The Silent Boy

Page 13

But when I slipped through the partly opened door, I saw it wasn't Jacob at all, but Paul and Nellie standing close together. I thought they were holding hands, but when I entered they pulled apart. Paul explained quickly that they had come over to borrow some harness oil. It looked like rain, he said, and they wanted to waterproof some old harness so it wouldn't crack. He turned and picked up the can from the shelf. Nellie didn't say anything. She looked flushed and nervous.
At first I thought it quite romantic and was glad I was part of their sweet secret now. From time to time I saw the two of them together, sometimes simply talking on the porch, and once on the corner near the grocery store, as if Paul had happened by as Nellie was starting home.
But my knowledge of their romance turned uncomfortable after I came on them in the Bishops barn one afternoon when I was looking for Austin and thought he might be hiding from me. When I opened the barn door I could see right away that Austin wasn't tthere.But I heard a sudden frantic whispering from the corner where the hay was kept, so I went there without thinking, to see who it was and why they were hiding. They drew apart quickly, and Paul stood up. Nellie turned her back to me as if to fix her clothes. Paul was angry and told me to get lost. Nellie just looked away. There was hay caught in her red hair. Her apron was untied and her shirtwaist had come loose from her skirt.
My feelings changed then, though I wasn't sure why. It no longer felt romantic. Now it felt wrong and dangerous.
And by that day, the day of the camera, I felt that I didn't like Austin's brother. I had never paid much attention to Paul and his antics before, not really, though I had heard his mother complain to mine that he was wild. He wasn't being wild that day, just foolish, and I could see that Nell enjoyed it and was flattered.
But I could see, also, what she didn't: that he was mocking her in a cruel and secret way. "Who's first?" Mr. Bishop called suddenly, interrupting everyone but Laura Paisley and Pepper. The two mothers went right on talking on the porch.
"Me!" Austin shouted. Secretly, I wanted his father to take my picture, but I could never shout like that.
But Mr. Bishop paid no attention to Austin at all. He turned toward Nell and Peggy, now side by side next to the garden with its early spring flowers. In their Sunday church clothes, they were as colorful as Mrs. Bishop's tall tulips.
"Ladies?" Mr. Bishop said. "Let's have a photograph of the two lovely sisters."
Even Nell, usually so sure of herself, turned a little shy. She and Peggy were silent, but they reached out and put their arms around each other's waists. Then they smiled toward Mr. Bishop. "Hold still," he said, and squeezed the bulb attached to his large camera. I watched as they stood, arms linked, holding still. Nell was taller, almost womanly, and her dress was more grown up. Peggy still looked like what she was: a very young girl with a ribbon in her hair. With his black folding box and its magical lens, Austin's father captured the two of them in that moment when the sun was shining and they had dreams, still, and thought that their lives could be what they shaped.
I have that photograph today, for Mr. Bishop gave us a copy of it. When I look at it, I am aware that it was the last time, that day in the Bishops garden, that all of us were together and happy.
12. JULY 1911
Father took me with him in the buggy when he went to check on Mrs. Shafer's newborn twins, and he let Jessie go along this time. She and I sat one on either side of Father.
"Look!" I said to Jessie, and pointed, as we approached the Stoltz farm, which we had to pass on our way to the Shafers'. "That's Peggy's house! And Nellie's. That's where they grew up. They shared a bedroom on the second floor, but now it belongs to their sister, Anna."
"I wish I had a sister," Jessie said, frowning. "Even a little baby one like you have would be better than none at all."
"Maybe someday you will," I suggested.
Jessie rolled her eyes. "My mother says absolutely not." I could see my father smile at that.
"Oh, look! Can you slow the horses, Father?" We were passing the large field beside the Stoltz farmhouse, and I could see Mr. Stoltz working his rig in the field, and Jacob behind him, helping.
"It'll be a good year for them," Father said. "They'll get a second hay crop in, with the first one this early."
"That horse's name is Punch," I told Jessie. "Peg told me, the day that she took me to the farm and her brother gave me the kitten."
"Punch? What kind of name is that?" Jessie wrinkled her nose.
"They had a Judy, too, but she died. Punch and Judy."
"Is that boy Peggy's brother?" Jessie asked, looking toward the field.
"Yes. His name is Jacob. He's almost fourteen." I waved to Jacob. "He's a good friend of mine," I added, feeling important to have such a friend, a half-grown boy. Austin played with Jessie and me, but older boys ignored us; or worse, like Paul Bishop, they made fun, and called us babies.
Father slowed our own horses and tipped his hat to Mr. Stoltz, who looked over and nodded without slowing his work.
Jacob seemed to be looking at us but did not wave back or nod his head the way his father had. Mrs. Stoltz and Anna were nowhere in sight, and I thought they must be in the house. There was washing on their line. Back at our house, in town, there was washing on our line, too. Peggy had been up early that morning, doing laundry.
Father jiggled the reins and the horses trotted ahead.
"We have more laundry than they do," I commented, "because of Mary. What a chore a baby is."
Father laughed. "Wait until you see what things are like at the Shafers house, with those twins just born. You'll be glad we have only Mary to tend."
The Stoltz farm was slipping out of sight behind us. I shaded my eyes with my hand, looked back, and could see Jacob still, cap clamped on his head.
"He didn't even wave at you," Jessie commented. "I thought you said he was your friend. If I saw a friend go past, I would wave. I would call out 'Hello!' and I would watch and watch until my friend disappeared down the road. I would be waving the whole time."
"Well, Jacob forgets his manners," I explained, trying to excuse him.
Father chuckled. "The Stoltz boy is somewhat different, Jessie. He does things his own way."
"Very talented, too," I added, to impress Jessie. "He can do imitations of almost anything. He's probably making the clickety-clickety noise of that hay cutter right now. Don't you think so, Father?"
"I expect so. It's quite a feat, to imitate sounds the way he does."
"Listen!" Jessie commanded. "I can imitate a chickadee." She began to make the chick-a-dee-dee-dee sound over and over. I could even see the horses twitch their ears a bit. They were accustomed to me and Father and our quiet talk. But Jessie called out, imitating different birds, and wiggled in her seat until Father had to put his hand on her to keep her still. I was glad when finally we reached the Shafers' farm over the hill, brought the horses to a stop in their dooryard, and Father lifted Jessie and me both down. Two little boys were playing there together, lifting rocks into a wooden wagon.
"Hello, Benny," Father said. "Hello, William. How are you boys? Do you like your new babies?"
One boy, busy stacking the rocks in some kind of pattern, ignored him completely. The other scowled and shook his head no.
"Well," said Father, "I'll go in and ask your mother if she d like to send them back." Laughing, he led Jessie and me to the door, just as it was opened by Mrs. Shafer.
"What are their names?" Jessie asked. "And are they boys or girls? And why don't they have any hair?"
I thought she was rude, but Mrs. Shafer didn't seem to mind. She smiled. "One of each," she said. "No names yet. And as for hair—well, maybe they take after their father."
The two bald babies were both asleep, lying side by side on the kitchen table, where she had placed them for my father to make his examination. Father, opening his bag in the corner of the room, looked over with a smile. "Ben had plenty of hair once, Harriet," he said to Mrs. Shafer. "When we were boys in school together, he had a full head. Curly, if I remember it right.
"I seem to recall that the girls admired that hair quite a bit," he went on, in a teasing voice. "Can't think why he lost it so early. Haven't you been treating him right?"
He turned his attention to the babies, unwrapping the blanket from one and moving its arms and legs gently up and down, bending and unbending them. I watched while he leaned over with his stethoscope and listened to the baby's heart, holding the instrument gently against the tiny chest. I could see the baby's ribs.
I knew enough not to speak while he was listening, but when Father stood back, I whispered to him. "That baby's smaller than Mary was when she was born. They both are."
"Much smaller," he agreed. "Twins usually are. And these two were born early. We feared for them, didn't we, Harriet?"
Mrs. Shafer nodded. "That's why they have no names yet. I didn't want to give names only to see them carved on gravestones."
Father was leaning over the second twin now, looking closely at it, moving its arms and legs, listening to it breathe. I watched as he measured both of their heads. Then carefully he rewrapped them both in their blankets, despite the warm kitchen on this hot July day. He picked them up one at a time, and I could see him thinking as he held them."They're each more than four pounds, Harriet," he said, after he laid them back down. "Well more. Close to five, I'd say. That many pounds of potatoes would feed your family a good meal, mashed with butter and cream."
"They're eating good," Mrs. Shafer told him.
"I can see that. They're going to make it. Time to give them names. And you, Harriet? Are you eating? Not working too hard? Does Ben help with the boys?"
"He does. It lets me lie down a bit now and then."
Father looked around the kitchen, at the diapers soaking in a washtub, the pot of something simmering on the wood stove, the broom leaning against the wall in the corner. "Let's put these little no-names back in their cradles, Harriet, and if you come with me into the other room I'll take a listen to your heart as well. Girls? Can we trust you to stay out of mischief? Or maybe you'd like to wash those diapers?"
He was looking at Jessie and me, and I would have been insulted, because he knew I would never be mischievous on a house call. But I understood that he was warning me to keep Jessie out of things. We nodded and agreed to be good, squinching our noses at the mention of the diapers. Then he and Mrs. Shafer each picked up a baby. They seemed as tiny as kittens and just as quiet. Father carried his bag in his other hand and followed Mrs. Shafer down the hall.
"Why does he wear that hat on such a hot day?" Jessie asked me. She wandered around the kitchen, examining the blue and white dishes arranged on a shelf.
"Father? He wears a straw hat. It isn't hot. It keeps the sun from his eyes. Your father wears one, too. I've seen him."
"No, that boy," Jessie said impatiently. "The one in the field."
"Sit down, Jessie. Don't be touching things."