A Northern Light(40)

"Are you, dolly?"

"Yes, sir. My uncle promised to take me. He went to Old Forge this morning, but he's coming back tomorrow and then he's going to take me. Me and Lou both."

"Well, you'll have a fine time, I'm sure. That'll be ten cents."

Mr. Eckler asked her if she was going to see the two-headed man and the snake boy. She said she was going to see everything there was to see, her uncle Fifty said she could. I barely heard them. I was watching Royal. He was talking to John Denio, a teamster for the Glenmore. They were nodding and laughing. His smile was as warm as fresh biscuits on a winter morning. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Had someone that handsome really kissed me? I wondered. Or had I dreamed it? I found myself wishing that I was pretty like Martha Miller, so that he would kiss me again someday. And then I wondered if he'd miss me at all when I went away to college. And if maybe he'd want to write me and then I could write him back.

As I continued to moon, his mother climbed back into the buckboard and settled herself. Mr. Denio made small talk with them for a few more minutes, then headed toward the dock to pick up some guests. As soon as he left them, Mrs. Loomis fished in her pocket for the money Mr. Eckler had given her, then handed it to Royal. She said something to him, and he nodded and put the dollar bill in his pocket. And then she turned her head and looked all around herself and caught me watching. Her eyes narrowed, and if eyes could talk, hers would have said, "Mind your own damn business, Mattie Gokey" I thought it was very strange, as I did not care one hoot what Mrs. Loomis did with her egg money.

I watched them head up the drive and across the railroad tracks, and then Beth handed me a nickel change and we jumped down off the boat onto the dock.

"Tell your pa I should have his bacon by tomorrow, Mattie."

"I will, Mr. Eckler. Thanks."

We climbed into our buckboard and I told Pleasant to giddyap, and of course he didn't budge until I told him five more times and finally snapped him a good one with the reins. The ride home was uneventful, but when I turned the buckboard into our drive, I got quite a surprise. There was an automobile in it. A Ford. I knew who it belonged to. I maneuvered Pleasant around it, got the buckboard into the barn and Pleasant into the pasture, then went inside. When I opened the kitchen door, I saw Lou and Abby sitting on the staircase, leaning toward the wall.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Miss Wilcox is in the parlor with Pa," Abby whispered. "She brought your exam results. You got an A-plus on your English literature and composition tests, an A in history, a B in science, and a B-minus in mathematics. Her and Pa are talking about you. She says you have genius in you and that you got into college and that Pa should let you go."

"Jeezum, Matt, I didn't know you had a genius in you," Lou said, wide-eyed. "You kept him hid real good."

Lou's backhanded compliment didn't even register. My heart had sunk to someplace down around my ankles. Miss Wilcox meant well, I knew she did, but I also knew Pa. She'd never get him to say yes; she'd only rile him. Why, oh why, had she come today? Right before my uncle was due to give me the money? Tomorrow I wouldn't need Pa's say-so, because I'd have thirty dollars in my pocket and that was all the say-so anybody needed, but I didn't need him furious at me in the meantime.

I sat down next to Lou on the step below Abby. Beth sat below us and passed out candy as if we were all spectators at some theater show. I had no appetite for sweets just then. I was busy straining my ears, trying to hear what was being said.

"...she's gifted, Mr. Gokey. She has a unique voice. An artist's voice. And she could make something more of herself, much more, if she were allowed—"

"She don't need to make something more. She's fine as she is. There ain't a thing wrong with her."

"She could be a writer, sir. A real one. A good one."

"She's already a writer. She writes stories and poems in them notebooks of hers all the time."

"But she needs the challenge of a real college curriculum, and the guidance of talented teachers, to improve. She needs exposure to emerging voices, to criticism and theory. She needs to be around people who can nurture her talent and develop it."

There was a silence. As I sat there on the stairs, I could picture my father's face. There would be anger on it as there so often is, but underneath it, there would be uncertainty and the painful shyness he has around educated people and their big words. My heart suddenly turned traitor on me, and I wanted to take Miss Wilcox by the arm and drag her out of the parlor and tell her to leave my pa alone.

"She wants to go, Mr. Gokey. Very badly," Miss Wilcox said.

"Well, I blame you for that, ma'am. You went and put ideas in her head. I haven't got the money to send her. And even if I did, why would I send my girl where she don't know anyone? Away from her home and her family, with nobody to look after her?"

"She's a sensible young woman. She would get along fine in New York. I know she would."

"She's got a flighty streak in her. Got it from her mamma. She was flighty, too."

"Mrs. Gokey never gave me that impression."

"Well, she was. When she was younger. Round Mattie's age. It's what got her married to me. It's what got her sixty acres of stumps and rocks, and a headstone at thirty-seven."