Page 57 of Sugarplum Dreams
He was at that age where he wanted to touch everything, although thankfully he was past the stage where he wanted to touch it all and put it in his mouth too.
“All right, guys, let’s head over to the barn. Gifford, if it’s okay with your mom, you can carry the box of chicks over.”
“That’s fine with me. Should I put the lid back on?”
They were so cute huddled together, and she wanted to be able to look at them, but she remembered what he had said about them jumping out.
“Yeah. You better cover them up, and then Gifford needs to be careful not to jostle them too much.”
“I’ve got it.” He sounded so grown-up and competent.
Charity glanced at him, looking so serious as he picked the box up, careful to do exactly what Wilson had said. She wasn’t quite sure why he was having so much trouble in school. It didn’t seem to be any one thing, he just wasn’t getting good grades, didn’t always pay attention in class, and sometimes the teacher had to send a note home from school that he had pushed someone down at recess or had been mouthy to the teacher.
Charity assumed that all had something to do with his dad leaving and all the other changes in his life, but she wasn’t sure. And she definitely didn’t know what to do about it.
Regardless, he seemed very enamored with the new chicks and proud of his role carrying them over. Charity would have to remember to thank Wilson for the extra attention that he hadbeen giving Gifford. Gifford seemed to thrive under the little bit of responsibility that he was allowed to have. Maybe that would pull him back from whatever bad path he was traveling down.
They made it to the barn, and sure enough, Wilson had indeed made an entire chicken coop, with boxes for laying and bars for roosting, and in the middle, he had a little area sectioned off with a heat light over top and feed and water close by.
The heat light was on, and everything was ready for the chicks to come out.
“All right, we’re going to let your mom do this, and if she thinks Gifford and Banks are old enough to help, they can do it as well. The rest of us are just going to watch. Maybe someday it will be our turn.”
“But I want to help!” Lavinia said.
“And I’m sure you can, when you get a little bit bigger,” Charity said, not wanting Wilson to have to be the bad guy all the time.
The little girls fussed a bit, but Gifford and Banks were so excited about pulling them out, and dipping their beaks in the water, and then allowing them to run around. Soon all fifteen were out, and they realized they had an extra one.
“Maybe they sent an extra one in case one died. Every once in a while, we do lose one.”
“Oh boy. We have sixteen.” She hated to show her ignorance, but she had to ask. “How many eggs will we get from them every day?”
“If we were a commercial layer facility, where we could tightly control the amount of daylight they had, and the feed and other environmental factors, we could have them up to ninety-five percent, which means that ninety-five percent of them would lay one egg a day. But for what we’re going to do, it’llbe good if we get eighty percent, which means eighty percent of sixteen, so that many eggs each day once they start laying.”
“Well. My goodness. I guess you guys better start eating a lot of eggs.”
“They’re nice to give away. You can’t sell them, because they’re not USDA inspected, but you can give them away, or you can take donations for them.”
“Wow. Maybe I can use them in my baking?”
“I don’t think you can do that either, but we’ll have to check the regulations and see.”
“All right. Whether I can or not, it’s going to be fun,” she said, feeling excited and happy and so totally seen, like Wilson knew exactly what to do in order to make her smile.
She wasn’t sure what she could do to make it up to him, but it was definitely something she was praying about.
Chapter Twenty-Four
May 26
School had gotten out a week prior, and it seemed like adding Gifford into the mix had made everything more chaotic.
Or maybe it was just Wilson trying to figure out an excuse as to why he had forgotten their anniversary the day before.
He had determined that he was going to spend at least one day pampering his wife or doing his best to pamper her, and he had made it through the first four months, but he had totally dropped the ball yesterday.
As he and Gifford walked in for lunch, after spending the morning outside checking the cows, tagging a couple of newborn calves, and getting the baler ready to use, he wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed like it was too late to fix anything, and really, maybe Charity didn’t care. She hadn’t said anything, and maybe she forgot herself.
