A Northern Light(45)
I had heard enough. I got down off the step stool again and dragged it all the way across the room to the fireplace. The mantel was covered with figurines. An ormolu clock sat in the middle of them. I polished it viciously, for I was upset.
Where would Emmie get that kind of money? I wondered. I knew the answer: She wouldn't. Any one of her neighbors would've loaned it to her if they'd had it, but no one did. Aunt Josie did, though. She had twelve dollars and seventy cents, and plenty more besides. And if she really cared about Emmie Hubbard and her children, she could have given it to her. And if she'd really cared about me, she could have helped me get to New York City. But all she cared about was her damn figurines.
Emmie would lose her house and land, and the county would take her kids. I couldn't bear the thought of her children being taken and separated and farmed out to strangers. Especially Lucius, the baby, who was so small.
It was one more hard and hopeless thing, and I was tired of hard and hopeless things.
I finished polishing the clock and picked up one of the figurines next to it. It was in the shape of an angel and on the angel's gown were printed the words: ALMIGHTY GOD, GIVE US SERENITY TO ACCEPT WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED, COURAGE TO CHANGE WHAT SHOULD BE CHANGED, AND WISDOM TO KNOW THE ONE FROM THE OTHER.
What if you couldn't do that? Couldn't change things and couldn't accept them, either?
I took hold of the angel's head and snapped it off. And then I snapped one wing off, and then the other. I broke his arms off, too, and then I asked him how serene he was feeling now. I put the pieces in my pocket.
That got rid of most of my anger. I had to swallow what was left.
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"We could walk to Inlet and look in the window of O'Hara's," Ada Bouchard said. "They've got some pretty summer fabric just come in."
"Or hike up to Moss Lake," Abby said.
"Or Dart's Lake," Jane Miley said.
"We could go visit Minnie Compeau and see the babies," Frances Hill said.
"Or sit under the pines and read," I said.
"Read? On a day like today? You need your head checked, Mattie," Fran said. "Let's draw straws. Short one decides what we do."
We were all outside, clustered at the bottom of the Uncas Road. We were off on a jaunt, we just had to decide where. It was a warm and glorious spring afternoon, a Saturday. We'd all managed to escape chores and parents and little brothers and sisters, and we wanted to talk and laugh and be outside for a few hours.
Fran broke off some twigs from a bush, and made one shorter than the rest. We were about to start drawing them when my choice was suddenly made for me. A buckboard pulled up, one drawn by two bay horses.
"Well, Royal Loomis! What brings you this way?" Fran asked. She and Royal are cousins but look nothing alike. She has curly carrot-red hair and eyes the color of molasses. She is tiny. In the same way that a stick of dynamite is tiny.
I saw Ada tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear and Jane press her lips together to redden them.
Royal shrugged. "Went out for a ride and ended up here," he said.
"Come to gaze at the lake?" Fran teased.
"Something like that."
"How romantic."
"Ain't you got any work to do, Fran? Any children to scare or kittens to drown?"
"Well! I guess I know when I'm not wanted."
"Hardly. Hey, Matt, you feel like taking a ride?"
I almost fell over. "Me?" I said, shading my eyes to look up at him.
"Get in, will you?"
I looked at my friends, not quite sure what to do. Fran winked. "Go on!" she whispered. Jane looked at me like she'd never seen me before.
"Well ... yes, all right," I said, climbing up.
Royal snapped the reins as soon as I was settled. Jane leaned over to Ada and whispered something in her ear. I realized I would be a topic of conversation amongst my friends for the rest of the day if not the rest of the week. It was a strange feeling—worrisome and exciting all at once. Wexanxilicious?
Royal didn't say much as we rode west toward the entrance of the Big Moose Road. Nor did I. I was too busy trying to figure out what this sudden appearance of his was all about.
"Want to go to Higby's?" he eventually asked me. "Man who works at the boathouse is a friend. They're getting the boats ready for the season. He'll let us take a skiff" for free."
"All right," I said, thinking that this was all very odd. If it were some other girl, I'd have said Royal was sweet on her, but it was only me and I knew better. Then I had another thought. "Royal, don't you think you can kiss me again, or ... or anything else. I won't have it," I said.
He looked at me sideways. "All right, Matt, I won't. Not unless you want me to."
"I don't want you to. I mean it," I said. I'm not your batting practice, I thought. Someone to get it right with before you go see Martha Miller.
"Hey, Matt? How about we just go boating, huh?"
"All right, then."
"Good."
When we arrived at Higby's, Royal unhitched his team and put them in the corral. His friend let us have our pick of boats, and Royal rowed us out onto Big Moose and didn't do anything stupid or show-offy, like trying to stand up in the boat, and I sat facing him and let the perfection of a spring day in the North Woods take my breath away. When Royal got tired of rowing, we drifted awhile under some shaggy hemlocks leaning out from the shore. He didn't talk much, but he did point out a family of mallards, a pair of mergansers, and a blue heron. I watched him as he watched the heron take flight, his eyes never leaving it, and wondered if maybe I'd been wrong about him. I'd always thought him inarticulate, but maybe he had a different sort of eloquence. Maybe he appreciated things other than words—the dark beauty of the lake, for example, or the awesome majesty of the forest. Maybe his quietness masked a great and boiling soul.