It had been quite frustrating, though, not knowing where in the heck Pa had put those doors. Those things had went missing for more than a year, and I’d even lost sleep over it.

“Awesome detective skills, Peg.” I leveled him with a stern glare and pointed toward the unfinished water troughs. “Now do you think you can make yourself useful and go do your chores?”

He muttered an oath, but I was too annoyed with Pa to worry about it. Instead I focused on the little nuisance who had just joined us and was now underfoot as I grabbed the slop bucket and stomped off to the pigpen.

“These are your people, Miss Priss. You should at least give them a chance.” I opened the gate to the pigpen and motioned for Pixy to follow me, but the spoiled thing scooted in reverse instead. I crouched down and angled the slop bucket toward her, but she stuck her nose up at it. “This is Charlotte’s fault,” I mumbled, and she let out a snort of agreement.

Pixy Pig preferred canned dog food, bananas, Pixy Stix, and most any other type of candy. Her newest favorite was Miss Wise’s cherry-filled bonbons that Charlotte liked to slip her while painting her hooves with nail polish.

I pointed to the rooting pigs, oinking away on the other side of the fence. “At least go speak to them.”

Pixy snubbed her snout at the farm pigs like they were beneath her and pranced her neon-pink hoofed self toward the back porch, where her pillow bed was set up.

Shaking my head, I had just turned to wade into the pen when Raleigh started hollering from somewhere up front. Dropping the bucket, I rushed around the house and slowed as I caught sight of Pa on the front porch.

Catatonic, he sat motionless in the rocking chair, staring off into the distance of nothing. His formidable body was there, but his mind had checked out once again.

“Hurry, Ox!” Raleigh yelled.

“No problem,” I sassed at my father with enough venom that should have had him off that porch to get ahold of me. “I’ll take care of it like everything else around here! You just keep sitting there doing nothing to help out.”

He didn’t even blink.

“Ox!” Raleigh yelled again, waving both hands in the air while jumping up and down.

Huffing, I stormed in the direction of the equipment barn. As soon as I reached him, he grabbed my hand and led me to where several tractors were lined up below the overhang, pointing to the first tractor, which was parked cockeyed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, already peering over the side of it to see for myself. At first I thought I was looking at a coil of rope, but the rope hissed and sent the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.