Ring of Fire(124)
"What chores? Polishing cars that no one'll buy because they nationalized all the gasoline? I did my chores for the day! I worked my butt off on that farm and earned some time off! You got a problem with that, take it up with Mr. Hudson! What were you doing all day?" He knew that was a mistake as soon as he said it. He looked at his plate and started shoveling food into his mouth.
"What was I doing? I was trying to find some way to make a living, to keep food on this table and a roof over your ungrateful head, that's what I was doing! I have two trucks from the army that need suspension work, and I needed you here to help with them, not gallivanting off in some hay field, pissing away time that could be spent helping this family!"
"Then you should have damned-well said something about it!" To hell with supper; he'd go hungry before he put up with another second of this. Dammit, Dad, you used to be proud of me! He shoved back from the table to leave.
"Billy, sit down and finish your supper," his mother said. "After working the farm all day, you should know we can't afford to waste food. And don't swear." She turned to his father as he sat back down. "Keith, that is enough. He did his work for the day. He earned his afternoon off. If you didn't tell him you had things for him to do, that's your fault, not his."
"He should know there are always things to do," his father grumbled, but stuffed a large bite in his mouth, and chewed it angrily.
"Be that as it may, he was doing other things we've been told need to be done. Working on his language skill, for one. Do you think he can be teaching those boys, and playing with them, and not pick up more German? For another thing, he's finding common ground with them, which may be even more important here and now than working on those trucks. The more things we can find—or create!—in common with the people around us, the less the army will have to defend us against, and the more people it will have to do it with. So don't think of it as wasting his time. Think of it as . . . improving foreign relations."
His father swallowed his latest over-large bite. "I still need him here!" He jabbed his fork at his plate for emphasis.
"Well then, I suggest you put him on the payroll and pay him for the work he does for you, since that will be time taken from other useful things he could be doing. You can make up a work schedule, and go over it with him in the mornings before he leaves."
Billy smothered a snicker at the look on his father's face—if he hadn't just swallowed, he might have choked. He looked like he might, anyway.
Billy's mother smiled much too sweetly. "That will, of course, also serve several purposes. It will teach you to talk to Billy, and schedule things, instead of just assuming he can read your mind, and taking his help for granted." She turned that smile on Billy. "And it will teach you the discipline and responsibility that comes with having a real job."
Billy looked at her, looked at his father, thought of having him as an actual employer, and quickly swallowed the bite he was chewing before he choked on it.
* * *
The work on the trucks took up three evenings, and even with the mechanics from the mine workers to help, it was just as heavy and dirty as the work in the fields, if not more so. They wound up dog-robbing heavier leaf-springs from old farm equipment to support the armor hanging on the trucks. The shocks were a hopeless cause—no matter what they put on, the extra weight and nearly nonexistent roads would soon trash them. The army would be in for rough rides in the near future. But the contract was done, and Billy's evenings would be free until his father found another.
Billy and his mother watched as his father dutifully entered Billy's pay into the account books, then they went to the bank to transfer the money into Billy's savings account. His father goggled a bit at the amount already in there from Billy's work on the harvest crews. Billy suppressed a smirk until he noticed his mother wasn't suppressing hers, at all.
They left the bank with his father shaking his head. His mother looked across the street, smiled to herself, and said lightly, "Excuse me. I'll meet you back home." She started across the street. "Miss Abrabanel? Could I have a moment of your time, please?"
Billy looked at his father; his father looked back. They both shrugged, two men together, baffled by the ways of women.
After dinner, Billy called some of his teammates and arranged for them to meet at the hay field after the work crews knocked off. With gloves, balls, and bats.
* * *
The next day, Billy, Vern, Steve, and a couple other team members gave a clinic on the fine art of baseball, passed out gloves, and coached two separate games on opposite ends of the hay field. The refugees were joined by several of their Grantville peers. Strangely, Billy's mother and Miss Abrabanel showed up and watched for a while, talking and occasionally gesturing at the players. They didn't stay long, and Billy soon forgot about them. The games went on until it got too dark to see the ball, and the youths found themselves walking home in the near-inky blackness of night.