“That’s enough talk about being dead,” said Aunt Agnes. “You need to rest, allow yourself to mend.”
Sam patted Donut’s shoulder in that way he had, all stiff and fumbling. Tiny gave her a gentle punch on the arm and they both left.
Aunt Agnes spent the rest of the day fussing over Donut. She filled the copper bath with hot water and Donut had a good scrub and got into a clean nightgown. Her slippers had burnt up along with Chanticleer, so Aunt Agnes gave her a pair of black socks from her workbasket. They were soft and warm. Probably made the men in the Soldiers’ Home happy just to pull on a pair.
Aunt Agnes doctored the cuts on Donut’s knees and thumb and the bramble scratches on her cheek and hands. She brushed out Donut’s hair and fed her toast with butter and jam. They sat in front of the fire in the parlor, Donut sleeping, Aunt Agnes knitting a gray sock.
Every so often Donut woke and the whole night came back, full of the howling of the fire and crashing of the roof, and her auntie would look up and order her back to sleep. She did what she was told.
It was dark when Donut woke again to the click-clack of Aunt Agnes’s knitting needles filling the room. Her head wasn’t stuffed with cotton anymore and she needed to stretch her legs, but she stayed still, listening. A few days ago she would have gritted her teeth at the sound. If she’d had half a chance she would have taken an ax to those knitting needles. She peeked over at her auntie. Sam just happened to be right this time around. Aunt Agnes wasn’t such a bad egg after all. But now that Donut was clearheaded and rested up, there wasn’t going to be any more tucking her in and monkeying around with her hair.
“I’m better, Auntie. Loads better,” she said.
“About slept the day away,” said Aunt Agnes.
Donut was quiet and the click-clack started up again. Her auntie had her matter-of-fact voice back. Donut didn’t have to worry about getting her afghan tucked in again or her hair pushed back under her mother’s sleeping cap. That worked out just fine and dandy for her, since she didn’t go in for being fussed with by anybody. But it was all different now. The two of them had gone through a spring melt—all the frostiness was gone. They could get on now. It took burning down Marcel’s camp to melt all that ice, but there it was.
“Auntie, why is it you send socks to the Soldiers’ Home?”
Aunt Agnes stopped knitting and gazed over at Donut. “Your uncle Brodie’s in the home. He’s our only brother, the youngest. Until he was old enough to fend us off, your mother, Jo, and I dressed him up, treated him like a porcelain doll. He was on the Western Front in the Great War, in the trenches. Shell-shocked. Never the same. Falls apart with the noises and the great whir of the world. I knit the socks for all the men there. Jo and I visit him when we can. It’s a sad place, the Soldiers’ Home.”
“That’s awful, Auntie. I never knew I had an uncle.”
The click-clack of the needles started up again.
“Pops was in the war,” said Donut after a minute. “He never talked about it.”
“Yes, dear, I know. We had you in Boston for the year he was overseas.”
“What?” Donut sat up, pushed the afghan off, and stared at her aunt.
“You wouldn’t remember, being just a year old. A holy terror when you started in walking. Jo and I had to watch you like a hawk.” Aunt Agnes smiled.
“Pops never told me that. And Sam must have known. How come none of you ever said I already lived a year in Boston?”
“It was a sad time. Full of worry, and no news for weeks. And then Brodie came home, not a scratch on him, just nineteen years old but with the eyes of an old man. Not a year any of us like to talk about.” Aunt Agnes smiled. “You called me Aggie.”
Aggie. Donut tried to picture it, her aunties and her.
“Auntie, I’m gonna have to tell Marcel what I did to his cabin,” she said.
Aunt Agnes stopped knitting and looked up. “I expect he’s heard the news,” she said. “The way gossip spreads in this village, he probably knew before you made it home.”
“I’ll have to go talk to him tomorrow.”
“Yes, I just guess you will.”
Donut pulled the afghan tight and gazed out the window at the moon, just rising. “I saw a bear, Auntie.”
“Good lord, that shack burning down around your ears wasn’t enough?”
“I left him an apple. He sat in the moonlight and ate it. After the fire, in the woods, when I was so cold and about ready to just curl up in the roots of the old maple, I thought my bear would carry me home.”
“Well, then, sounds like that bear kept your spirits up. I’m beholden to the creature.” Aunt Agnes smiled and went back to her knitting.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” said Donut. “I’m gonna make myself some Ovaltine.”
Aunt Agnes looked up, studied Donut awhile. They studied each other.
“That would be nice,” she said.
21
Donut set out for Marcel’s after a late breakfast. She carried a burlap bag over her shoulder.
Tails wagging, Lafayette and Rochambeau escorted her down the long rutted trail. Marcel was sitting on the porch reading the Gazette. He didn’t smile when he caught sight of her, just set the paper down. Donut swallowed hard, and stepped up onto the porch, the Generals leaping and jumping around.
She started right in, fast, hardly breathing. “I should have asked you. Had no business using your camp without your say-so. And I burned it down. Right to the ground. I’m really sorry.”
He stood, a grim look on his face. “Get over here, girl.”
Donut wanted to run, but she didn’t. She set her bag down on the bench and walked over to him, fists clenched, eyes squinched. Marcel reached down and picked her right up off the porch. His hands fit almost clear around her waist. Her feet dangled off the ground. She had no time to react. He leaned in and gave her a big smooch on each cheek and plunked her back down on the porch. Donut stumbled a little.
Marcel sat back down in his chair. “The Generals and I are glad you’re alive.”
“I’m sorry, Marcel.”
He looked at her hard. Waited.
“I knew all along. Shouldn’t have kept the stove so hot with that old pipe, but it was rainy and it got real cold.”
“You should not have been there in the first place.”
“I know, and I’ll never do anything like that again.”
“Words are easy. Time will tell.”
Marcel stroked Lafayette’s long back.
Donut dug the blackened Ovaltine can out of her sack. Tiny had brought it over when she was still sound asleep. Aunt Agnes said he’d hiked out to Dog Pond and searched the ruins of Chanticleer before morning milking.
Donut handed Marcel the can. “Here’s four dollars and eighty-seven cents. I figure some of the girls at my auntie’s school might be interested in starting up a weekly poker game. I’ll send you all my winnings. Promise.”
Marcel smiled just a little. “Your tante might have something to say about the poker playing. But I’ll hold you to that promise. Now, we are done. No more talk of this.”
Donut sat down on the porch steps and put her arms around Rochambeau. They visited for a while and she told Marcel about the Nehi and the bear and the notch-eared mouse.
“He’s fine, your friend the mouse,” said Marcel, filling his pipe. “Any creature with a brain skedaddles if he smells smoke. And you’ve got to consider that notch in his ear. Got out of trouble once before. An exceptionally clever mouse.”
The Generals walked her back to the road. She waved goodbye and headed home.
Tiny met her hiking up the hill.
“Thanks for finding my money.”
“That was all that was left. How’d it go with Marcel?”
“Glad it’s over. He was a peach in the end,” said Donut.
Tiny wasn’t throwing rocks. That’s how she knew.
“Winnie’s gone, isn’t she?”
Tiny stopped walkin
g and looked at his boots. “My dad put her down two days ago.”
Donut grabbed his big hand and gave it a squeeze. He shook his head. “That cow just got ahold of me. Don’t know why.”
They started walking again. Donut didn’t know how she was going to tell him. Tell him she was leaving.
“Tiny,” she said.
He gave her a punch on the arm. “I know. Saw you with your auntie the other night. You’re going, aren’t you?”
“You’re my best friend,” said Donut, trying to find the words. “I’ll miss you something awful, and I’m sorry I’m leaving now, with Winnie gone.”
“Won’t be the same without you,” said Tiny. He leaned over and picked up a rock and stuffed it in his pocket. “Hey, I gotta get home—chores.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
She stood watching Tiny hike up Slapp Hill Road and let the tears drip down her cheeks for a while.
“Staying or going. It stinks both ways,” she said to herself. Donut wiped her face with her coat sleeve and started walking home.
Aunt Agnes was in the kitchen chopping turnips. Turnips.
“How was your visit?”
“We worked it out.” Donut sat at the table and fidgeted with the pepper shaker. “Auntie, I don’t want to go.”
Aunt Agnes came over and sat down. “I know. But there’s just no other way. I have to get back. Already I’ve been away too long.”
“It’s not the same now, my not wanting to go. I’m kind of scared of Boston and the school and all of it being different, but a little excited, too. It’s losing Sam and Tiny. The whole village.”
Aunt Agnes nodded. They sat quietly for a while at the table.
“I’ll be leaving Pops, too. He’s here, everywhere.”
Donut picked at the scab on her thumb. The Nehi was still here, too, sitting quietly at the bottom of Dog Pond. She’d never get her boat back. She’d never get her village back, either, not like it was before, because she wasn’t going to get her pops back. Aunt Agnes reached out and took ahold of both of her hands. “It’s hard to lose people.”
Her auntie got up and started in chopping again. She didn’t try to sugarcoat any of it. She was like that—honest. Donut figured if she was going to let someone take charge of her again, Aunt Agnes wasn’t such a bad choice.
“You know, Auntie, I don’t like turnips. Not one bit.”
“Well, why on earth didn’t you tell me that before? I’ve been feeding you turnips for weeks.” And then Aunt Agnes started in laughing—the very first time Donut had heard her laugh.
“I don’t like oatmeal much, either.”
Aunt Agnes laughed harder. Donut grinned at her auntie and her auntie grinned back with the all-out truthfulness of a dog’s tail wagging. Donut knew right then that it was going to be okay.
* * *
The night before she and Aunt Agnes were getting on the train to Boston, Donut hiked down the hill to Sam’s.
Wally and Pete appeared, tearing up the hill toward her.
“Hey, boys,” she said.
“Got something for you,” said Wally. He handed her a slingshot.
“Applewood,” said Pete.
“It’s a beauty,” said Donut.
She fingered the smooth wood, perfectly balanced with a slice of rubber inner tube threaded through holes drilled in the ends.
“Made it special for you to have in the city,” said Wally. “For protection, what with all the shootouts and car chases.”
“I think that’s just in the moving pictures,” said Donut, laughing. “But it should come in handy when I wanna stir things up in my aunties’ school.”
They grinned.
“Good luck,” said Wally.
“Yeah, good luck,” said Pete.
“Thanks, and for the bacon and eggs, too.”
The boys turned and raced down the hill.
As Donut neared Sam’s house she heard a ruckus in the dooryard. In the fading light Marcel and Tiny were busy strapping down an enormous wooden crate in the bed of Sam’s truck.
“That should hold,” said Tiny.
“Guess you know your onions,” said Marcel, laughing.
Tiny led Donut over to the side of the house. A rough opening the size of a barn door was cut right out of the parlor wall. A wooden ramp ran up to the opening.
“Thought we’d bring the whole house down,” he said. “Slid the crate with old Ichabod inside right down the ramp.”
A huge pile of what used to be part of Sam’s house sat off to the side. Donut leaned down and picked up a scrap of the parlor wallpaper—all violets and roses.
“Says he’s gonna have a proper door installed so he won’t have any troubles in the future.”
While Tiny checked the crate with Marcel, Donut went into Sam’s house through the front door. She stood in the mudroom surrounded by his flock. Her red-winged blackbird was on the top shelf next to Arthur. She couldn’t have left it on her workbench, just the skin, emptied out. In between packing and goodbyes, she’d worked with Sam to build an armature, perch her blackbird on a bulrush, wings spread ready to leap into the air and fly.
“You’ve got a new flock now,” she whispered to the blackbird. “Take care of them all, Arthur.”
They played poker until late into the night. Donut had special permission from Aunt Agnes as long as Tiny walked her home. Her auntie didn’t trust the dark now that she’d learned there were bears roaming around. She’d loaned Donut a poker stake of fifty cents since she’d given all her money to Marcel.
Tiny and Donut were quiet on the walk back. At the door he gave her a sock on the arm.
“You sure about this? We could come up with another plan.”
“I don’t want to go to Boston,” said Donut, looking up at Tiny. “I want everything to be the way it was before. But I’ll be all right with my aunties. And you know I’ll be back to stay with Sam for all of July.”
Tiny nodded.
“Look out for him ’til then,” said Donut.
“Yeah.”
Donut reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the seashell that had always sat on her windowsill in her room. She put it in his hand.
“This is for you, Tiny. Anytime you want, you can listen to the ocean. Pops found it ages ago.”
Tiny studied the shell and put it against his ear. He got a faraway look on his face. “I can hear it. Waves.”
“Aunt Agnes said you should come visit. We can go to a real beach and a baseball game, too. At Fenway Park.”
“I’m gonna miss you something terrible,” said Tiny.
“Me, too,” said Donut.
They stood there in the doorway for a good while. Tiny fingered the shell in his right hand. Donut got up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek, backed off, and grabbed for the doorknob.
She turned and hurried into the house.
* * *
Marcel drove them to the train station the next morning with all their bags and boxes, including Donut’s mother’s hope chest. Donut had given Sam all her practice specimens except one. The very last mouse she’d stitched up was carefully wrapped in red flannel at the bottom of her mother’s chest. It was the closest she’d gotten to alive—the glass eyes lined up so perfectly, that little mouse was ready to scamper back into its nest somewhere in the kitchen cupboards.
Mrs. Lamphere had made up a lunch for them along with a sack of gingersnaps. Doris had given Donut the latest issue of True Confessions to read on the train.
“You’ve just got to write me long letters. Tell me all about the city.”
“I will. I promise,” said Donut.
Sam had gone ahead in his truck. When they’d said their goodbyes to Marcel, Agnes and Donut joined Sam on the platform.
“Hey, Sam. Is Ichabod all settled in?” said Donut.
“Built the crate double strong. But I’m glad to have you as an escort for the old fellow, at least until he changes trains in Boston. House
feels empty without him, and it was a little cold this morning with the breeze blowing in.”
She put her arms around him and breathed in the sweet smell of his pipe tobacco.
“I’m gonna miss you,” he said, patting her shoulder. “But you’ll be back this summer.”
“Bye, Sam,” said Donut, her voice muffled in his jacket. “You’re a swell godfather.”
She stepped back a few steps and he scrubbed at his hair and smiled.
“Thank you,” said Aunt Agnes. “For looking out for our girl here.”
* * *
They settled into their seats on the train. For a long while, Donut sat very still, tears dripping off her chin. Her auntie patted her knee and gave her a handkerchief.
It was a long trip, with lots of stops and starts. Aunt Agnes’s knitting needles kept up a steady click-clack. Donut studied the towns along their route in her brand-new Rand McNally World Atlas, third edition. She smiled at the thought of Ichabod standing in the dark crate in the baggage car at the end of the train.
Donut laid her head against the window, closed her eyes, and whispered, “Cobden, Hardwick, Walden, Danville, Saint Johnsbury, Wells River, Lakeport, Concord, Manchester, Nashua, Lowell, Boston. Got it.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to my Vermont students and friends for deepening my understanding of life in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont: Betty and Bill Corrow, Dean Stratton and his unforgettable mom, Mary, Jan Howard, Laurie Heath, Joe Williams, Levi Chase, Kory and Kolin Barclay, Braiden and Garrett Mayo and Caitlyn Frost. The Vermont State Library and The Vermont Historical Society provided invaluable research materials. Thanks to the librarians and staff.
Vermont College of Fine Arts is an extraordinary place to learn and grow as a writer. Thank you to the entire VCFA community and especially my graduating class, the Sweet Dreamers and my advisors—Julie Larios, Sarah Ellis, Leda Schubert and Rita Williams Garcia. Many thanks to Shelley Tanaka, Dana Walrath, Sarah Aronson, Anne Cardinal, Margaret Bechard, Sharon Darrow and Alan Cumyn for valuable feedback and to Elizabeth Law for telling me to finish the book. My retreat buddies, Jessica Dils and Mima Tipper, you are wonderful readers and steady friends. Tod Olson, Laura McCaffrey and Leda Schubert—our dinners together and friendship keep me plugging along. Hugs to my sister, Erica, and my whole family. And thanks to Corina and K.P.
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