A Valuable Addition

By Lucy Salzman

Chapter 1

Late summer 1881

Thirteen-year-old Andrea Carter shaded her eyes against the noon sunshine and squinted as she looked down the road. She could hardly wait for Justin to come back from picking up her nephew Levi and her friend from Washington Territory at the train station. They were going to ride horses up to the creek and have a campout.

Finally, Andi saw a tiny dot coming toward the ranch. Must be Justin with Levi and Jenny! she thought excitedly. Sure enough, when the dot got closer, she could see it was a buggy. Justin waved to her with one hand and held the reins with the other.

As soon as the buggy came to a stop, Jenny jumped out and threw her arms around Andi’s neck. “It’s great to see you again, Andi!” she cried. “We’re gonna have a dandy time, me, you, and––––wait. Who’s that?”

Andi turned around and saw another buggy pulling up. Oh no, she thought. Why now? “It’s the Fosters,” she told Jenny. “Virginia Foster goes to school with me. She’s also taking riding lessons from me. But this obviously isn’t a lesson day. So, I wonder why she’s here?”

Andi didn’t have to wait long to find out. Virginia climbed out of her father’s buggy and began to talk to her. “My parents and sister are going to a party tonight, Andrea, and they don’t want me to stay home alone. I hope you don’t mind me spending the night at your house?”

“But Jenny, Levi, and I are going on a campout tonight,” Andi replied.

“Then can I go with you and your friends?”

Just like Virginia to butt in, thought Andi. Then she thought what Mother would say about the Golden Rule, the same thing she was having trouble with last year. Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

“Sure,” Andi told Virginia grudgingly. “We’re packing our suppers and breakfasts for tomorrow morning in a picnic basket to take with us, so I’ll make one for you. And when we go to the creek, you can ride on Taffy behind me.”

“Thanks Andrea,” Virginia said, smiling.

“You can wear my split skirt too.”

As Andi walked into the house to make and pack Virginia’s meals, she wondered if she’d be able to treat Virginia as well as Levi and Jenny. Maybe this isn’t the best thing to do after all.

Chapter 2

Half an hour later, the four of them were riding up to the creek. Andi and Virginia were on Taffy, and Levi and Jenny were on Patches. Jenny carried the fishing poles for that afternoon. “It’s just catch and release since we brought our dinners,” Andi had reminded everyone.

Now no one was looking very excited. They must be bummed that Virginia has to come with us, also, Andi thought. She tried to break the awkward silence. “Bet I catch more fish than you, Jenny.”

That perked her up immediately. “Not a chance! My brothers and I have fishing contests back home, and I always come in first or second place! I’m gonna catch at least four fish when we get to the creek.”

Levi spoke up. “That’s nice, Jenny. But I’m going to catch seven fish!”

Andi glanced behind her at where Virginia was sitting. “What about you, Virginia? How many are you going to catch?”

Virginia looked shocked. “I—I’ve—never caught a fish before.”

It was Andi’s turn to be surprised. “That’s okay. I’ll show you what to do and then you should be good. Bet you’ll catch the biggest fish once you’ve got the hang of it.” But Andi doubted herself. I’m not sure she will get the hang of it.

When they arrived at the creek, Andi took the bundle that had the tent off Taffy’s back and set it up.  Levi helped her. “Let’s start digging for worms!” she said as soon as she was done. Everyone started scrambling around, digging with either their hands or a stick.

Everyone but Virginia. She stood frozen where she was. “I don’t want to find worms.” She spoke the last word as if it were a curse word.

Andi turned and looked at her. “Don’t you want to catch fish?”

Virginia shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Then you need worms to bait your hook with. If you don’t want to dig them up, I’ll do it for you.”

When everyone had found a satisfactory amount of squirmy, dirty, brown worms they each put one on their hooks and cast their lines. But when Andi held a worm out to Virginia, she shrieked. “I’m not going to touch that!”

Andi suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. “All right, I’ll bait your hook for you.” To herself she said, Do I have to do everything for this city girl?

Andi put the fishing pole in Virginia’s hands and told her what to do. “It’s easy. Just put the line in the water and hold it really still. When you feel a tug, jerk it upward a little to make sure the fish gets on the line. Then grab the line and pull the fish out of the water. You’ll need to hold the fish just behind its mouth with one hand and gently take the hook out with the other. Then, kiss the fish good-bye and toss it back into the lake.”

Seeing Virginia’s disgusted face, she quickly said, “You don’t have to kiss the fish if you don’t want to. That’s just what my brother Chad told me when he taught me how to fish. I don’t kiss the fish I catch, and he doesn’t either.”

Virginia scoffed, rolled her eyes at Andi, and dropped her line in the creek.

For a while, it seemed as if no one would catch a fish. Then suddenly, Virginia squealed. “I got one!”

“Jerk it upward a little!” Andi called to her.

But it was too late. Virginia already was pulling her line out of the water. A fish flopped on the end of it, then splashed back into the creek. Virginia gave a distraught groan.

“That’s okay,” said Andi. “I’ll rebait your hook and you can try again. By the way, you did a good job handling that fish for your first try.”

One hour later Andi had caught one fish, Jenny had caught four, Levi had caught two and Virginia had caught none. She had been ready to give up after the third fish had escaped her hook, but Andi had kept reassuring her that she was becoming a better fisher each time she felt a tug at her line. “But it is getting late. You can stop if your next fish gets away.”

Suddenly, as if on cue, Virginia’s fishing pole was almost yanked out of her hands. She squealed again and this time jerked the pole upward like Andi had told her before pulling it out of the water. But she almost dropped the pole because the fish was so heavy. “Andrea! Please help me!”

Andi immediately rushed over to Virginia and pulled on the pole with her. “Jeepers, this is heavy! There must be a sea monster at the end of this line!”

Finally, after what seemed like half an hour of struggling, Virginia landed the most humongous catfish Andi had ever seen. She exclaimed, “That biggie must be a foot and a half long! Virginia, you’ve won the prize for biggest fish this trip! Jenny wins the prize for the most fish.”

Jenny jumped up in the air with delight. “Yahoo! And congratulations to you too, Virginia.”

Virginia smiled. “Thanks, Jenny. Andrea, I don’t want to touch the fish. Can you throw it back into the creek for me?”

Andi sighed. Was Virginia ever going to get brave enough to do fisherman work for herself? She walked to the edge of the bank, careful not to take another unwanted plunge. Gripping the catfish, she wound her arm back and threw as hard as she could.

Behind her, Virginia blew the fish a kiss as it swam downstream.

Chapter 3

After supper that night, Andi slipped under the blanket she shared with Virginia. Levi and Jenny were lucky. They had their own blankets. Oh, well. At least Virginia would give her extra heat. The August night was unusually chilly.

Andi glanced at the front of the tent, past the gunnysack that held their breakfast which lay near the entrance. That’s surprising. There’s a hole the size of a bonnet. Last time I checked, the tent was fine. I’ll ask Chad or Mitch to repair it when we get back tomorrow. This decision made, Andi drifted away to sleep.

***

Someone was trying to take their gunnysack. Andi held on with all her might, but the thief was too strong. The sack slipped out of her hands and she fell backward…

Andi woke up from her dream with a start. She sat up to see Levi staring at the front of the tent with his mouth open. Next to her, Virginia moaned and asked for the blanket back. Andi re-covered the half-asleep girl and joined Levi.

“What do you see?” she asked.

Levi looked at her distress. “Our breakfast is gone, and they took it,” he said, pointing outside.

Andi looked and gasped. Two raccoons were rummaging through the gunnysack and eating whatever they found. She wanted to take it back, but she knew how dangerous raccoons could be. Levi was about to rush into their midst, but Andi held him back.

“Raccoons will attack you if they feel like it, and I’m sure they feel like it. We’ll just have to let them eat it. Oh no, here comes another one.”

A third dark shape was coming into view, but it wasn’t a raccoon. It was a dog. It attempted to take the gunnysack from the raccoon that had it, but the raccoon held on tightly. The dog bit the raccoon in order to try to get it to let go.

The raccoon screamed and dropped the sack, and the second raccoon bit the dog back. Soon both raccoons and the dog were fighting viciously.

The noise had now woken up the other girls, and they were watching with Andi and Levi. Jenny seemed as upset as Levi about their stolen breakfast. Virginia’s eyes never left the little red dog.

One of the raccoons took the dog’s ear in its teeth and bit down as hard as it could. The poor dog howled and scratched the other raccoon’s nose raw. The raccoon took off into the first light of dawn.

Seeing its chance, the other raccoon jumped on the dog. By this time, the dog was almost too weak to fight back. Andi wanted to do something to help the poor thing before---

Thankfully she didn’t have to. The dog got on top of the raccoon and put its hind foot in the raccoon’s eye. It retreated, and the little red dog collapsed.

Immediately, Virginia ran and cradled the injured animal. She wrapped her handkerchief around the dog’s torn ear to stop the bleeding. “You dear little thing. You have three times the bravery of any animal your size. I’ll take you to the water and wash the rest of your scrapes as soon as your ear stops bleeding.”

Jenny grabbed the gunnysack and looked inside. “Aww, those blasted, mangy beasts stole every last crumb of our breakfast! Now what’re we going to eat, Andi?”

“I guess we’ll go back to the ranch and eat breakfast there. Mother won’t mind when I tell her what happened.”

“Can Luke come too?” Virginia asked.

“Who’s Luke?” Jenny queried.

“The dog,” she answered, still holding the said animal. Its other scrapes had all been washed.

Virginia’s a born nurse, Andi thought. “Well, in that case, come on Luke. I’ll make sure you get fed too.”

Riding back, Andi thought how fun this campout had been even with Virginia coming along. She caught the biggest fish—on her first try too!—and found a new pet. She’s been a valuable addition to this ride. I wonder if she could be a valuable addition to my list of friends as well?