People stood around, shuffling their freezing toes and mumbling. After a while Mrs. Weston remarked rather loud that anybody with any sense would go home and welcome in the new century in the comfort of their own homes. The crowd began to drift away after that. We young ones complained, but we were not listened to. Maybe someone had gotten wind of those firecrackers and was scared one of us fellers would burn our britches or worse.
If anyone but me was thinking about it being almost the End of the Age, they didn't say so. It wasn't even mentioned during the prayer meeting. I wondered if people had forgotten so quickly all the excitement over the potential apocalypse when Reverend Pelham was here in June, or if they just didn't want to dwell on the possibility.
We sat in the kitchen. Ma made us hot sassafras tea and Pa popped corn. We had a good time for a while until Letty fell asleep in her chair. Then everyone started to yawn. As it turned out, only Pa and me could keep our eyes open past eleven-thirty.
"Come on, Robbie," he said, consulting his watch, "why don't we greet the new age outside among the stars."
We put on our coats and caps and high boots. Pa grabbed the lantern from the kitchen table. The two of us tromped through the snow across the back yard to the edge of Webster's pasture. It was bitter cold, as it tends to be when the sky is perfectly clear. The stars were sparkling and winking like they were dancing for joy. We craned our necks back to stare. A shooting star sped across the dome of the sky and disappeared behind the mountains.
"Pa," I said, "do you think—do you think it will all be over soon?"
"What will be over, Robbie?"
"The world. Do you think it's coming to an end?"
He didn't laugh. "We can't know that sort of thing for sure, son. But my hunch is that this old earth will be here a long time after we are." He was quiet for a minute. Then he added, "I think the world's at a sort of beginning, myself."
"A beginning?"
"Lots of things, things we can't even dream of today, will be happening in your lifetime. The world is changing so fast on us. Telephones, electricity, motorcars—who knows? You might live long enough to see flying machines."
I looked up at the stars and tried to imagine myself like a shooting star, flying up there in a motorcar with wings. Nothing seemed impossible anymore.
"I pray it will be a good century," he went on. "I want my children and my grandchildren to grow up in a world where people have learned to think with their minds and hearts and not with weapons of destruction. But I don't know, the human race being what it is..."
I shivered. He put his free arm around me and drew me close. "Pa," I said after a bit, "let's ring it in." I waited for him to say no.
Instead he said, "Last one to the church is a rotten egg!" He thrust the lantern into my hand and took off down the hill, retracing his own tracks in the snow so he could go faster. I followed after, holding the lantern high and stepping carefully into his footprints. He was waiting for me on the church porch, smiling and out of breath. We went in together.
"Don't turn the bell over!" he warned.
"I won't!" Only greenhorns who don't know how to ring proper pull the rope so hard it makes the bell turn over. I took hold of the rope. Pa fit his big hands in between mine, and we began to pull.
High above us from the steeple, the bell of the Congregational church clanged across the valley, pealing out a joyful welcome to the twentieth century.
Katherine Paterson, Preacher's Boy
(Series: # )
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