Seth and Elias ran back to the barn where Elias had been playing in the loft before the Westerman family's arrival.
"Ya gotta see what I've got up there," Elias told Seth with a mysterious tone in his voice. "Ma doesn't go up there and my new pa is usually too busy to bother about going there, except during the time when we put the hay up."
Elias urged Seth to hurry before food was served and they ran out of time to explore the items he had hidden in the barn.
"Then, Pa and some other men pulled this big Morman haystacker into the barnyard and lifted the hay with ropes through the loft door. I got to go up and poke around while they were doing that. Afterwards, it's just been my place to play."
"Since they got done, I've had it all to myself. Pa said it was my job to shove the hay out toward the loft door and drop it into the wagon below. Then he drives it out to the cows. It's getting pretty empty up here, now, what with him feeding the animals all winter. So, it's my secret hideaway, too, just like the one you showed me at your place."
"Bet ya don't have anything special hidden up there though," Seth countered hoping to see the other boy's treasures.
"Bet I do," Elias puffed his chest out and stuck his hands in his pants pockets.
"Yeah, but I bet nothing like the pistol I showed you at the wedding last year."
"You'll be surprised what I do have. Besides, your old gun got us in real trouble. And, you don't have it anymore 'cause your pa took it away."
"He might have taken it away from me, but I always keep my eyes open lookin' to replace it. Ya never know when a man'll need a gun," Seth spoke as if he were already a grown man fully capable of handling a weapon responsibly.
Elias nodded to let him know he understood. This was serious business. Seth was right. A man could run into trouble and need protection. Even though neither one of them was anywhere near being a man, nor knew how to handle a firearm properly, they had seen the older males in the community shoot and, in their estimation, any man that walked about without the protection of his sidearm was just asking for trouble.
Elias moved ahead of Seth as they climbed up the wooden ladder and through the rectangular hole into the loft of the barn's second floor.
Mostly the floor was littered with loose hay that spread in a thin layer over the rough lumber floor. In the far, back corner, away from the upstairs opening, Elias had cleared a section of the loft for his own use. He had dragged a discarded chair with two broken back legs up the ladder and it sat, now, leaning against the wall for stability.
"I come up here when my chores are done. If Ma comes looking for me I either holler back and tell her I'll be right down or I lay quiet and wait for her to go back to the house."
Seth nodded. He had used those tactics, too.
"She won't come up the ladder for fear of falling and she won't leave Eliza alone for long."
"You can have the chair to sit in," Elias offered to be polite as he brushed hay from a spot on the floor with his hand and sat down cross-legged on the bare boards.
Seth sat down on the tilted chair and looked about. He saw nothing any more unusual in the loft of the Jennings' barn than in their barn's upper floor at home. There was a pulley with some rope near the loft opening in the wall to the outside that was used to carry hay and things up onto the second floor from the ground. Birds flew in and out of the doorway robbing seeds from the top layer of the remaining sparse hay piles.
"Nice, huh?" Elias asked.
Seth nodded. So? There is nothing new and exciting here.
Elias got up and walked to a high shelf. There he took down a battered tin bucket that looked as if it might have been used as a lunch pail in the past.
Its sight brought back memories of the last school year and Seth wished he hadn't brought it down.
"You gotta see what I got in here."
"I'm hungry. Did you hide some food?"
"No. I don't use this for school any more. Last time I took it some bullies beat me up and stole my lunch. That was before we moved here. Guess, now that she's well, your Ma'll be the schoolteacher and I bet she won't let anyone pick on me."
Seth nodded. His Ma was strict. He knew he couldn't get away with anything at school when she was teaching. And, when they returned in the fall, he was sure she'd keep a stern eye on Elias as well.
Molly had been too weak from her illness this last winter to teach at the small school at Moriarty. She was recuperating from some illness Seth didn't understand. This next school year she would, having regained her strength, be teaching at the one-room school that he and Elias would attend.
Last year, while a substitute taught during Molly's recuperation, Seth had found himself falling behind and struggling to catch up. He knew his Ma wouldn't allow that to happen this school year.
Elias pried the lid off the bucket and looked inside.
"I've been saving this to show you."
He reached in and brought out a small derringer. The pistol fit a child's hand well and the metal was engraved with fancy lines that formed vines and leaves with flowers and buds in its design.
Seth's eyes opened wider.
"Where'd you get that?"
"I thought you'd like it. My ma had it in her bureau. I saw it when we were packing to move after the wedding at your house. Remember when you showed me that one you found that we shot and your pa took away? When I saw this one, I decided to put it somewhere safe when ma wasn't looking. It's really like the one you had, only not all rusted up."
Seth balanced the small pistol on his open palm feeling how light it was in his hand. When he closed his fist around the grip it fit his small hand perfectly.
"Wow!"
He was mesmerized with the tiny pistol. How can this one be dangerous? Just because pa wouldn't let him keep the old rusty one, he couldn't see any reason not to play with this fancy little gun.
"Ma thought she lost it in the move and I kept my mouth shut. Don't tell. I don't want to get in trouble."
"No. Of course I won't tell."
"You can take it home with you for a while, if you want," Elias told Seth.
"Are you sure?" He ran his finger along the short cold steel barrel. "I'd sure like to." Seth's fascination with guns had gotten him into trouble more than once. It meant nothing to him to have caused the horses to bolt one time when he had caught his big toe in ma's rifle trigger or to have shot a hole in Molly's punch bowl at the wedding party. Things like that just seemed to happen to him. All the other men he knew handled guns without getting in trouble with them. He'd have to figure out a way to do that, too.
"Is it loaded?"
"I dunno. I was waiting for you to look at it and tell me if it works."
Seth inspected the gun and broke the cylinder away from the barrel. One bullet was placed in the lower chamber away from the barrel. He bumped the gun butt on his other palm to drop the shell out.
"Got any more bullets?"
"Naw. I didn't even know that one was there."
Seth put the gun in his pants pocket and moved the bullet to the pocket on the other side. Maybe if I keep the two apart I won't get in trouble.
"Got anything else?"
"Just an old rat's skull I found at a garbage pile. Want to see it?"
"Sure."
Elias climbed back up on the box and reached for his other prized possession sitting on the shelf.
"Seth," they heard Rosie calling him.
She entered the barn below them.
Elias held his finger to his lips.
"Seth, if you're in here, you and Elias come and eat. We have to head home."
The boys held their breath and listened quietly, waiting for her to turn and go back to the house.
Elias put the rat's skull back where it was on top of the shelf and dropped back down onto the hay when Rosie left the barn.
"We better go. She'll just come back looking for us if we don't," Seth said. He knew Rosie would be persistent. Ma had taught her well.
The two boys scurried down the ladder and ran for the house.
)
