A Northern Light(18)

"Hey, Royal," I said.

"Hey."

I handed Mr. Eckler fifty cents of my father's money for the cornmeal. "How much is this?" I asked, holding up one of the pretty composition books. I had sixty cents from all the fiddleheads Weaver and I had sold to the Eagle Bay Hotel, plus the spruce gum we'd picked and sold to O'Hara's in Inlet. It was money I knew I should have given to my pa. I'd meant to, I did. I just hadn't gotten around to it.

"Them notebooks? Them are expensive, Mattie. Eye-talians made 'em. Got to get forty-five cents apiece," he said. "I've got some others coming in for fifteen cents in a week or so if you can wait."

Forty-five cents was a good deal of money, but I didn't want the ones for fifteen cents, not after I'd seen the others. I had more ideas. Tons of them. For stories and poems. I chewed the inside of my cheek, deliberating. I knew I would have to write a lot when I went to Barnard—if I went to Barnard—and it might be a good idea to get a head start. Weaver had said I should be using my words, not just collecting them, and I knew they would just glide across this beautiful paper, and when I was done writing them, I could close them safely inside the covers. Just like a real book. Guilt gnawed at my insides. I took the money from my pocket and gave it to Mr. Eckler quickly, so the thing was done and I couldn't change my mind. Then I watched breathlessly as he wrapped my purchase in brown paper and tied it with string. I thanked him as he handed me the package, but he didn't hear me because Mr. Pulling, the station-master, was asking him the price of his oranges.

As I stepped onto the dock I heard Mr. Eckler shout, "Hold on, Mattie!"

I turned around. "Yes, sir?"

"Tell your pa I want to buy milk from him. I've only got room for so many cans up top, and I'm running out before I even get up to Fourth Lake. I'd give him my empties and take on four or five full ones. Could sell more on the way back if I had more to sell."

"I'll tell him, Mr. Eckler, but I know he's already promised the Glenmore and Higby's and the Waldheim. Plus the Eagle Bay Hotel. More have asked him, but he doesn't think he'll have enough to go round."

Mr. Eckler spat a mouthful of tobacco juice into the lake. "How big's his herd now?"

"Twenty head."

"Only twenty? But he's got, what? Sixty-odd acres? He could pasture a lot more than twenty on that."

"He only has twenty-five acres cleared, and a lot of it's plowed for crops."

"What's he doing with the rest of it? Thirty-five acres of woodland ain't no use to a farmer. He's paying taxes on the land, ain't he? On land he ain't even using! He ought to clear it for pasture, not let it set idle. He ought to build up his herd."

"He means to clear it. Meant to. But then ... well, with Lawton gone and all, it's just ... hard," I said quietly, conscious that Royal was listening to my every word.

Mr. Eckler nodded. He looked embarrassed. He knew Lawton had left. Everyone did. He'd asked me why, but I couldn't tell him. Or Weaver or Minnie or anyone else who asked. Mamma was gone because she died; I could explain that to people. My brother was gone, too. The brother who once spent all the money he'd made selling bait to sports to buy me a composition book and a pencil when he'd found me crying in the barn because Pa wouldn't buy them. Lawton was gone and I didn't even know why.

"Well, you tell him come see me, Matt. Royal, you tell your pa, too. I just seen men clearing for two new camps on Third Lake. Got Lon Wood building onto his place up here, plus Meeker's and the Fairview doing improvements, too. Got more and more summer people coming every day and it ain't even summer yet. If either of you can get me milk to sell, I can sell it."

"Yes, sir. I'll tell him," I said, then set off for home at a good clip. School had let out an hour before. My sisters would be well up our road. There was milking to do, and manure to shovel, and pigs and chickens to feed, and ourselves to feed, too.

I heard a thump on the dock behind me. "You like a ride, Matt?" said a voice at my elbow. It was Royal.

"Who? Me?"

"Ain't nobody else here named Matt."

"All right," I said, grateful for the offer. The cornmeal was heavy and I'd get home a lot faster if I rode.

I put the cornmeal in the back of the buckboard, climbed up on the hard wooden seat, and settled myself next to Royal. Buckboards are all anyone drives in the North Woods. Anyone with any sense. Some of the new folks with their just-built camps bring their buggies, but they soon give them up. Buckboards are plain—just a few planks with a pair of axles nailed on under them, a seat or two, and maybe a wagon box on the top. But plain is what works best. The planks have bounce in them, and the bounce keeps the wheels from knocking the teeth out of your head on the bad roads.

"Giddyap!" Royal told the horses. He coaxed them to turn the creaky rig around in the hotel's drive while avoiding a fringe-topped surrey carrying a touring party that had just arrived on the steamer Clearwater and was bound for Big Moose Lake. The horses, a pair of bays, were new. Pa said Mr. Loomis had bought them cheap from a man outside of Old Forge who'd lost his farm to the bank. They whickered and blew, shy of the surrey, but Royal kept them calm.

He raised his hand in greeting to Mr. Satterlee, the tax assessor, who passed us on his way to the hotel. Mr. Satterlee waved back but did not smile. "Bet he's just come from the Hubbards'," Royal said. "He's slapping a lien on their land. That good-for-nothing Emmie didn't pay her taxes again."