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property.” She went slapping down the path.
    Drying her hair with a towel, Mom came into the room. She was laughing. “Leigh, you amaze me. How did you get away with that?”
    I shrugged. “By being the man in the family.” Now maybe Mom won’t miss her little boy so much.
    Then Mom frowned. “It seemed to me Mrs. Smerling made a fence sound compulsory.”
    That was just what I was beginning to think.

March 2
    A fence, a fence, my kingdom for a fence, as Shakespeare would say.
    The yard already has a fence, overgrown with bushes, along one side and across the back. That leaves the side along the gas station and the space from there to the apartment house in front of our cottage. Barry and Kevin offered to help me build a fence from packing crates from the furniture store down the street, but I have a feeling Mrs. Smerling wouldn’t think that kind of fence would increase the value of her property.
    Kevin offered to pay for a fence. I couldn’t let him do that, and Mom would never allow it. Barry says his father would build me a fence if we asked him. He has all the tools. This was nice of Barry, but I couldn’t accept that offereither. I have my pride, even if I don’t have enough money for a fence.
    Problem solving, and I don’t mean algebra, seems to be my life’s work. Maybe it’s everyone’s life’s work.

March 12
    I got to thinking: if Barry’s father would be willing to build Strider a fence, what about my father? Without consulting Mom, I phoned him at his trailer in Salinas. “Dad, would you build me a fence?” No use wasting words.
    â€œWhere at?” He sounded surprised. I explained. “Sure, no problem,” he agreed and didn’t waste time. That same evening he drove over to take measurements by the light from the gas station next door.
    A few days later, when I came home from school, I found evenly spaced four-by-fours six feet high set in concrete which had only begun to harden. I pressed Strider’s paw into it by the post where the gate will go. Now my dog is immortalized.
    Yesterday, when Strider and I returned frommy mopping job, I saw Dad’s pickup loaded with lumber, hog wire, a gate already built, and Bandit. Dad was talking to Mom while Mrs. Smerling watched out the window.
    â€œCome on, Leigh. Pitch in,” said Dad. Mom said she had a lot of errands to do and wouldn’t be home till after work. I think she was just making excuses not to be around Dad.
    Dad and I went to work nailing stringers in place. I felt good working with Dad, getting sweaty, while Strider sat watching. Bandit just stayed in the truck.
    About the time all the stringers were in place, a lady drove up in a red Toyota, got out, and walked up the path. “Hi, Bill,” she said. “How’s it going?”
    Dad kissed her and said, “Great. Alice, this is my son, Leigh.”
    I remembered to wipe my hand on the seat of my pants, hold it out, and say, “How do you do?” which wasn’t easy because I was so surprised. Alice looked a little older than Mom, and plumper, but she was attractive. Nothing flashy.
    â€œHello, Leigh,” she said as if she liked me. She scratched Strider behind his ear when he got up to sniff her over. She said she had errands to do and “just thought I would come by to see how the fence was coming along.” Then she drove off.

    Suspicious, I asked, “She come to look me over?”
    Dad grinned. “Could be.”
    â€œYou serious?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œAny kids?”
    â€œGirl in college.”
    Old Wounded-hair wouldn’t approve of this conversation. Dad and I seemed unable to talk in complete sentences.
    By midafternoon, without stopping to eat, we had stapled the hog wire to the fence posts, hung the gate, and screwed the latch in place.Strider had a neat six-foot fence that should increase the value of Mrs. Smerling’s property. I