Author's Note: This is a story I wrote about the Dukes and their first years at the farm. I tried to keep it with them from the point where they got to the farm, and carry on throughout a couple of years. It's a growing and learning experience for all of them. There are also notes at the end of each chapter, a credit of sorts to a father from his son.
Warning: The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen.
Disclaimer: The Duke Boys are not mine, I don't own the Duke boys, nor the General Lee. I promise that once I'm through with them, there will be nothing broken that a trip to Cooter's garage can't fix….
Learning To Love…
Chapter 8 …..Cooter Davenport
Luke was practically bouncing around with excitement, he would go playing with Cooter. His Uncle would be gone on errands, and since Mr. Davenport had told him that Cooter was eager to see more of the little boy, Jesse had agreed to drop Luke off with them. It would ease off Martha's burden a little, something that was good since Daisy had caught a cold and needed extra much attention.
Luke had begged some cookies to bring and he now carried a few chocolate chip cookies wrapped in paper, in the pocket of his denim jacket. He was only waiting for his Uncle so that they could go.
"Al right Luke, get in an' we can go," Jesse grinned as he came out of the house, putting on his red hunting cap.
"Yipee," Luke cried out as he ran to the pickup truck and scrambled inside.
"Yer really eager to go play with the Davenport boy," Jesse declared with a grin.
Luke nodded, "Yeah, I like him a lot. An' I don't have anyone else to play with. Bo's too small to play, an' Daisy only wants to play tea party…."
"Yeah, I reckon ya do need someone to play wi' at times," Jesse noted as he drove off. While the Davenport boy mightn't have been his first choice it wasn't really anything personal against the boy. It was just that he was a tad too wild to be a good example to a five year old. The Davenports was good friends to the family, and Jesse liked Cooter, he just didn't want Luke to get in trouble.
He pulled up at their farm and watched as Cooter came running, he had obviously been keeping a look out for the pickup.
Jesse grinned and headed over to Mrs. Davenport as Luke ran over to Cooter, leaping at him and laughing as Cooter caught him.
"Cooter's been asking me when ya'd get here I don't know how many times," Mrs. Davenport grinned at him. "Thanks fer letting Luke come play with him."
"Oh, just don't let the boy make any trouble fer ya, I'm glad ya could take him today what with me being busy an' the little girl having a cold."
"I sure hope she gets better," Mrs. Davenport nodded. "But don't ya worry none Jesse, I don't know how one single kid could make more trouble than our Cooter…."
"He's a wild little rascal," Jesse chuckled. "But he's a good boy, I'll come back an' pick Luke up later." Jesse took farewell of them and gave Luke a goodbye hug before getting into the pickup and driving off.
"Cooter, now ya be careful there," His mother called out to him seeing that Luke was trying to climb up on Cooter's shoulders. "Don't let him fall an' get hurt."
"I won't ma," Cooter called back. He lifted Luke back down on the ground. "Come on Luke, I'll show ya what I've got."
"What?" Luke asked curiously.
"Come on," Cooter ran off towards the barn and Luke followed as quick as he could. Cooter realizing that Luke couldn't run as fast as he could, and slowed down. He led the younger boy to a pile that could either be junk or a treasure depending on how old you were.
"Look here," Cooter showed him a set of some small wheels. "I'm gonna build a soapbox racer," he declared.
"Wow," Luke beamed at the old empty wood crates, there was also other bits of wood in there, and some random junk that could have been anything. His uncle had told him that Cooter's dad worked by selling farming machinery, and that he would also do repairs. Cooter usually helped him out with it at times. Doing anything from minding the business if he was away, to help out with the actual repairs. He also said that the boy had a talent for machinery.
"Wanna help?" Cooter grinned at him.
"You bet," Luke nodded eagerly, he had never built a soap box racer before, but he had seen one or two.
"Papa gave me these wheels of a broken cart," Cooter explained. "I reckon we make a frame, an' then we make it into a soap box racer, an' then we put the wheels on."
Luke nodded, it seemed perfectly logical to him. He and Cooter started digging through the pile and Cooter came up with two five feet boards that they started to nail together with shorter boards. Making a bottom for the racer. Cooter grabbed a saw and removed one side from two of the crates to become front and rear while Luke nailed them down. Taking a breather in the middle of the work Luke remembered that he had cookies for them the pocket of his jacket.
"Yer aunt makes great cookies," Cooter declared happily as he was munching on his share.
"She is nice," Luke nodded.
"Yeah, she let ya come play wi' me, that's really nice," Cooter beamed.
Luke nodded. "Yeah, but she told me not to let ya get me into trouble."
Cooter burst out laughing at the small child's words. There wasn't one week when he didn't get into trouble for one thing or another, but he often had a lot of fun doing it.
"I think we only need the sides now, an' the wheels," Cooter declared getting back to work.
"I can put the sides on," Luke offered, that was the two sides that Cooter had sawed lose from the crates. Nailing them on between the crates created sides on the racer, and then Luke peeked inside. "We need something to sit on," he pondered.
"Oh, I reckon I forgot about that," Cooter laughed before finding a smaller box. "Here, this should do, just nail it down."
"Okay," Luke took it and nailed it in place, then Cooter took over and attached the wheels.
"That was really quick," Cooter stated as they admired it, "I thought it'd take longer."
Luke was sitting inside it, he couldn't really believe Cooter had let him help build something like that. He had thought he was too small for those kinds of things. He didn't care what they said about trouble, Cooter was nice.
"Come on, lets try it out," Cooter grabbed a hold of the back end and started pushing it with Luke still inside it. Then he stopped frowning as he discovered something, the soapbox racer wasn't facing the door exactly, and there was no steering in it either, he had forgotten about that. Lifting the front and swinging it around he grinned at Luke.
"Okay, so we can't really make any turns, but it's still a great racer, ain't it."
"Yeah," Luke nodded eagerly and Cooter pushed it outside looking around. He pointed at a small uphill slant behind the barn.
"If we take it up there, then we can go down the hill," that way they could go both in it at the same time.
Luke however swallowed and turned to Cooter with a worried look on his face. "Cooter," he said reaching over to tug at the older boy's sleeve.
"What is it?" Cooter frowned, the boy looked downright scared to him.
"How we gonna stop?" Luke bit his lip, he didn't want to run right into the barn wall.
"Well, uh," Cooter looked around again. He guessed that he should have considered brakes on it. "We aim fer that there haystack, then we're gonna stop when we run into it."
"Are ya sure?" Luke asked worriedly, it sounded a little risky to him.
"Yeah, I run into it wi' my bike all the time, it's fun." Cooter stated. Luke scrambled out and the two of them pushed the racer up the sloop a little bit, then Cooter stood holding it steady. "Okay, ya get in now, make room so I can get in behind ya."
"Okay," Luke scrambled in and sat down as far forward as he could, then giving a happy shout Cooter climbed in and sat down behind him, pulling Luke up against him. Cooter braced his feet against the bottom of it, and held on to Luke while they went down the slope. The soapbox racer bounced a bit on the uneven ground and Luke gave a shriek that was as much excitement as it was fear.
Then they came to a halt in the hay stack, with hay raining down over them and Luke joined in with Cooter laughing, he was right, it was fun.
"I wanna do it again," Luke declared happily.
"Yeah, me too, that was great," Cooter scrambled out after Luke and the two of them dragged the racer up the slope again. Luke got in and Cooter pushed of before following. This time Luke threw his arms up in the air, shrieking happily while Cooter hollered behind him. Cooter though made sure he held on to Luke since Luke had nothing to brace himself against when they hit the haystack.
They repeated the procedure a few times, but then Cooter tripped as he pushed off and the racer started rolling down the slope without him. He got back to his feet really fast and ran after it, but he wasn't able to catch up to it before it hit the haystack. Luke had grabbed on to the sides but he was still thrown forward a bit as it came to halt, hitting his arm on the side of the racer.
When Cooter lifted him out of it Luke was sniffing and there was an occasional tear running down his cheek as he tried not to be a baby and cry.
"Are ya okay?" Cooter asked worriedly.
"I don't wanna do that again," Luke sniffed. "My arm hurts."
"Come here, let Mama take a look at it," Cooter took his other hand and steered him off towards the house. "I'm sorry Luke, I tripped, I didn't mean for ya to go down by yerself."
Luke gave a small nod, he knew Cooter hadn't meant it, and he knew that only babies cried, it was more from the scare of realizing Cooter wasn't with him, than it was his arm hurting.
"Ma," Cooter called out as he led the way into the house. "Luke hurt his arm Ma."
"Oh dear, we'd better take a look at it then." She was in the kitchen and wiped her hands on her apron as the two boys came inside. Gently lifting Luke up to sit on the counter before pushing up his shirt sleeve. Reveling a bruise and a scratch that was nothing to an older boy, but something more to a five year old boy. Wetting a kitchen towel she started to clean if off carefully. "What were you two boys doing anyway."
"We built a soapbox racer, with the wheels Pa gave me, an' we ran it into the haystack," Cooter grinned. "It was great, but then I tripped, an' Luke hit his arm."
"Well, then ya need to be more careful," She scolded her son gently. "Can't let Luke get hurt, that wouldn't be a very good host Cooter."
"I know, I didn't mean fer that," Cooter explained. "I'm sorry Luke."
Luke gave him a small smile. "S'kay, t'was fun."
"I bet it was, but I don't want ya boys to do it no more." She told them. "Does that feel better now Luke?" she ruffled his hair gently and Luke smile at her.
"Yeah, thank you," Luke nodded so that his dark curls danced on his head.
Mrs. Davenport pulled his shirt sleeve back in place and lifted him back down onto the floor. "Now, Cooter, ya get him a cookie, an' then why don't ya go play in yer room. I'm gonna have lunch ready fer the two of ya soon."
"Okay," Cooter reached up to a cookie jar on the counter, taking out the two biggest ones he could spot and giving one of them to Luke.
"Thank you," Luke repeated politely.
"Thanks Ma," again Cooter took Luke by the hand as he led him deeper into the house and to his own bedroom. Luke looked around in the room, there were posters and framed pictures of cars on the walls. A baseball bat probed against the bed and a glove on the floor. He also saw a lot of toy cars on a shelf and he couldn't help but head on over there to look at them.
The rest of the time until Cooter's mother called for them to come and eat Luke and Cooter played with the cars. Using other things to build up obstacles and courses to drive around. It kept them busy the whole time until Uncle Jesse came to pick Luke up. Both boys thinking that they could hardly wait until the next time.
In credit of the man who let me play around with the pallet jacks at five, asked me not to get to close to the loading dock where the floor made a 4 feet drop.
TBC
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