mother had come trailing out of the kitchen after Horace.