The Fires of Spring

  Mrs. Krusen blocked the door and said consolingly, “He’s a bad boy, Miss Reba.”

  “Call the guard!” Reba demanded.

  “I don’t see how you stand him,” Mrs. Krusen lamented, holding the beaten woman firmly by the shoulders.

  The second momentous event happened at Harry Moomaugh’s party. Of course, everyone teased David about his eye. Harry said, “What’s the other fellow look like?” David recalled his aunt doubled up with pain and replied, “Not so good.”

  Marcia Paxson stood apart and studied David’s eye. “It looks awful,” she said. “Did thy aunt do it?”

  David thought: “Like a Quaker. She asks whatever’s in her mind.” David knew that all the kids in Grade Five understood about the thrashings he got from his aunt, but what they didn’t understand was that he was never going to take another one. Never. Suddenly he felt like sharing his secret with Marcia. “Yes,” he admitted. “She did it. But she’ll never do it again.”

  “Can I feel it?” Marcia asked. He stood very still while she probed it with her finger. “We’ll put some beefsteak on it,” she said.

  “Why?” David asked.

  “It takes away the blackness. My aunt does that for her husband. He drinks a lot.”

  So, with his chunk of beefsteak, David climbed into the truck and set off to see, for the first time in his life, the canal and the barges. He could sense, by the feel of the air, when they had come close to the placid Delaware. At the top of the hill in New Hope, Harry’s uncle stopped the truck to have his little joke. Like most Pennsylvania villages, New Hope had a Civil War cannon, but the iron balls that actually fitted the cannon were unimpressive, so someone had donated a pyramid of immense ammunition. “Now you tell me how they got those balls into that cannon!” David listened to the foolish answers and wondered: “Why don’t he drive on down the hill?”

  And then, below him, stretched the canal. It was clean and grassy along the banks. People had built fine homes there, and there were more flowers than David could see with his good left eye. The canal itself was brown with rippling water, and the towpath was sandy invitation to wander among the trees that shaded it. There was a red bridge and beneath it the canal crept in silent beauty.

  “Look!” Marcia cried. “The barge.”

  Around the bend came a canal boat, its mules plodding northward, its driver swinging a birch switch. There was a tiny house on deck, and from the doorway of that house an old man looked across the canal at David Harper. Instinctively, David waved, and the old bargeman waved back.

  Now the mules dragged their burden around a corner, and the barge was lost among the trees. But back to David floated a long-drawn, mournful blast of the bargeman’s horn. The mules were approaching a lock, and the keeper must be warned.

  “I always love that sound,” Marcia said, and the word “always” struck David with peculiar force. He thought: “You mean she comes here all the time?” Then a strange thing happened. As if Marcia had guessed David’s thoughts, she said, “Yes. I come down here often. Uncle Clarence lives down here. He’s the one that gets eyes like yours!”

  When Harry’s uncle stopped the truck beside the canal, David assumed that food would be served, but the baskets were kept covered. Although he was disappointed, David forgot his appetite, for a second barge had hove into view, and on its prow stood a young boy. Immediately David felt a complete identification with that boy. He was awestruck, therefore, when the barge reached an iron bridge. Deftly the boy leaped up and grasped one of the girders. Suspended there, he allowed the barge to pass beneath him. At the last permissible moment he dropped back onto the barge, his home.

  “Whew!” David whistled.

  His excitement grew more intense when the barge nosed its ugly snout into the bank. “Surprise! Surprise!” Harry’s uncle cried. “We’ll eat on board!”

  There was a mad scramble, and David threw away his piece of raw meat. Aboard the scow, he felt that he was back home. He knew where each thing was, so often had he talked with Old Daniel. Now the baskets were unpacked, and with a gentle motion the barge tore itself loose from the bank and headed downstream.

  It was Marcia who proposed that they offer the barge family some of their food. The boy ate ravenously, and for the rest of the dreamlike journey David and Marcia sat with him and talked. The questions that David wanted to ask, Marcia asked, and when the hallowed trip ended at a bridge far downstream David said, “Why don’t we write to each other?” He gave the barge boy his name, but no letter ever came.

  It was twilight when the barge drifted away to the next lock. Its mournful cry made David’s entire body leap. For the first time in his life he wanted to imprison a moment, to see indelibly the particular quality of that barge and that boy and that beautiful day. He was pleased beyond words when Marcia came to stand beside him on the bank. Of all the people on the picnic he guessed that she was the only one who might know what he was thinking. But not even she could sense the passionate wildness of his thoughts as he recalled Old Daniel and the gypsy girl, and the barges drifting down year after year through all the old man’s life, the call and echo of the horns, the creaking gates, the dank lock walls, and the far vistas of the Delaware. Half-formed, the words came to his mind: “I’ll put it in a book some day.”

  “Thee’ll never forget this, will thee?” Marcia asked.

  “I saw it before,” David said.

  “But thee said this was the first time.”

  “Yes.” David stammered. “But …” Then he found a way out. “That picture in your house.”

  “Oh, sure,” Marcia laughed. But she wasn’t fooled. Not a bit, and she looked at David in a certain knowing way to let him know she wasn’t fooled. David blushed.

  He blushed even more at what happened at the close of this remarkable day. At Harry Moomaugh’s Denis Bigelow cried, “Let’s play Heavy Heavy!” The girls squealed and Marcia said, “No!” but Denis insisted, so everyone gave Eleanor Morris a pencil or a piece of hair-ribbon or a button or something, and she mixed them all up together. The first thing she pulled out of the hat was the pencil David had given her.

  “Heavy Heavy! What hangs over?”

  “Fine or superfine?”

  Eleanor grinned at David, who admitted the pencil was his. “Fine!” she announced, meaning that the pencil belonged to a boy. Then she whispered so that Denis could hear, “It’s David’s.”

  In a deep voice Denis said, “Fine will go out into the hall, and he will kiss Marcia Paxson.”

  Again the girls squealed and Marcia said, “I will not!”

  “Coward! Coward!” the other girls squealed. So blushingly Marcia stomped from the room.

  David was perplexed and asked, “What do I do?” The children yelled with joy and the boys pushed him out into the hall. “You kiss her!” they shouted. Denis Bigelow became very excited and jumped up and down. When the door closed, he stood guard and listened.

  In the hallway Marcia waited for David. Her black hair was pulled tight behind her ears. Her dark eyes were bright, and she was nervous; her hands were twisting and untwisting. “It’s a silly game,” she said.

  “Marcia,” David said in gulps. “If you don’t want to …”

  “It’s only a game,” she repeated.

  David stepped close to her, and since she was taller than he, she bent her lips slightly toward his. He tried to kiss her, but merely brushed her lips. So he placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her again. He discovered that kissing was cool, and that Marcia’s lips were strange. He did not think too much of kissing, but when this kind, understanding girl trembled, he felt an overwhelming compassion for her. Quickly he grasped her hand and stood close to her.

  “You’re always the most fun,” he said.

  She made no effort to move either toward David or away. “What were you thinking when the barge disappeared?” she asked.

  In the dark hallway David whispered, “I was remembering.”

  “What?”

/>   “How it looked. How it sounded.”

  “Why?”

  “Some day …”

  “Hey!” Denis Bigelow shouted. “That’s some kiss!” He flung open the door. Marcia and David stood in the darkness, hand in hand.

  Back in the circle, David blushed for some time. He hoped and hoped that his pencil would not be drawn again. Kissing was pretty disturbing, after all. You said things you had not intended to say.

  As if his cup were meant to run over, the Paxsons invited David to go on a picnic with them to Paradise Park. On the appointed day David rose at five. He was scrubbed and polished by six. His new suit had been pressed under the mattress, the way the old men had showed him.

  He could not sit still long enough to eat breakfast, but later on he did stand very straight while the old men inspected him. “He looks good,” Luther grunted. “Wery clean.”

  “Now, remember,” said an old man with a hump, “whenever you take a girl out, you got to buy her somethin’. You got any money?”

  David had four pennies. He dug them from his pocket for the old men to see. An angry hush fell upon the hall. Then Tom snorted, “Why, four cents …”

  “You can’t buy much with four cents,” Luther grunted.

  “You be still,” the humped man commanded. He looked with a kind of desperation at the boy. “Sonny,” he said, “if you’re taking a girl on your first date …” Slowly, as if a portion of his blood were being drained away, he hauled a nickel from his watch pocket. “Here,” he said.

  Another man produced three cents he had been saving for tobacco, and a third rummaged for more pennies. Then the men stared at Luther, who was suspected of hoarding, but the Dutchman stared back and said nothing. He knew the difference that poorhouse pennies made. With a few coins one could swagger into a Doylestown store and say, “I’ll take some of that!” Pennies held a man’s head up.

  “Now how do you buy a treat for a young lady?” the humped man reviewed.

  “Like you said,” David explained. “After we eat in the grove, we’re walking past the rootbeer stand. I say, ‘Wouldn’t you folks like a rootbeer?’ and Marcia says, ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ and Mr. Paxson says, ‘I’ll get the tickets,’ but I hold up my hand and say, ‘Nope, these are on me,’ and I get four tickets, and they’re twenty cents, and then I hand Marcia her rootbeer like this.”

  “Whoa!” the humped man interrupted.

  “Of course,” David blushed, “Mrs. Paxson gets hers first.”

  Then came a voice of doom. A sour-faced newcomer said, “Rootbeer is ten cents.”

  The poorhouse men looked at him as if he were a Judas. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “It’s ten cents,” the killjoy insisted. “I was there last year.”

  “That’s too much!” David protested. “What shall I do?”

  “Well!” Tom proposed brightly. “You could get two bags of popcorn!”

  “That’s silly!” Luther snapped. “With a girl you get her somethin’ for herself. You get two rootbeers, David, one for you, one for her. Let that old Quaker Paxson get his own.” Suddenly the madman became furious at Mr. Paxson. “Why don’t he take his hat off and sing like other people, that’s what?”

  “You be still!” the humped man commanded. “Two rootbeers! You want the boy to look cheap?” The word had a horrible sound in the long hall, for these men had never been cheap. They had not scrimped nor saved the cores of life, but with splendid largesse they had spent themselves and their substance; and they would die in the poorhouse while the mean and ugly prospered. Angrily, the humped man stared at his companions. “This boy needs twenty cents!” he said in threatening tones.

  The old misers looked away. There was a terrible pull upon the secret places in which they hid their pennies. Hands started reluctantly toward the petty hoards, but there was no need of this, for Luther Detwiler, violating every principle of Dutch thrift his mother had taught him sixty years ago, sat down on the poorhouse floor. Slowly he took off his right shoe. His sock was worn into funny shreds that clung between his toes. Tugging at the fragments, he disclosed two dimes that had been wedged away for seven months. Without rising, he handed them to David, but when he saw the boy actually place the precious coins in his pocket, the old Dutchman hobbled to his feet and clutched the boy by the arm. “If rootbeers is only a nickel,” he begged, “you’ll give me back the money, yes?”

  Paradise Park was a magnificent place with rides and crazy houses and all sorts of jovial scenes, but there was one aspect of it for which David was totally unprepared. After lunch Mr. Paxson led the way to the lake where a motor launch took passengers for a short spin, and David expected to get aboard for a ride; but the Paxsons went right past the lake and into a pavilion, on the stage of which sat more than fifty men in uniform. They were a band, the first that David had seen with so many members. When the instruments tuned, David felt a shiver playing upon him and he whispered to himself: “That sounds nice!” Then silence fell, and suddenly the audience began to clap and cheer.

  A man with white hair, in a blue uniform, walked onto the stage. He moved stiffly, nodded stiffly, and stiffly started to wave his baton. “That’s John Philip Sousa,” Marcia said, and before her words were out, the pavilion broke into wonderful sound.

  Mr. Sousa played three pieces of music, and each piece was better and louder than the one before. But the last selection so far exceeded David’s expectation of what music could be that he never forgot that day at Paradise. Mr. Sousa started the music by waving his baton back and forth, not doing much, but the first swelling sound was glorious. And then it got better! When David thought it had ended, it started all over again, but this time four flutes and four piccolos moved down and stood at the front edge of the stage. They played furiously, up and down, until the audience gasped with delight. Then eight saxophones joined the flutes. Finally, eight trombones and eight cornets moved forward until the stage was jammed. Mr. Sousa didn’t even look at them. He just waved his baton back and forth in choppy strokes, but each player blew as if his cheeks must burst, and at the end there was so much noise and glory that David could not hear it all. It came over him like a flood. Then Mr. Sousa gave two short chops, and the music ended.

  “Whew!” David cried as the audience cheered.

  Mr. Sousa nodded several times, stiff little nods, and Marcia whispered, “That was Stars and Stripes Forever.”

  “What was?” David asked.

  “That music,” Marcia explained.

  The boy was still in a happy stupor when they passed the rootbeer stand. The Paxsons were well past it when David realized where he was. “Hey!” he shouted ahead. “How would you folks like some rootbeer?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Paxson stopped and looked at each other. “I’d like …” Mrs. Paxson began, but Marcia cried, “That would be swell!”

  “The stand’s back here,” David explained. He jammed his hands into his pockets. Luther’s two dimes were in his left pocket. The pennies were in his right. He had a feeling that rootbeer would be five cents. He had a strong feeling that’s what it would be.

  He walked up to the man and said in a clear voice, “Four rootbeers.”

  “Where’s ya tickets?” the man asked.

  David plopped the pennies on the counter. “Four tickets,” he said.

  The quick little sodajerk laughed and said, “Ya get ’em over there.”

  In some embarrassment David scooped up the pennies and went to the cashier’s box, looking for the dreaded sign, 10¢. When he saw no sign he reasoned: “If it was 10¢, they’d say so. Else how would people know it wasn’t 5¢?” Confidently he banged his fist on the cashier’s board. “Four rootbeers,” he said.

  “ ’At’s forty cents,” the cashier said. “Can’t you read the sign?” Far above David’s head was the smallest sign he had ever seen: “Rootbeer 10¢.” Grimly, from way down in his left pocket, he dragged up Luther’s dimes. Deftly, the cashier swept the dimes into a pile and shoved the boy four ticke
ts.

  “Four rootbeers!” David ordered, placing his tickets before the sodajerk.

  “We ain’t got any rootbeer,” the little man said. “We got loganberry.”

  David looked protestingly at Mr. Paxson and then at the man. “The sign says ‘Rootbeer,’ ” he insisted quietly.

  “Rootbeer we ain’t go. Loganberry’s nice.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” David pleaded. The quick little man turned away to serve another customer while David tried to fathom a place where they sold rootbeer tickets with a tiny 10¢ sign and then didn’t have any rootbeer. He felt wretched and tears would have come to his eyes except that he happened to look at Mr. Paxson. The man didn’t exactly wink at David. The corners of his mouth pulled up, that was all.

  “I’ll take four loganberries,” David said firmly.

  Rapidly the man served four tall glasses of deep red juice. David handed Mrs. Paxson hers, the way the men had said. Then he gave Marcia hers. She smiled and looked very pleased. Mr. Paxson reached for his own. David sighed and took his.

  Then he got a real shock. The loganberry was astonishingly good! It was sour, yet sweet, and tasted of berries picked in spring. It had a tingle, too, different from anything he had tasted before. “Say,” he cried, his upper lip covered with pale red foam, “that’s good.”

  The sodajerk laughed. “You never try nothin’, you never learn.”

  “That is good,” Mrs. Paxson said.

  Slowly, David drained his ebbing glass of loganberry. Marcia and her father put their glasses down. “That was awfully good,” Marcia said. Mr. Paxson raised his glass again to drain the last drop. David watched him through the rim of his own glass. The boy had a wonderful feeling inside, and it was not from loganberry.

  “How’d you like that, sonny?” the little clerk asked.

  “That’s some drink!” David said.

  “I’ll tell ya what I’m a gonna do,” the man said quickly, snatching up the four glasses. “We’re innerducin’ loganberry in the East. For you and the young lady, who I guess is your sweetheart, since you’re buyin’ her drinks, I’m gonna give you each a free drink. But the grown-ups is gotta buy their own.” He winked at Mr. Paxson, and before Marcia’s father could speak the little man placed four glasses of loganberry on the counter.