“Morning, Mom.”
“Morning, Grant. I bet you’re starving.” She nodded toward a biscuit tin on the counter. “Have a biscuit to tide you until I get breakfast going. It’ll be a while until it’ll be ready.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Honey there if you want it.” She nodded toward a quart jar on the counter.
Grant choked. “Um. No, thanks. I’ll eat it dry.”
He looked out the window at the silver-gray morning. “I’m going for a walk, Mom. I’ll be back for breakfast, believe me. I’m too hungry to miss it.”
She gave him a look that asked what was wrong, but she didn’t ask out loud, so he didn’t answer.
He made his way, hurrying but not running over the icy ruts, down Main Street, and then crossed over and walked the train tracks. The rails and ties were slippery and icy-wet, so he trudged through the ditch beside the rails, his feet crunching on the frozen, icy grass.
When Grant got to the water tower, the eastern sky glowed pink enough for him to look all around for the honey in the tuft of grass, now green blades of ice, and under every strut of the supports, but the honey was gone. Big Joe had taken it.
Sims wasn’t open yet, so Grant walked toward home fast as he could, his stomach growling.
He was a certifiable thief.
Racehorse made everybody stay inside at recess. “It’s going to be slippery as all get-out today. Let’s play seven-up.” The sun had come out and the few trees in town were laced with ice, shimmering in the sunlight.
At lunch time, Little Joe pulled a honey sandwich out of his lunch bucket. “Look.” He held it up. “My dad brought home a quart of honey last night. Nicest thing he’s done for us in ages. My mom made honey cakes, and I got a good sandwich.” He grinned. “Want a honey cake? Mom packed an extra. She said I should give one to you.”
Grant swallowed hard. He wouldn’t be able to swallow if he ate a honey cake from his quart of stolen honey. And now, he wasn’t about to tell Little Joe what had happened and spoil his enjoyment of that honey.
“No, thanks. I’ve got Mamie’s cake to eat.” Grant watched Little Joe roll the honey cake around on his tongue. Grant figured he would have to work hard to pay for the honey, so Little Joe could enjoy it this much. It would be more work than Little Joe’s skates for Christmas. This time, it wouldn’t be as much fun. But watching Little Joe made him almost glad the Thorsons ended up with the honey. Almost.
“You sure you don’t want a honey cake? I thought you loved honey best of all.”
“I used to.”
After school, Grant walked slowly toward Sims’s Mercantile, letting his feet drag with dread.
“Grant O’Grady.” The voice behind him was way too bright for his own mood. He turned and lifted his eyes. Suzy Mathieson.
“Hi, Suzy.” He had been hoping nobody else would be at the store. He didn’t want an audience for what he had to explain to Mr. Sims. If fact, he couldn’t talk to Mr. Sims about it if anybody else was around. Besides that, he thought, if it hadn’t been for Suzy distracting him yesterday, he probably wouldn’t have run off with the quart of honey in the first place. He felt a tiny prick of anger toward her, but that was stupid. It wasn’t her fault. Besides, the sweet way she smiled at him made his glimmer of anger at her melt away.
“How was your honey?” she asked.
“What?” Her words jabbed him with worry, as if the whole town knew about his thievery.
“Your honey. You were taking home a quart of honey when you left yesterday is all. I just wondered if it was good.”
“Oh! Yeah. Um . . .” he felt a little sick. “I guess it was good.”
“You’re a funny one, Grant O’Grady. Don’t you even know?”
For a wild second, he wanted to tell Suzy the whole story, but he was afraid what she’d think of him if she knew he stole it, and he couldn’t stand it if she thought he was a thief, so he just shrugged. “Haven’t had any yet. What you going to the store for today?”
“Flour. Sims said the new shipment wasn’t opened yet when Mum sent me yesterday. Now she needs flour.”
Grant nodded, thinking about the bags in back of the store yesterday. “It’s there now. I saw it.”
He helped Suzy sack up ten pounds of flour from the big fifty-gallon wooden drum.
“Thanks, Grant O’Grady,” she said with her shiny smile. After she paid Mr. Sims, she turned to Grant. “Thank you again for your help, Grant O’Grady,” and she finally left. Grant had to wait for two more customers to get flour and butter and beans before he was alone with Sims.
“Mr. Sims.”
“Hmm?”
“I have to tell you something, and it’s bad, and you may be really mad at me.”
Sims wiped his hands on his white apron and squinted at him. “Shoot.”
“I, uh, yesterday—I put all the honey away, and the butter, and then Suzy came in and I was talking to her, carrying a jar of honey around, just liking the feel and the thought of it, I guess, ’cause I love honey, and the train whistle blew, and I ran out of here like a jackrabbit, not thinking about anything, and I got to the train tracks, and I still had it! So I stole it, and I’m really sorry.”
Once Grant started talking, the words spilled out and he didn’t seem able to quit. “And then I couldn’t haul it with my coal ’cause my wagon was too full, the brakeman kicked off a whole bunch for me ’cause I was the only one there, so I hid the honey by the water tower so I could go back and get it and bring it back to you. And I went to get it to bring it back to you, but Big Joe came out of nowhere and scared the bejesus out of me and I dropped it but it didn’t break, but he took it, and he wouldn’t give it back to me, and for some reason he accused me of stealing it, but how would he know, but he was right ’cause I did steal it, and anyway, Little Joe had honey cakes and a honey sandwich today, so I guess Big Joe just took it home and the Thorsons are eating it, so I didn’t want to say anything and wreck it for Little Joe and tell him where it came from ’cause he was so happy his dad brought them honey. So there you have it. I’m sorry, sir. I’m a thief. I guess I stole honey for the Thorsons, but now I need to work to pay for it. And I’m really sorry, and I hope you won’t tell the sheriff.”
There, it was out, and Grant finally breathed. And his chest felt a thousand pounds lighter, even if Sims hated him now. Or threw him in jail. Or anything. At least he’d said it out loud.
Sims’s mouth twitched. He lifted his apron and wiped his mouth with the clean bottom edge. Then he frowned. “I see.” Sims’s mouth was having an argument with itself, like Sims didn’t know whether to laugh or be mad, and Grant held his breath again, hoping for the laughing.
“Well, I reckon, you can work tonight and all next week, and we’ll call it square. That be okay?”
“I’m really sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to take it, and I didn’t want to even tell Slider that his son was a thief. It was an accident, but it was really stupid and wrong. But Big Joe was right. I was a thief. And he said I was just working for you so I could steal from you when you weren’t looking, and it made me real mad. ’Cause I wouldn’t ever steal on purpose. Honest.”
“I know that, Grant.” Sims nodded, long and slowly, and kept nodding. “I’m glad you told me, and I guess those little Thorson kids deserve a treat, huh. Just not one Big Joe took. He’s the real thief, you know, taking the honey from you, and drinking up the grocery money is like stealing from those kids of his every goll-durn day.”
Grant stared at him and nodded.
“One week, and we’ll be square, Grant. No need for anybody else to know about this, since you were honest, if that’s the way you want it. Five more days of work after school is enough. Why don’t you sweep? And wash the front window for me.”
“Yes, sir! Thank you.” Grant filled a bucket with vinegar and water and carried it to the front of the store with his bum arm, making it stretch. For the first time in two days, the stone of hate and worry had dissolved away.
<
br /> Sims looked up from his accounts book beside the cash register. “Grant, you know, Big Joe is a sad sack. When he worked for the railroad, he drank too much, but when he lost his job it got even worse . . .” Sims shook his head. “The blacksmithing job he’s got now just isn’t what Big Joe is cut out for, I reckon.”
Grant was scrubbing the window with a rag soaked in vinegar water when Frank, Little Joe, and Orland came up the road with their baseball mitts.
“We came to see if we can bust you out to play ball for half an hour before the train comes,” Little Joe said.
Grant straightened up. “Nope, sorry, can’t play this week. Gotta pay my debts.”
“I thought you were done workin’,” Orland said.
Frank said, “I thought you paid for the lights already.”
Behind them a big voice boomed, “Run along and play ball. Don’t be in cahoots with that little thief.”
Big Joe. Of course.
Grant whirled. The hate came back. He wanted to throw the bucket of vinegar water square in Big Joe’s face, make his eyes burn, but he clenched his jaw, turned his face back to the window and kept scrubbing.
“Dad! Stop it. What are you talking about?” Little Joe stepped forward between his dad and his friends.
“I don’t suppose your little friend told you how he stole honey from Sims now, did he?”
Orland and Frank turned and looked at Grant.
“Dad! Lay off!”
“Ask him if he knows what I’m talkin’ about,” Big Joe nodded at Grant.
Grant swished his rag in the bucket, wrung it out, and scrubbed a smudged spot hard. Harder than he needed to.
“Dad. Lay off,” Little Joe said. “Please! Leave him alone.”
“I said,” Big Joe swaggered toward Grant. He radiated heat and the smell of whiskey. Grant kept his eyes on the window and kept his rag moving.
“Dad!”
Big Joe shoved Grant’s shoulder and some water sloshed out of the bucket. “You got no respect to answer your elders?”
Grant shrugged his shoulder away. “Leave me alone.”
“Listen to me, you little thief. You talk to me with respect, and you stay away from my boy!”
“Dad! Stop it! He’s my friend!” Little Joe rushed at his dad.
Big Joe shoved Little Joe to the side and thundered, “O’Grady. Tell my boy the truth.”
Grant couldn’t stand it. He threw his rag into the bucket so it splashed vinegar water onto his pants leg. And on Big Joe’s pants, too.
He whirled to face the big man and looked up into his face. “If you must know, I’m working right now to pay for the honey you stole from me!”
“Wait.” Little Joe stepped between them again. “That honey . . . Grant?” Little Joe looked at his father and back at Grant. “What are you talking about?”
Big Joe moved Little Joe to the side again with one swipe of his big paw. “He stole it. Just ask him. I happened to retrieve it when he lost it.”
“You took it!” Grant practically spit back. “Before I could return it! I walked out holding it on accident. I forgot. Was distracted, talking to somebody when the train whistle blew, but when I was going to take it back, you took it! And you accused me of being a thief, but you were already too drunk for me to explain it to you. You big . . . you . . .” Grant stumbled for words. He didn’t know a word that could express how much he wished the big man was dead. “I hate you,” he muttered.
“Dad? Dad!”
Then Grant saw Little Joe’s face. It registered understanding, then disbelief, and then horror. Grant wished he could take back his words. It would be better to let his friends think he was a thief than to watch Little Joe’s face register understanding of what his own father had done. Too late. Grant’s words were out, hanging in the air like bolts of lightning.
Little Joe looked at Grant. “The honey cakes. That’s why you didn’t want any.”
Grant had never, ever seen so much fury and sadness balled up in one set of eyes. Joe looked like he had after Grant got out of the hospital with his smashed elbow, only ten times worse. Little Joe stared at Grant and then turned to Big Joe with raw hatred on his face. Little Joe threw down his catcher’s mitt and took off running down the street like a shot.
“Wait!” Grant screamed after him. “Little Joe! Wait!”
“Where you going?” Frank yelled.
“Son, come back here!” Big Joe bellowed and took a few steps after Little Joe.
But Grant knew. He understood. He didn’t try to follow. His heart ran down the road right beside Little Joe.
Grant never worked harder at Sims’s store. He couldn’t think about anything besides Little Joe. If he were Joe, he would have run, too. Grant knew that much.
That afternoon, the Beattie Dairy wagon delivered ten five-gallon cans of milk to Sims’s back door. Grant carried them into the cold room and set them in the sawdust and ice. He swept and then mopped the floor until it sparkled like the front window. Only when he made his way home at the end of the evening after the coal train did he did he realize he hadn’t noticed his arm hurting the whole time he was working.
Twenty-Nine
Baseball
The next morning, Little Joe’s desk sat empty. It was the first time Grant understood what his mother meant when she said that sometimes silence is the loudest. Little Joe’s desk was loud. And empty. And silent.
Grant couldn’t concentrate on diagraming sentences or on the War of 1812.
At recess, Orland and Frank and he ran pell-mell to the corner of the school lot. Sammy, Tim Sutton, and Tom Steensland followed on their heels.
“Where do you think he went?”
“You think he’s gone for good?”
“Did his dad really steal honey from you? It ain’t fair that you’re working for it!”
“Think he rode the train?”
“Maybe he hitched a ride.”
“I bet he ran all the way to McVille, he was so cotton-pickin’ mad.”
All the boys’ ideas swirled around Grant’s head, and he couldn’t think straight or answer a single one of them. It was his fault Little Joe was gone. Gone. His best friend was gone because he, Grant O’Grady, had to go and yell back at a big old drunk. Because he hated him. That’s where hate would get you. If he’d kept his mouth shut, Little Joe would still be here. His dad was right about hate. It didn’t do any good, that was for sure.
What if Little Joe rode the freight train and fell under a wheel with the “clumsies” and got killed, all because of what Grant had said? What if Little Joe really was gone for good? Any good feeling Grant had from confessing to Mr. Sims had disappeared right along with Little Joe.
The next morning, Little Joe’s desk was still empty.
After working at Sims’s, Grant stuck his head in Grumpy’s to check and see if Big Joe was there, and he was, so before Big Joe saw him, Grant walked to the Thorson house and knocked.
Pretty Mrs. Mary Thorson, Little Joe’s Mandan Indian mom, answered the door. She smiled at Grant. Sadly. “Grant.” She leaned against the doorjamb and the smile disappeared. “You know where my boy is?” Grant loved her voice. She spoke perfect English, but she had a faint precise lilt that only Indians had.
“No, ma’am. That’s why I came. I was hoping you could tell me.”
She shook her head. “You know why he left?”
Grant looked at the toes of his shoes. Maybe coming hadn’t been such a good idea after all. But then, Mrs. Thorson didn’t look frantic with worry, not like Mamie would be if it were Grant missing. But Mrs. Thorson was always calm and level-headed about everything. She had to be, Grant figured, to be married to Big Joe. And maybe she was glad Little Joe was far away from being smacked around by her bull of a husband.
So he told her what happened. All about stealing the honey, Big Joe taking it, and Little Joe finding out.
Grant dragged his eyes up to meet pretty Mrs. Thorson’s. “I know he was so confounded mad at his dad,
and so embarrassed, I think he just had to leave. I woulda left if I was him, too.”
“Wait a moment.” She disappeared into the kitchen and came back carrying the honey jar. “I’m sorry we’ve already eaten so much of it. Here. It’s yours.”
“No, I couldn’t eat it now. Please keep it. That’s the only thing that’s good about this. How much Little Joe and Emma and Alice liked your honey cakes.”
She shook her head and extended the jar. Grant gently pushed it back and shook his head.
Mrs. Thorson nodded. “I understand. Thank you for the honey. And thank you for coming. You’re a good boy, Grant O’Grady.”
I hate your husband. I wish he was dead. He couldn’t say that. “No, I’m not, Mrs. Thorson. I—”
The back kitchen door slammed. “Who is it, Mary?” The voice bellowed from the back of the house.
“Yes, you are,” she mouthed at him. She made a shooing motion. Grant backed away, out the door, and she closed the door gently behind him. He ran as fast as he could. All the way to Sims’s.
The week dragged. The silence of Little Joe’s desk got louder each day he didn’t reappear.
Orland and Frank told Grant that they played catch after school, but they didn’t come by the store again. Grant worked hard, and Sims thanked him every night. Grant thanked Sims for letting him work off the honey. Every day he stretched his arm and fingers and made sure he lifted heavy loads in the store. His arm hurt a little bit less every day. But his hatred for Big Joe seemed to get bigger and heavier every day.
Little Joe was still missing on Friday. All week.
Mamie was right. He could feel almost feel the hatred for Big Joe lodged in his stomach squeezing his heart smaller and smaller. As the hatred got bigger, there wasn’t enough room for a regular-sized heart in his chest. He might end up as mean as his own grandmother with a pea-sized ticker.
Grant imagined where he would go if he had to run away. McVille for starters, maybe, because he could walk there in a little over an hour. But if Joe really wanted to get away, would he take the coal train, like they’d made the pact about if they got TB? What if Little Joe was in Montana, and Grant would never see him again?
Slider’s Son Page 17
