by Avi
Next came the putting up of the roof beams, their highest point at the front, their lowest along the rear wall. Harrison chose the strongest wood we had, but not so strong as to be heavy beyond our ability to lift it.
They sent me to straddle the top of the front wall, rope in hand. The other end was tied to the beam we were hoisting. With Nettie and Harrison doing the lifting and me guiding and pulling, we inched the first log up bit by bit. Once we managed to hang it over the front wall, we then heaved the other end over the back.
Throughout, Father was by us on the table, somewhat propped up, but giving no signs.
Harrison wanted six beams for the roof, and the raising of those six beams took a whole day. But at last the framing was complete.
No sooner was it done than I reminded him how each time Father had built a house, he’d stuck on a small tree at the top once the frame was up. When I had asked him why he did that, he told me he was signaling the Lord that he wouldn’t build any higher so as to get into heaven the easy way. This time, it was Harrison who set the tree on the top.
“The tree is up!” I shouted into Father’s ear. There was no more response than before.
The rest of the roof went quickly. Over those long, sloping beams we laid small, thin trees crossways in long rows, from the rear on up to the top. Then we wattled them over, finally laying down the bark sheets I had prepared.
It was dark when Harrison pronounced the barn complete. Father had long since been put to bed inside the house. So we three stood in the faint glow from the door and looked at what we had built. It was nothing much to look at and probably not truly square. Yet it was bigger than anything we had done before. It seemed to say, “We are here. We will stay.”
With Nettie and Harrison behind me, I rushed into the house and I ran up to Father’s bed. “The barn is done!” I cried. Though he stirred somewhat, he seemed to be asleep. So I turned to Nettie and Harrison and said, “We’ll tell him tomorrow.”
Next morning I was awake first, bubbling with excitement. Even though our windows were poor, I could see it was going to be a fine, bright day, just right for what was about to happen. I felt all puffed out.
My first thought was to clean and dress Father before the others woke. I longed to give him some sense of what we had done, to win perhaps some small recognition.
Making sure I did not wake Harrison, I slipped down from our loft and crept over to where Father lay in his bed. The instant I saw him, I realized that in the night he had died.
For the longest time, I simply stood by his side and stared at him. His mouth was agape, his eyes closed, his fingers no longer scratching at his coverlet. I saw no mark of peace upon him, no look of release.
Gazing down, I tried to find my grief. To my horror all I found was anger.
“Father!” I burst out. “You should have waited for me to give you the barn! You promised! It’s not fair!”
Then, realizing what I had said, I fled from the house in shame and ran to the farthest corner of our claim, down to the creek. When I reached it, I flung myself into its low, cold waters, rolling this way and that over mud and stones to wash away my sin.
When I could no longer bear the chill, I stood up and — shivering in the morning air — hurled myself on the bank and there gave way to grief.
My sister and brother found me some while later. Nettie gathered me up into her lap. I sobbed and sobbed. Harrison rested a hand on my back.
Though I cried myself to rags, they never said a word. Not until I sat up. “Ben,” Harrison said then, “we knew it was coming.”
“No,” I answered with a shake of my head. “It’s not that.”
“What, then?” Nettie asked.
“I did a terrible thing.”
“What?” Harrison said.
“When I found him, my only thought was that he wasn’t fair to us.”
“Ben,” Nettie said, “Father never could go anywhere but he was too soon or too late. The same for our building the barn. He couldn’t stay for the giving.”
I shook my head and said, “I wasn’t building it for him.”
“Who for, then?” Harrison asked.
“It was for me — for me to give to him. So he would thank me. Be grateful to me. So he’d see I wasn’t different.”
Nettie grew all quiet. Then she said, “Don’t you see, Ben, that proves he must have known what we did.”
“Why?”
“What was the last thing you said last night?”
I thought awhile, and then I said, “It was when we came inside. I said that the barn was done.”
She said, “He must have heard and understood.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
“Ben, he could not bear taking the barn without giving you something in return. But what had he to give? Nothing. So he chose to go rather than show you that. To hide his failure, that was his gift.”
“Look, Ben,” Harrison said, “if it weren’t for him getting sick, you’d never have talked us into building that barn. You kept saying he wanted it. Don’t you see — it was his gift to you.”
There it was, then: a choice. Did I build the barn for myself? Did we build it for Father? Or did Father get me to build it for us all?
Or was it all three at once?
Harrison rode for the minister, but he was out on circuit, so we did Father’s service ourselves.
Harrison and I built the coffin. Nettie dressed Father proper and laid him out. Then we went to the hill where Mother was buried and laid him next to her.
I read from our Bible the same prayer that Mr. Dortmeister had read when I had left his school: “Our Father, who art in heaven.”
As Nettie, Harrison, and I came back down to the house, down from the hill, and saw the barn before us, we stopped and could not help but gaze upon it. After all the work it took to make, all that time and effort, it seemed — sitting there in our acres — hardly more than a blade of grass in a field of wheat. And yet it was the only thing we saw.
I said, “When I was reading that ‘Our Father,’ I wasn’t thinking of any God. I was thinking of our father and wondering where he was. And then I thought that if Father is anywhere, he’s in that barn.”
To which both Nettie and Harrison said, “Amen.”
It is almost seventy years since that time. But every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is look at the barn. Like Father promised: it’s something fine to come home to. Still standing. Still strong.
Avi’s work spans nearly every genre and has received nearly every major prize, including the Newbery Medal for Crispin: The Cross of Lead and Newbery Honors for Nothing But the Truth and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Avi lives in Colorado. You can visit him online at www.avi-writer.com.
Also by Avi
Escape From Home: Beyond the Western Sea
Book One
Into the Storm: Beyond the Western Sea
Book Two
The Man Who Was Poe
Midnight Magic
Murder at Midnight
Nothing But the Truth
Perloo the Bold
Romeo and Juliet Together (and Alive!) at Last
Something Upstairs
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
This book was originally published in hardcover by Orchard Books in 1994.
Copyright © 1994 by Avi. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
This edition first printing, March 2014
Cover art by Ryan Andrews
Cover design by Natalie C. Sousa
e-ISBN 978-0-545-63342-0
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known o
r hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
