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Mrs. Maggie M.T. Lee adored her little Ludlow cousins, counting them among the bonus packages that came with marrying Col. H.F. Lee. He had explained before they were married what the situation was with his big Ludlow cousin, Capt. R.E. Ludlow, and that he had promised to have the captain's back should anything happen to him and Mrs. Ludlow so that the captain's seven grandchildren would never have to be split up again.
“It wouldn't just be me – all the Lees-of-the-mountain would have come in, because the little Ludlows are the great-grandchildren of Hilda Lee, my grandfather's elder sister,” he had explained to his then-fiancee. “But, I promised him that before we met, so, just know that seven of the sweetest and most intelligent children in the world are already in my life, and so will enrich yours as well.”
“Now that's what I call the nicest hard sell I have ever heard!” Mrs. Lee-to-be had said, and laughed.
“Well, you know me,” the colonel had purred. “My reputation is always in a deep, plush velvet glove to go with the steel fist inside of it.”
But the colonel hadn't been lying. Both he and his wife had lost their children and mates in their first marriages, Mrs. Lee through an accident, and Col. Lee through childbirth … so, the Ludlow grandchildren soothed a lot of hurt in them just by existing and being healthy and sweet and intelligent … although Mrs. Lee realized that living with them was going to be a challenging prospect when she was talking to oldest granddaughter eleven-year-old Eleanor about making Roman chicken and about asafoetida as an ingredient.
“So, it starts out stinking, but when you cook it with the chicken it gets this wonderful flavor,” Eleanor was saying just before Mrs. Lee got gently bumped and realized that five-year-old Lil' Robert and nine-year-old George had literally gotten right up under her.
“Tell us more!” Lil' Robert said.
“About the stinky stuff!” George said.
“And, be sure to bring it with you next time!” Lil' Robert said.
“ 'Cuz we know just what to do with that!” George said.
“No, you don't,” eight-year-old Edwina yelled, “and if you get any of whatever that is on me, I'm just going to have to kill you!”
“Yeah, those three are a whole handful,” Capt. Ludlow said to Mrs. Lee about it later, “but you have to watch Grayson carefully too because, well, just get a load of THIS conversation going on between him and Amanda.”
“So, I was thinking that if we had enough chalk, we could do cave drawings that would stay too because it doesn't really rain in there,” six-year-old Grayson was saying to his seven-year-old sister Amanda.
“Okay, but, bugs and stuff,” Amanda said. “When you draw with chalk on the sidewalk, there's enough room for bugs to be somewhere else.”
Grayson considered this for a few moments, and then smiled.
“OK, so, I'll build the cave myself from Legos,” he said, “and then make sure to spray it real good with Black Flag and Raid and Lysol before and after we go draw in there.”
“And that's why you have to watch Grayson,” Mrs. Lee murmured to Capt. Ludlow, “although it is sweet how he took his sister so seriously and tried to solve the problem.”
“Exactly,” Capt. Ludlow said. “Grayson is running neck and neck with Andrew for being the deepest thinker among the boys, and he is one of the kindest, most thoughtful little souls anywhere. Lil' Robert is slightly younger and quite similar, but at least you always know where Robert is because if he's not bird-watching, he's running his mouth. Grayson you have to look out for, because as you see, Grayson thinks really well about building and solving problems but only has a six-year-old's knowledge to work with. What he just said would definitely take care of bugs and stuff, BUT!”
“I suppose you have child-proofed everything that you can in your rental house,” Mrs. Lee said.
“Oh, you know that – even had to jimmy up the kitchen cabinets to keep these here out of there,” Capt. Ludlow said. “All of them are problem-solvers by inclination, but Eleanor is the oldest at eleven, so, when they solve a problem, they run out of room in the real world quickly – and that's where the trouble starts. You will not see many yellow-jackets around the cul-de-sac we live on this year – Eleanor and her best friend Velma Trent next door trapped out thousands of them after watching YouTube with no idea that if either one of them had turned over the jar with a few hundred of those things not yet dead … .”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Lee said.
“All my grandchildren want in the world is to love and be loved in return, and their Trent neighbors are just the same,” Capt. Ludlow said. “The challenge with mine is, they are Ludlows. They love hard and all their other emotions are the same way. They try hard and will do anything to try to help and make things better. None of them have any idea that they are not grown. None of them have any idea that they are limited in what they can do. I didn't figure that last part out until I was 39.”
“Lees are more mellow,” Mrs. Lee said, “but then you get Harry, or a certain Robert E. a bit further back in y'all's history, so, it's good that with your grandchildren we know what we are dealing with early.”
“That's a nice way of putting it, Maggie,” Capt. Ludlow said with a chuckle. “I see why Harry married you.”