A Northern Light(84)

Weaver thought about this, then said, "Heathcliff is both. He's more than both. So's Rochester. You never know what they're going to do." He looked at me. "This is about Emmie, isn't it? You don't know what to make of her now."

"No, I don't."

Emmie Hubbard had us all puzzled. She had taken Weaver's mamma in and refused to even hear of her going to Mrs. Loomis's or Mrs. Burnap's or anywhere else. She'd tucked her up in her own bed and tended to her. She'd even had the presence of mind, on the day the Smiths' house burned, to make her kids pluck and clean all the chickens the trappers had killed, right away. She made stew out of a few, fried a few more, and sold the rest to the Eagle Bay Hotel before they went bad. She used the money she got from them to pay Dr. Wallace for setting Weaver's mamma's arm.

"I can't figure it out, Weaver," I said. "I saw my pa this morning when he was delivering. He said the Hubbard kids haven't been over for breakfast since the fire."

"Cook says she saw Emmie at the train station the other day. Selling pies and biscuits. She told Cook my mamma told her what to do, and she did it."

"I don't know. Maybe she likes being the strong one for a change. Maybe she never had a chance to be that," I said, kicking at the water. "Or maybe she just got tired of being the town fruitcake. Probably wears a body out after a while."

Weaver laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. I could tell.

His mamma had lost her house. And some had said it was his fault for going to the justice. They said none of it would have ever happened if he'd just stepped aside for those trappers in the first place and kept his big mouth shut.

Mr. Austin Klock, the undersheriff, came up from Herkimer to investigate the fire. By the time he left, those three men had a whole new list of charges against them in addition to the ones Weaver originally filed. No one really thought they'd ever be made to answer them. They hadn't been seen since the day Weaver's house burned. Mr. Klock himself said that it would be next to impossible to catch three trappers who knew every tree, rock, and hidey-hole in the North Woods. He said they were probably halfway to Canada already, fixing to have themselves a time with Weaver's college money.

Weaver had hardly eaten since the fire. Or spoken. Or smiled.

"Cook's got a piece of pie for you. Coconut cream. Your favorite," I told him. He didn't say anything.

"Did I tell you my word of the day? Its leporine. It means like a rabbit."

He toed the water.

"You could use it to describe someone with buck-teeth, maybe. Or a twitchy nose. It's an interesting word, leporine."

No reply.

"I guess it's not so interesting."

"I'm staying on here, Matt," he finally said. "After Labor Day. I just talked to Mr. Morrison. He said he'd have work for me."

"How can you do that?" I asked. "You have to be in New York well before Labor Day. Don't your classes start the first week of September?"

"I'm not going."

"What?" wondered if I'd heard him right.

"I'm not going to Columbia. Not until my mamma's well. I can't leave her now. Not all by herself."

"She's not all by herself. She has Emmie looking after her."

"For how long? It's only another month or so before Emmie's land is auctioned. And besides, I don't have the money now for my room or train fare or books or any of it."

"What about your wages? Haven't you been saving them?"

"I'll need them to pay for a room for Mamma and me. My house burned down, remember?"

"But Weaver, what about your scholarship? Won't you lose it?"

"There's always next fall. I'm sure I could get them to hold it over for a year," he said, but I could hear in his voice that even he didn't believe it.

I did not cry when Miss Wilcox left. Or when Martha Miller said such mean things to me. I did not cry when Pa knocked me out of my chair, and I don't cry in my bed at night when I think about Barnard. But I cried then. Like a baby. I cried as if someone died.

Someone had.

I could see him in my mind's eye—a tall, proud black man in a suit and tie. He was dignified and fearsome. He was a man who could cut down a roomful of other men with only the brilliance of his words. I saw him walking down a city street, brisk and solemn, a briefcase under his arm. He glanced at me, walked up a flight of stone steps, and disappeared.

"Oh!" I sobbed. "Oh, Weaver, no!"

"Matt, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked.

I scrambled to my feet. I couldn't bear it. To think of him stuck here. Working in a dining room or a tannery or up at a lumber camp. Day after day. Year after year. Until he was old and used up and all his dreams were dead.

"Go, Weaver, just go!" I cried. "I'll look out for your mamma. Me and Royal and Minnie and Jim and Pa and Mrs. Loomis. All of us. We will. Just go! Before you're stuck here forever. Like an ant in pitch."

Like me.





It must be after four o'clock now. I haven't been able to go back to sleep. Not since Grace came to visit me. The sky outside my window is still dark, but I can hear the rustlings of night creatures seeking their beds and the first, questing chirrups of the birds.