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Chapter 10: Compassion and Giving
Diana answered the door and accepted the four boxes from the delivery man. The compound area was too small to have a company store so supplies were brought in once a week from nearest town. Walker and the boys appeared to help her carry the boxes to the kitchen where she began to put the supplies away. As she put the three loafs of bread into the cabinet she pulled out an empty plastic bag and looked at it in amazement.
“What is it?” Walker questioned.
‘I could have sworn that there was a half a loaf of bread left this morning.” Diana said exasperated.
“I swear those boys are eating us out of house and home literally.”
“They’re growing boys,” Walker exclaimed with a smile. “Have you ever seen a time when one of our boys wasn’t hungry?”
Diana laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t mind if I could see a little meat on their bones,” she exclaimed.
“But, it seems that they’re eating more and getting skinnier!”
“They running it off,” Walker exclaimed with a smile. “Just keeping up with Zac alone keeps you slim and trim!”
Diana smiled at her husband and threw him a kiss. “Why, thank you kind sir,” she said teasing him.
“Are we still going out tonight on our date?” Walker asked.
“If going to the Faraday’s to watch their home movies qualifies as a date, we are.” Diana laughed. “Jerry is coming by to baby-sit for the boys.”
‘He’s a good kid,” Walker said.
“Too good to be buried out here in the jungles,” Diana exclaimed. “I’m working on him. He needs to go back to the states and go to college.”
“I know,” Walker agreed.
“I’ve been talking to some of the corporate heads back home. If we can talk him out of here, they’re willing to put him into an educational program where the company will pick up the tab.”
“That’s terrific!” Diana exclaimed.
“That means I’ll just have to work on him harder. I think he’s afraid to go home. Apparently there was an ugly divorce and he was part of the battle.”
“Divorce is always ugly.” Walker commented and he walked across the
room and he hooked pinkie finger with his wife’s and kissed her softly
on the lips. Their own private,
unspoken bond to never divorce. They were in this marriage
for the long haul.
A couple of hours later, with dinner over, there was a knock on the apartment door.
Taylor answered the door to a smiling Jerry carrying a tall four-foot
box.
“What’ya got, Jerry?” Taylor exclaimed.
Curious eyes followed the young man into the apartment. He carried the long box over to Ike and handed it to him.
“Special delivery,” he exclaimed as Ike put the box on the floor. Jerry bent down an cut the string with a pocket knife and Ike opened the top with a gasp.
“It’s a guitar!’ Taylor yelled in delight.
“It’s our guitar!” Ike said pulling the instrument out of the box and rubbing his hands over it gently.
“Dad? Can we keep it?”
Walker looked over at Jerry for an explanation and the young man
shrugged.
“I gave Bob a call and he said it was better for your boys to have
it than for it to get kicked around and broken. So he sent over with
a batch of stuff that had to come
from that office.” Jerry explained.
“Dad? Daddy?” Ike and Taylor intoned together.
“Yes!” Walker exclaimed knowing he would’nt stand a chance of saying no without breaking his kids hearts. Both boys jumped up and gave him hug and then gave Jerry a hug before returning their attention to their new prize.
“Okay, you little musical genius’s,” Jerry exclaimed. “How about a giving me a show!”
“Yes!” the boys chorused together and Walker guided Diana out the door with a wink to Jerry before they could be recruited as part of the audience.
Jerry was impressed with the Hansons’ brothers talents.
He laughed with them, and they tried to teach him how to sing with them
and when that didn’t work Ike tried to
teach him some basic cords on the guitar. But, to their dismay,
Jerry was the first person in their young lives that they had ever met
that didn’t have any musical talent at all. Instead he clapped, and
played the part of the audience for them, while at the same time performing
his baby-sitting duties. It was long after midnight before he was
relieved of his responsibilities with the return of their parents.
With a quick salute
he disappeared down the stairs to his own dormitory room in the
building.
Diana fixed breakfast the next morning, again marveling at the amount
of bread that the boys had eaten the night before. Bread was brought from
a bakery in a nearby village that everyone seemed to trust, but they could
only get deliveries twice a week.
Soon, she was going to have to double their order.
After breakfast, she put the boys to work at their home schooling
lessons. As usual, the baby interrupted their lessons and Diana had
to leave them to tend to her youngest child. She left the boys working
and when she returned she found
Ike climbing up on a chair trying to reach the bread cupboard with
knife in his hands.
Scared at the sight, Diana scolded her soon immediately. “Ike you shouldn’t be climbing with a knife. You could have hurt yourself if you had slipped!”<
“Sorry,” Ike mumbled and returned to his spot at the study table.
Diana stood holding the knife, suddenly suspicious. “Ike, why were you at the bread cupboard. You just finished breakfast and you can’t be hungry.” she asked.
“He didn’t want it for himself,” Taylor exclaimed only to be hissed at his brother.
“Tay, go play with Zac for a few minutes,” Diana suggested.
Taylor obeyed but he looked decidedly guilty as he left his brother behind.
Ike was looking down at his
books with a studied concentration. Diana sat down by her
son and cupped her hand under his chin to make him look up at her.
‘Ike what were you going to do with the bread?” she asked.
“I’m not eating it, Mom,” Ike confessed. “I need it to give to the kids.”
‘What kids?” Diana asked.
“The kids behind the fence.”
Ike explained. “Me and Tay save as much food as we can, but
sometimes
it just isn’t very much. I need the bread for the kids.”
Diana took the loaf of bread out of the cupboard and handed it to her son. “Show me,” she said softly.
Ike looked at his mother and then took the loaf of bread in
his one hand and took her hand with the other. He lead her out of
the apartment and to the back of the building
where the playground equipment stood empty. Ike pulled a folded
napkin out of his pocket. Diana recognized the contents as part of
his breakfast, wrapped up in the paper. He took it to the back of
the fence and pushed it through the fence onto the grass. Then he
pulled the load of bread apart and walked down the fenceline pushing the
bread through the triangular links. He let the pieces fall to the
grass on the
other side Then he took his mothers hand and led her to the
side of the building. They peered around the corner, at first Diana
didn’t see anything and then suddenly one small child and then a dozen
or more ran out from behind the bushes and trees and snatched the bread
up from the grass and stuffed it in their mouths.
“Sometimes there isn’t enough food in the trash cans for all of them to eat and they fight.” Ike whispered."
Diana kneeled down in front of her son and hugged him tight and kissed him on the forehead. Then they returned to the apartment.
“Don’t be mad at Ike, Mommy!”
Taylor exclaimed as soon as they entered the room.
“Are you in on this too?” Diana asked.
Taylor nodded and ducked his head down expecting a scolding but instead he was given a hug.
Diana took the two boys back into kitchen and set them back down
at the table. Then she fixed a second breakfast and set it down in
front of the two boys, with a helping
for Zac.
“I think what you’ve been trying to do by feeding those children
is a wonderful thing,” Diana said speaking very gently. “But, I want
you to listen to me carefully. You
can not give them your own food. Both of you are far to skinny
to be sneaking food off your plates to give away. And, you can not
take food from our family to feed those children. I know your hearts
are in the right place but you went about fixing the problem in not so
nice a way. You should have talked to your father and me about helping.
You shouldn’t be sneaking around. I don’t want any more sneaking
or any more stealing. Understand??”
Both boys nodded their heads together.
“But, Mommy what about the children?” Taylor asked. “They don’t have anyone but us to feed them.”
“I’ll come up with something.”
Diana promised giving each of her sons a kiss on forehead. Ike and Taylor did worry about the hungry children. But, after talking to their mother she made them promise not to take any further action without her approval. Then, when their father came home he also gave them a lecture about keeping secrets.
The next morning, Diana was humming and boys were back to work on
their school projects as normal. Then at mid-morning Diana took a
huge pan of cornbread out of the oven and set it out to cool. Then,
just before lunch time she cut the pan of bread
into squares put four pieces aside on a plate and then asked Ike
and Taylor
to take the rest to the children. With Jessica on her hip
and Zac by the hand, Diana watched as Ike and Taylor dropped the squares
down on the grass on the other side of the fence. It certainly wasn’t
as sanitary a situation as she would have hoped for, but the children didn’t
seem to mind. As soon as the boys retreated around the corner to
join their mother, the children ran for the food, making it disappear a
lot faster than it had taken to make. This became a daily practice.
The family budget went up a little bit, and the delivery man couldn’t understand
how such a small family could use the twenty pound bags of corn-meal he
was delivering twice a week but it solved the immediate problem.
The children were fed daily, and Diana didn’t have to worry about
her own
children misguidely starving themselves to provide for them.