Chores

Chores

"I guess." Jenkins said.

"Don't ya know? Doesn't figure." Hank interjected.

"He don't need ta know." Eli said keeping his carved pipe clinched in the corner of his  mouth. 

"Never thought about it none, I guess I should be worried though." Jenkins muttered then wiped his stubbled chin. 

"Yer thinkin' about it now ain't ya?" Hank Staub blurted out and then pointed at Jenkins with tight pursed lips. 

"Now, leave him be. Ain't no call to be after old Jenkins that way." Eli spoke in smooth, bass tones. 

"I'm just not the kinda fella that thinks that way. I tend ta worry some, and it don't help matters then, only messes them up worse." Jenkins pulled long at his earlobe and knitted his brows upward. 

"It h'ain't got nothin' ta do with worryin'. It’s about a man takin' care of his effects, mindin' his responsibilities.” Hank's eyes sank under his brow and tight lines etched deeper around his lips. 

"You thrown' stones there Hank? You never forget ta do somethin'?" Eli shook his head and puffed smoke around his pipe stem. 

"I know'd I was forgetting something, I sure never figured it was something like that.” Jenkins scratched under his cap and rubbed his nose. His face angled toward the ground. 

"You got somethin' to do now. We all got somethin' ta do and I'm not going to take the blame for this, no sir. I'm stickin' to my duties and that's all." Hank's whole face bunched in, wrinkled up until it looked like a dried apple. He spit on the ground for punctuation.

"Now we all got's somethin' to do around here. That's fo sure." Eli agreed. "The trouble bein' that ain't much of it gonna get done without that draft horse." Eli's unshaven chin moved back and forth under his pipe. 

"I, I, I'll get after that horse, it was my turn to close the barn up last night and it was me that forgot to close the barn door, so, I'll get after that horse." Jenkins removed his cap and rubbed his half bald head with his large, knobby  hands. 

"You go an’ do that so’s I can get the cart hitched up and go into town for supplies and that's what I intend to do and I intend to get back before supper." Hank's scrawny neck lengthened like a hard-tightened guitar string. 

"Well now" Eli boomed out loud, holding his coat lapels with coal black hands. "You sure as well is going to make it back before supper Hank, 'cause you the man gettin' the kitchen fixin's. Eli’s barrel-sized laugh caught the two men by surprise and they began to laugh with him. The three old-timers had been working the ramshackle homestead for over thirty years, and on every one of those days, one or the other of them forgot something that turned the day’s proceedings into another adventure. Jenkins shuffled off to get a bridle. Hank spit on the ground and stamped off to rig the buckboard. Old Eli stood behind and chuckled to himself before relighting his pipe. He then headed for the kitchen to wash dishes and wait for his companions to finish their chores.