Synopsis: It’s only been a few months since Adam left the Ponderosa; this story finds Hop Sing and Little Joe in the kitchen, talking.
Category: Bonanza
Genre: Western
Rating: G
Word Count: 590
“What Lit’le Joe do?” asked Hop Sing as he entered the kitchen after gathering eggs from the chicken coop.
“Nothin’,” Little Joe answered as he sat on the stool, elbows on the countertop, chin resting on his hands, legs swinging back and forth in boredom.
“Why you not help father?” Hop Sing asked in his stilted English, having forgotten Ben was spending the afternoon working on his ledgers.
“I don’t know how ta do my numbers; Adam said Papa’s books are im-por-tant.”
“Why you not help Hoss?” Hop Sing asked as he carried the water-filled pot from the sink pump to the stove.
“He an Pete rode to check on them cows,” Joe mumbled, crossing his arms onto the countertop and laying his head sideways upon his arms. “Hop Sing, when will Adam come home?”
“Number one brother go to college, come home when learn plenty.”
“I miss him,” Joe stated, his legs still swinging under the stool.
“Why you not write him letter?” Hop Sing asked, his back to the little boy as he placed the eggs into the water.
“Papa’s busy, can’t help me,” Joe sighed.
“I help, I get paper and pencil for you.”
A few minutes later, Hop Sing returned with the necessary items.
“What do I write?”
“Why not tell brother you miss him and what you do while he gone,” suggested Hop Sing.
“Na, Papa and Hoss done that in their letters,” Joe stated as he tried to pick the pencil up in his right hand in mirror of his father, but gave up when he couldn’t figure it out. So he switched the pencil to his left hand and began his letter.
“You think of something,” Hop Sing encouraged.
Looking over his young charge’s shoulder, Hop Sing smiled as the boy began to draw pictures over the sheet of paper.
Time had passed; Hop Sing Hop Sing removed the pot with the boiling water and eggs from the stove to the sink. As the cook turned back to face the boy he asked, “What you tell brother?”
Joe pointed to his drawings as he read his letter. Across the top of the page there were several circles within another shape that Hop Sing didn’t recognize, then a heart, followed by an abstract cloud with a head and legs, vaguely looking like a sheep.
Joe explained the circularly thing was an eye and the heart meant love; “ I love…”
“Why tell brother you love sheep?” Hop Sing inquired with a startled tone. “Ponderosa cattle ranch.”
“It’s not a sheep, it’s a ewe,” Joe pronounced.
Smiling at the boy’s inventiveness in not knowing how to spell the words, he drew pictures instead.
After drawing to tell his brother that he loved him, Joe had drawn a house, a barn, the Ponderosa brand, and four stick figures holding something ‘somewhat’ straight with squiggly lines going to a large, ill-shaped circle.
“What you tell Adam here,” Hop Sing asked as he pointed to the drawing that took up the bottom half of the sheet of paper.
“I tell Adam to come home to the Ponderosa so Pa, Hoss, and me can go fishing with him.”
~The End
Yes, it’s only been a few months since Adam left the Ponderosa to attend college, it appears it’s going to be a very long time to Little Joe before his brother comes home. My apologies for not advising this was a prequel, but I wanted to leave the readers guessing.
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