Cabin Boys - 9. Chapter 9

The boys wore their coats, scarf, gloves, and boots out to feed the chickens. I started to prep for dinner. Pete said we needed to get some straw for the chickens.

“Will need to make sure the nests have a lot of straw to keep them warm.”

“Maybe, we’ll have to redesign the chicken house.”

“Can we do that?”

“Sure why don’t you work on the design and I’ll get the wood.”

When I said that I didn’t know what I was getting into. One thing I did know, the design would be based on the farm.

Lenny and Lois showed up for dinner at 5. He had a bottle of wine, which I appreciated. Lois went to talk with the boys, which gave Lenny and me a chance to talk.

“I’ve filed the papers for adoption. Child Services will visit, which will be required by law. Once that is out of the way, the adoption hearing will follow in a week or two.”

“The boys will think they are going into the system. How can we allay their fears?”

“I need you to sign these forms.”

“What are they?”

“Forms listing you as their guardian. I need Pete to hire me as his attorney. Give him a dollar to give me at dinner.”

“You pull this off and you’ll have earned your pay as well as a dinner at that fancy steak house in town.”

Pete came into the kitchen, “Dad, we’re hungry. Can we have hot chocolate for dinner?”

“Yes, get Joey and you can help me set the table.”

Lois came into the kitchen, smiling she kissed me on the cheek. “You may not realize it, but you have won the jackpot.”

I smiled, I knew I had the winning tickets, Joey and Pete. With the three of us, we had dinner ready in no time. I showed Pete how to make his and Joey’s hot chocolate, Lois watched as Pete added the mint.

“Is that good Pete?”

“It’s the best. Want to try some?”

“Maybe a spoonful of yours.” Pete held the cup out to her, she took a spoonful and smiled. “This is very good. Who told you about adding the mint?”

Then the magic words I waited to hear, “My dad”.

Lenny whispered, “If you don’t stop smiling your face will freeze that way.

That would’ve been okay by me.

After dinner, I gave a dollar to Pete. Told him to give it to Mr. Alderson. He looked puzzled but did as I told him. Lenny looked at his wife, “You witnessed the hiring of my services by this young man.” She smiled. “Is there someplace where I can go to confer with my client.”

“The office”

That night instead of a story I told the boys what would happen and why Pete gave Mr. Alderson the dollar. Pete asked a lot of questions. I shared with him everything I knew. He asked about the house inspection, I told him when that occurred, Mr. Alderson will be here as his attorney. But that will be after the guardian papers become legal.

Two weeks later, Lenny informed me that the guardianship papers have been filed, The judge will hold a hearing in Family Court and Child Services will be present. “They want to do a house inspection. I’ve agreed for next week. If you can put up with a visitor, I’ll be living at your house next week.”

I told the boys about the inspection. “Pete, they probably will not like that you and Joey share a bed. So we have two ways to go, one, you occupy the spare bedroom or two, I buy twin beds for your room. Which do you prefer?”

“Can we get bunk beds, that is what we had at the farm?”

“Yes, we still have time, get your shoes and coats, let’s go.”

I let the boys pick out the bunk bed, then I thought we should have two dressers to match, and that led to two desks with chairs. I ask if they could deliver the furniture this weekend, they said they could deliver it on Friday. The beds were one thing now we needed sheets, blankets. We could use the pillows on the current bed. The boys saw feather stuff pillows, Pete looked at me, I nodded yes. On the way home, he told me they had feather pillows on the farm.

I called Jeff and asked if he needed a bed. “No thanks, Jim. Why don’t you put it in your attic. that room is large enough to use as a spare bedroom.”

I thought I could do that. For the next few days, I moved the furniture in the spare bedroom on the second floor to the third floor, attic. Then when they bring the boy’s bed, I’ll move that furniture in the bedroom I just emptied. The attic room needed a few things but I had a lot of time to do that.

Friday, I had a couple of excited boys. “Pete, Joey, we need to move the furniture from your bedroom to the empty room. When we have that done, I’ll run the sweeper in your room, then we’ll be ready for the new furniture.”

By lunchtime, we were finished and waiting. We had finished lunch, the boys went back to the office to work on their schooling when the van from the store arrived. I called the boys. They helped, as much as they could, I helped the driver carry the beds upstairs. He asked if I needed help to set them up, I told him if he could help, I would appreciate it. I had four eyes watching us as we set the beds up. The dressers were placed when we brought them up as were the desks. Once the beds were set up, Pete went and got the sheets, blankets, and pillows. With the help of the boys, we had the beds ready in no time. Pete was in charge and as I watched I knew he did this on the farm. The room looked complete for a boy's room. Then as I was walking down the stairs, something was missing, I felt it but I didn’t have an answer.

Over dinner that night, “Pete, what did your room look like at the farm?”

“I don’t know what you mean, it was a room with bunk beds. There was a closet, but it had our winter clothes, in the summer, and it had our summer clothes in the winter. Most of the time they were on a chair. We didn’t have many as we do now. We pretty much wore the same clothes all week.”

“Pete, we had those pictures on the walls.”

“Yea, we had pictures on the wall that we cut out of magazines. Most of them were cut from grandfather’s catalog.”

That what was missing, the walls were bare. “Tomorrow we’ll buy some pictures for the walls.”

“We can print off some pictures from our computer if you show us how.”

I smiled, “That’s what we’ll do.”

The rest of the evening, I showed the boys how to print off photos from their computers. I watched for a while, to make sure they knew how to do it. I had to chuckle, Joey was printing off photos of farm animals, Pete was painting off photos of farms.

“Jim, this looks like a picture of grandfather's farm.”

“Print it off, if it is too small, I’ll make a copy to my disc and have it printed in photoshop, The boys were busy until it was time for their nighttime snack.