A Difficult Boy

by M. P. Barker

Mr. Pease persisted. “But I’m sure he said he saw someone riding. A chestnut mare, he said, and a boy with hair nearly as red as the horse, riding like he’d been born on horseback, that’s what this peddler said. He said it was a fine thing to see.” Mr. Pease grinned at Daniel as if he expected to be thanked for the compliment.

  “Only one boy?” Mr. Lyman probed. Ethan’s forehead grew damp before his master’s searing eyes.

  “No. No, I’m sure he said two. Yes, that was it: a second boy sitting in front, hanging on for dear life.”

  Zeloda snickered.

  “I see.” Mr. Lyman’s chair hissed across the carpet as he rose. “Paddy. Ethan. I want to talk to you out in the barn.”

  Daniel stood slowly, his hand clenching Ethan’s shoulder. When Ethan looked up into his eyes, they were as cold and hard as granite.

  “Well, now you can’t say you never been switched,” Daniel said. “At least he didn’t make you drop your trousers.”

  “I—it wasn’t so bad for me.” Ethan had endured nine swift stinging blows to his rear end: one for each of his years. “But you—” Ethan hefted his shovel to hide his shudder. “But he—he beat you.” Daniel’s switching hadn’t even started until Mr. Lyman had battered Daniel to the barn floor with punches and kicks. And it had been Daniel’s back, not his backside, that had met the switch, with no frock or vest or shirt in between to soften the blows. Mr. Lyman hadn’t stopped at sixteen.

  “What did you expect? I done all he said. Disobedience, lying, leading lads astray.” Daniel’s shrug turned into a wince. “Not that I ain’t done worse. Or been beat worse.” He moved carefully, as if to keep vest and shirt from rubbing against his back while he wielded the digging bar.

  “I thought he was going to kill you.” Ethan shivered.

  Daniel snorted and spat in the dirt. He rammed the iron bar hard into the fence-post hole. “What’d be the point in that? He’d not be getting much work out of me if I was dead, now, would he?” He wiggled the bar back and forth, loosening the earth for Ethan to scoop out with his spade.

  They worked together for a few minutes in a silent rhythm. Daniel heaved the bar up and down with strokes as regular as the saw at the mill. Ethan slipped the shovel in during the pauses. He tried to study Daniel’s face, but all he could see under the brim of the other boy’s cap was the tip of a sharp sunburned nose, an angular chin, and a mouth clenched in a firm line, distorted where Daniel’s lip was starting to swell.

  “We should tell somebody,” Ethan said at last.

  “Eh?” Daniel’s head came up. He blinked and lost his rhythm.

  “What he does—I mean, Mr. Lyman—he can’t hit us like that. It isn’t right.”

  Daniel blinked again, his eyes tightening at the corners. Then his lips curled and he began to laugh and shake his head.

  “What?” Ethan said.

  Daniel shoved the bar down with a dull thud. “We done what he said, lad. Your da would’a punished you, wouldn’t he?”

  A tangle of worms squirmed blindly, as if in dread of Ethan’s shovel. “Pa would never’a done that. It’s not the same at all.”

  Daniel thumped the bar again. The earth turned paler as he broke through the topsoil to the sand below. “And who would you be telling, then? The selectmen, maybe? I’m sure they’d be believing the likes of us, with himself the chairman of them all. Or maybe you’d rather be calling on the justice of the peace, who’s only Lyman’s brother? Or maybe the overseers of the poor? I’m sure they’d not be half distressed over Lyman thrashing his lads for lying and disobedience.”

  “I—uh—” Ethan’s shovel scraped up the side of the hole at an angle so steep that nearly all the dirt fell back down. “I could tell Pa. If I told Pa, he’d—”

  “He’d what? Take you home? And who’d be paying his debts then, eh? What’ll he do if Lyman calls in his note?”

  Ethan felt a cold lump in his stomach. He stared down into the hole at the golden sand that the digging iron had stirred up. He remembered being four, maybe, or five, and watching Pa dig. He’d seen the yellow sand under the black loam and clapped his hands, thinking it was gold. Pa had laughed so hard that he’d had to sit down. Ethan knew better now. It was just sand, so worthless not even the worms would live in it. If he dug forever and ever, all he’d ever find was sand.

  He flopped down on his belly and picked up a tin scoop to scrape the dirt from the bottom of the hole. He bit his lip, thinking about what Daniel said, how it changed everything. All these weeks he’d been holding on to the thought that soon he would go home. Next Sunday maybe, or the one after that, Pa and Ma would be there at the meetinghouse, and he’d tell them all about the Lymans and Daniel and himself. Then Pa would make it right so Ethan could come back home. Maybe Daniel could even come with him. Three Sundays had come and gone without Ethan’s plans coming to light. But one week or even two hadn’t seemed so long to wait for Pa to make everything all right. Now it didn’t matter anymore—one week or two or twenty—or even if he saw Pa tomorrow.

  Ethan’s knuckles scraped hard against the side of the hole. He dug blindly, like the worms, until he felt Daniel’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Here—that’ll do, lad. Help me set the post.” Daniel pulled Ethan to his feet. He nodded toward the mound of earth they’d raised up. “Nice lot of worms, that,” Daniel said. “Tell you what—when you come back from meeting tomorrow afternoon, I’ll show you how to fish.”

  “Nah, nah. Not like that. He’ll just come off.” Daniel took the hook and worm out of Ethan’s hands. “You got to thread it right through him.” He put one end of the worm to the sharp end of the hook and deftly slid the worm on, so that when he was done, hook and worm seemed all of a piece. He cast the line out into the river. He handed Ethan a second hook and line. “Here. Now you do it.”

  Ethan’s worm slid out of his grasp and tumbled into the grass, where it squirmed blindly, seeking a hiding place.

  “Do it again. And don’t stick yourself.”

  Ethan picked up the struggling worm. He held worm and hook up close to his face, like Ma eyeing a needle for threading. This time the hook stuck, although the worm ended up gathered sloppily along it like a stocking that had fallen down around somebody’s ankle. He held it out for Daniel’s inspection.

  Daniel squinted one eye at the mess on the end of the line. “It’ll do. Now toss it in.”

  Ethan cast the bait out as hard as he could. It landed with a satisfying plunk a few yards from Daniel’s, the cork floaters bobbing in tandem on the surface.

  “Now what?”

  Daniel eased himself back in the grass and pulled his cap down over his eyes. “We wait.”

  “Oh.” Ethan drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He watched the lines for a few minutes. Nothing happened.

  “Daniel—”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “Why don’t you go to meeting with the Lymans?”

  Daniel shoved his cap back with his thumb and squinted at Ethan with one pale gray-green eye. “You know it’s not me own church.”

  “But—but aren’t you afraid?”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Hell. Mr. Merriwether says—”

  “How do you know he’s right? Maybe it’s you lot as are all going to hell.” Daniel tugged his hat back down over his eyes.

  Ethan’s stomach felt cold and heavy. That couldn’t be. They couldn’t all be wrong, Ma and Pa and Mr. Merriwether, and—and everybody.

  The corner of Daniel’s mouth twitched. “Don’t worry, lad. I’ll be right down there with you. I ain’t heard a Mass nor seen a priest for five years or longer.”

  The line at the end of Daniel’s pole jerked tight. He sat upright and shoved his cap back. He teased the line, tugging it and letting it go slack, testing what was on the end. Whatever it was pulled back. He jumped to his feet and struggled with the line for a few minutes, then drew in a shimmering silver-sided fish about ten inches long. He gave Ethan one of his rare
grins. “Ain’t very big, but it’s something.”

  More serious questions dulled Ethan’s pleasure in the catch. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asked again.

  Daniel eased the fish free of the hook, then pulled a ball of twine from his pocket. “Cut me a piece,” he told Ethan. “ ’Fraid of what?”

  Ethan measured out an arm’s length of twine and cut it off with his pocketknife. “Hell.”

  “I got enough to be afraid of in this life without fretting over the next, don’t I, now?” Daniel ran the twine through the gasping fish’s gills. He tied a loop to secure the fish, then fastened the free end of the line to a bush that straggled over the river’s edge.

  That couldn’t be right, Ethan thought. He’d never seen Daniel afraid of anything. Not the mare, not the Lymans’ prize bull, nor the sow when she was nursing. Not even Mr. Lyman. Yesterday, during their punishment, Ethan was certain it wasn’t fear he’d seen in Daniel’s bowed head and lowered eyes, but only resignation.

  Daniel set the tethered fish in the water and handed Ethan the hook to bait.

  Ethan chewed his lower lip as he pondered the fate of Daniel’s soul. Maybe he really was a heathen, after all. “Don’t you believe it? Heaven and hell and all that?”

  “Dunno. But if I could make me own heaven, I’d put no Lymans in it.”

  “What would be in it?”

  Daniel leaned back in the grass. “Lots of Sunday afternoons to fish. And horses. Lots of horses.”

  Ethan laughed. The worm slid onto the hook more easily this time, with only a few puckers in the middle. “And hell? Do you think there’s a hell? Do you think there’s fire and sulfur and people burning forever, like Mr. Merriwether says?”

  Daniel sat up slowly and stared out across the river. He hugged his knees to his chest as if he’d suddenly grown cold. When he finally spoke, Ethan could barely hear him.

  “Oh, aye. There’s fire all right,” Daniel said. “Fire and mothers and babies crying and naught you can do about it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Satisfaction.”

  “Satisfaction?” Ethan repeated. Mr. Bingham nodded. “Satisfaction,” Ethan said yet again. “Well, it’s when you’re happy about something. Like when you’ve had enough to eat, or are finished working and feel pleased about it?” He ended the statement on an upward slant, like a question. It was too simple. Surely it couldn’t be the right definition.

  “Yes . . . yes. Very good . . . good. Now, how would that apply . . . apply to a mortgage?” Mr. Bingham’s milky green stare fixed Ethan.

  “Um . . . um . . . I don’t see . . .” Sometimes Ethan felt as though his brain would burst from all the new things Mr. Bingham was teaching him. The figuring was bad enough without having to learn a new language, too: words that Ethan had never heard of before or, worse, words that meant something entirely different in business than they meant in the rest of Ethan’s life. And why did Mr. Bingham have to make him figure so many things out for himself instead of just telling him? He pressed his lips together and thought hard. What could be satisfying about a mortgage? All it meant was that you didn’t really own what you thought you owned and that you owed somebody piles of money and you’d never pay it off and . . . “Oh, I know!” he exclaimed, the answer flaring in his brain like a newly lit fire. “If you paid off your mortgage, then you’d be satisfied, wouldn’t you? Because then you’d really and truly own your house. And the person you owed the money to, he’d be satisfied, too, wouldn’t he? Because he’d have all his money back.”

  Mr. Bingham clapped Ethan so hard on his back that he nearly knocked the boy from his perch on the flour barrel. “There! That’s thinking . . . thinking for you!” he said. “That’s exactly it. Now . . .” He reached under the counter for the dog-eared book of legal forms.

  Ethan groaned. “You mean there’s a piece of paper to go with that, too?”

  “There’s always a piece . . . piece of paper,” Mr. Bingham said. “To keep everybody honest, hmmm?” One eye closed slowly. Then he stooped over the book, his nose almost touching the pages as he looked for the proper form to show Ethan.

  A long shadow crossed the threshold and fell across the page. “I hope you’re keeping him busy, Mr. Bingham,” said a deep voice.

  “Pa!” Ethan whirled to stare at the gaunt figure in the doorway. He took two leaping steps toward the blue-coated man, then froze, halted by the sudden thought of what Mr. Lyman might tell Pa about him.

  Pa’s long, thin jaw softened with his laugh. “What is it, son? Now that you’re a working man, you’re too old to hug your pa?”

  “I—no, Pa.” Pa’s smile warmed Ethan’s insides. But the momentum of his rush had been broken. The feel of Pa’s arms around him was different somehow. Even though they touched, it seemed that there was a space between them. Pa didn’t seem to notice. He squeezed Ethan’s arms, pretending to check how his muscles had grown.

  The door to the back room clicked open. “Gideon.” Mr. Lyman came forward, both hands out to grip Pa’s in a firm handshake. “So good to see you. Your family’s well, I hope?”

  Pa nodded with something that looked like relief. “Yes, thank you. Hannah had a bit of a fever this week past, but she’s much better now.”

  Better? Ethan felt a chill. He wanted to ask, but Pa and Mr. Lyman had the look of men with more important things on their minds than a boy’s questions.

  “Nothing serious, I hope?” The storekeeper laid a sympathetic hand on Pa’s shoulder.

  Pa shook his head. “I’d like to take Ethan home for a little. Only tonight and tomorrow. He’ll be back Sunday afternoon. It’d do Hannah a world of good to see him again.”

  Mr. Lyman raised one thick eyebrow at Ethan. “Hmmmm . . . We’ll see. We’ll see,” he said. “Gideon?” He extended a hand to invite Pa into the back room.

  Ethan wished he could make out the words in the low murmur of voices on the other side of the door. If Mr. Bingham hadn’t been there, he’d have pressed his ear against the wood to listen. But the clerk set him to sweeping up the shop and fetching kindling for the little box stove. When Pa emerged, his long face looked more solemn than usual. Ethan held his breath as Pa and Mr. Lyman shook hands.

  “Well, boy, it seems you’re to have a holiday,” Mr. Lyman said.

  But Pa wasn’t wearing his holiday face.

  Ethan and his father had gotten well beyond the common before Ethan mustered up the courage to ask, “Is Ma really all right?”

  “She’s fine now. Still a bit weakish, but she’ll mend.” Pa smiled crookedly. “To tell you the truth, son, I’ve had my hands full tending to us all. I tend to forget how much work your mama does ’til she’s laid up.”

  “You should’a sent for me. If I’d’a known, I’d’a come home. I could’a helped. . . . I could’a done your chores and—”

  Pa gave Ethan a gentle shake. “What good would you have done if you’d come home and taken sick, too? Then I’d have had one more to take care of, and you losing days or weeks of credit for working at Mr. Lyman’s.”

  “You should’a sent word to Mr. Lyman that you needed me,” Ethan insisted. “I could’a helped.”

  “Don’t fret about it, son. It’s over and done with.” Pa took Ethan’s hat and rumpled his hair. “Besides, I need you more over there, don’t you see?”

  Ethan nodded even though he didn’t understand.

  Pa twirled Ethan’s hat between his hands, first spinning it on his finger like a top, then flipping it brim over crown over brim. “Working at Mr. Lyman’s must be doing you good. Look how tall you’ve gotten. I bet you can even knock my hat off now.”

  Ethan stared at his father. They hadn’t played the hat game in ages. Ethan would try to capture Pa’s hat while Pa would try to fend him off. When Ethan was very little, Pa would end the game by swooping Ethan into the air and letting him take the hat. Ethan had long been too big to be swooped up. The last time they’d played, the game had ended in a wrestling match that dissolved in
to laughter. It seemed silly and childish now. Maybe he was too old for it.

  Pa’s brown eyes creased deeply at the corners, teasing him, telling him Pa wasn’t too old for the game. His hat did look much closer than it ever had before, even though Ethan couldn’t have grown all that much in barely a month. The sun winked on the watery blue sheen of the jay’s feather in Pa’s hatband, daring Ethan to try. Ethan gathered himself, jumped, grabbed. Pa dodged, but not quickly enough. In one bound, Ethan captured the hat. Pa’s eyes widened and his mouth made a surprised O. Ethan’s face mirrored his father’s. Both of them stared at the faded black top hat in Ethan’s hands, as if it had jumped there all on its own.

  Pa laughed. “Guess I misjudged how much you’ve grown.” He gave Ethan’s ragged straw hat a comical frown and slapped it onto his own head. Holding his head stiff, as if afraid the hat might fall off, Pa winked at Ethan.

  Ethan nestled Pa’s hat on his own head. As hard and hollow as a bandbox, the stiff black felt sat heavy on his temples and brow, casting a band of shadow across his vision. It was warm from Pa’s head and smelled of tobacco and sweat and hay and barn. Ethan tipped his head back, so he could see from under the hat’s brim. His eyes met Pa’s and they laughed together.

  After nearly a month of living in the Lymans’ big white house, Ethan couldn’t help noticing how stark and shabby his home looked, its dirt front yard barely a yard at all, but only an extension of the road. He’d never thought twice about the bones and broken crockery that lay outside the kitchen door, the chickens pecking in the slop bucket. But now all he could see were the cracked, weathered clapboards, the moss furring the roof with green, the refuse scattered in the yard. He thought of Mrs. Lyman and her flowers and her broom applied daily to her stone walks, of Silas and Daniel raking the yards clear of chicken droppings and rubble.

  Scratch lay in a sunny corner of the yard, his tail sweeping a happy arc in the dust. Whining a greeting, he rose stiffly and limped over to lick Ethan’s fingers.

  Chloe darted into the yard, a faded rag baby clutched to her chest. She danced around Ethan and Pa as they made their way into the kitchen, where Maria was preparing bread and milk to go with their tea.