Preacher''s Boy

  Neither the girl nor I moved. The bundle turned itself around with some difficulty and stared, taking in me and the girl at the same moment. "Whozat?"

  "Git up, Paw," she said quietly. "Viztor come calling."

  Visitor? I was the landlord. I was a little wary of the snorer once he was upright, but if I didn't put my foot down immediately, there was no telling how long they'd stay. "It's mine," I said. My voice squeaked, so I boomed out the next sentence like a bass drum. "By rights, I'm owner of this cabin."

  The man began shuddering to his feet.

  "It's all right, Paw. It's no more his 'an ours." She gave me a glance. "He's nothing but a little kid talking big."

  The man looked me over head to toe as if measuring how big a threat I might be. I squinched my eyes to keep from blinking. He was head, shoulders, and half a chest taller than me.

  To my enormous relief and small satisfaction, he broke the gaze. "We was here first," he said to the girl in what was not quite a whine.

  "Yeah, Paw," she said. She put one hand on her narrow hip. "We ¡my here and we where. You can jest rest easy on that."

  He lurched toward us. I stepped out of the way. I couldn't help it. Then I realized it was the doorway he was heading for, not me. I did another quick sidestep.

  "Jest got up," he muttered. "Got to—"

  She sort of shoved him out the doorway before he could finish his sentence. So there was some delicacy about her—something girllike. She watched, silent, her back to me, as he stumbled toward the trees to take care of his morning business. I was sure she didn't want me staring, so I walked in toward the hearth, pretending I was looking for something. I was embarrassed for her now, more than sorry for her. The smell of his quilt was a mixture of alcohol and vomit and filth. A drunken old fool for a father. When she turned around again to see what I was up to inside the cabin, I tried to muster up a bit of bravado. "Wal, Vile," I said.

  "Violet to you," she barked. But I could tell no one in her memory had ever used her proper name. She was just trying to make herself seem a little less wretched.

  I wasn't in a mood to be any kinder than I had been already. "Wal, Vile, Violet, whatever you call yourself, you're just lucky I aim to go fishing this morning. That'll give you time to eat"—she snorted—"and clear out of here before I get back." She snorted again.

  We did a little dance as I tried to pass her in the doorway; then she stepped grandly aside and gave me a sweeping bow. I made a wide arc around the noise of the old man in the woods. I didn't want to stumble into him.

  Seeing a spruce, I pulled out my pocketknife and pried off a patch of resin. I stuck it in my mouth. Pa says I'm going to sacrifice every tooth in my mouth to chewing resin, but it's free, and I can't afford store-bought gum. Sometimes, when you got a lot of thinking to do, you have this need to be chewing on something.

  Pa. I'd hardly thought of Pa while meeting with the squatters at the cabin, but I dug my worms and reached the creek hours before Willie got there, which left me time to think. I started with the pair in the cabin, but too soon I was back home in my mind. A fellow shouldn't have too much time to ponder on things. It ain't healthy. I took a worm from my pocket and threaded most of it onto my hook. There he was, poor thing, dangling helpless from where I'd attached him. What had he ever done to me that I should treat him so cruel?

  I chomped down on my wad of resin. Why did the worm make me think of Elliot? I didn't want to think of Elliot at all, much less as a worm. There's a hymn about Jesus' dying "for such a worm as I." I didn't like that line. Elliot might be born simple, he might cause me lots of grief, but he wasn't fish bait. I chomped down harder on my resin. Usually the strong, bitter taste of it made me feel like I imagined a man chewing tobacco might feel. Now it just made me feel glummer. I wanted something sweet in my mouth like maple sugar or candy or store-bought gum.

  Pa. My pa crying. Even if in general people think preachers aren't real he-men, I knew most people in Leonardstown looked up to my pa. Else why did they bluster on about their true beliefs and hint darkly that his might be inferior? Wasn't it because they knew in their hearts that he was their superior in every way that really mattered? Even Reverend Pelham had almost admitted as much. Pa's critics were like boys on the school grounds bragging about what their granddaddies did in the Great War. That don't have nothing to do with how fine a person you turned out to be yourself.

  That's all bragging about your beliefs amounts to. It's just a matter of trying to assure people you got something superior that they can't see and you don't have to prove. God or no God, it don't hang on what some puny little human beings say or do or think. Any little rooster can puff out his throat and crow the morning in, and he can fool everybody including himself, long as the morning keeps on faithfully coming in on its own. The same way, I reasoned, God, if there was a God, was going to run things His own way. He wasn't going to let mere people tell Him how to run things. God liked for people to be kind and helpful and good. No matter what the Reverend Pelham claimed, God wasn't just interested in how folks crowed.

  I sat down there by the creek, and I knew all these things. I had lived for ten years in the knowledge of my pa's true strength. I didn't need to have a hero grandpa, even if I really did. As mad as I might get at him from time to time, Pa was my living hero—until I saw him put his head down on top of my mother's head and blubber like a baby.

  Willie finally showed, but I was so talked out in my head, I could hardly speak out loud.

  "Elliot all right?" he asked at once. "You didn't really say before."

  "Elliot?" I hadn't been thinking much about Elliot just then. "Oh. Yeah. Elliot's fine. Elliot's always fine, ain't he?"

  Willie looked at me funny. "Last thing I knew, he was lost."

  "Pa found him." I guess I must have snapped the words out.

  He was quiet for a minute, looking me over. "That's good," he said. I thought he was about to add Ain't it? But Willie has got sense enough not to push things. I like that quality in Willie; also that he is loyal. A friend who is loyal and knows when to shut up is as rare as a hippo in Cutter's Pond.

  We didn't catch anything. The spring drought had been hard on fish and fishermen alike. We stayed, though, until the sun and our bellies told us that it was time for dinner.

  Funny, looking back, I never mentioned to Willie anything about the cabin or its new "owners." You'd think I would have, that Willie deserved to know. Was I planning mischief even then? Something I'd be ashamed for Willie to know about? I don't think so. I just didn't quite get around to mentioning it. That's all. That's no crime, is it?

  6. The Intruders

  IN LEONARDSTOWN MOST FOLKS HAVE THEIR BIG MEAL in the middle of the day. The stoneworkers carry their dinner in pails to the quarry or to the shed, but originally this was a farm community, and farmers come in from the fields after a long morning of work. They need plenty to fuel themselves up for the rest of the day. Nobody in our house does farm work, but we follow the customs of the town. It makes us more a part of the community, though to tell the truth, we've never been quite a part of it. Neither of my parents was born here, for one thing. There are no grandparents or aunts and uncles in easy hailing distance when things go wrong or you want to celebrate. Pa's parents are both dead, and Ma's live up in the northeast corner of the state, away from the rail line. It's a long day's journey from here.

  The family had already gathered around the table when I got home. I scurried for my place, which is next to Beth's, at the kitchen table. As I sat down, she pinched her nose, her little finger curling in the air like a comma. "Phew," she said.

  "Elizabeth!" Ma was shocked to hear Beth using such an unladylike word.

  "I can't help it, Mama. Please make him change. He smells like a dead fish."

  "How could I? I didn't catch nothin'."

  "Anything," said Pa.

  I think Ma was more annoyed at Beth than she was at me, but she made me go change anyhow. Honest, sometimes the burden of having a
sister who's a lady-in-training is more than a boy should have to bear.

  Ma had fixed up beans and boiled some ham, almost like it was still a holiday. We all tried to eat to please her, but it was a hot day and no one was really hungry. Except Elliot. Ma watched him shovel in those beans, her eyes shining like she was proud of some big accomplishment the boy had managed.

  Pa made appreciative noises over the food, but I could tell he was no hungrier than me. There were dark shadows under his eyes, making them look old and puffy. Whether from lack of sleep or crying I didn't want to guess. I kept harping on those tears. I didn't mean to, but it really shook me to see my pa so small and scared, a little boy who's hurt and running to his ma.

  Beth kept turning and giving me queer looks.

  "What?" I said finally. She was making me feel prickly and guilty.

  Everyone turned to me like I needed to explain myself. "Tell Beth to stop looking at me," I said. I couldn't believe the stupid words that just jumped out of my mouth. I turned as red as a flag stripe.

  "I can't help looking," she said sarcastically. "You're just too pretty for words."

  I jumped up from the table. Pretty? I've given bloody noses for less than that.

  "Sit down, Robbie," Pa said quietly. "And calm down, both of you." I gave Beth a smirk, in case she missed the point that I wasn't the only one out of line.

  Willie couldn't fish after dinner. His aunt had him working the vegetable patch. Sometimes I help Willie with his chores, but that day I just couldn't make myself. Elliot was going to help Pa in our garden, so I wasn't needed at home. Or wanted. At least that was the way I was seeing it.

  Without thinking, I headed back up to the cabin. Nobody was there. I called out, gently at first. When no one answered, I went on inside. There was enough light now to see around. The squatters had a couple of quilts, ragged and filthy to be sure, but still quilts. They must have built a fire sometime earlier, as there were ashes still smoldering in the old stone fireplace.

  I tried to figure where they got their food. They could have marched down the hill into town and bought it same as most of us, but somehow I sensed that wasn't how they did things. I'd never seen anyone, not even the Pepin children, whose pa died in a quarry accident, look as needy as Vile did. At school, sitting close together near the wood stove, the Pepin children smelled different from us. Here in the cabin, that odor, which I could only guess was the smell of poor folks, was multiplied ten times. It made me want to gag.

  There was a big kerchief by one of the quilts, tied up, I guessed to protect their worldly goods. My fingers itched to unknot those corners. What would people like Vile and her pa carry from place to place? Where had they come from? What did they call themselves? Not Gypsies, I was sure.

  There was a Gypsy caravan that camped in the flats south of town every September. They'd stay a week or so. We boys loved to go and spy on them. Their wagons were painted in bright colors. Their clothes were motley colored, too. Both the men and women wore gold in their ears. They made me think of Solomon in all his glory. When Ned Watson said they kidnapped babies and ate them, I knocked him down. "Wal, you're one baby they'd spit out," I said.

  At night, around their fires, the Gypsy folk sang songs, the likes of which you'd never hear in any church—wild songs that would make your blood race and sad tunes that would make you feel lonely and homesick even when you couldn't understand a word. I liked the horses best. They were smaller than Morgans or any farm horse I had ever seen. But they weren't ponies. They were too proud to be ponies—and decorated as beautifully as the people. Nobody who had such wonderful little horses could be evil. I was sure of that.

  No, Vile and her pa were no kin to Gypsies. More's the pity.

  Were they then what some folks had taken to calling "hoboes"? Pa wouldn't let us use that word. He said it insulted honest men who had been thrown out of work when times got bad, as they had too often in the last few years. How blessed—Pa never used the word lucky— how blessed we were that the quarries had stayed in production, making it possible for the farmers to sell their produce and for most of us in this part of Vermont to eat regular. But even if I was allowed to use the word hobo, Vile couldn't be one. I'd never heard of little girl hoboes—just grown men.

  "Thief! I caught you!"

  Vile was standing over me. I looked up startled. The huge form of her pa—he was full and tall as mine-filled the door. His right arm was behind his back, as though he was hiding something.

  "Thief!" Vile said again. I looked down and saw that while my mind had been picturing Gypsies and hoboes, my hands had been untying the ends of the kerchief. Vile fell to her knees and snatched it out from under my hand, but not before I spied printed papers—like bills that get posted up to advertise performances and revival meetings or criminals on the loose. I had no time to read anything. Vile had snatched the whole bundle and was busily retying it, mumbling under her breath at me.

  "I didn't take nothing," I whispered. I wasn't anxious for her pa to hear me. "Honest." What things of theirs did she imagine I could possibly want?

  "You was fixing to," she said. "You would have if me and Paw hadn't caught you in the very act."

  "I was just curious," I mumbled, then wished I hadn't. It made me seem worse than a thief, poking about in their meager possessions, as though because they had so few things, they had no right to keep private what they did have.

  She finished knotting the kerchief, pulling the ends tight with her rough little hands. The nails were bitten, rimmed in black. By this time the man had come into the cabin, dragging behind him a burlap bag. He reached for the bundle with his free hand. It, too, was raw and red with filthy nails. I couldn't help but think of my father's strong, clean hands.

  "What you doin' back here agin?" he asked. He was close enough now for me to see the dark red of his nose and the broken blue veins cobwebbing his face.

  "This was—is—my cabin."

  "We'll believe that when we see your bill of sale." Vile hawked and spit on the dirt floor like a hanger-on in the livery stable. I'd never seen a girl with such a dirty face. Her whole visible body was a strange shade of gray. She saw my look, snuffled, then wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "You can stop staring. Or didn't your momma tell you no manners?"

  I could feel the red start at the roots of my hair. "My ma—"

  "Git!" the man said, as though I was a stray dog.

  "I didn't mean no harm. Really." I wiped my sweaty palms down the sides of my britches. "Look, if you need a better place to stay or—or anything—my pa's the preacher at the Congregational church—he'd be glad to-"

  "We do jest fine, Mr. Prissy Preacher Pants," Vile said. "Jest fine. You heard what Paw said. Git."

  "But what will you eat? There ain't nothing here."

  The man's eyes shifted sidewise. So that was it. They were stealing food. I couldn't be too self-righteous on that score. Me and Willie often took apples and butternuts—all the fellows did. But more for sport, not to keep from starving. Besides, it was only the fifth of July. There's not much ripe this early in Vermont.

  At that moment the burlap bag that the man was dragging behind him gave out a loud bwraaaak.

  I forgot to be scared. "I'll be snackered," I said. "You got a chicken in there."

  As though to answer me, the bag began to hop about and holler.

  They closed ranks in front of the suddenly lively sack. It jumped and squawked to a fare-thee-well.

  I couldn't help it. I started to laugh.

  "Hush up!" I couldn't tell if the girl's command was for me or the chicken.

  "How'd you get past Webster's dogs?" I asked.

  Her eyes narrowed. I had the upper hand now. "You ain't thinking to tell on us?"

  "Naw. I ain't no snitch." Then, to assure them—and myself?—whose side I was on: "Want some carrots and a potato or two to cook with it?"

  The girl was still giving me the suspicious eye, but the man pitched the kerchief-wrapped bundle into
the corner and gave me a nod. "Vile, go fetch us some water. The boy may be some use to us after all." He turned and gave me what I could only figure out was his idea of a friendly smile. "Name's Zeb," he said, holding out his big dirty paw.

  I gave him my hand. Somehow I couldn't make myself give him my name as well, so I rechristened myself on the spot. "Fred," I said, quickly disentangling from his handshake. But I liked my new name. I always thought I should have been named Fred.

  "Fred here will fetch the roots"—he gave me his smarmy smile—"while I remove the squawk from this here bird." With that he reached into the sack, grabbed the chicken by its neck, and twirled it around and around over his head like a lasso in a Wild West Show.

  My mouth fell open wide as a bear cave, in awe or horror, I couldn't say which. "I reckon you don't need me to bring the ax, then," I said faintly.

  "Not hardly," he said. His laugh showed me a mouthful of missing and rotting teeth.

  I took to my heels and skedaddled down the hill. The winter vegetables, what was left of them, were down in the root cellar. It seemed strange to be stealing something that Ma would have gladly given me had I asked. But asking would mean explanations, and explanations would mean giving away the whereabouts of me and Willie's hideaway and the fact that two of the world's most needy thieves were tucked away up there.

  I'm not sure why I didn't want to tell on them. Mainly because I pride myself that I am not a snitch. But I could tell about them without including the thief part. All the tramps who came to our door in hard times got hot meals and, if they were willing, work to do. None to my knowledge had ever hung around more than a week. They all figured there'd be better pickings down the road, I reckon.

  Anyhow, just like a Union spy, I watched the manse until I saw Ma step off the kitchen porch with her market basket over her arm. Beth followed after, dragging Letty, who was intent on observing something in the grass near the steps and not eager to get on down the path.