A Northern Light(7)

It wasn't the idea of strange men that bothered Pa. That was just an excuse. He knew all the hotel people, knew most of them ran respectable places. It was the idea of somebody else leaving him. I wanted to argue, to make him see reason. But his jaw was set firm, and I saw a little muscle jumping in his cheek. Lawton used to make that muscle jump. Last time he did, Pa swung a peavey at him and he ran off, and no one heard from him for months. Until a postcard came from Albany.

I finished the dishes without a word and left for the Hubbards'. My feet were as heavy as two blocks of ice. I wanted to earn money. Desperately. I had a plan. Well, more a dream than a plan, and the Glenmore was only part of it. But I wasn't feeling very hopeful about it just then. If Pa said no to the Glenmore, which was only a few miles up the road, what on earth would he say to New York City?





abe ? ce ? dar ? i ? an


If spring has a taste, it tastes like fiddleheads. Green and crisp and new. Mineralish, like the dirt that made them. Bright, like the sun that called them forth. I was supposed to be picking them, me and Weaver both. We were going to fill two buckets—split one for ourselves and sell one to the chef over at the Eagle Bay Hotel—but I was too busy eating them. I couldn't help it. I craved something fresh after months of old potatoes, and beans from a jar.

"Choofe...," I tried to say, but my mouth was full. "Weba ... choofe a wurb..."

"My mamma's pig's got better manners. Why don't you swallow first?" Weaver said.

I did. But not before I'd chewed some more, and licked my lips and rolled my eyes and grinned. Fiddleheads are that good. Pa and Abby like them best fried up with sweet butter, salt, and black pepper, but I like them best right out of the ground.

"Choose a word, Weaver," I finally said. "Winner reads, loser picks."

"Are you two fooling again?" Minnie asked. She was sitting near us on a rock. She was in the family way and was very fat and grumpy.

"We're dueling, not fooling, Mrs. Compeau," Weaver replied. "It's a very serious business, and we would appreciate quiet from the seconds."

"Give me a bucket, then. I'm starving."

"No. You're eating everything we pick," Weaver said.

She turned her hangdog eyes on me. "Please, Mattie?" she wheedled.

I shook my head. "Dr. Wallace said you were to take exercise, Min. He said it would do you good. Get down and pick your own fiddleheads."

"But, Matt, I took my exercise already. I walked all the way up here from the lake. I'm tired..."

"Minnie, we're trying to duel here, if you don't mind," Weaver huffed.

Minnie grumbled and sighed. She lumbered off the rock and crouched down amongst the fiddleheads, snapping off one after another. She ate them fast, shoving them into her mouth with the heel of her hand, not even taking time to taste them. Watching her, I had the funniest notion that if I came too near, she would growl at me. She didn't used to like fiddleheads, but that was before she started growing a baby and eating everything in sight. She'd told me she'd licked a lump of coal once when no one was looking. And sucked a nail.

Weaver flipped open the book he was holding. His eyes lit on a word. "Iniquitous," he said, slapping the book closed. We stood back-to-back, cocking the thumbs on our right hands and sticking out our pointer fingers to make guns.

"To the death, Miss Gokey," he said solemnly.

"To the death, Mr. Smith."

"Minnie, you give the orders."

"No. Its silly."

"Come on. Just do it."

"Count off," Minnie sighed.

We walked away from each other, counting off paces. At ten, we turned.

"Draw." She yawned.

"It's supposed to be to the death, you know, Minnie. You could make an effort," Weaver said.

Minnie rolled her eyes. "Draw!" she shouted.

We did.

"Fire!"

"Evil!" Weaver yelled.

"Immoral!" I shouted.

"Sinful!"

"Wrong!"

"Unrighteous!"

"Unjust!"

"Wicked!"

"Corrupt!"

"Nefarious!"

" 'Nefarious'? Jeezum, Weaver! Urn ... urn ... hold on, I have one..."

"Too late, Matt. You're dead," Minnie said.

Weaver smirked at me and blew on the tip of his finger. "Start picking," he said. He made a cushion out of his jacket and settled himself down with The Count of Monte Cristo, folding his long grasshopper legs underneath him. One bucket alone was a lot to fill, never mind two. And Minnie would be no help. She'd already waddled back to her rock. I should have known better than to challenge Weaver to a word duel. He always won.

Picking fiddleheads was only one of our moneymaking schemes. If it wasn't fiddleheads we were gathering, it was wild strawberries or blueberries or lumps of spruce gum. Wed end up with ten cents here, a quarter there. Twenty-five cents seemed like a fortune to me when all I wanted was a bag of chocolate babies or a licorice rope, but not anymore. I needed money. Quite a bit. New York City, people said, was very expensive. Last November I had five whole dollars, which was only one dollar and ninety cents shy of a train ticket to Grand Central Station. Miss Wilcox entered a poem of mine in a contest sponsored by the Utica Observer. I got my name in the paper, and my poem, too, and I won five dollars.