Working Together

By Tennessee

Adam was home alone when he heard someone riding up. He knew his pa was out of town. Hop Sing was helping Mrs. Greene, and his brothers were at school. So who could it be?

He was going to the door, but he stopped when he heard someone talking.

"Cartwright is gone. His three sons are the only ones home," one man said.

The other replied, "Where's the cook?"

"Over to the Greene place."

Adam got by the window, staying low to the ground.

One of the men said, "We'll come back tonight, when the boys are asleep and take what we want."

Then Adam heard the men ride away. He got up and sat at the table, formulating a plan. Then he went to the fence where the cattle were; he got two boards, put glue on them and nails in the board so that the sharp ends were sticking out. He fixed the fence door so that if someone opened it the boars would fall on his feet.

He then put some hay on the fence with glue under it. Then he moved all the cattle to the other side and made sure their meanest bull was nearby.

He went to the barn, thinking the men would probably try to steal the horses. First he dug a big hole and put sticks and leaves over it. He rigged the barn door so that it could swing and hit anyone trying to enter.

When Hoss and Little Joe came home, Adam asked them to come into the house. He told them about the men he had overheard and his plans for thwarting the robbery. "But I’m ready for them. I fixed a trap on the cattle fence and the door of the barn, but we need to fix traps around the house too. They’ll be back at dark."

Hoss said, "We need help, Adam."

"No," Adam said. "I don’t want to endanger anyone else. We can do it."

"Well maybe Little Joe should leave . . ."

"No!" Little Joe interrupted. "This is my house too, and I want to help protect it."

Adam nodded. "You can stay, but you have to do what I say, got it?"

"Got it."

Adam explained, "We need to nail all the windows shut."

Hoss put in, "That won’t stop them."

"I know, but it’s part of the trap. Hoss, you know those real hot peppers Hop Sing got? We’re going to put them in a pan and cook them."

Hoss nodded. He went off to prepare the peppers. Adam nailed all the windows shut. He put all of his pa’s books next to the window on a table and put tacks on the floor. Little Joe got rocks and put them on the floor and covered them a bit with sawdust.

Adam told Little Joe, "Put soap on the floor but don’t wet it."

Hoss came out of the kitchen to say, "The peppers are burning my eyes."

"They are ready then," said Adam. He took them and put some on the front door. He put the pan over the front door so that when the robbers stepped in, the pan would fall on their heads. Adam then told his brothers, "We need to get the rifles ready. But we only use them if we have to. We’ll sit in the dark and just wait."

So the boys waited. Finally they heard someone coming. It sounded like four horses. Adam moved slowly to the window; Hoss went to a window on the opposite side of the house. Two men stopped at the cattle fence and opened it. They got glue on their hands and the boards filled with nails fell on their feet.

A third man yelled, "Get the cattle!"

The two went in the fence and grabbed the bull, which they thought was just a regular cow. The bull bucked and then charged them. They jumped the fence.

The other two men went into the barn. They fell into the hole Adam had dug. "Help us!" they yelled. The other two men helped them out, but when they tried to open the big barn door, it swung back and knocked them into the hole again.

The leader of the group said, "They musta known we was coming."

"Yeah," the others agreed.

"Don’t matter. We can take three boys. Three of them, four of us."

All four men laughed. The leader motioned and said, "You two go that way, and you two go that way." Then he yelled toward the house, "Listen to me! If you just give us what we want, we won’t hurt you."

Adam figured the four of them were about to make their big move, surrounding the house. He heard glass break and then he heard the books fall. A man started to yell; he had stepped on the tacks. Adam moved next to his pa’s bedroom door, and when the man opened it, Adam hit him with a chair.

Glass broke in another room, and Hoss stepped toward the doorway. The man who had entered that room stepped on Little Joe’s rocks and fell forward. Hoss was ready; he hit him with a chair and tied him up. Adam had already tied up the other man, and they placed them in the center of the room together.

At the back door, the clattering of pots and pans told Little Joe it was time to pour water on the soap he’d spread on the floor. He did, and about that time a man knocked the door down and stepped through. He hit the soap, went down on his face, and was out cold. Adam and Hoss came running but Little Joe was already starting to tie the man up.

Adam grinned. "Way to go, little brother!"

Hoss looked toward the front door. When a man tried to come in, he started yelling. The hot peppers fell from where they’d been rigged and hit his face and hands. While the man was distracted, Adam hit him and tied him up.

All four of the men were tied up. Adam told Hoss to go in to town and get Big Dan and a lawman if one could be found. Hoss found Big Dan and the sheriff and the three rode back to the Ponderosa. Big Dan could not believe his eyes when he went into the house. And after he’d seen the men, the lawman said, "Two of ‘em are wanted for bank robbery. The other two I think are wanted for holding up a store. You boys might have earned yourself a reward."

Sure enough, the boys received two hundred dollars, fifty dollars apiece for the four men they’d captured.

After Big Dan and the lawman had gone back to town with the robbers, the boys cleaned up the house, barn, and cattle fence, and took the nails out of all the windows. The boys talked about what they wanted to do with their reward money.

Little Joe suggested, "Let’s buy Pa something."

Hoss said, "I think we should pay off our bill at the trading post."

Adam said, "I was thinking we could get those horses Pa wanted to buy."

"Yeah!" his brothers agreed.

It turned out they could do all three things. The boys purchased two horses, paid off the bill at the store, and bought two gifts for their father.

When Ben arrived home, he rushed to his sons. "Are you three okay? Big Dawn told me there was some trouble out here."

Adam smiled. "We took care of it, Pa."

Little Joe said, "We got something to show you, Pa."

Ben followed Little Joe, Adam, and Hoss to the barn. There were their new horses. Ben had tears in his eyes as he asked the boys how they’d purchased them.

"With the reward money, Pa," Little Joe said.

They went into the house, and Adam told Ben the whole story. "Oh I forgot!" he said at the end. He jumped up and got the gifts, a book and some candy.

About that time, Hop Sing came in, and the boys told him the story.

Ben smiled when they were finished. "If we work together, we can do anything."

The boys smiled and nodded.

Hoss said, "Now that Hop Sing is home, we can finally have some good food again!"

Adam said, "What do you mean? I’ve been cooking."

"I know," Hoss quipped. "I said good food."

Little Joe giggled. "You can’t cook, Adam."

Adam started laughing. "Yeah, you’re right," he said.

Hoss winked at Little Joe. "Then again, you get it from Pa. He can’t cook either."

Ben pretended to look stern but then broke out laughing. Soon all four of them were in hysterics as they recounted the stories of the day.

The End