“Grab your gear, boy. This is where we get off.” Clickety Clack slung the belt holding his bedroll over his shoulder.
Henry was confused, but for once he did as he was told without argument. He knew if he was to survive, his best chance was to listen to the old hobo.
They shoved the door open. The world was sunny again.
Henry jumped down and looked around. Their car, along with a dozen others, was parked on a siding in the middle of the empty prairie. “The train left us! We’re stranded!” He heard the panic in his voice. “What are we going to do?”
Clickety Clack spat out a gob of tobacco juice, which looked a lot like the grass-hopper guts Henry had scooped out of the door track. “You’re too soft, boy. The old road was spoiled is all, but we’ve got feet, don’t we?” he scoffed. “We can walk to Regina. It can’t be more than two or three days away.”
Henry stared at him in disbelief. “Two or three days! Are you crazy?”
Clickety Clack shot him a hard look. “Hold your tongue, boy. I’ve never taken guff from anyone, especially not a wet-behind-the-ears kid.”
“And I’ve never been stuck in the middle of the bald prairie before! It’s, it’s…” Henry searched for the right word.
“Terrifying?” Clickety Clack added helpfully.
“Aggravating!” Henry groaned. “I was supposed to see my father tomorrow.”
Clickety Clack threw back his head and gave a great roar of a laugh. “Well now, that’s life, boy. It doesn’t always go the way we plan, but once you’re on this ride there’s no getting off, so make the best of it.”
He squinted into the distance as though getting his bearings. “We go that way.” He nodded to the west. Pulling a piece of chalk out of one of his pockets, he jotted a sign on the fencepost at the end of the siding. It was a circle with an arrow jutting out of it, pointing in the direction he’d indicated. “This will help other folks who get stranded here so they won’t end up as buzzard bait.” He tucked the chalk away and started walking. “Come on, boy. We’ve got a ways to go, and it ain’t going to get any cooler.”
Despite the delay, Henry comforted himself by remembering that he’d already made it out of Manitoba and halfway across Saskatchewan, a feat anyone would be proud of.
His mouth felt as dry as the dust under his feet. Henry smiled. First chance he got, he’d write and tell Anne how he almost died of thirst in the great Canadian desert and how buzzards were circling, waiting for him to drop. That was a story worthy of Tom Sawyer, for sure.
As he trudged beside Clickety Clack, Henry looked around at the parched fields and stunted grass. “What a horrible chunk of dried-out dirt. Why would anyone want to live in this dustbowl?”
Clickety Clack stopped dead in his tracks. “You listen to me, boy. I don’t want to hear you talk like that again. This land is our friend and you don’t kick a friend when he’s down. It’s years of drought that have ruined this place. All it needs to get back on its feet is water. Water is the key, boy. When the rains come—” he swept his arm as though gathering the entire prairie to him “—it will be home to herds of wildlife and flocks of birds, and it will be the finest place on earth to raise a family. This land will grow grain and crops enough to feed the world.”
Feeling thoroughly chastised, Henry looked at the countryside again, this time with fresh eyes, imagining this burnt-out land covered with lush green crops and filled with life.
In the vast stillness, he breathed in the clean sweet air and heard the haunting call of a hawk overhead. It was as if the land was holding its breath until the rains came back and it was transformed into the answer to every farmer’s prayer.
“I never thought of it like that before.” He gave the old hobo a sidelong glance. “Back there, when I was rude to you, I was, well, out of line.”
Clickety Clack grunted and started ambling down the road again.
As they walked, the late afternoon gold in the sky turned to a fiery red that finally faded to deepest mauve.
When Henry was so tired he didn’t think he could take another step, Clickety Clack stopped and rubbed his hands together.
“That’s exactly what I was hoping for!” he exclaimed with a chuckle.
Henry glanced around. “I don’t see anything.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would.” Clickety Clack folded his arms across his tattered coat. “Tell me what you do see.”
Henry peered around him. “Well, empty fields mostly, a dry streambed, a rail fence and a gate with a post on either side. Other than that, not a heck of a lot.”
Clickety Clack shook his head. “Young whippersnappers! Don’t use the eyes God gave them. See that?” He nodded at the post nearest them.
“Yeah, so, it’s a worn-out gatepost…” Henry wondered what the tramp was getting at. Maybe the heat had melted the old coot’s brain. Then he saw it. “Wait a minute… that’s a hobo sign!”
Henry examined the symbol on the gate, then took out his journal and jotted it down. “I’ve got a list of these, but this one’s new to me.” It was four straight lines stacked one over the other.
“Well, it’s not new to me. That, my boy, is our dinner.” Clickety Clack was in high spirits now. “Say, I thought you knew about the code.”
“I do, sort of. Back home I’d see these drawings on fences and I’d note them in my journal. My pa said it was the hobo code for travelers.”
Clickety Clack nodded. “So it is, boy. It’s a secret language only we knights of the road can decipher. This particular symbol means a housewife will feed you for doing chores. Come on, lad, we’re about to sing for our supper.” He pulled out a battered pocket watch and glanced at it. “And I’d say our timing is about perfect.” With that, Clickety Clack began whistling as he strolled up the long driveway to the farmhouse.
Once they got to the house, Henry started up the front steps, but Clickety Clack stopped him. “No, no, lad. We’re humble travelers, down on our luck. We go to the back door—” he winked at Henry “—which is usually the one closest to the kitchen!”
They made their way to the back of the house, where Clickety Clack removed his hat, smoothed back his straggly hair, dusted off his pants and straightened his vest. Just before rapping on the door, he spat out his plug of tobacco. A large woman wearing a faded apron answered the knock.
“Excuse me, madam,” he began in a soft voice, “but my grandson and I were stranded today and we’re wondering if you have any chores that need doing in exchange for a bite of sup?”
The woman frowned at Clickety Clack, and Henry thought she was going to tell them to scram, when her gaze fell on him. He tried to look forlorn and starving, which wasn’t at all hard to do.
“Well now, I could use some kindling split. You two gentlemen,” she smiled sweetly at Henry, “can chop some wood while I fix you a nice supper. My family and I finished eating not five minutes ago, and we have lots of leftovers.”
“We’d be happy to help out, ma’am.” Clickety Clack smiled winningly at the woman and headed for the woodpile with Henry in tow. When they got to the stacked rounds, Henry plunked down on a fat stump and prepared to watch Clickety Clack.
“I think you have mistakenly taken my seat, boy.” Clickety Clack looked at him indignantly.
Henry raised his eyebrows, first at the old hobo, then at the big pile of logs. “You’re kidding. I’ve never split wood in my life!”
“Then it’s about time you learned.” Clickety Clack shooed him off the stump as he stuck a fresh plug of tobacco in his mouth. “It’s a simple thing, boy. You pick up the axe and turn that big hunk of timber over there into little sticks of kindling, preferably without chopping off your own foot in the process. Keep a-going until I tell you to stop.”
Taking a deep breath, Henry picked up the heavy axe.
Clickety Clack looked around as Henry set to work. “It looks like these here folks are some of the lucky ones.” He nodded toward a small lean-to. “See that forge? I’d say this fellow is a blacksmith. More folks are using horses these days, and horses always need horseshoes. He’s probably kept mighty busy and no doubt charges a pretty penny for his services.”
By the time Henry had chopped a respectable pile of kindling, the sun had disappeared, his arms ached and his back was on fire.
“That seems about right.” Clickety Clack rose to his feet. “Now for our pay.”
They walked to the house, where the ancient traveler knocked politely. He was wiping his brow with a red handkerchief when the woman opened the screen door.
She glanced at the kindling and smiled, then handed them two heaping plates of food. “You hard-working gents can sit under that tree by the toolshed, and I’ll bring you a pitcher of cold lemonade.”
Henry felt giddy when she mentioned the lemonade. He was more than thirsty; he was parched down to the soles of his dusty boots.
Clickety Clack tucked the handkerchief away with a flourish, then stretched out his back. “Thank you, ma’am. A cold drink would go down nicely after that strenuous workout.”
“Oh, dear!” The farmwife looked alarmed. “You shouldn’t have chopped so much in this heat! Maybe there are a couple of slices of rhubarb pie left. I’ll bring those along too.”
Clickety Clack smiled as they headed to the tree.
That night the old hobo let Henry use one of his coats for a bedroll. “You’re a bit soft to sleep rough” was all he said as he handed the coat over.
“Much obliged,” Henry replied, realizing he meant it. As he lay on his back, staring up at the night sky, Henry marveled at the millions of tiny lights strewn across the vast black velvet curtain overhead.
This was not how he’d imagined today would go, but then he remembered how the hobo signs had led them to a delicious meal. Now that was something!