Counting Sheep Read online

  “I propose that we both think on it,” said Granddaddy, “and discuss it again tomorrow after lunch. Is that convenient for you?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” I ran upstairs to my room with the patient, washed my face and hands, and just made it to the table in time. Travis was bursting to ask me about it, I could tell, but we had to wait for Father to say the blessing.

  As we ate, Travis and I talked quietly about my plans for a toothpick splint and how I was really doing it for the many generations of butterflies to come.

  “But don’t tell the others,” I said. “They’ll only think it’s stupid.”

  “I don’t think it’s stupid, Callie. I think it’s really smart of you to figure it out.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t know for sure it will work. I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.”

  4

  The next day after lunch, I met Granddaddy in the library.

  “Ah,” he said, “I see you have our patient. For such fine work, we will need more light.”

  He pulled back the green velvet drapes, and light flooded the gloomy room. Then he lit four lamps and set them on the corners of his desk. I’d never seen the room so bright.

  “Put the patient in the middle,” he said.

  I set the jar in the middle of the desk next to the items he had assembled: an old soft washrag, a loop of fine wire, a handful of toothpicks, tweezers, scissors, and a bottle of glue. Along with, of course, his magnifying glass.

  “I can tell what all these things are for,” I said, “except for the wire.”

  “That’s to hold our Vanessa still. You’ll see in a moment.”

  I opened the jar. He reached in and gently pinched the butterfly’s wings closed between thumb and forefinger. He pulled it out and set it down on the washrag. Then, when the butterfly opened its wings, he took the loop of wire and set it across the wings to hold them still without crushing them.

  “There you are,” he said. “It’s all ready for you.”

  “Me?” I squeaked. “But I thought we were doing this together.”

  “We are doing this together. Do you not see me standing here before you, or am I merely a ghost? I shall hold the magnifying glass for you while you repair the wing.”

  “Uh, why don’t I hold the magnifying glass while you repair the wing?”

  “Calpurnia, I have complete faith in your abilities. Now. Is the light adequate?”

  “Um, I guess.”

  “Kindly do not guess. It either is or it isn’t, in which case I shall light another lamp for you.”

  “No no, it’s fine.”

  “Then cut a length of toothpick just slightly longer than the gap in the wing. If you make it too long, it will weigh the insect down. If you make it too short, it won’t hold when it attempts to fly.”

  Granddaddy held the glass, and I peered through it. The legs and antennae squirmed a little, but the wings were still. I grasped a toothpick with the tweezers and placed it alongside the broken wing—it looked as big as a log through the glass, and I felt like Gulliver on his travels when he was shipwrecked in a land of giants.

  “Here,” said Granddaddy, handing me the scissors.

  I cut a tiny length of the “log,” about one-eighth of an inch, then measured it against the rip.

  “That looks right to me,” I said.

  “Good. Now put a little—a very little—glue on it. Use another toothpick to apply it as thinly as possible, and be very careful. If you get glue anywhere else on the insect, that will be the end of it.”

  Granddaddy’s hand held steady. My hand shook a little, which under the magnifier turned into big jerky movements. I took a deep breath, and my hand held still. I managed to dab some glue on my splint, but Granddaddy looked at it and shook his head. “Too much glue. Do you see how it’s oozing off the end there? Cut another length and try again.”

  I held my breath, measured, and cut again, but this time the toothpick splintered.

  “Once more,” he said, “and Calpurnia, there’s no rush. Take your time. When faced with such fine fiddly work, it’s best to take your time.”

  Another toothpick, another cut, and this time the splint looked just right. I even managed to get the right amount of glue on it.

  “That’s good,” said Granddaddy. “Now comes the difficult part.”

  What? What had I been doing if not the difficult part?

  “You will only have one chance to place the splint across the gap on the wing. If you put it in the wrong place, if you get glue in the wrong place, the wing is ruined and it will never fly again.”

  He didn’t have to tell me what that meant.

  All right, Calpurnia, I told myself, here we go. I looked through the glass and held the splint with the tweezers above the gap. I took a deep breath and held it. And then, when my hand was as steady as it was ever going to be, I gently lowered it onto the wing. Was it in the right place? It looked like the right place to me. I was still holding my breath. I glanced anxiously at Granddaddy for confirmation.

  “Well done,” he said.

  I let out a great whoosh of air and gasped for breath. “Whew. That’s a relief.”

  “We must let the glue dry well, and then we shall see.”

  He returned to his book. I didn’t take my eyes off the Vanessa. The room was silent but for the ticktock of the mantel clock.

  Ten minutes later he looked up and said, “Are you ready to test your handiwork? Let’s take it outside and see how it goes.”

  “Yessir. But first I have to fetch Travis to watch this. He’s part of it, you see.”

  We agreed to meet at Mother’s flower garden in five minutes. Granddaddy gently put our patient back in its jar, and I took off in search of Travis.

  He wasn’t in his room, and he wasn’t in the barn, and I was about to give up on him when he came out of the woods that led down to the river, holding a small box turtle.

  “Come on, Travis,” I shouted. “We’re going to let the Painted Lady go. And put that turtle down. You don’t need another one, and neither do I.”

  He put the turtle on the ground, pointed it in the direction of the river, and trotted up to join me.

  “Did you fix it?” he said.

  “I hope so. But there’s only one way to find out.”

  5

  We found Granddaddy waiting for us among the roses and lilies. “Ah, young man, have you come to assist with the launch?”

  “Yessir,” Travis said shyly. He didn’t spend time with Granddaddy and always seemed a little afraid of him. Not like me.

  Granddaddy handed me the jar and said, “Since you saved it, I think you should do the honors.”

  Vanessa fluttered a little. Oh dear. Would the wing hold under the stress of flight? I opened the jar, and the butterfly crawled up to the lip and rested there for a moment, stretching its wings.

  Then it took off flying. And flew three feet. And landed on Travis’s palm.

  “Look,” he whispered.

  “Shhh,” I said.

  “Hold still,” said Granddaddy.

  Travis held still. It was a magical moment. The butterfly slowly opened and closed its wings, each time showing us the tiny splint. I’ll never forget my brother standing there, the look of wonder on his face at the living scrap of sunshine he held in his hand.

  After several seconds the butterfly took off, and although its flight was a little wobbly, it was indeed flying. It headed for a honeysuckle vine to feed on the nectar.

  “Congratulations, Calpurnia,” said Granddaddy, “you have successfully launched your patient. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I have some reading to catch up on.”

  “Wow,” said Travis, “that was really something.”

  “You’re lucky,” I said. “I’ve never had one land on me.”

  “You did something better. You saved it.”

  We watched it sipping the honeysuckle nectar. We were just turning to go when a sudden angry buzz filled the air. A Rufous humming
bird with a bright orange chest zipped through the garden. We had seen him before. He had wintered over in the garden and no doubt looked upon the vine as his own private property. Before Travis and I could act, he charged at our butterfly. It was Rufous versus Vanessa, two airborne orange dots buzzing and flitting and tumbling through the air. Vanessa took sudden evasive action, and my heart clenched, fearful that my splint would fail it. Even though Rufous was one of the world’s smallest birds, he was much fiercer and faster and could hover and fly backward and upside down (which, as far as I know, a butterfly could not do). He buzzed it again. He didn’t actually hit it, but he succeeded in scaring it off to the nearest lily, thirty feet away. Thank goodness he seemed happy enough with this and did not pursue it.

  “Whew,” said Travis, “that was a close one. That bird almost wrecked it. All your work could have gone down the drain.”

  I caught a glimpse of it the next day, and I’m sure because I could see the splint. After that I never saw it again. But I like to think it flew safely into the bushes and found a mate and laid many eggs. I like to think that every time I saw a Painted Lady on our property that it was one of its—and my—descendants.

  6

  Unlike Vanessa, most of the livestock on our farm did not have a name. But there was one sheep that did. Her name was Snow White, and she was Mother’s favorite out of all our many animals. Snow White’s wool was the softest in the county, not itchy against the skin at all, and won prizes at the Fall Fair every year. Mother had the hired man shear her twice a year and sold the wool for a goodly sum. She worried about her and would even go to her pen to pet her and feed her little treats of apples and carrots, something she never bothered to do with any other animal. Snow White’s wool was in such demand that Mother had decided to breed her and sell the lamb. By spring, Snow White grew big and round.

  On a Saturday morning, Mother sent Travis and me out to her pen next to the barn with an extra ration of grain. But she refused the food and pawed restlessly at the straw scattered about, mounding it in the corner.

  “Look,” said Travis, “she’s making a nest.”

  “It won’t be long now.” The sheep lay down in the hay, and I said to Travis, “You better tell Mother.”

  He ran into the house and soon returned with her. She took one look at Snow White and said, “Send for Dr. Pritzker.”

  Now, sheep don’t normally need any help having their babies. The front hooves come out first, and then the nose, as if they’re diving headfirst into the world, and that’s all there is to it. I knew this from reading Dr. Pritzker’s books.

  “Don’t worry, Mother,” I said, “it takes from one to four hours. There’s plenty of time.”

  She stared at me. “How do you know that?”

  “I, uh … heard it somewhere.” She really didn’t like me spending time at the vet’s office, and she really wouldn’t like the books I read there, some of them with stomach-turning pictures. Not ladylike, no, not at all.

  “Travis,” said Mother, “run for Dr. Pritzker.”

  “Really?” he said. “But she just started. Callie says there’s lots of ti—”

  Mother glared at him. “Fetch him, Travis, and run.” Travis took off. Mother leaned over the railing, cooing soft words of encouragement. Snow White ignored her and kept straining to push the lamb out.

  Twenty minutes went by with no progress. Mother grew more and more worked up.

  “Where is that boy? Why is he so slow? We should have sent him on horseback.”

  “But then we’d have had to saddle a horse, and that would have taken at least—”

  “Oh, do be quiet, Calpurnia.” She started pacing and wringing her hands, something I’d only read about in books. She looked so tense, I felt sorry for her.

  “It’s all right, Mother. He’ll be here shortly.”

  And right then we heard Travis shouting “hello” from the end of the drive. He came pounding up, sweating and panting. And alone.

  “Where is the doctor?” Mother nearly shouted. Travis and I both flinched. She almost never raised her voice.

  Travis had to catch his breath before he could answer. “He’s gone to see a horse at Holloways’ farm.”

  “You silly boy, why didn’t you go there? Go and get him this minute.”

  “Yes, Mother,” he wheezed, then took off again at a slower pace. Poor Travis. The Holloways lived at the very far end of town.

  “I’ll get Dr. Pritzker his towel and bucket of water while we’re waiting,” I said.

  Mother looked at me. “His what?”

  “He always washes his hands in a bucket of warm water before and after he examines his patients. But we probably don’t have to give him soap; he usually carries his own.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Too late, I was already on my way to fetch the bucket and towel. I also grabbed a bar of soap, just in case.

  Half an hour later, Dr. Pritzker pulled up the drive in his buggy with Travis sitting next to him. He stopped in front of the house, and I ran to meet him.

  “Hello, Calpurnia. Travis told me about your ewe. It doesn’t sound that urgent to me. I’ve only got a few minutes; I have to get back to the Holloways. Their plow horse has got the colic. It’s a real emergency. They can’t afford to lose that horse.”

  “I think Mother just needs you to tell her that Snow White is okay. That sheep means a lot to her.”

  He nodded and collected his big leather bag of instruments. I led him to the pen where Snow White still strained and Mother still paced.

  “Dr. Pritzker, thank heavens you’re here.”

  “Calm yourself, Mrs. Tate. The domestic sheep is widely known as an easy birther. Very seldom does it require any help from man. Calpurnia, some soap and a bucket of water, if you please. Ah, I see you have them ready.”

  He carefully washed his hands. Just as he was drying them, Snow White gave an extra push, and out slid a tiny lamb. Easy as that.

  “Oh, look,” said Mother.

  “Wow,” said Travis.

  Snow White nosed the lamb and licked it. It slowly wobbled to its feet.

  “You see?” said Dr. Pritzker. “Nothing to it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my patient with colic.” He packed up his tools.

  Mother said, “Send us your bill, Doctor.”

  “Good heavens, Mrs. Tate, I did nothing to help. I can’t send a bill on Mother Nature’s behalf. No, no. I bid you good day.”

  I left Mother and Travis staring at the lamb and walked the vet back to his buggy. I gave his mare Penny a quick pat while he loaded up.

  “Well, Calpurnia, is that the first lambing you’ve attended?”

  “Yessir, although I’ve read all about it in your books.”

  He paused. “Have you now? Have you … uh … told your mother about your reading those books?”

  Was he crazy? Mother would likely have a fit if she found out. “Never, Dr. Pritzker.”

  “Good. That’s good. Your mother’s a fine woman. No need to distress the dear lady.” He climbed into the buggy, shook the reins, and clucked at Penny to giddyup. They took off at a trot.

  7

  I wandered back to the pen to admire the newborn with Mother and Travis as Snow White licked it clean.

  Mother beamed. “That lamb will be worth quite a bit of money.”

  Travis looked alarmed. “You’re not going to sell him, are you?”

  “For wool, darling, not for meat. People all over town have been asking for Snow White’s offspring for the wool.”

  “Oh. But he’s awfully cute.”

  He was awfully cute. And I knew exactly what was coming next.

  “Can’t we keep him?” he said.

  Mother ignored this. She knew that if we kept every animal Travis thought was cute, we’d be completely overrun with creatures of every sort, wild and tame, furred and finned and feathered.

  “What shall we call him?” I said.

  Mother thought for a moment.
“Snowball,” she said. “Yes, I think that suits him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s good,” said Travis. “Baby Snowball. Can I pat him, do you think?”

  “Perhaps not yet, darling; give them a little time to get used to each other.”

  Snow White nuzzled her lamb and made low crooning noises. The lamb began to nurse, its tail wiggling like mad.

  We stood and admired them in si- lence. Then something odd happened. Snow White stood up and stepped away from the lamb. Her soft crooning changed to a deep ugly grunt.

  “What’s wrong with her?” said Mother.

  Travis squinted at her. “You know,” he said slowly, “she’s still kind of fat.”

  Of course! Why hadn’t I seen it? Why hadn’t Dr. Pritzker seen it? I guess he’d been in too much of a hurry. “I’ll bet she’s having twins,” I said. “It happens all the time with sheep.”

  “Wonderful!” said Mother. “That’s very good news.”

  Snow White paced around her pen. Baby Snowball baah-ed pitifully and struggled to follow her. She ignored him and kept on grunting and pacing.

  Finally Mother said, “Is there … is there something wrong? The first one was so easy.”

  Yes, but twins had minds of their own and didn’t always come out the same way.

  I stared at the patient and thought hard. What would Dr. Pritzker do if he were here? He’d told me many a time: First observe (look), then palpate (feel), and finally, act on the information you’d gathered.

  “Travis,” Mother said, “go and get Dr. Pritzker.”

  “He can’t come,” I said. “He’s got an emergency at the Holloways’.”

  “Well,” she said, “this is an emergency too.”

  Snow White lay down in the straw and grunted even louder.

  I watched her closely. Why weren’t the front hooves coming out? Where was the nose? As I watched, out came a strange-looking woolly puff. I stared at it in horror. It was the tail. The lamb was trying to come out backward, and it was stuck.