The Waltons 2 - Trouble on the Mountain Read Online Free Page A

than it was possible for him to imagine. And now she was offering to share it all with him.
    “Grandma, I cherish you.”
    “And I you, boy.” She gazed at him for a minute, then got to her feet. “And John-Boy, I’m just as certain as that I’m an old woman that God’s going to provide a typewriting machine for you to write all them stories.”
    “I sure hope so, Grandma.”
    After all the “Goodnights” were exchanged, John Walton held Olivia’s hand and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling for a while. “Well, I reckon John-Boy’s recovered all right. I don’t know whether they’d buy them stories of his or not, but I sure wish we had the money to buy him a typewriting machine, Livvy.”
    “Ummm,” Olivia murmured. “I reckon we’d best think about where we can get two dollars and seventeen cents first. You know it’s been eight days now.”
    “What’s been eight days?” John knew very well what she was talking about, but he didn’t want her to think he was worried about the whole thing.
    “Since we got the notice. They said if we didn’t pay they’d turn off the electricity in five days.”
    “Well, they’re three days late already. Maybe they’ll never do it. I don’t expect it costs them much to leave it on.”
    “But what if they do shut it off?”
    John gave her a look of mock concern. “Well, Livvy, I expect we’ll just have to go back to living in a cave somewhere. I’ll have to get me a club and go hunting dinosaurs. And while I’m gone you’ll have to protect the babies from them saber-toothed tigers attacking.”
    Olivia couldn’t help smiling. John was right, of course. People had survived for thousands of years without electricity. And half the people in Walton’s Mountain were getting the same threatening notices.
    John laughed and kissed her. “We’ll get by, Livvy. Things got to get better sooner or later.”

II
    J ohn Walton was a man who believed there was no point in worrying about things you could do nothing to change. Sooner or later the electricity would probably be turned off at the house. And the way things were going, the Depression might get a lot worse before it got better. But unless he found some money at the end of a rainbow or he was suddenly elected President of the United States, there wasn’t much he could do about either problem.
    But as he drove up to the mountain with John-Boy and Grandpa early the next morning, it appeared like all the troubles of the world and then some were hanging over his two gloomy passengers.
    “Fine-lookin day, ain’t it, John-Boy?”
    “Uh huh.”
    He smiled over at Grandpa. “What do you think, Pa? Nice day, ain’t it?”
    “I reckon.”
    “Did I get you two up too early this morning?”
    “Nope.”
    “What’s the matter, Pa?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Then how come you’re so down in the mouth?”
    “Thinking.”
    John looked over at him, then laughed. “Oh, I see. Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that Fred Oglethorpe Hansen if I was you, Pa. I reckon Mama’s still got her cap set on you.”
    “Ain’t thinking about that.”
    They rode in silence for a few more minutes until John-Boy asked, “What you thinking about, Grandpa?”
    “Trying to recollect something.”
    “Anything we can help you with?”
    “Nope.”
    They cut down a dead oak on the lower slopes of the mountain and spent the rest of the morning stripping the limbs and getting three big sections of trunk into the back of the truck. Halfway back to the house Grandpa smiled and nodded to himself.
    “You remember it, Grandpa?” John-Boy asked.
    “Yep. And I think I know exactly where it is.”
    “Where what is?”
    “You’ll find out, John-Boy. But this is going to take a little smart maneuverin’ for us to make sure about it.”
    When they got back to the house and unloaded the logs by the sawmill, Grandpa’s mysterious thinking and recollecting turned to a preoccupation with watching the house. Running the logs through the saw, he