Becky said, “Rob smells of hard work.”
Turning, she walked away.
That evening, after Mama and Aunt Carrie had gone upstairs, I wrote another poem, as I had promised Miss Malcolm I’d do. It was about Becky. Yet I knew it was too private to show to Miss Malcolm. Or even to my girl.
Oh, Becky Lee, sweet Becky Lee.
I gather dreams of you and me.
Dreams awake. And dreams asleep.
Memories I’ll ever keep.
Of Becky Lee.
After printing my poem, I wondered where I’d be next spring. Wishing the winter to pass, I closed my eyes, pretending it was May again.
In our little orchard, where my father had been buried this past May, an old apple tree stood by itself. All alone. Its apples were always our best, red candy in October. But in spring, the blossoms on this tree seemed to flood the entire sky with color and fragrance. And come May, I’d take Becky there. We’d stand beneath the cloud of blooms, and I’d shake the tree, gently, to allow pink and white petals to fall on her freckles and her raven hair. Then I’d kiss each petal, so she would cherish all we had together. Our discovery. I’d save my softest kiss for her heart.
September passed.
October come blaring like a brass bugle, with its golden yellow leaves, and the ruddy reds and russets of autumn maples. And again, I wrote another poem, this one for Mama; of all the months, October was her very favorite.
October, October,
How red is your gown
As you gracefully waltz
With your coppery crown.
November, November,
Blankets the floor.
The last waltz of crimson
Is waltzing no more.
I smiled, because Aunt Matty, my favorite dancing teacher, would have liked it.
While reading the poem over to decide whether or not it was fair enough to share with Miss Malcolm, I concluded that it was. For a fellow who couldn’t dance a dip, it did whirl.
Next day, I sort of hung around after school so I could show my poem, which I titled The Last Waltz, to my English teacher. Miss Malcolm was sitting at her desk in Room 23, going over a few papers. The room was empty of students.
“Here,” I said, handing it to her. “It’s for my mother, but I’d like you to read it. Please.”
“What is it?”
“A poem.”
She read it and then read it again.
“Is the poem all right?”
“Yes, it’s really all right.”
“Thank you.” I paused to think about what to say next. “I wanted to please you, Miss Malcolm. Even though I don’t natural cotton to some of the stuff in class.”
“Do you know what push-ups are?”
“Sure. We do those in gym.”
“Robert, your poems are the push-ups of prose. Every poem you write will strengthen the muscles of your soul and spirit.” Miss Malcolm sighed. “I’m three times your age. Maybe four. Yet I have always hoped to discover an unlit candle, ready to give light to his or her life.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Regardless of your family’s misfortune, Rob, resist looking over your shoulder. Your life lies ahead.” She stood. “Ah, I know. You kids look at me, seeing me as I am … Mabel Malcolm, an overweight unwed spinster who torments you with Shakespeare.”
“No, that’s wrong. You’re … well, you are sort of a friend. Even if you are a teacher.”
Miss Malcolm laughed. “Thank you,” she said. “And I shall be thankful for having taught you, for being able to lift you above manure. I don’t give a hoot if my class cottons to Shakespeare. I’m going to assign it. Hear me?”
“Yes’m.”
With her back to me, Miss Malcolm was looking out of her window, as though I wasn’t even there. “My class is going to read Bacon and Burns, then a bit of Keats, Shelley, and Milton. Perhaps a dose of Homer.”
“Homer who?”
“He is merely Homer. He’s not a baseball player, but an ancient poet who scribed the adventures of warriors, Greek and Trojan. You unwashed rascals are also going to meet Plato, Aristotle, Socrates.” She turned to confront me. “Is that clear?”
I nodded.
Pointing a finger at me, Miss Malcolm continued. “For years, I’ve taught school in this town. I was born near Learning. And I’ll die here. Until then, you kids are going to bathe in the best I can provide. If you don’t like it … tough.”
Listening to her, I was tempted to remark that As You Like It wasn’t, compared to hauling cow dung, my favorite. Yet I didn’t quite dare. Miss Malcolm, I was now deciding, was sort of boiling over, like a teakettle, so I weren’t about to yank her off the stove. I’d let her run wild.
She quieted some. “Robert,” she said, “we teachers in this community know our job. Students here are the daughters and sons of mill workers, lumberjacks, farmers, and … and of men who killed hogs. So it’s our mission to give all of them a few detours, if you will, into the minds of people like George Eliot.”
“Who was he?”
“He,” she said, “was a woman.”
“Oh.”
“A very talented lady who’ll inspire you and perhaps point all of you into culture, and brainy adventure.”
“Her name was … George?”
Placing her hands on her hips, Miss Malcolm said, “George Eliot was her pen name. But that doesn’t really matter.”
I shrugged. “Not to me.”
Taking a deep breath, my English teacher let out a long heartfelt sigh. “I just go on and on,” she said. “Pardon me, Rob. You don’t really deserve to be the target of my frustration. All I know is this. I’m going to inflict, or infect, all of you with the most gifted writers I’ve encountered. Robert, I’m your manure. Fertilizer. Boy, I’ll make you grow.”
Standing there in the echo of this empty classroom, I sudden felt aware of what Miss Malcolm had been efforting to tell me. To sum it all up, it meant that we were going to grow more than just taller.
In a way, Miss Malcolm, although she might not know it, was really a farmer. She was determined to plant seed. As for harvesting, that would be ours to reap. Looking at her, I was seeing more than a teacher. She was, in her way, a soldier. Or one candle. Her enemy was our darkness.
“You’re a good teacher, Miss Malcolm. All the kids say so. We’re lucky to have you.” Glancing down at my feet, I said, “Even though I don’t say it right.”
She smiled. “You said it with violins.”
“I have to go now. But I just wanted you to read my poem on October. So you’d see that I’d kept a promise.”
“Will you write any more?”
“Yes’m. If you’ll read the ones I write.” I paused. “And, even if you won’t, I’ll still keep on writing. Not for you, Miss Malcolm, because I’m sort of making them up for me.”
“Good.” She touched my shoulder. “Create to please yourself. Allow each little poem to be a secret song.”
“I will.”
All the way home, I tried to remember everything that my favorite teacher had told me. Things like the fellow called Homer was maybe too poor to afford a last name.
My body was changing. In many ways. All the sweating chores and fieldwork that I’d done had hardened me. But that wasn’t all. Writing poems made me stouter. Yet it wasn’t this that was pleasing me. I knew. Poetry was a pillow on the hard bed of life.
Poems, and a teacher like Miss Malcolm.
Chapter
15
I worked for Ira and Mrs. Long.
The vegetables I brung home were sore needed, yet our November supper plates were skimpy. But we final had milk. Thanks to Ira’s cow, a half-gallon jug a day.
Ten days ago, Ira butchered a hog. He give me the head to carry home, and Mama boiled it for a stew.
I’d also made a few trips to Mr. Clay Sander’s place, where Papa had worked so many years. I asked him for work. Though he couldn’t hire any more hands, Mr. Sander give me a
few meat scraps. He was a good man.
“When times get better, Rob,” he said, “if you want, you’ll have yourself a job here.”
Every week, Becky would bake some goodie, bring it to school, and sneak it to me. Once I was too hungry to thank her. I just wolfed it. To look at me, Becky said, made the snowy weather seem colder. She also brung me gloves and one of her father’s old coats … a bit too large, because of my size and weight loss, yet it felt welcoming warm.
On Thanksgiving, even though turkeys were cheap, we didn’t have one in our oven. There was no school. Early that morning, I raided our chicken coops, disturbing all the clucking matrons, found the plumpest hen, and twisted her neck to a crack. After plucking her feathers, I chopped off the head and feet, and pulled the bowels. Her warm guts steamed on the snow. They didn’t waste. I tossed them to the other chickens to fight over.
You can’t roast or stuff an old hen, so Mama cut it up and boiled it slow. It chewed as tender as a truck tire. But nobody complained.
Ira stopped by. “If you want to go deer hunting, be at my place at five o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ll go up mountain and be in the woods an hour before light.”
“All I got is a twenty-two rifle.”
“Forget it. I got extra, a Winchester for me and a Savage for you. And cartridges. For deer we won’t spend many. They never tarry to hear a second shot.”
On Friday morn, I was up at four, pulling on wool. Three sweaters under the coat Becky give me. For breakfast, I gnawed on the chicken neck, ate the gizzard, and then skinned a wrinkled potato, which I ate raw. I copied that trick from Papa, recalling how he always called potatoes our earth apples.
Carrying rifles, Ira and I started up mountain, hiking silently through moonlight and snow. Cold and clear. Good weather to stalk deer. The leaves were off the trees, lying wet and brown beneath the early snowfall, and wouldn’t betray us with a rustle.
Deer are night browsers. Rarely will you spot one in daylight, regardless of how much bark and buds are around to eat. They’ll also go for willow like a moose.
Two days ago, Mr. Lampson Henry (father to Will and Jacob) shot a buck. Twelve antler points. Yet, after yesterday’s tough hen, I’d settle for a young deer; a spike, or a forkhorn. Lighter to drag and softer to chew.
Walking uphill and trailing Ira, I whispered to him. “I don’t have a hunting license. They cost a dollar.”
“No mind. Neither do I. Our government hasn’t prohibited eating yet. Only drinking.” He turned to me. “No more chatter. In woods, a mouth is foolish, but an ear is wise.”
I kept mum. We climbed higher. Despite the cold, my body started to sweat. A Savage is a heavier tote than a squirrel gun.
Still dark. In Vermont, a late November sun takes its time to awaken. Days are short workers. The darkness would help us. Dawn has a way of prompting deer to bed down.
Ira stopped.
Bending, his gloved hand brushed the snow in front of his boots. Deer tracks. The twin points of a delicate hoof had left clear prints. Nearby, I saw deer droppings. Yanking off a glove, I touched the black pellets, feeling warmth. Fresh, only minutes old. Ira also felt it. Then he gestured to me that where we stood, right here, was far enough.
In a forest, a hunter can’t hurry to overtake a deer. The only method is to wait until one walks his way. Patience is more than virtue. It’s venison.
Stooping again, I noticed only a single track. One deer. This be odd. A deer is seldom a loner. They travel in herds. One buck, a few does, and yearlings. At this time of year, no fawns. By winter, an early spring fawn had become a yearling, not fully growed, but staying close to a doe.
Ira hadn’t budged. He stared at one spot, listening. His eyes never twitched.
We waited. Earlier, while climbing, our breath feathered out into the cold in large puffs. No longer. Our breathing clouds were smaller, coming easier and less often.
Hard to measure how long we stood as stones. Luckily, the wind was in our faces. Ira had made sure of this. Had it been to our backs, our scent would have told a story to the deer, and they smell a human over a mile away.
One time, alone, I had seen a panther (a mountain lion) stalking a snowshoe hare, keeping herself downwind from her prey. Snow blew into her face. More than snow. A smell of fresh meat. Those big hares number many in late autumn, a time when they are brown. Winter turns them white, for protection. Yet, come spring, there are few still alive. Panthers, bobcats, lynx, foxes, and wolves have fed well.
A friend of my father, Mr. Early Pardee, called snowshoes the bread of winter.
Ira’s repeater startled me. He was levering a round into the chamber. My Savage was a lesser gun, a single-shot bolt-action model. So I’d already fed it a cartridge. I released the safety catch.
Raising his barrel slowly, Ira almost appeared not to move. Yet inch by inch, the rifle became level. Ready to strike. I raised my Savage.
Seeing nothing, I heard motion. A run, made by feet, and moving our way very rapid.
A dog barked.
A second later, a doe sped at us, leaping, bounding, darting past Ira and me, far too fast for a human eye to follow. Ira held his fire. But I didn’t. I aimed and jerked the trigger.
As my rifle cracked, a dog appeared out of the snowy blackness, ignoring Ira and me. Ears back, he pursued the deer. Even before firing, I knew I’d missed. When the gun kicked my right cheek, nothing moved ahead of the bead on my forward sight. Empty woods. The doe had gone, vaulting high bushes and disappearing, showing me nothing except the white flashing flag of her tail.
“Missed,” I said.
“I’m glad,” Ira told me. “You’ll sudden see why.”
Ahead, where the dog and deer had come from, there were noises. Loud footsteps, as though the owner of those feet cared little to remain unheard. Someone was hurrying hard and breathing harder.
When he broke through the brush, I saw a giant of a man. Black floppy hat, a gray beard that was thick and curly. His clothes seemed to be torn rags, bound to his bull of a body by loops of frayed rope, or rawhide. His gun was a monster. An extra-long barrel. The hole of its muzzle stared at me.
Eyes burning, the woodsman studied Ira. “Who be you?”
“My name’s Long. We live downroad a way.” Ira talked in a calm and gentle voice. “Are you Mr. Yaw?”
“I be.” He took a breath. “You the one?”
“No,” said Ira. “It was a boy’s mistake, Mr. Yaw. We’re sorry. The lad’s only thirteen. He doesn’t yet know better.”
Mr. Yaw glared at me, then back to Ira Long. Filling his lungs, he growled, sounding more beast than man. Pointing at me, he spoke to Ira.
“Tell him. Tell him good.”
He spat. Saying nothing else, the large man turned and vanished almost silently into the woods, melting away like smoke. We saw no more of him, or the dog, or doe.
Unblinking, I forced myself to breathe, realizing that between my legs, my pants felt wet.
Ira patted my shoulder. Just once.
“Rob,” he said, “let’s go home.”
We started down the mountain.
“After your shot,” Ira explained, “and that dog barking and hounding, there wouldn’t be a deer around these parts within a hundred hollers.”
We walked near a mile. And I final worked up the gumption to ask Ira a question. “Who was that creepy man back yonder?”
Ira said, “His name is Shadrack Yaw.”
“You told him we were sorry. How come?”
“Well, let’s put the boot on the other foot. If that deer was ahead of my dog, or your dog, or anybody else’s dog, Mr. Yaw wouldn’t shoot. Not even a one time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Now listen up. Mr. Yaw is a mountain man. To him, and to every one of his kin, the three dozen Yaws in these woods, it wouldn’t be right. Or polite. You broke a rule. So you best master this, and honor it.” Ira paused. “You never cut down on meat that’s run ahead of another man’s do
g.”
“I guess I did wrong.”
“Mr. Yaw forgave you, Robert. But remember this day, the Friday after Thanksgiving of your fourteenth year, and be thankful.”
“Why?” I asked Ira.
“Because you come so close to dying.”
Chapter
16
Will Henry cornered Jacob and me.
We were at school, standing in the hall by a drinking fountain that bubbled water all the time.
“You guys ought to do it,” Will said.
“Why?” asked Jacob. “Rob and I don’t have to take shop anymore. We’re high-schoolers now, like you.”
Jacob’s older brother said, “That’s the point. A sorry to Mr. Orr would only be a bootlick if you still had him as a teacher. But you don’t. So your apology might make you men, instead of bad little boys.”
Jacob said, “You think you’re so growed up just because you’re a senior.”
“Becoming a senior has nothing to do with it,” Will told his brother. “To grow up is to stand up. Manly. Instead of sneaking around to stir up mischief. I won’t make you do it. Nor will anyone else.” Will shrugged. “It’s up to you.” Turning, he walked off to class.
“Will’s right,” I told Jacob.
“Are you on his side?”
“No, your brother’s on our side. Truth is, the prank we played on Pop Orr a year ago is still pestering me.”
“Honest?”
“Yes. So if you won’t come along, I’ll work up my courage and go down to the shop lonesome.”
“I’ll go, Rob.” Jacob grinned. “I can’t abide thinking you’ve got more guts than me.”
“Let’s go.”
“Now?”
“If we don’t face at him sudden, we never will.”
We went, and found Pop Orr alone in his basement shop. Broom in hand, he was sweeping up some wood shavings and sawdust.
I said his name. “Mr. Orr?”
He didn’t seem to hear. But then he squinted our way, looking surprised, and dropped the broom.
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