A Northern Light(4)

It wasn't like this when Mamma was alive. Somehow she provided good meals all through the winter and still managed to have meat left in the cellar come spring. I am nowhere near as capable as my mother was, and if I ever forget it, I have Lou to remind me. Or Pa. Not that he says the sorts of things Lou does, but you can tell by the look on his face when he sits down to eat that he isn't fond of mush day in and day out.

Jenny Hubbard didn't mind it, though. She waited patiently, her eyes large and solemn, as I sprinkled maple sugar on Lou's leavings and passed the bowl to her. I gave Tom some from the pot. As much as I could spare while still leaving enough for Pa.

Abby took a swallow of her tea, then looked at me over the top of the cup. "You talk to Pa yet?"

I shook my head. I was standing behind Lou, teasing the rats out of her hair. It was too short for braids; it only just grazed her jaw. She'd cut it off with Mamma's sewing scissors after Christmas. Right after our brother, Lawton, left.

"You going to?" she asked.

"Talk about what?" Beth asked.

"Never mind. Finish your breakfast," I said.

"What, Matt? Talk about what?"

"Beth, if Mattie wanted you to know, she'd tell you," Lou said.

"You don't know, neither."

"Do, too."

"Mattie, why'd you tell Lou and not me?" Beth whined.

"Because you can't never keep quiet," Lou said.

That started another round of bickering. My nerves were grated down bald. "It's can't ever, Lou, not can't never," I said. "Beth, stop whining."

"Matt, you pick your word of the day yet?" Abby asked. Abby, our peacemaker. Gentle and mild. More like our mother than any of the rest of us.

"Oh, Mattie! Can I pick it? Can I?" Beth begged. She scrambled out of her chair and raced into the parlor. I kept my precious dictionary there, out of harm's way, along with the books I borrowed from Charlie Eckler and Miss Wilcox, and my mother's Waverly Editions of Best Loved American Classics, and some ancient copies of Peterson's Magazine that my aunt Josie had given us because, as it said in its "Publisher's Corner," it was "one of the few periodicals fit for families where there are daughters."

"Beth, you carry it but let Lou pick the word," I shouted after her.

"I don't want no part of baby word games," Lou grumbled.

"Any, Lou. Any part," I snapped. Her carelessness with words made me angrier than her dirty mouth and the filthy state of her coveralls and the manure she'd tracked in, combined.

Beth returned to the kitchen table, carrying the dictionary as if it were made of gold. It might as well have been. It weighed as much. "Pick the word," I told her. "Lou doesn't want to." She carefully flipped a few pages forward, then a few back, then put her index finger on the left-hand page. "Fff ... fraaak ... fraktee ... frakteeus?" she said.

"I don't think there's any such word. Spell it," I said. "F-r-a-c-t-i-o-u-s."

"Frakshus," I said. "Tommy, what's the meaning?"

Tommy peered at the dictionary. "Apt to break out into a passion ... snappish, peevish, irritable, cross,'" he read. "'P-per-verse. Pettish.'"

"Isn't that just perfect?" I said. "Fractious," I repeated, relishing the bite of the f, teeth against lip. A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping. "Your turn, Jenny. Can you make a sentence from the word?"

Jenny bit her bottom lip. "It means cross?" she asked.

I nodded.

She frowned, then said, "Ma was fractious when she chucked the fry pan at me 'cause I knocked her whiskey bottle over."

"She chucked a fry pan at you?" Beth asked, wide-eyed. "Why'd she do that?"

"Because she was out of sorts," Abby said.

"Because she was drinking," Jenny said, licking bits of mush off her spoon.

Jenny Hubbard is only six years old, but the growing season is short in the North Woods, and children, like the corn, have to come up fast if they are to come up at all.

"Your mamma drinks whiskey?" Beth asked. "Mammas shouldn't drink whiskey—"

"Come on, Beth, let's go. We're going to be late," Abby said, hurrying her up from the table.

"Ain't you coming, Matt?" Beth asked.

"In a few minutes."

Books were gathered. Dinner pails, too. Abby bossed Lou and Beth into their coats. Tommy and Jenny ate silently. The shed door slammed. It was quiet. For the first time that morning. And then, "Matt? Come here a minute, will you?"

"What is it, Lou? I've got my hands full."

"Just come!"

I walked into the shed. Lou was standing there, ready to go, with Lawton's fishing pole in her hand.

"Lou, what are you doing?"

"Can't eat no more mush," she said. Then she took hold of my ear, pulled my face to hers, and kissed my cheek. Hard and sharp and quick. I could smell the scent of her—woodsmoke and cows and the spruce gum she was always chewing. The door slammed again and she was gone.

My other sisters, like me, take after our mother. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Lou takes after Pa. Lawton, too. Coal black hair, blue eyes. Lou acts like Pa, too. Angry all the time now. Since Mamma died. And Lawton went away.