A Northern Light(34)

Once, when I was eight years old and it was early December, I went out on the ice of Fourth Lake, though Pa had told me not to. "It's not solid yet," he'd said. "It won't be for some weeks. Stay off'n it." But it had looked solid to me and I wanted so much to play on it. So I did. I went running and sliding across it, going farther and farther out with each slide. When I was about thirty feet from the shore, I heard a long, shivering crack, and I knew that the ice was breaking under me and that I might well drown. There was no one to help me. I had sneaked off by myself, knowing that if Lawton or Abby found out where I was going, they would tell. I could see the Eagle Bay Hotel and several other camps from where I stood, but they were boarded up for the winter. I was all alone, and what I'd thought was firm beneath my feet was not. I turned around slowly very, very slowly and slid one foot toward the shore. For several long seconds nothing happened, and then there was another crack. I gasped and stood perfectly still. Then I slid my other foot forward. Nothing, then two more cracks, as sharp and sudden as gunshots. I sobbed out loud and peed down my leg, but I kept going, one small, sliding step at a time. When I was about six feet from the shore, the ice gave way and I fell into the frigid water up to my knees. I crashed through the remaining few feet of ice and ran home as fast as I could, dreading my pa's strap, but dreading frostbite more.

I feel like that now. Like there is nothing solid beneath my feet, like the ice is breaking all around me.





re ? cou ? ri ? um ? phor ? a ? tion


"Pa! Pa, come quick! There's a monster in the manure pile!"

"Stop shouting, Beth."

"But, Pa, there's a monster! I thought he was dead, but he's not! I poked him with a stick and he growled at me!"

"Elizabeth Gokey, what did I say about telling fibs?"

"I'm not, Pa. I swear! You've got to come and kill him. Quick! So we can get his sack of gold. He's got a sack of gold with him!"

I heard all this from the milk house, a room off the cow barn. I was pouring buckets of warm, foamy milk through a length of cheesecloth to strain out flies and bits of hay. I wiped my hands, clapped Pansy and her kittens out from under my feet, and went into the barn itself to see what the commotion was all about. Pa was walking toward the door. Abby was already outside. Lou was up in the hayloft, tossing down bales.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"Beth's telling tales again," she said. "I hope she gets a licking."

I followed my family outside and around the back of the barn and saw, to my shock, that Beth was not telling tales at all. There was a man, a very dirty man with long, wild black hair, lying facedown in our manure pile. He was wearing dungarees, suspenders, and a plaid wool shirt. There was a large sack near him and a pair of Croghan boots with their laces knotted together.

Beth still had her stick. She prodded him with it. "Mr. Monster?" she whispered. "Mr. Monster, are you dead?"

The monster groaned. He turned over on his back, opened his bloodshot eyes, and winced at the light. "Ba da holy jeez, yes. Yes, I tink so," he said.

"Uncle Fifty?" Abby whispered.

"Uncle Fifty!" Beth shouted.

"Damn it, Francis!" my father barked. "Get up out of there!"

"B'jour, mon frère, b'jour. Tais-toi, eh? Ma tête, elk est très tendre..."

"C'est pas assez que tous que tu dis c'est de la merde, Fran?ois? Tu veux coucher dans la merde, aussi?"

Only my uncle Fifty, my fathers younger brother, can make him angry enough to speak French.

"Mathilde, allez à ma chambre—, "Pa said to me, before he caught himself. "Go to my bedroom and get him some clothes. Don't let him in the house until he washes. Make him some coffee, too. Abby, go back in and finish straining the milk." He looked at his brother one more time, spat, then returned to the cows.

"Come on, Uncle Fifty, let's get you cleaned up," I said impatiently. By the time I got water boiled for a bath and got the nits and tangles out of my uncles hair, I'd be good and late for school. And Miss Wilcox was giving the last of the Regents exams.

Lou came running out. "Uncle Fifty!" she shouted. She looked at him and her smile changed to a frown. "Uncle Fifty, why are you sitting in the manure?"

"Because da manure, she warm," he said, getting to his feet. "I come last night, very late, Louisa. I don't wake up da whole house, no? So I sleep out here."

"You smell terrible!" Lou said, pinching her nose.

He did, too. Manure and whiskey fumes made an unholy combination.

"What? I smell sweet as da rose! You give your uncle Francois a beeg keese!" He put out his arms and staggered toward her, and she ran away squealing and laughing.

"Uncle Fifty ... what's in that bag?" Beth asked, eyeing his satchel hopefully.

"In dere? Oh, noting. Just dirty clothes," he said. Beth's face fell.

"Uncle Fifty, you come on," I said. "I haven't got time for this. I've got important tests to take today."

"Test? What kine of test?"

"For my high school diploma. The last exams are today. I've been studying for months."

"Ba da holy jeez, Mathilde Gauthier! You wan smart girl for to take dese test. You go on to school. Your mamma will help me wid da bath."