After breakfast was eaten and the dishes washed up, Fiddleford and Tate headed out to get back to work on the automaton...and Ford and the children ended up standing in the kitchen for a moment, staring awkwardly at each other.
Finally, Ford cleared his throat.
"Um. I...I have some work to do. Do you think you'll be able to amuse yourselves for the day?"
To his equal parts horror and bewilderment, the children's expressions became more than a little crestfallen.
What did I say?
As he was trying to figure it out, Mabel suddenly brightened. "What kinda work are you doing? Can we help?"
The possibility seemed to attract Dipper's interest too. "Yeah, I like researching and investigating stuff! Back home-" his voice faltered for a second, but then raised its level of enthusiasm again- "we had a pile of tin cans that kept disappearing, and I managed to figure out all on my own that they were being eaten by this goat that belonged to one of our neighbors!"
"We were lucky he caught him-he was probably gonna start on our house next!" Mabel said dramatically.
And for a moment, Ford was tempted to allow the children to accompany him. They both seemed like they were genuinely interested in what he was doing, and a cautiously optimistic part of him thought that perhaps he would enjoy their company while wandering into the woods to spy on the horde of feral Killbillies who had claimed a nearby glade as their territory-
His words caught up with his brain.
"...I don't think it would be safe for you where I'm going."
The earlier disappointment returned to their faces with a vengeance, and Ford nearly relented-but reminded himself firmly that he was their guardian now, and it was a guardian's job to protect the children in their care.
"You can find Fiddleford or Tate if you need anything; I'll be back for dinner." And he strode out of the room, snatching his long coat as he reached the front door (which contained a handy collection of papers, some charcoal pencils and a new kind of pen he'd invented that didn't require an inkwell), and disappeared into the forest.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Mabel let out a frustrated huff once Grunkle Ford was gone.
So much for their opportunity to bond with their grunkle.
And Dipper had seemed a little more like his old self at the prospect of helping him out with whatever he was studying, so she was doubly disappointed.
But she just sighed, and put a comforting arm around Dipper's shoulders.
"...Maybe we can go next time."
To her relief, instead of pulling away he leaned against her and sighed too. "Yeah. Maybe."
They ended up wandering around the house for the rest of the morning, seeing what it was like (and trying to make some sense of the house's design-it seemed like it was bigger on the inside, for heaven's sake, there were so many rooms).
Mabel suggested asking Grunkle Ford if they could help clean up the place whenever they got back, maybe organize some of the papers and things a little better-in fact she almost got started doing just that, until Dipper reminded her that he might not like it if she just started going through his stuff, and that they didn't want him throwing them out just yet.
"He's not gonna throw us out, Dipper, don't be silly!"
...All the same, she decided to leave Grunkle Ford's stuff alone until he got back.
When they got tired of exploring the house, they went outside to see the rest of the property.
They found McGucket and his son out by a smaller cabin about thirty feet away from the house, reattaching the head to the automaton, which was now lying on its side. The old man waved to them cheerfully, before going back to pounding his blacksmith's hammer against the now red-hot metal.
"He's a lot stronger than he looks," Mabel observed.
The house was surrounded by forest on all sides, except for at the front, where lay the path that would take them back towards town. There was also a vegetable garden (which appeared to be neatly tended, so they assumed it was once again Tate's work), and a well that had a curious metal-and-wood device covering it that connected to the side of the house (presumably another of Grunkle Ford and/or McGucket's inventions).
All in all, not a very fancy place to live-but Mabel thought she could get used to it.
After some more searching they found an old ball lying by the side of the house, and started an impromptu game that mostly consisted of kicking it back and forth, trying to see who could get it the farthest and the highest.
To her delight, Dipper "woke up" again as they played. He even smiled a few times when he got in a really good kick, and when Mabel tried to balance the ball on her foot and ended up falling on her rump he actually laughed (but not in a mean way, since he helped her up afterwards).
Unfortunately, without realizing it they had made their way right to the edge of the woods as they played, and the next time Mabel kicked the ball, Dipper was unable to catch it in time-and it went sailing over their heads, and disappeared between the trees.
For a moment the children stood there, staring with distress after the missing ball.
Then Mabel straightened her spine, and announced, "I'm gonna go find it," and stepped over the property line into the trees.
Dipper let out a panicked yelp, and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back. "Mabel! Grunkle Ford said-"
"I'm not gonna go too far!" Mabel pulled in the opposite direction. "I just wanna get the ball back!"
Dipper looked incredibly unhappy...but finally sighed and followed her into the trees, picking up a large fallen branch and brandishing it in his hands like a club.
The ball had gone farther than they expected, so they ended up making their way out of sight of the house before Mabel finally spotted it, wedged between the upper branches of a big oak tree, with a hollow part in the center that looked kind of like a giant eye.
The whole time they were walking Dipper kept jerking his head from side to side nervously, and shifted his hands back and forth around the branch, like any second he expected something to jump out of nowhere and attack them.
"Relax, bro-bro," Mabel admonished, grabbing onto one of the lower branches and pulling herself up. "What, you think something's gonna eat us or something?"
"That's how it happens in every story ever where people get overconfident and say something like, 'Oh, let's go into this haunted house, no way this could possibly go wrong,'" Dipper muttered. Then he glanced up at her and bit his lip. "...Besides, last night I-I kinda heard something out here."
"Really? Like what?" Mabel finally reached the ball, and began prying it loose.
"...I dunno. It didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before. But it was roaring, and-"
Dipper's voice trailed off.
Mabel looked down, and saw that he'd put down the branch, and was looking at the tree trunk with puzzled curiosity.
"What the…?" he muttered, before stepping forward and reaching into the hollow part.
She scrambled down towards the ground, cradling the ball in one arm.
"What is it?" she asked, just in time for him to pull out, of all things...an old red book.
It was all tattered and beat up, and the back of the spine looked like it was just hanging on by a few threads, but that just kind of added to the coolness factor.
There was a gold symbol of some kind on the front, but it was so ripped up that Mabel couldn't tell what it used to be.
"Whoa," she marveled, examining the book. "Wonder who left that in a tree?"
Dipper opened it gingerly. "...There's no name on the inside, so that's no help."
He turned the page, and found a picture of what looked like a bat, next to a sketch of some giant eyeballs. "Whoa. Both interesting and disgusting."
He probably would have stood there all day, examining the contents of the book, had Mabel not tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey. We should probably get back before anyone realizes we're gone."
Dipper blanched. "Good idea."
And together they hurried back towards the clearing where the house was, neither one noticing that the hollow in the tree now appeared to be watching them.
Are tin cans somewhat anachronistic?
Maybe.
Am I at all concerned by this, considering how many other things in this story are anachronistic?
No, not especially.