The Big Rock Candy Mountain

by Wallace Stegner

  3

  Chet opened his eyes and looked straight up. His bed, the second story of a dormitory cot, was in the east gable, and the sun lay scrambled among the covers. Above him a great beam went from wall to wall, and above that was a criss-cross of two-by-fours bracing the roof. There were cobwebs in the angles of the two-by-fours, and directly above him was the dark spot on the under side of the shingles where the rain had come in once and Mrs. Hemingway had thought he had done it. He half closed his eyes, and the spot became a big boat with sails. Squinting, he twisted his head, trying to find the elephant that had been there yesterday, with his trunk in the air. There it was; if you turned the boat on its side it became the elephant.

  “Elephant, elephant, elephant,” he said, almost aloud, feeling the shape of the word with his lips. Then he pursed his lips and imitated Bruce. “Elphanut,” he said. “Elphanut.”

  He snickered, peering down over the high edge of the cot, as high as the cutbank they slid down on the way to school. If you jumped off there you’d break your !eg. That was what Mrs. Hemingway was always saying. You boys that sleep in the upper beds better not get frisky and jump around much. Fall off and break your leg and we’d have to shoot you. She was funny sometimes. But sometimes she walloped you, and then found out afterward that you hadn’t wet the bed at all, it was the rain. But she was all right. It was Mrs. Mangin that gave him a pain. She had pretty fancy teeth, though. The gold in her teeth was worth a thousand dollars, probably. But that didn’t make him want to kiss her any better. When Ma came on Sundays Mrs. Mangin always called you in and patted you on the head and stooped down so that her lavender beads clanked, and you heard her corsets creaking as she bent while she kissed you with her mouth that wouldn’t quite close over her gold teeth. It was a funny feeling, being kissed by all that bare gold. The heck with Mrs. Mangin. She never kissed you when Ma wasn’t around. Generally she went around with her pencil as big as a slingshot crotch, saying, “I’ll thump you, Chester Mason! You mind now, or I’ll thump you!”

  Stretching his legs and kicking the covers off his feet, Chet made a face, pretending his lips wouldn’t meet over his teeth. He bared his teeth so they would glitter goldenly.

  Mrs. Mangin

  Needs a spangin‘.

  Cautiously he stood up, reaching for the big beam overhead. The springs squeaked, and he looked around. Nobody was awake yet. The beam was six inches above his upstretched fingers, but by climbing on the iron headboard he could reach it easy. Treading gingerly on the cold round iron, he crouched and jumped, got his elbows over the beam, and wriggled himself up. It was dirty up there, but it was fine, like in an airplane. He wiped a black palm across his pajamas and with his finger pushed some of the deep layer of dust over the edge. It sifted down glittering through the sunlight. Way down below him, miles below where he sat comfortably in his airplane, all the kids slept in their beds. He took his hands away from the beam and flapped his arms, flying his airplane out over the ocean.

  Look at the waves! Look at the sharks! Can’t get me, sharks.

  He stood perilously upright, a million miles above the waves and sharks, and balanced, walking over to the wall. Then he turned around and tightroped back. He saw his tiptoe tracks in the dust on the beam. Whee, he said, and wished somebody was awake to see him.

  He started to yell to wake them up, but changed his mind. He’d keep right on going, around the world. From the end of the beam two two-by-fours, one above the other, stretched out to meet another beam coming across the center of the attic. Then two more two-by-fours cut back at the reverse angle into the adjoining gable, where the girls slept.

  With his tongue between his teeth Chet inched out on the lower brace, hanging with both hands to the upper one. It was easy. But when he got out over the open floor, with no beds below, it looked a lot higher. If you fell from here, probably, you’d be an hour lighting. Experimentally he spit and watched the spit curve down, heard its light splat on the board floor. Hanging on hard, he looked across ten feet of space to the central beam. He was pretty near halfway around the world. The big beam was China, and then he could go on around the other side on the other two-by-fours. Before starting again he pulled his, tongue into his mouth and carefully shut his teeth. Pa had told him that if he stuck out his tongue to do things, sooner or later he’d get jarred and bite it off, and then he’d talk like the idiot boy, nyahh, nyahhh. His feet crept and his hands slid until he reached the beam.

  He wanted to yell and startle somebody, but first he had to get around the world. If he didn’t get clear around the world and back to Seattle before everybody woke up and saw him, he’d ... what? He’d be put in jail. Hastily he slid out on the braces leading into the adjoining gable.

  His eyes were on the two-by-four under his feet, his tongue kept getting somehow into the corner of his mouth. But he was flying. He went faster than ever now, because if he didn’t get clear around and back Mrs. Hemingway would come in and ... No, if he didn’t get clear around, there would be an earthquake and the whole world would get shaken down so there wouldn’t be any place to land.

  The next gable had a brace just like the one across his own. He reached it, seeing vaguely, unfocussed, the line of beds below him, a million miles down. Then he sat down on the solid back of the beam and wiped his black hands on his pajamas and breathed deeply, and looking down for the first time with intent to see something, he looked straight into a pair of wide-awake blue eyes.

  The shock almost knocked him off the beam, and he grabbed the bracing rafters, ready to run. But the blue eyes—it was Helen Murphy, he saw, the new girl who had come only last week, and about his own age—winked rapidly at him, both eyes (he could wink with either eye, one at a time) and Helen’s finger came up to her lips. On the brink of falling or flight, he hung on the beam and stared.

  Helen slept in a top bed, like his. The top decks on both sides of her were empty, but the ones nearer the window were mounded with covers. Not a soul seemed to be awake but Helen. He must have waked up awful early.

  He grinned at her, whispering, forming the words wide and round with his lips. “I’m a aviator. I’m flying around the world.” He let go with one hand, then with both, and flapped his wings.

  Helen lay quiet on her back, her eyes as steady as the eyes of a bird on the nest. Then she folded her arms over her chest and hugged herself, smothering a giggle. “You’re dirty,” she whispered. “You’re dirty as a old pig.”

  Chet wiped his hands again, looking down at the broad smears he had made. “I don’t care.” He looked at his palms, evenly black, at the soles of his feet, the same way. Dust had sifted up between his toes.

  “Mrs. Hemingway’ll fix you. You ruined your pajamas. You’ll have to sleep nekkid.”

  “I don’t care,” Chet said. He spoke too loud, and darted his eyes around. Nobody stirred. It must be awful early. With Helen giggling and watching him he had to do something. He stood on tiptoe and flapped his wings hard, making soundless crowing noises. The sharp eyes in the bed watched him, and when he sat down again she clapped her hand over her mouth and turned her face into the pillow. She was a nutty girl, he thought. Always acting silly.

  One hand came out and a finger pointed at him. One eye, peeping up from the pillow, gleamed like a rabbit‘s, and there were muffled shakings of the bed. Now what? He stared at her, baffled.

  The whole face came out again. The finger still pointed, and the face was twisted up with her silly laugh. “I see you,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “I see you. Your pajamas are unbuttoned.”

  He jerked around, saw that what she said was true, and buttoned himself up. When he looked back at the bed, doubtfully, she was still stifling giggles. A vague excitement stirred him. He swaggered from the waist up, straddling the beam, and wiped his hands again on his shirt.

  Helen sat up. “You sure are dirty,” she whispered. “You’ll have to sleep in a nightgown, like a girl.”

  “Aw!” he said ho
arsely.

  “You’ll have to sleep in a nightgown like me,” she said. “Or nekkid.” She shook with noiseless laughter.

  Chet stared at her, his fingers prickling like growing pains. He ought to be getting back, before the earthquake shook everything down. He tried to imagine himself getting back too late and having no place to land on, but he couldn’t quite imagine it any more. Helen was looking at him. She twisted around and looked at the other beds, turned back and winked both eyes at him. He winked back with one eye, to show her.

  “Look,” she whispered. Her eyes were like quarters, and her smile had got tangled up so that her teeth were over her lower lip. Squirming, she pulled her nightgown up around her neck and lay back on the bed.

  Chet hung onto the beam with both hands. His heart went way up in the air without beating at all and then came down again, kerchonk. Then he grabbed for the rafter and fled, shuffling sideways out along the two-by-four, stretching and clawing to get across the angle where it joined the central beam, then on again, back to the beam above his own bed.

  Win Gabriel, in a lower bed by the window, reared up in bed. “Look!” he screeched. “Look at, Chet!”

  In a minute all the kids were awake and staring, but Chet didn’t stay on the beam to show them how he could fly. He let his feet down over the edge and dangled, feeling for the headboard, just as the six o‘clock bell rang. His toes groped frantically, he twisted his head to try to see the thing. Mrs. Hemingway’s steps sounded on the stairs, the bell in her hand ringing, ka-dang, ka-dang, ka-dang. Chet found the iron, let go with his hands, and threw himself sideward to alight on the bed. The springs bounced him right out again, and he was hanging by his elbows, scrambling to get back up, when Mrs. Hemingway came in and caught him.

  There was no chance to think up a story or try to pretend he had just been getting out of bed. The evidence was all over him, and he didn’t say a word when Mrs. Hemingway, after one indignant look, upended him and pulled down his pajamas and swatted his bare bottom a dozen times. She upended him again before he knew which end he was on and had him by the ear, leading him toward the washroom.

  But at least, he thought, dragging along with automatic yelps when she yanked on his ear, she hadn’t caught him on the beam up over Helen Murphy’s bed. If she had caught him there, good night! Oh my!

  The washroom was full of steam and the smell of soap and the noise of two dozen boys all washing at once. Chet crawled out of the bathtub where Mrs. Hemingway had dumped him and looked around for Bruce. He was supposed to make sure Bruce washed good every morning, because Bruce was afraid of soap in his eyes and didn’t do it right. The kids were pushing him and yah-yah-ing him about getting paddled, but he didn’t care. He was still groggy from what Helen had done. Mrs. Hemingway had swatted him pretty hard, though. He twisted to see if his bottom was red. It was, and he felt proud.

  He found Brucie at the end washbowl dabbling his hands in the water. His face was dry, and he hadn’t taken off his pajama top. “Come on,” Chet said. “You’re just a darn baby.”

  He grabbed the washrag and swabbed Bruce’s face, splashing him, dripping on the floor. “You cut it out!” Bruce said. “I can wash.”

  “Hurry up then. It’s pretty near breakfast time.”

  Boys flooded out through the door, racing upstairs again to get dressed and make their beds. Mrs. Hemingway stood at the door inspecting them as they went through. As Chet squeezed by with Bruce she caught him, looked behind his ears, cuffed him lightly. He looked up and saw her smiling. “Our big acrobat!” she said, and let him go.

  His bed was tracked with dirt, and he brushed it off as well as he could. Then he went down to the end where Bruce slept in a lower bunk. Bruce had messed up the blankets worse trying to make the bed. He always did. Chet pushed him aside and yanked at the blankets. Little kids were a nuisance. They couldn’t do anything.

  The long tables in the dining room were already full when they got down. Chet caught a glimpse of Helen Murphy in the middle of the girls’ table, but he ducked his head and ate. Mrs. Mangin moved ponderously behind the chairs, and he kept his head down, spooning his oatmeal. It was like a storm coming up to feel Mrs. Mangin creaking up behind you. He spooned desperately, sucking his lower lip to get the drip of milk. The storm moved close be. hind him and stopped. Chet ducked lower, his automatic elbow going. Any minute now that big pencil might come down on his head like a club, and he’d hear her say, “Ruining your pajamas, Chester Mason! There’s only one thing to do with a disobedient dirty boy like you. Thump you!”

  But it was Bruce she was after. “Eat your oatmeal, Bruce Mason,” she said. Chet felt her there, one foot going, her lips as close over her golden teeth as she could get them. He smelled the faint flowery smell of her lavender beads, and heard her breath coming and going in her nose. Brucie would catch it if he didn’t start eating his oatmeal.

  “I don’t like it,” Bruce said.

  Mrs. Mangin’s hand came down across Chet’s shoulder and took hold of Bruce’s. “Eat it!” she said. “You know what I told you.”

  “I don’t like it,” Bruce said.

  “Nonsense. It tastes good.”

  “It don’t either.”

  “Bruce Mason!” Chet ducked until his chin was almost on the table, as Bruce was whisked out of the chair beside him.

  “We learn to eat what’s put before us,” Mrs. Mangin said, “or we do without.”

  “I want some bread!” Bruce said. His voice started low and ended high and loud.

  “Eat your oatmeal.”

  “No,” Bruce said flatly. He started to bawl as Mrs. Mangin hustled him out of the room.

  “Get out,” she said. “Leave the room! Finicky, stubborn, insolent child ...”

  The storm cloud moved off and Chet straightened a little. He stole a grin at Win Gabriel, on the other side of Bruce’s empty chair. Win was a year older than Chet, and could swear, and knew how to braid shoe laces into watchfobs.

  “Damn old crab!” Win said, out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Damn old stink!” Chet said.

  They snickered, their eyes wary to spot Mrs. Mangin moving like a thunderhead along the back of the girls’ table. Chet saw her stop behind Helen Murphy’s chair.

  “Comb your hair before you come to the table after this!” she said, and moved on.

  Across the two tables Helen caught Chet’s eye, and hunched over to clap her hand across her mouth the way she had done in bed. Chet looked away. When he looked back she was still watching him. She winked rapidly several times. Both eyes.

  With his mouth full of bread and butter, Chet leaned over to Win and whispered, “I saw Helen Murphy without any clothes on.”

  “You’re a liar,” Win said.

  “I ain’t a liar. I did so.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “All right,” Chet said. “Don’t believe it then.”

  The bell rang to end breakfast, and they grabbed their plates to carry them to the kitchen. Just before the bread and butter plate was taken away Chet hooked a piece for Bruce. Ignoring Win, who trailed along behind him, he went to the door and out into the back yard, where he leaned against the wall and watched for Helen Murphy. Bruce was nowhere around, and before he thought Chet ate the bread and butter. He discovered his loss just before the last two bites, but there was no use saving two bites, so he finished them and licked his fingers.

  “I don’t believe you seen her at all,” Win said at his elbow.

  “Did so.”

  “Well, how?”

  “Up on the rafters this morning. She just pulled up her nightgown and showed me.”

  At that minute Helen came out and went by as if she didn’t see them, swinging her hands against the sides of her skirt.

  “Shame shame double shame everybody knows your name,” Win said. Helen jerked her head and went around the corner toward the teeter-totters.

 
; “You’re just a big liar,” Win said. He stared at the corner where Helen had disappeared. “What’s she look like?” he said.

  A ten o‘clock Mrs. Hemingway came to the door with the brass bell in her hand and waved it up and down, ka-dang, ka-dang, ka-dang. In the half minute during which she turned back inside to put down the bell and pick up the big granite dishpan, children materialized from everywhere. Up from the basement, pouring out of the sloping half-doors, stumbling and sprawling on the upper step; out of the orchard where they had been searching for left-over apples; up from the gully behind, where the bigger boys were digging a cave; around the corner from teeter-totters and sandpiles, they came like Indians from an ambush, forty of them in pell-mell haste, three- and four-year-olds galloping, six-year-olds with chests out and fists doubled, girls of all ages shrieking, their pig-tails whipping behind.

  Chet had been digging in the cave. He was the first one up the bank, and as he ran he saw figures streaming from orchard and yard. Breakfast was pretty early at St. Anne‘s, and the oatmeal and bread-and-butter didn’t hold you long. You were always hungry before Mrs. Hemingway came out on the step to ka-dang her bell.

  Only the kids who had been playing in the basement beat Chet to the step. He rushed up, tiptoeing, crowding, to get his hands into the dishpan full of buttered crusts, pieces of dry bread left over, sometimes with single bites taken out of them, sometimes whole and untouched and precious. He jammed in close, tramped on a girl’s heel, and edged ahead of her when she turned to yell at him. His right hand found the edge of the pan, and he felt Mrs. Hemingway brace herself backward to keep the whole thing from being torn out of her grasp. His first grab netted only a nibbled crust that someone had left under the edge of a plate. Dropping it, unable to see over the packed heads and reaching arms, he felt around frantically, feeling other hands, edges, the soft oily smear of butter. His fingers closed on a large piece of something and he caught a glimpse of it through the tangle. A whole half piece, un-bitten. Before anyone could grab it from him he jerked his arm . down and ducked out of the press, nibbling, smelling the breadbox smell of bread and faint mold and rancid butter.