A Northern Light(46)

It was a quaint notion and one he soon dispelled.

"Skunk et all my chicks last night," he said. "Guts and feathers all over the yard. They were mine, those chicks. Planned to raise 'em and sell 'em come fall."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Royal."

He sighed. "At least I've still got the hen. She oughta breed again, and if she don't, at least she'll fatten up nice. Make good eating."

"I'm sure she will."

"I'll miss that money, though. I'm saving up, trying to put some money aside for when I'm out on my own."

"Are you? What do you want to do?"

"Farm. Land's getting dear up here. A man's got to have a few dollars behind him nowadays. I'd like to have a going dairy concern. Maybe even my own cheese factory someday. A man could make a living out of cheese. It keeps."

He was silent for a few seconds, then he said, "You couldn't give me enough land, Matt. I'd want fifty acres just for my dairy herd. Fifty more for sheep. Twenty for corn, twenty for potatoes, and twenty for fruit. Why, you could keep every camp on the lake swimming in berries all summer long."

"Yes, you could," I said, trailing my hand in the lake. I shook the water off and shaded my eyes so I could see him better. He was leaning forward with his arms crossed over his knees. His face was in profile, but then he turned and smiled at me, and my breath caught and I wondered if this was how it felt to be pretty.

"You ever go berrying, Matt? I like to go in the evening, when it cools down and the crickets start singing. You ever notice how good everything smells then? I've been watching for the wild strawberries. Won't be too much longer now. Cultivated ones from the plants I put in a couple years back won't be ready till the end of June. Got tons from those plants last year. My pa took 'em with him on his milk rounds. Cook at Dart's said they were the sweetest she ever had. I'm going to use the money I make on 'em this year to buy more chickens. It's free money, the berry money. It's not even a chore to pick when you can be out in the fields at dusk..."

I realized that Royal Loomis was talking a blue streak. In fact, I'd never heard him talk so much in all the years I'd known him. I guess I never had him on the right topic. Start him off on farming and he waxed downright poetical. For the first time, I saw what was in his heart. And I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see what was in mine.

When he finished talking about chickens and cheese and berries, I took a turn talking. I talked about my exams and the grades I'd gotten, but I could tell he was bored. I talked about the book I was reading, but that bored him, too. So then I talked about Barnard. And how even though my aunt wouldn't loan me the money and my uncle had broken his promise to me and I knew I couldn't go, I still wished I could.

"You going to?" he asked me.

"I want to..."

"But why? Why would you want to do that? Go all the way to New York City just to read books?"

"So maybe I can learn how to write them someday, Royal. I told you this already," I said, suddenly wanting him to understand. Wanting it desperately. But he didn't even hear me; he was too busy talking.

"Why can't you read books right here? School's a waste of money and New York City's a dangerous place."

"Oh, never mind," I said crossly. "I wish I'd never told you. You don't even listen."

He moved forward in the boat until his knees touched mine. "I heard what you said, it just don't make sense. Why do you always want to read about other people's lives, Matt? Ain't your own good enough for you?"

I didn't reply to that because I knew my voice would quaver if I did. Turned out I didn't need to, because he kissed me. Even though I'd told him earlier that I didn't want him to. He kissed me and I kissed him back and that was reply enough.

Plain old kisses at first and then a real deep one. And then he put his arms around me and held me to him as best he could in a rowboat, and it felt so good. No one had so much as hugged me since my mamma died. I wished I had the words to describe how I felt. My word of the day, augur, which means to foretell things from omens, had nothing to do with it as far as I could see. I felt warm in his arms. Warm and hungry and blind.

He moved his hands to my breasts. He was more gentle this time than the time before, and his palms against me made me feel breathless, but I still pushed him away because it is so hard to always, always want the things you cannot have.

"Stop it, Royal. I'll jump out of the boat if you don't, I swear I will."

"Let me, Mattie," he whispered. "It's all right for a boy and girl to do that ... as long as they're sparking."

I pulled away from him. "Sparking?" I said, shocked. "That is news to me, Royal."

"Why else would I have taken you boating? And why did I kiss you in the woods when your cow got out? Why did I plow your field for you? For someone who reads so many books, you're awfully damned stupid."

"But, Royal ... I thought ... People said that you and Martha Miller were an item."

"People talk too much and so do you," he said. And then he kissed me again, and I tried to tell myself that none of this made any sense. He'd never shown a bit of interest in me unless I counted that one kiss he'd given me when Daisy got out, and now we were sparking. But his lips were sweeter than anything I'd ever tasted and his hands felt like comfort and danger all mixed up and I knew I should stop them, stop him, find my voice and tell him no. But then the warmth of him under my own hands, and the smell of him all soap and sweat, and the taste of him, overwhelmed me.