Preacher''s Boy

  I waited until the whole little procession turned down off School Street onto West Hill Road before I sneaked down the hill. Pa and Elliot seemed safely engaged at the far end of the garden, but I kept a sharp ear out anyway as I crept into the house and down the cellar stairs.

  Our cellar is all bounded about with huge granite boulders, which form the foundation of the manse. It's almost pitch-dark down there—just a tiny slit of a window at the bottom of the stairs. It smells dank like I guess the inside of a tomb might. Sometimes when I go down there, I pretend I'm the first archaeologist to go inside a pyramid. Willie hates that. It really spooks him.

  I felt my way into the root cellar. I could tell the carrots by shape. This time of year they're dried and sort of bumpy. They taste reedy, too, but cooked up, they aren't too bad even if Letty tries to spit them out. The potatoes are soft and sprouting by May, not to mention July, but it couldn't be helped. That was all I had to offer. I stuffed the pockets of my britches until they bulged and flowed over. Then I headed around the granite wall toward the stairs.

  "Robbie? Whatcha doin'?"

  I jumped like a flushed rabbit. Elliot was standing on the top step, peering down into the dark. I hadn't heard him at all. Big and clumsy as he is, sometimes he can be quiet as a cat.

  "Nothin'," I snapped, starting up the stairs. "Nothin' that's any business of yours." I pushed past him and headed through the kitchen for the porch door.

  "Where you goin'?"

  "Uh-fishing."

  "Can I go, too, huh, Robbie?"

  I tried hard to tamp down my impatience as I cupped my hands over my bulging pockets. "Maybe later," I said. "Say? Don't I hear Pa calling you?"

  He cocked his ear to the silence. "Pa found me," he said.

  "Yeah, Elliot. I know."

  "Why you mad at me, Robbie?"

  I could feel the gorge rise in my throat. "Why should I be mad at you?"

  "I dunno. Shumtime you are, Robbie. I don' know why. Was I bad?"

  I sighed. "No, Elliot. You was just lost. We was worried about you."

  "Not bad?" he asked anxiously.

  "No. Just not careful where you was going."

  "Pa found me," he said, then worried all over again. "He cried."

  "I know."

  "Was he shad he foun' me?"

  "No, Elliot, he was happy."

  "Den why he cry?"

  "Maybe he was really tired out."

  "Oh." He seemed to ponder the idea. I opened the porch door and started out.

  "Don' get los'," he called after me.

  "I won't."

  "Promish?"

  "Promise."

  7. Thou Shalt Not Steal

  THE HILL BEHIND OUR HOUSE, WHICH IS REALLY PART of Webster's pastureland, is terraced by generations of cows meandering across it. Cows, as you might guess, don't fancy sliding headfirst down a slope like a child on a sled. They like to take the long road home, thus the zigzag cow paths. As often as I climb that hill, I still have to pay attention. But that afternoon I had the feeling someone was following me, and I tripped more than once, climbing as I was with one eye over my shoulder to see what might be at my back.

  I kept wishing I'd taken time to put the vegetables in a sack or basket. It's hard to move with any speed whilst carrots and potatoes bump and poke at your thighs. Once I commenced to run, and a potato just popped out of my pocket and started rolling down the hill. It bounced on a dried cow pie and just kept going. I had to chase after it, and when I did, most of the rest of the potatoes hopped out and joined the fun. I was breathing hard by the time I corralled the whole shebang or as many as I could run down. I slowed to an uphill crawl, holding my hands tight against my pockets to keep the blooming roots in place while I engineered across the cow-paths and around the sharpest rocks and sidestepped the wettest of the cow pies that decorate the pasture.

  Let me tell you, I was in some kind of sweat before I hit the sugar bush that rimmed the woods. The cool under the trees was more than welcome.

  I smelled the smoke before I could see it rising from the stone chimney of the cabin. The hoboes? Tramps?—I'll just call them Vile and Zeb—had built a big fire. They had a pot of water going. I guess they always carried a pot with them. Willie and I didn't have one. But maybe they'd got it the same way they'd got the chicken. I wasn't about to ask.

  "Dadblasted water," Zeb was growling. "It hain't never gonna bile. Hell would freeze over quicker. Pour some out, Vile. I'm hungry as a bear."

  "You got to have enough boiling to dunk the whole bird, Pa. Else the feathers won't yank easy." She spied me about then. "Well, if it ain't Ned. Didn't speck to see you again."

  "Fred," I corrected her, "Fred. I told you I was coming back. Look here. I brung the taters and carrots like I promised."

  "Now, that's a good boy, hain't it, Vile?" Zeb said, but I could tell from the look on Vile's face she didn't think I was so good.

  I laid out the vegetables on a blackened window frame. There was no furniture in the cabin. Vile came over and inspected my wrinkled brown carrots and soft, sprouting potatoes. She snorted in disdain.

  "That's the best we got," I said bristling. "New carrots ain't ready, and Pa only digs new potatoes as we need them."

  "I reckon you figure they'd be too tasty for the likes of us," she said.

  "Shet your mouth, Vile," the man said. "The boy done what he could."

  She sniffed, but turned her attention to the fire. Finally the water began to hum and then to bubble. Zeb picked up the dead hen by her yellow feet and poked her—glazed eyes, head, and broken neck first—into the boiling water until her whole feathered body had been dunked. Then he handed the wet hen to Vile. She took it outdoors and began to pluck out the feathers.

  I waited for Zeb to throw out the dirty water they'd doused the chicken in and start fresh, but no, Zeb just took it off the pot hook and set it on the hearth so it wouldn't all boil away. "You gonna peel them taters, Ed?" he asked. "Or jest gaze at the scenery?"

  I stuck my hand in my pocket. Then I remembered Ma making me change my britches before dinner. "I ain't got my pocketknife," I said. He took something off the mantel and pitched it at me. I jumped out of the way, making him laugh. It was a great horn-handled jackknife. I hid my red face, leaning to pick it up. The blade, when I pulled it out, was rusty and crusted with filth. I ran it back and forth across the side of my britches making him laugh again. It was awkward trying to peel with it. I was taking out hunks of potato flesh along with the skin.

  "There ain't gonna be no tater left, rate you're going," Zeb said.

  Vile poked her head in the door and watched me a minute. "Here," she said, handing her father the bird, "you finish this. I'll peel." She took the knife from my hand. "You cut jest like a boy," she said, finishing the job skillfully as Ma. "Now, hand me them carrots."

  I fetched her the old bumpy carrots.

  "Look worse'n your taters," she said.

  "I'll wash them," I said, and raced out to the spring before she could stop me.

  There was just a trickle and a little mud puddle to indicate where most Julys a lively spring burst the soil and ran down to meet the creek which joined the North Branch south of town. How would Vile and Zeb live if it dried up completely? I washed the carrots as best I could. They didn't look much better—still brown and lumpy. But I couldn't be blamed for that, could I? I dawdled at the spring, washed my own face and hands, knelt and put my mouth down near the trickle and got a mouthful of water. Vile must have the patience of Job to wait for a whole pot's worth.

  When I got back to the cabin, they had already given me up. "Thought you'd taken those pitiful roots hostage and headed west," Zeb said.

  "Naw. Run home to his mama, more's the likely," Vile said.

  I ignored her and handed Zeb the carrots. He threw them, green stub, peel and all into the pot which was already scumming over from chicken juice. I couldn't tell if they'd even gutted the bird. They sure hadn't removed the head or the feet. I look
ed away. I didn't want to see those glassy eyes staring at me from the pot. Seemed like a cannibal stew.

  "Wal," I said as casually as I could manage, "we got prayer meeting tonight. Best be on my way. Sorry I can't stay for supper."

  "Who asked you?" Vile snapped.

  It was my plan to stay away from the cabin. There was plenty for me and Willie to do elsewhere. But Willie's aunt would not cooperate. Anytime I came by during the next week, she found some chore for Willie to do. I guess she was anxious to keep Willie's soul out of mortal danger, since the Devil has so much work for idle hands. I was the preacher's boy, so she didn't say it outright, but she gave me the distinct impression that, lazy as I always seemed to be, she considered me a prime candidate for the Devil's payroll.

  I was rereading Kidnapped for the fourth time, which was fine entertainment early in the day but by dinnertime Elliot's and my room, which is on the third floor and has two big windows to the southwest, gets hot as Hades. If I went downstairs, Ma could not seem to help herself finding me something to do. I give her credit. She never hangs "the Devil has work for idle hands" over my head, but the end result is mighty similar. She'll need me to look after Letty for just a minute while she runs an errand, or ask if I would take Elliot fishing, or, if Pa happens to emerge from the study, suggests that he'd appreciate another hand in the garden.

  Truth be told, I don't think Pa really fancies me as a fellow gardener. I think he prefers Elliot, who is content to do exactly as he's told and doesn't ask questions. Sometimes I watch Pa yank out weeds and wonder if he's named each one after a troublesome parishioner. He gets so much satisfaction tearing those roots from the soil and knocking all the dirt from the roots. For a man who can hardly bear to spank a child, he sure does enjoy beating on those weeds.

  Ma says I have an overactive imagination, but I don't think I'm just fancying this, because one Monday morning I was watching him pull at a really stubborn weed, falling near over when it came loose. As he was smacking it hard against the ground to loosen the dirt, I said, innocent as a newborn lamb, "Deacon Slaughter was sure riled up about your praying for the Filipinos yesterday, wasn't he?" His face turned red as a winter sunset. I know a guilty face when I see it. Still, guilt doesn't seem at home on Pa's face. It creeps up and sneaks around uncomfortably, as though even guilt knows this is a man who is pure of heart—just one who's been pushed past human limits.

  Politics have been giving Pa trouble for some time. First there was the war in Cuba to end Spanish tyranny, which Pa, smart as he is, didn't have the gumption not to question out loud. I had a hard time blaming Deacon Slaughter on that one. When Vermont boys is signing up to die, even preachers got to talk patriotic, don't they?

  But Pa really got riled up when President McKinley decided as long as we were stomping out Spanish tyranny in Cuba, we might just as well drive the Spaniards out of Asia while we were at it. So he sends Admiral Dewey, who is lazing around the Pacific with nothing much to do, over to the Philippines. And a few months later those Filipinos, that our battleships have gone to save, they get uppity and start trying to save themselves from us. And Admiral Dewey, a good Vermonter, by the way, who is out there doing his best for Old Glory, not to mention the end of Spanish tyranny, suddenly finds himself fighting the very people he's come to rescue. And my pa can't seem to help praying for the Filipinos.

  Even though I couldn't bring myself to ask him directly why he kept praying for the misery of the Filipino people to end, I guess he thought he owed me an explanation.

  "They just want their freedom, Robbie. They may not think American guns are all that different from Spanish guns."

  But they're a lot different, aren't they? I mean, we're America—Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Then I thought about slavery and the Great War. But it was only the South that was wrong. Lots of Vermont boys fought and died to free the slaves. Good thing Pa was too young to be a preacher in that war. He'd probably prayed for the miseries of Johnny Reb.

  Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. "But I don't understand, Pa. Why do you got to pray for our enemies?"

  He was full red in the face now, but he looked me straight in the eye. "Because the Lord commanded me to," he said.

  I couldn't say anything after that Could you? Pa's not one of these preachers always bragging he got a direct telegraph cable hooked up to Heaven. If he tells you, "The Lord commanded me to," you can't argue it, even if you want to. You know the man ain't given to idle boasts.

  Anyhow, that all happened a while back. My immediate concern was the present. It was a perfect July afternoon. If the Devil has work for idle hands, he was waving his flag, beating his drum, blowing his trumpet to recruit the likes of me, a boy with nothing to do on a lazy summer afternoon.

  I thought about heading up to Webster's orchard and pinching some green apples. But it's no fun stealing apples on your own. You got to have someone on watch and someone to creep to the trees, someone to giggle with and exclaim how close you come to being caught, someone to agree on how good they taste—those hard sour little stones that make your eyes water and your mouth pucker to a kiss. If Ma served them for supper, we'd swear she was out to poison us.

  There was no use complaining to Ma that there was nothing to do. You can be sure she'd remedy that. And I had no wish to take Elliot fishing. He'd had enough attention to last him a couple of weeks. Or she might take a notion to suggest I read something besides a novel—something to improve my mind. Now, you know I like to read, but somehow the minute somebody suggests that reading might improve my mind, the best book in the world takes on the taste of castor oil. I don't want to improve my mind any time of year. In July it seems downright criminal.

  I wandered out onto the porch, where most of the old newspapers are stacked, and looked at the ads for bicycles to daydream a bit. Not that it would do any good. I showed Pa the ad in last week's paper that said Nichols was giving them away, and he just laughed. "Nichols thinks twenty dollars is giving wheels away," he said. Pa makes less than ninety dollars a month. When times are hard (which times always seem to be), Pa gets most of his pay in produce. You can't help that if you're a preacher, but I didn't fancy Nichols taking a bushel of last year's root-cellar vegetables in exchange for a bicycle, new or used. Still, dreams are free, right?

  When I start on a printed page, I tend to eat it down like a peppermint stick. It didn't matter that the Tyler Times I was reading was three weeks old. Nothing had changed in baseball. Boston was still battling Brooklyn for first place in the league. I swear. God makes you a Beaneater fan just to teach you patient endurance. Or make you suffer. One or the other. There is no joy involved whatsoever. Marion Clark "who disappeared in the arms of her nurse" was still missing, as was the nurse. In this issue of the Times, however, a new reward had been announced. Apparently the New York newspaper and other folks down there had put together a reward of $3,500 for the baby's safe return. Three thousand five hundred dollars!

  Suddenly I was wide awake. I began tearing through the next stack. I needed to know if that reward was still being offered. I mean, it wasn't impossible to imagine that that so-called nurse might be lurking around Leonardstown right this minute. It was the perfect hiding place. No one from New York City ever came here. I couldn't find the most recent papers on the porch, but there was another stack of papers in the wood box by the kitchen stove.

  I shuffled through them, my hands shaking. Tarnation. They'd found Marion Clark barely a week before and returned her to her grieving loved ones. Someone had already claimed that fortune. But, hey, here was another kidnapping. New York was some dangerous city. A boy this time. Seems he just wandered off from his parents. Next thing they knew, here came a ransom note demanding $1,000 for his return. So one way or another there was a fortune to be made in the kidnapping business.

  Now if only someone would get themselves kidnapped in Leonardstown, I was sure to be the one to find them. Shoot! For $3,5001 could forget about a bicycle. I'd go for a whole fleet of motor
cars! I didn't consider kidnapping someone to demand ransom. Who'd want to take care of somebody else's brat while waiting around for them to get the cash together? Besides, I hadn't been an apeist long enough to commit crime on a scale that exceeded the Ten Commandments to that extent. If they caught you for kidnapping, you'd probably swing. Even if they didn't decide to hang you, they'd surely throw you in jail for the rest of your natural life. I didn't fancy either end. I turned the page and went back to staring at the ads for wheels.

  That night I couldn't get to sleep. As hot and stuffy as my third-floor room was, it was probably cold up at the cabin and dark as pitch. We wouldn't have a moon, even a sliver of one, till tomorrow night. Those raggedy quilts were all they had for cover. I ought to have told them to get some pine boughs or leaves to lay between themselves and the earth floor.

  Where had they come from? Had they ever been respectable townsfolk who sat in a pew at the Congregational church or stood up to speak in a town meeting? It was hard to imagine. Still, they hadn't always hid out in abandoned cabins—just the two of them. Vile looked to be about my age, ten, or at the most eleven. She was born somewhere. Once she'd had a mother. I tried to picture a dirty, ragged woman and set her amongst them. It made me shiver despite the leftover heat the day had stored up in my room. I reached down and pulled up my summer quilt and snuggled under it.

  Vile was for Violet. How did she go from flower to dirt? I'd never seen anyone so poor. The poorest child in Leonardstown had a roof over his head and a school to go to. Even the children whose fathers had died young from working in granite and whose mothers had too many children and no wages coming in could count on the town. The town still made sure you had a roof and food. It might be on the town poor farm where nobody really wanted to go, but still that was better than what Vile and Zeb had, wasn't it?

  I might be a conscienceless apeist who didn't have to obey the commandments, but that didn't mean I had lost all human feeling. I decided to persuade Vile and Zeb to come to town. Pa would help them. What kind of work would Zeb be able to do? He didn't look smart enough to work in the quarry or in the stone sheds. It might have to be the poor farm, at least for a while. How could they be too proud to go to the poor farm? They were squatting in an abandoned cabin, stealing what food they had. Wasn't the town farm better than jail? Which was sure where Zeb was headed if he snatched one chicken too many. He wasn't oversmart. The law was sure to catch up with him soon.