Arthur, for the Very First Time

  “I said known,” said Moira. “Not seen.” She put down her knife. “You know something, Mouse, that’s your problem. You spend so much time writing in that journal of yours that you don’t really see what’s going on around you.”

  “Arthur,” said Arthur. “What kind of things?”

  “You sound just like the social worker, Mouse,” said Moira, sighing. “Always asking meaningful questions.”

  “Arthur,” repeated Arthur. “What’s a meaningful question?”

  “That’s a meaningful question.” Moira’s voice rose. “She asks meaningful questions like ‘What do you think about?’; ‘Do you get angry easily?’ and ‘How do you feel about yourself?’ Then,” said Moira loudly, “she writes it all down in her notebook! Just like you! And you know what, Mouse?” Moira was shouting now. “She just writes it all down. She never does anything about it. Just like you! Never . . . doing . . . anything!” Moira’s hand upended the sugar bowl, and it fell to the floor, shattering, the sugar spread out around the broken pieces. Moira began to cry, her face buried in her hands.

  Arthur was not certain he had ever seen a girl cry before. At least not right in front of him. But Moira was not embarrassed. She let it go on awhile as Arthur stood, fidgeting, not knowing what to do.

  Finally he spoke. “The social worker,” he began softly. “What does she write down? Why does she come?”

  Moira looked up at Arthur, her face strawberry streaked. “She comes to check on Moreover and me. Because my parents don’t take care of me. To see”—Moira took a breath—”to see if I should go to a foster home.”

  “A foster home. With a stranger?” Arthur asked, incredulous. “Moreover wouldn’t let that happen. He cares about you.” His voice sounded high and tight. “Doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Moira in a whisper. “He cares. But he cares just like he cares about that dog in there.” She swung her arm toward the animal room. “That’s the third time he’s been here this year. The third time! Moreover keeps patching him up and sending him home to be hit by another car. Next time he’ll die. Don’t you see?” she cried. “Moreover once said you can’t care too much, don’t you know, or it hurts too much later. Later when what you care about is gone.”

  Moira sat down at the table, her head on her arms.

  “Like Uncle Wrisby,” Arthur said slowly.

  Getting close, he thought. But only so close. My parents not telling me about the baby.

  He looked quickly at Moira.

  “The far away end,” he whispered to her. “Maybe that is why Uncle Wrisby looks through the far away end of the binoculars.” He smiled and moved over and put his arm around Moira. He had never put his arm around a girl before. For a moment he thought about it. Then, as Moira snuffled, he pulled his arm tighter and didn’t think about it anymore.

  “Moira,” he said after a while. “I’m hungry.”

  Moira nodded her head up and down.

  “Moira,” he said after a moment. “I hate strawberries. They make me shiver when I eat them.”

  For a second, Arthur thought Moira was crying again. Her shoulders began to shake and she made snorting sounds. But then he realized she was laughing.

  They both laughed while they swept up the sugar, picking up animal hairs from it, deciding what sugar could be saved and what thrown away. And they laughed while they ate their sliced-strawberry-and-sugar sandwiches. Arthur shivered through two sandwiches, and they ended up with sugar mustaches.

  They cleaned the kitchen, then the front room and dining room because the social worker was coming soon.

  As Arthur left, he paused with his hand on the door. “I’ll do something,” he said to Moira. “You’ll see. I promise I’ll do something.”

  Moira held out the book on pigs.

  Arthur sighed and took it. And as he walked down the front path he heard Moira’s gentle laughter behind him. He walked thoughtfully, not noticing the moon that came up behind him. And he nearly stepped on the heels of Uncle Wrisby.

  “Arthur, is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Been to Moira’s?”

  “Yes.”

  Arthur took a deep breath.

  “Uncle Wrisby? Moira loves Moreover. A whole lot.”

  Uncle Wrisby nodded. “Yes she does. And Moreover loves her.”

  “But he doesn’t let her know how much he cares, Uncle Wrisby.”

  Uncle Wrisby looked down at Arthur.

  “Maybe he doesn’t say it, Arthur. I figure that for Moreover it’s more in the doing.”

  The doing.

  “After all, Arthur, how many people tell those they care about just how much they care?”

  Arthur smiled. Boy, Uncle Wrisby, thought Arthur. Now that’s a meaningful question. And you know something? I love you.

  It came as a great surprise to Arthur, and it wasn’t until Uncle Wrisby reached over to take Arthur’s hand that he realized he had said “I love you” right out loud.

  The frogs started their night noises, a whippoorwill startled them with its song—so loud—nearby, and they walked the rest of the way home with the moon.

  Roses and Onions

  “Letters for you,” called Uncle Wrisby at the back door.

  Arthur looked up from the oak table where he was eating lunch and reading. Uncle Wrisby handed him two letters, one in the rangy script of his father, the other on blue paper with the stamp upside down (upside down for “I love you”) and the straight-up-and-down half printing, half writing of his mother.

  “Thanks.” Arthur stuck them in the back of his book and went on reading.

  Aunt Elda looked at him curiously from the sink. But she said nothing. He had received five other letters from his parents, also unopened. Arthur had left them on the cupboard top where they sat, silent still as if there were no words written within. Finally, they had mysteriously appeared in his room on the night table, where he had slipped them into the drawer, still unread.

  “What’s that?” asked Uncle Wrisby, folding himself into a chair. “Another journal?”

  Arthur shook his head and turned the book around for Uncle Wrisby to see.

  “When Your Sow Has Babies,” read Uncle Wrisby. “A book! What’s a book gonna tell about sow babies?” he scoffed.

  Arthur pushed his sandwich away. This “doing” business wasn’t easy. It was not pleasant reading about pigs at lunchtime, either, especially the chapter he was now reading entitled “The Omnivorous Pig,” followed by a full-blown description on the subject of “when to let your young pigs slop freely.”

  “Uncle Wrisby, when are Bernadette’s babies going to be born?”

  “I’d say,” said Uncle Wrisby, peering at the wall calendar over his glasses, “in about three weeks.”

  “Three weeks!” exclaimed Arthur, sitting up straight. “That’s soon! And it says here that she ought to be in a grass area of her own, all fenced off from the other animals.”

  “Says where?” asked Uncle Wrisby loudly. “Show me where.” He pushed his chair around the table to sit next to Arthur, studying the picture of a huge, contented pig in a pen. “Bernadette’s been birthing for years, and she never had a fenced-off place like that. All she needs is love and singing.”

  “But do you know what could happen?” began Arthur. “It says right here . . .” And Arthur began listing the problems in the book. But Uncle Wrisby was no longer listening. He’d picked up his garden galoshes, taken his sandwich and gone quietly out the door.

  Aunt Elda sighed and sat down in Uncle Wrisby’s chair.

  “Don’t mind him, Arthur,” she said. “He just doesn’t like to know about such things, the bad things that could happen. He figures that if he doesn’t know about it, it won’t make him worry. Or if he doesn’t know about it”—she looked at Arthur—“that maybe it won’t happen at all.”

  “But that’s silly,” protested Arthur.

  “Maybe it’s silly . . . maybe it is,” said Aunt Elda softly. “But I think, Arthur
, that you understand.” She reached over to his book and pulled out his parents’ letters. “Don’t you?”

  She put the letters on the table and got up to wash the dishes, leaving Arthur to stare at the familiar but not so familiar handwriting on the envelopes.

  Uncle Wrisby was in the side garden, hoeing between the rows of onions and roses, when Arthur found him. The hoe turned up the sweet, dark, wet earth and made the garden a strange mixture of smells: a bittersweet smell of new dirt, of the flowering tree blooming at the corner of the garden—Arthur tried to remember to ask what it was—and of onions and roses.

  Uncle Wrisby knew Arthur was there. Arthur had seen him look up, briefly, as he approached. But he said nothing, continuing to turn over the earth between the plants in a slow, steady movement.

  Arthur watched for a while, then he sat down between two onions, willing to wait until Uncle Wrisby came to that place, either to hoe around him or to bring the hoe down through Arthur’s jeans.

  Uncle Wrisby came to Arthur and stopped.

  “Oh, all right, all right,” he said gruffly, and sat down in the pathway, his knees coming up to his chin. He took a drink from his bottle of medicine, then hit his chest with a fist.

  “Heart,” he said, peering over his glasses at Arthur.

  Arthur nodded. Then on impulse he mimicked Uncle Wrisby. “You mean because you got one or it’s ailin’?”

  Uncle Wrisby looked sharply at Arthur, then threw back his head and laughed.

  “Uncle Wrisby, I want . . .”

  “I know, I know what you want,” said Uncle Wrisby, waving his hand. “You want to build a fenced-off place for Bernadette. Okay, okay, go do it. Fencing is in the barn. Metal stakes in the shed. But it’s hard work.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Arthur excitedly. “I won’t complain.”

  “Darn right you won’t,” said Uncle Wrisby, getting up to hoe again. “Bernadette won’t like it anyway,” he muttered. “All she needs . . .”

  “I know,” said Arthur, suddenly grinning at Uncle Wrisby. “All she needs is love and singing.”

  Arthur jumped over a row of roses, then a row of onions, then stopped. “Uncle Wrisby?”

  “Yep.” Still hoeing.

  “How come you planted a garden of onions and roses?”

  Uncle Wrisby straightened up and rubbed his back. “I like them.”

  “Roses are nice,” agreed Arthur.

  “But they got thorns,” warned Uncle Wrisby. “Take onions, though.” Uncle Wrisby pushed his glasses up on his forehead and gazed lovingly at his onions. “You can plant them, touch them, smell them and eat them.” He smiled at Arthur. “Not like books.”

  As Uncle Wrisby began to hoe again, Arthur let his eyes unfocus on the garden. He could still see the roses, looking like watercolor flowers in the background. But now he saw the tall, dark-green onions, standing like sentries in a row.

  Arthur smiled to himself. It was almost like looking through the far away end of the binoculars. Far away, but near somehow. He shook his head a bit to clear his eyes.

  Look one way, look the other, he said to himself, remembering the poem Aunt Elda had read to him.

  As he walked to the barn, the mockingbird flew from inside, trailing hay from his beak. He stopped to watch the bird circle over and fly above the barn, then fly back again to the tree outside Arthur’s bedroom window.

  I wish, he thought, I wish I could unfocus my eyes just enough to make that tree look smaller. Then maybe I could climb it.

  Arthur stood for a moment, trying to make his eyes work the way he wanted them to, but no matter how hard he tried the tree looked just as tall as ever.

  Finally, he shook his head, closing his eyes for a brief time. Then, opening them again, he went inside the barn to find the fencing for Bernadette.

  Sounds

  Even though Aunt Elda began to ask Himself for rain—“Not too much please, no cloudburst needed”—none came. And the summer days and nights grew uncomfortably warm and still. Arthur read his pig book long into the night, making notes in his journal, his mouse watching the movement of his pencil across the paper.

  Monday, June 28: The birthing sow should have a private bed of dry hay with a warm light nearby. When the pigs are delivered they will automatically turn to the light for comfort. This way all the babies may be delivered safely, then put to the sow for nursing. Even the best of dams has been known to crush one or two young by mistake.

  The sow should have a private pen for the last week before birthing. This way, she may feed on clean pasture and be out of the way of other animals when she begins to give birth.

  Pauline woke Arthur each morning, clucking at his pillow and pulling at his hair, and she watched him outside as he began to build a pen for Bernadette.

  Putting up a fence was hard work, much harder than Arthur had ever imagined. Moira came to help him carry the heavy roll of fencing outside, Pauline running in wild excited circles around them. The wire was sharp and made deep, painful grooves in Arthur’s hands. Aunt Elda found bandages and gloves, then left Arthur and Moira to build the run. Uncle Wrisby, true to what he had said, left them alone. No help—none asked for. Their bargain. A hard bargain, Arthur was beginning to think.

  “Now,” asked Moira, sitting on the roll of wire, “how big should the pen be?”

  “Oh, from about here”—Arthur paced off a length—“to about here.”

  Moira smiled. “You have to measure, Mouse. You have to plan.”

  “Arthur,” said Arthur, frowning. He had never planned anything in his life. For Arthur, everything happened one way or another, either the way it should or the way it shouldn’t with no help on his part. He watched as Moira walked off a plot of grass, taking giant steps. She took a piece of paper from her pocket and borrowed his pencil, and when she was through there was a drawing of a long run, metal stakes three feet apart.

  Together, they pounded in the first two stakes while the sun rose higher. Pauline ran under the shade of the tree and sat watching them. Arthur looked up once to see Uncle Wrisby, leaning on his hoe, watching too.

  “Is it lunchtime yet?” whispered Arthur, wiping his forehead.

  Moira straightened up and made shades out of her hands, looking at the sun.

  “I’d say,” she said, sounding very much like Uncle Wrisby, “it looks about ten o’clock.”

  Arthur sighed.

  “Not lunchtime,” he said. And they pounded in two more stakes, rested, then measured, then pounded in two more. Then it was lunchtime.

  Bernadette lay in the far corner of the paddock as they passed by. Arthur climbed up on the wooden fence to look at her, Moira beside him. Pauline flew up and settled between them.

  “Bernadette,” Arthur called. “You are going to have a new grassy pen all your own.”

  Bernadette didn’t move. She twitched her tail to scare away a fly, but she didn’t even open her eyes.

  “You ungrateful old sow,” murmured Arthur, making Moira laugh.

  “Do you want a thank-you, Mouse?” she teased. She peered closer at him. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Arthur,” said Arthur, suddenly cross. “I told you I’d do something. I’m doing it.” He climbed down from the fence and walked to the house, wondering just what it was that he did want. But most of all, throughout the quiet lunch with Moira, Arthur wondered why he was building the pen for Bernadette.

  Moreover was in the paddock when Arthur and Moira came outside again. He felt Bernadette’s sides, putting his ear next to her bristly skin, listening. He looked up to see Arthur and Moira standing next to him. He pointed to the pig book under Arthur’s arm and smiled. “So that’s where that book got to.”

  “Moira gave it to me.”

  Moreover nodded and took out his stethoscope. “This is for show,” he whispered to Arthur. “My ear has already told me that there is a wild group of snorts in there just waiting to be born.”

  Arthur laughed and knelt beside Moreover
.

  “They’re a wild group, all right,” Moreover repeated. “Moreover, after they’re born they’ll have to have iron shots and proper pasture so they don’t get the thumps.”

  “The thumps!” exclaimed Arthur. “What are the thumps?”

  “Improper feed,” said Moreover, “can cause the thumps. It’s a pig sickness. Moreover, it can be serious.” He got down on all fours and demonstrated, jerking his hindquarters while Arthur and Moira shrieked with laughter. Arthur took out a small notebook that he had learned to carry and wrote:

  The thumps: Baby pigs can get the thumps. Can regular babies get them too?

  Arthur put away his notebook and touched More-over’s sleeve. He nodded at the stethoscope.

  “Can I listen?”

  Moreover handed him the stethoscope, and he placed it on Bernadette’s side. At that moment, all the sounds of the day seemed to stop for Arthur: the rustlings and pawings of the other animals, the sound of Uncle Wrisby’s hoe in the garden and the ever-changing song of the mockingbird. A new sound made him still with excitement. Arthur moved his head a bit to see Uncle Wrisby in the garden, still working. Strangely, like a movie with no sound, he saw the action but heard only the soft and mysterious turnings of Bernadette’s babies inside her.

  He was startled when Moira tapped his shoulder to listen, too, and he stood up, grinning, while Moreover grinned back at him. There were many questions he wanted to ask, but Arthur couldn’t speak. He looked down to see Moira smiling at the same sound he had heard. Finally he looked at Bernadette. Somehow she didn’t look so ugly to him anymore. Arthur looked at her wet snout, her bristly ears.

  Why, he thought, she looks . . . she looks . . . almost pleasant.

  Five Dollars Even

  On Wednesdays the Yoyo Pratt of Aunt Elda’s prayers came through the valley selling things from his donkey cart. The cart was painted red, had an old umbrella top and was pulled by a very nasty donkey whom Yoyo affectionately called Jack the Ass. Jack would kick anyone who came close enough, and when approached from the front, he would pull his lips back to show his teeth.