A Northern Light(28)

Hope.





xe ? roph ? i ? lous


Mrs. Loomis's kitchen was so orderly and clean that it scared me. Kind of like Mrs. Loomis herself did. Her apron was always bright white and she darned her dishrags. I was standing in her kitchen, along with Lou and Beth, apologizing for Daisy, our cow. She and her calf had smashed through the fence that divides our land from Frank Loomis's. I could see them out of the kitchen window, wallowing in the cow pond.

"I'm sorry about the fence, Mrs. Loomis," I said. "Pa's fixing it. Ought to have it done in an hour or two."

Her pale blue eyes darted up from the potato she was peeling. "That's the second time this month, Mattie."

"I know it, ma'am. I don't know why she does it. We have a perfectly good cow pond ourselves," I said, twisting the rope noose I'd brought with me to fetch Daisy back.

"Your pa feeding alfalfa?"

"No, ma'am."

"Must be she's headstrong, then. Tie her in her stall for a few days and cut her feed. That'll fix her."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, knowing I would do no such thing to Daisy. "Well, I guess I'll go and get her now. Come on, Lou, Beth."

Mrs. Loomis had taken a tray of molasses cookies out of the oven just as we'd arrived. They were cooling on the counter, scenting the air with ginger and clove. My sisters couldn't take their eyes off them. Mrs. Loomis saw them looking. Her thin lips got even thinner. She gave the girls one to split. She didn't give one to me. I saw Mr. Loomis take some eggs to Emmie Hubbard yesterday. I thought it was very kind of him and wondered how he put up with such a mean and stingy wife.

Xerophilous, my word of the day, means able to withstand drought, or adapted to a dry region. Standing in Mrs. Loomis's spotless kitchen, where there were no incontinent dogs or flea-bitten Hubbards or yellowed pictures from old calendars curling up on the walls, I wondered if only plants could be xerophilous or if people could be, too.

"Let me see if one of the boys is around to help you," Mrs. Loomis said. "Will! Jim! Royal!" she shouted out of the window.

"It's all right, we can manage," I said, heading for the back door.

I walked past the barn to the cow pond. Lou and Beth trailed behind me, taking tiny nibbles out of their cookie halves, seeing who could make hers last the longest. Daisy was at the farthest end of the pond, near to where the Loomis's pasture started. She was making a terrible noise, bellowing like someone had cut off all four of her legs. Baldwin the calf—named by Beth because he had a long, somber face like Mr. Baldwin the undertaker—was hollering, too.

"Here, boss! Come on, Daisy! Come on, boss," I shouted, rubbing my fingers together like I had a treat for her. "Come on, girl!"

Lou and Beth finished their cookie and started calling to the cow, too. Between the three of us shouting and Daisy and Baldwin bawling, we were making quite a racket.

"Sounds like the Old Forge town band. Just about as loud and just about as bad."

I turned around. It was Royal. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, showing his muscled arms, already brown from the sun. His color was high from working, his cheeks were streaked with dust. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his sturdy legs rooted to the ground, belonging to this place. As much as the silvery streams belonged, and the great, scudding clouds, and the deer in the woods. He was as beautiful as these things, too. He took my breath away. His eyes were the color of amber. Not hazel, not buckwheat honey like I'd thought, but warm, dark amber. His hair, golden and too long, was curling over his ears and down his neck. His shirt collar was open, and I couldn't take my eyes off the patch of smooth skin showing through it. He saw me looking and I blushed. Furiously.

"Don't none of them books of yours tell you how to get a cow out of a pond?" he asked.

"I don't need a book to tell me how to get a cow out of a pond," I replied, and called to Daisy in a louder voice. When that didn't work, I shook the noose at her and succeeded only in scaring Baldwin. He ran deeper into the pond and his mother followed.

Royal stooped down and picked up a few stones. Then he walked around behind Daisy and aimed at her backside. The first one surprised her and the second one got her moving. She ran right toward us. Lou was able to grab her, and I slipped the noose over her head, scolding her soundly. We didn't need to tie Baldwin. He would follow his mother.

I thanked Royal, though it killed me. "I don't know why she comes here," I said. "She has a fine pond of her own."

Royal laughed. "She don't come 'cause she wants a swim. It's him she's after," he said, pointing past the pond to the pasture behind it. I couldn't see what he was talking about at first, but then I spotted him—standing at the very edge of the field in the shadows of some pines. The bull. He was huge and fearsome and as black as midnight, and he was watching us. I saw his dark eyes blink and his velvet nostrils twitch, and I hoped greatly that the fence around him was stronger than the one Daisy had plowed through.

"Well, thanks again, Royal. We'd best be going," I said, starting off toward the dirt drive that led back home.

"I'll walk you," he said.

"You don't have to."

He shrugged. "Taint nothing."

"I want to lead her, Matt," Beth said. I let her. She started singing another one of Pas lumberjack songs. Lou walked next to her, her cropped hair swinging free, the cuffs of Lawton's coveralls dragging on the ground.