The Boy Orator

by Tracy Daugherty

  At home he practiced his speeches in the mule pen, straddling the slats of the fence. “Friends, with the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the capitalist class is in the saddle,” he shouted at the peak of the barn, “riding the backs of workers!” His mother hadn’t mentioned Kate O’Hare or Warren Stargell or the speakers’ circuit, but she looked worried each time she glanced Harry’s way. She made a point of complimenting him on the work he did around the farm—he’d caught three gophers since his first fiasco with the trap. She even listened to him speak, clapping when he finished. “Did you really like it?” he’d say. “Of course,” she answered automatically as though he’d done a simple cartwheel. She may have told Avram he had a gift, but to Harry she seemed unimpressed, indulgent, at best merely polite.

  Patrick Nagle was a better listener, patiently swatting horseflies with his tail, but even the old mule’s loyalty wasn’t enough now to inspire Harry. In the dining hall with the miners his words had had consequence, he thought, however small. He couldn’t change people’s lives, but for a few minutes that night some men thought he might. And for a few minutes he believed it too.

  He’d wanted to lead them out of the hole. Oh, how he’d wanted that power!

  Remembering the excitement, he lost his balance on the fence, scraped his arm on a spike. His mother dressed the cut, checked his swollen shoulder, and told him not to play so hard.

  SHE WAS SNORING GENTLY the night Harry slipped out of bed, dressed quietly in the dark, and made his way to the brush arbor. The podium was there, wrapped in its tarp. Dew glazed the grass and pews; the honeysuckle thatch smelled fertile and rich. Now and then on the western horizon, above the slopes of the Wichita Mountains, flash-lightning darkled, damp and smudgy, like palm prints on a pane of glass.

  Halley had followed Harry from the house. He sat on the stage, head cocked, while Harry lifted the tarp. The past few nights Harry had seen the podium in his sleep; in his dreams it was as tall as a lighthouse, imposing but safe, a steady source of clarity and wisdom.

  He touched the dark wood, lightly, as if combing Patrick Nagle. The cover had kept it shiny and warm. He felt its solidity and weight, the dignity of its reddish-brown burls … local lumber cut and shaped by workers to hold the peoples’ desires. From it, expressions of charity, freedom, and hope might ring—promises a man in a mine or on someone else’s land needed to keep himself going.

  Rake. Straighten. Hammer. Plow. Farm-words. Plant. Water. Scrub. Noble terms, Harry thought, but he longed to fill his mouth again with sounds of greater resonance. Pride and unite and “Follow me!”

  These last words he’d said aloud, lifting his arm above the podium (he was too short for it, and stood on his toes). Lightning burst overhead; a sudden wind stirred the leaves, and several drops of rain, spitting through gaps in the arbor-vines, sprinkled the pews. “Why?” someone called from a stand of trees beside the field.

  Harry, startled, backed away from the podium and nearly fell off the stage. He squinted, expecting to spot a giant Baptist waving a Bible and a gun.

  “Why should I follow you?” the voice insisted. It belonged to a girl. Harry could see a patch of white among the trees; dark, flowing hair. Then she disappeared in a shadowy swirl of leaves. Halley crouched and growled at the edge of the stage.

  “Hello?” Harry said, circling the podium. “Who’s there?” Rain and dust scented the air. The storm was gaining strength. Against the stage’s steps a breeze swept tangled duff. He began to wonder if he’d imagined the figure but Halley had seen something too—yes, and there she was again! Brown-skinned, tiny in a long white dress. Small, sandaled feet. Now he knew he was conjuring things.

  “Sue-Sue?” he whispered.

  “If I follow you, where will you lead me?” she said. Challenging? Teasing? Beside her, a dark animal growled at Halley.

  This wasn’t Sue-Sue, of course. He could see her better now that she’d stepped from the trees: an Indian girl about his age, carrying a wicker basket. “Who are you?” he asked. His shoulder ached. His forehead was hot.

  “Mollie. Are you the preacher?”

  “No, I’m … a Socialist,” he said. “Practicing.”

  “What’s a Socialist?”

  Halley had crept from the stage and slowly approached her dog, sniffing vigorously.

  “A Socialist … well, a Socialist believes workers should own factories and farms and all the means of production. We believe in equality, even for Indians.” Except for Mahalie and her friends, though (who were usually too busy talking among themselves to pay Harry much attention), he hadn’t stood close to many Indians. Now, as with Avram, he felt a little wary, curious but self-protective.

  Mollie laughed. “Oh. A dreamer. That’s why you’re out here in the middle of the night talking to no one.”

  The dogs were whimpering amiably now and wagging their tails. “Are you a Baptist?” Harry asked, stepping closer. “I mean—”

  She shrugged. “I come sometimes to listen to the preaching.”

  Her cheeks were as wide as copper pennies flattened on a railroad trestle. Odd, but attractive. Harry felt shy but he was compelled to try to engage her—in part, to overcome his fear of people different from himself. How could he be a good Socialist—how could he say the word—if he recoiled from anyone, even those with dissimilar customs? His father would be disappointed in him if he didn’t make an effort.

  He pointed at Mollie’s basket. “What’re those?”

  “Wax myrtle leaves. They’re just beginning to thicken on the trees.” She lifted one from the basket, a tiny olive-green spear, crushed it between her forefinger and thumb. “Smell.” She opened her hand beneath his nose. A dusky, spicy scent. The warmth of her skin. “They make a good air freshener,” she said.

  “You pick them in the middle of the night?”

  “Lil and I couldn’t sleep. The coming storm.” She looked at her golden dog, muzzle to muzzle with Halley. “They like each other.” She glanced back up. “Isn’t the lightning beautiful?”

  “I think maybe you’re a dreamer too,” Harry said.

  Mollie smiled. “You better practice some more, Socialist. You’re going to have to be real good to convince people.” She made a kissing sound at Lil, who turned and followed her across the field.

  “Wait!” Harry said. “Mollie who? Will you be here on Sunday?”

  She waved without turning and disappeared into the trees by the road, as quietly as she’d arrived. Halley followed Lil a few steps until Harry whistled him to stop. Halley sat forlornly.

  The raindrops increased. Harry rushed to pull the tarp across the podium. Stupid Baptists, he thought. The wood would rot out here. Didn’t they know that? He supposed, to them, the podium was a simple prop to help the preacher deliver his message. But a message needed presence; it had to be embodied. A skillful speaker would use this wood as a badge, a wedge to drive into the crowd.

  He’d return on Sunday, not because he cared to hear a sermon (especially after sitting through Mass) but because he wanted to see the podium perform.

  And because Mollie might be here. The strange encounter had unsettled him. He didn’t understand his powerful response to her, a pleasure that had escalated after his initial fears—the surprise of being overheard, perhaps; the delight of her features; the echo of Sue-Sue (such dark, sharp beauty—so much livelier than the pale little girls Harry knew at school, who teased him, anyway, about his speeches).

  By the time he reached the yard his skin was hot. He crawled through his window, swallowing a cough so as not to wake his folks. Halley ran to the mule pen, stirring Patrick Nagle. Harry hushed them, then drew his curtains against the searing lightning. Wind flung grit against the wood and glass of the house. He dried his hair with the thin cotton blanket on his bed, tiptoed to the kitchen for water. The floorboards creaked. The chicks in their pen peeped groggily, hungrily.

  The following morning he was too sick to leave his bed. Annie Mae fed him chicken soup and Greene
’s Chill Tonic. She kept a damp washcloth on his forehead, chipped a block of ice, and wrapped the shards in a towel on his shoulder. He shivered. “I swear, it’s like you spent the night in the barn,” Annie Mae said. Harry sneezed. “You were feeling poorly after your trip to the mines. I shouldn’t have worked you so hard around here.”

  Forced to stay indoors all day, he was more aware than ever of the changes in his father since their trip to Anadarko. Andrew had left unfilled the timber orders from Osage. He’d never been an indecisive man but he hesitated now before starting any chore. Constantly, he asked Annie Mae’s advice, even on tasks as simple as lighting the kerosene stove. He demanded coffee, tea, food—not harshly, but often. Harry saw how weary his mother had become.

  One morning she said, “Andrew, will you fix Harry some oatmeal while I run down the road to Mrs. Smithers’s and get us some fresh brown eggs?”

  “Oatmeal?” Andrew said.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Can’t he make it himself?”

  Annie Mae stopped and turned in the middle of the kitchen. “No he can’t, Andrew. I asked you.”

  Harry was sitting at the table. He gripped his glass of milk. The scorn in his mother’s voice, a swipe like a rusty blade, frightened him. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Yes, you are. And your father’s going to feed you.”

  Harry glanced sheepishly at Andrew, who still hadn’t moved.

  “Aren’t you, Andrew?” Her words seemed to draw the air from the room. Harry’s chest hurt.

  “Hand me that box of matches,” Andrew told Harry.

  “Thank you,” Annie Mae said softly, then walked out the door.

  As he watched his father at the stove, Harry wondered what he could do to make things right again around the house. When I’m well, he thought, maybe I should cut some trees. But he knew the hand briar saw needed more strength than he’d developed in his arms. The simpler crosscut he could manage with a partner, but he didn’t know how to use his father’s gauge for setting the length of the raker teeth, or the steel spider for setting the cutters’ angles.

  “Here’s your oatmeal,” Andrew said. He sounded angry.

  “Thank you,” Harry said, staring at the table.

  WARREN STARGELL CAME BY early one afternoon and asked to speak to Andrew. Annie Mae let him in but she was silent and brusque. He wouldn’t look at her. He fiddled with his hat.

  From his bedroom Harry heard the men talk. He didn’t catch every word, but he understood that Warren Stargell was arranging the Socialist speakers’ circuit. Andrew mentioned “tagging along.” His friend discouraged him. “With your leg and all,” he said, “you need your strength.” Harry felt certain his father couldn’t survive the road right now. He’d been worn to a nubbin by the mines; he seemed befuddled in his very own home.

  Before he left, Warren Stargell popped his head into Harry’s room. “Get healthy, Harry boy. Rest your voice,” he said. “Soon you’ll be spreading the word.” He winked with his lazy left eye.

  Throughout the day Harry slept. In fever-dreams he saw Mollie and Sue-Sue. Bob Cochran hit Mollie with a rubber mask. Something stung Harry’s ear. A man with scars on his face tried to smother him with a pillowcase. Then he was naked onstage. The crowd booed and wouldn’t let him speak. Voices closed all around him, drilled his head. He woke with a buzzing in his ears. His bladder ached. The ice in the towel had melted and soaked his pajama top. His parents’ voices were loud and angry in the kitchen.

  “—bad enough you expose him to the dangers of a mine shaft—a mine shaft, Andrew—”

  “I was with him every step of the way.”

  “Yes, and look what it did to you.”

  “Annie, this is just a speaking tour. He’s done it dozens of times.” “He’s never traveled for a month. Unsupervised.”

  “Warren’ll be there—”

  “Warren. Oh, now I’m relieved—”

  “With other adults.”

  “You know what I mean, Andrew. He’s never been anywhere without one of us—except that day in Walters.”

  The floor chilled Harry’s bare feet. He rubbed his eyes and smacked into the back of a kitchen chair.

  “Harry, honey, what’re you doing up?” said Annie Mae.

  “I have to go outside.”

  “Oh. Here, then, let me help you with your shoes. How’s your fever?” She felt his forehead. His future had been tabled for the day.

  The next morning his vigor had returned and he wasn’t burning up. He fed Patrick Nagle but ignored the rest of his jobs. He helped his mother measure flour for a cake. “Mama?”

  “Yes, Harry.”

  “Is it true I have a gift?”

  She lowered a spoon into a bowl of sugar and stared at him.

  “The Jew Peddler—Avram—told me you’d said so.”

  “He did, did he? When did you talk to him?”

  Harry blushed. “The day I went to town.”

  “I see.” She cracked an egg. Squares of muslin, cut to fit the windows, covered the kitchen table; pots of sumac berries, roots, and bark, mixed with old iron shavings, sat near the stove. Boiled, they’d make a dark violet dye in which to dip the muslin: for days now, Annie Mae had been making new curtains. “What else did he say?” she asked, nudging the pots away from Harry with her foot.

  “He said you worried whenever I was gone. But if I have a gift … isn’t it my duty to use it? Wouldn’t God be mad if I wasted it?”

  Annie Mae wiped her hands on her apron and touched Harry’s shoulder. She was proud of him. He saw it in her eyes. Still, he knew, she couldn’t help but fret. The world outside her window she didn’t understand very well—Andrew had said so, on his trips with Harry. “What about those men, the kind who hurt your father?” she said.

  “I’ll be careful, Mama.” He grinned. “I’m younger than them. I can outrun anyone.” “Not always.”

  He realized how much he loved her face. Patient. Soft. He knew from the gentle set of her mouth—frowning, but not harshly—that, behind her fears, she wanted him to have whatever he needed. “Please.”

  “This is important to you, isn’t it?”

  She had to hear it. “Yes, Mama.”

  She turned and looked at the chicks in their pen as if she could fix them where they stood, young and helpless, forever needing her care. “Harry, Harry, Harry.” “Mama—”

  “Go on, then. I can’t stop you.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  She brushed a tear from her face. Harry wrapped his arms around her waist. The road! Kate O’Hare! A breeze from one of the windows lifted the sheer corners of the muslin. The odors of the berries and the bark, of the moist balls of flour on the counter, dizzied Harry. I’ll never again feel this safe, he thought, even as pleasure whipped through him, raising the hair on his neck. He tightened his grip on his mother’s small hips until she said, with a knot in her voice, “Here now, let me finish this cake.”

  ON SUNDAY AFTER MASS he ran to the brush arbor. The Baptist women were setting plates of potato salad and platters of fried chicken on benches in the middle of the field. Whenever a preacher passed through—Baptist, Methodist, whatever—all the chickens in the county were killed, cooked, and served to the reverend and his crew; the Holy Spirit had quite an appetite, always cleaned His plates. Harry was ten years old before he knew there was anything more to a chicken than feet and a beak.

  Kids in their Sunday suits played catch with rubber balls in tall grass by the road. Harry looked for Mollie but didn’t see her. He’d spent two hours before church polishing his shoes, mixing chimney soot with molasses to make a thick black paste. The shoes looked great, but a couple of horseflies had lighted on them before the paste had dried. The flies were stuck fast. Still, his mother was pleased to see him taking such care with his appearance.

  When the preacher took the arbor stage Harry laughed. The man was as thin as a crusty old railroad spike, hook-nosed
and bald. The podium seemed to shrink beneath his gangly arms. “Friends! Have you met Jee-sus?” he called, his voice a high, whiny chirp. “Brothers, sisters, I’m here to tell you I was lost, oh yes I confess it to you today, before I knew Jee-sus was my friend, I scoured these valleys and hills and the filthy back alleys of our cities looking for any comfort I could find.” It’s not about comfort, Harry thought. God wants you to rise from your chairs and strike a blow against the banks. “My burdens weighed me down, ground me down something fierce, my friends, a miserable beggar, that was me, Lord, lonesome and low—” His head shone like a peeled turnip in the arbor’s dappled sunlight. “Sound familiar, my friends? You know it does. I’m talking to you!”

  Often, Harry’s father had taught him, “The speaker doesn’t matter. He’s just a vessel for the message. The minute you start feeling good about yourself, the minute you start strutting, the message is a goner.” But Harry couldn’t help but feel cocky, standing here in his well-polished shoes, knowing he could outtalk this fellow up the road and back. It disgusted him to watch a man with so little talent for rousing a crowd pound and sweat on the podium. Someone should save it, he thought.

  “Let’s steal it,” Mollie said.

  He whirled to see her in her long white dress. Lil panted at her feet.

  “You have that look in your eye, same as the other night,” she said. “You want that thing, don’t you, Socialist?”

  His cockiness vanished. He coughed. He wasn’t completely well. His mouth was dry; he tasted his mother’s chill tonic. “My name’s Harry,” he said. “And no, I don’t want it. It wouldn’t be proper for me to covet—” Her beauty confounded him. It was beauty, despite the width of her cheeks, the slightly flat nose. In part, it was the strangeness of her features that drew him. Her eyes were dark and her long hair smelled of the fresh wax myrtle leaves she’d picked. “Property should be shared—”