by BJ Hoff
“No, you’re not,” Kenny said, his voice calm and steady. “And don’t you ever call Maggie ‘ugly’ again.”
Maggie stared. Kenny didn’t sound one bit like a schoolboy anymore. He sounded like a man grown!
“You’re not going to touch us,” Kenny went on. “Because if you do, I’ll tell my dad. And your dad—and Orrin’s too—will be out of a job. Or did you forget that my dad is their boss?”
Maggie almost choked. But Billy and Orrin merely stood glaring at Kenny as if they wanted to murder him. Billy started to curse again, but Orrin grabbed at his arm and said something to him, under his breath, causing Billy to whip around and look at him before turning back to Kenny.
Kenny had clearly said all he meant to. He took his time returning to Maggie. He caught her by the hand and started walking. Walking quickly, but not running. “Come on,” he said. “You’d best be getting home.”
“I was going to Summer’s—”
“I expect you’d better go on home instead, Maggie.”
Maggie looked at him. “Okay,” she finally said, for the first time feeling smaller than Kenny instead of a good inch taller. “I guess I can go tomorrow night.”
After they’d gone far enough to make certain Orrin and Billy hadn’t followed them, Kenny slowed his pace a little. “Doggone,” he said, “I forgot my wood.”
“Your wood?”
He nodded. “For my ship.”
Maggie stopped, taking back her hand. “Your ship?”
Kenny went on, obviously expecting her to follow. “I build ships.”
Maggie lifted a skeptical eyebrow but started after him.
“Model ships,” Kenny said as she caught up to him. “You know—like real ones. Only smaller. Reproductions.” He smiled a little as if the word pleased him.
“Oh.” Maggie was relieved. “A model ship.” For a minute there she’d thought he was funning her. And she had had just about all she could take of being laughed at for one night.
“I didn’t know you liked ships,” she said.
“I’ve built a bunch of models,” he said. “Mostly clippers and sailboats. This one is going to be a four-master.”
This was a revelation to Maggie. She had always pegged Kenny as the kind of boy who probably sat around with his nose in a book or worked himself into bone weariness with all the chores his da assigned him. Everyone talked about how mean his da was.
“Someday I’m going to build real ships,” he said, glancing at her as if to see whether she believed him. “I’ll have my own shipyard too.”
Maggie darted another look at him, deciding there was a lot more to Kenny Tallman than she’d ever guessed. A lot more.
“That’ll really be something, Kenny.”
He nodded, and then he stopped and turned to look at her. “Are you all right now, Maggie?”
“I’m fine.” She almost told him how scared she’d been but figured he didn’t need to know that. “Do you honestly think they’ll leave us alone now?” she asked.
“I’m pretty sure they will.”
Maggie thought about it. “Was that the truth, what you told them? Would your da really fire their das from the mine?”
Kenny shot her a look. “Probably not,” he said, his expression unreadable as he turned his gaze back to the road. “But they don’t know that.”
Maggie felt the beginning of a smile. Then, without looking at Kenny, she slipped her hand in his again as they started off toward home.
Jonathan Stuart saw them pass. He’d drawn back a corner of the curtains at the window to look out on the night. Not so long ago, he, too, might have been out walking. But for weeks now he’d been fortunate just to walk around his own house, much less able to summon the strength needed for the long evening strolls he had once enjoyed.
He smiled at the sight of the somewhat precocious Maggie MacAuley and the quiet, intense Kenny Tallman. He couldn’t be sure until they passed under the gaslight, but, yes, now he saw that they were holding hands.
He was a little surprised, given their young age, and he rather imagined that the MacAuleys might be less than thrilled at the sight of their twelve-year-old daughter out after dark, holding hands with the son of Matthew MacAuley’s hard-edged employer.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps young Maggie’s parents knew their daughter well enough to trust her behavior. Indeed, of all the students at the school, Jonathan could think of none he would trust as quickly and as completely as Maggie MacAuley and Kenny Tallman.
Besides, they were children. And apparently close friends. He smiled again.
Good for them, Lord!
Perhaps someday they would be more than friends, and what better foundation could be set in these early years for a lifelong love but that of a solid friendship, formed in their youth?
He had had a friend like that once. A childhood friend whom he had grown to love more than life. He knew what a precious gift such a friend could be.
He and Ainsley had grown up together, lived two doors down from each other in Lexington, gone to academy together, attended church together, played together. Their parents had been best friends as well, both families spending many of their holidays in each other’s company at a private lodge in the Blue Ridge Mountains. From an early age, it was simply assumed that Jonathan and Ainsley would marry.
Certainly, Jonathan had assumed it.
He had been devastated when Ainsley, her discomfort obvious, came to him one summer afternoon when the sun was high and so bright it seemed evening would never come. Haltingly, tearfully, she tried to explain to him that she couldn’t marry him, that it would be too much like “marrying her brother.”
“Don’t you see, Jonathan? I know you too well. Oh, my dear, I do love you—but as a friend. We’re…family, Jonathan! You’re my best friend, my…brother. I can’t feel toward you as you do me. I’ve tried—I want to! But I simply can’t.”
Soon after, she left with her older sister for a “tour of Europe,” not returning for several months. When she came home, she was accompanied by her British fiancé.
It wasn’t that Jonathan had grieved himself into permanent bachelorhood. He had grieved, of course, had thought himself inconsolable for an entire year. But once he realized that Ainsley really was lost to him, he’d gone away to university and become involved in a new life, a life away from Lexington and Ainsley.
Even before graduation, he’d begun to sense God’s call on his heart. At first he resisted any departure from the academic life he had envisioned for himself. He’d been offered a position on the faculty even before he graduated and had every intention of accepting it. But as the pressing of God’s Spirit became more and more impossible to ignore, and the signs of his tenuous physical condition became more worrisome, he gave himself up to a lengthy season of prayer in search of God’s directive.
In truth, nothing but the Divine will could have lured him away from his quiet, well-disciplined, and comfortable life to a seemingly ignoble and vastly underpaid position in a little mining town in the hills of Kentucky. Yet through a series of unimaginable circumstances—and increasingly unavoidable signs that defied any practical explanation—he had finally resigned himself to the inevitable.
Over the years his students and their families had in a way become his family. Only rarely did he regret his single state and what he might have missed. This was his home, and he counted himself a man blessed by what he’d found here. Only on nights like these, when his strength was low and the night seemed to draw in upon him like a shroud—and the bittersweet scene of two of his favorite students holding hands tugged at his heart—did he allow himself a moment of regret for what he didn’t have…for what he would never have.
At times like these, he realized he was dangerously close to indulging in the one thing that could destroy whatever strength and sense of purpose remained to him.
He had long known that self-pity was not only his enemy, but it could also prove to be the final hammer blow in his destruction
. He was determined he would not strike that blow himself, but nights like this were inclined to test his resolve. It would be so easy to give in to feeling sorry for himself, to mourn what couldn’t be his, to surrender to the fear that he might spend whatever time he had left as an invalid.
As he watched the children disappear from view, he gathered his strength. He even managed to smile and say a brief prayer for God’s blessing upon their lives, with a silent plea in his heart that, whatever waited for the two of them in the future, it would not be loneliness.
Twelve
Two Are Better Than One
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:10
As luck would have it, there had been no questions from Maggie’s parents the night before. She’d gone inside to find her sisters at the kitchen table, doing their lessons, and her da working on a broken table leg. Her mother had gone to the O’Briens to help with the birthing of a new baby.
Maggie was relieved that she wouldn’t need to fudge with them. She didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t tell them about the incident with Billy Macken and Orrin Gaffney. Da’s temper being what it was, there was no telling what he would do. If he were to go after the two boys, that would only put Maggie, and no doubt Kenny too at risk for more of their devilment. That being the case, both she and Kenny had committed to keep silent.
“For now,” she’d agreed. “But if it happens again, we’ll have to tell.”
For more than one reason, Maggie could only hope Kenny was right in his belief that it wouldn’t happen again.
The clouds had been heavy and dark all day, promising more snow or sleet before morning. By the time Maggie finished supper and started off for the Rankin place, night was gathering in. Da had allowed only an hour for her visit with Summer, so she took the road at a near run.
When she saw Kenny standing at the foot of the Hill as if he were waiting for her, uneasiness gripped her. Had he told his da about last night after all? Was Mr. Tallman going to make trouble?
His hands in his pockets, Kenny stood watching her approach. When Maggie was close enough to see that he didn’t look particularly scared or worried—just serious and none too happy, which was normal for Kenny—she let out a breath.
“What are you doing?” she asked when she reached him.
“Waiting for you. You said you were going to Summer’s tonight, so I figured I’d watch for you.”
“Why?”
Kenny frowned at her as if he shouldn’t have to explain. “Just…to make sure there’s no trouble again.”
“Didn’t you say they’d probably not bother us from now on?”
He glanced away. “And I don’t think they will. But I expect it’s best not to take anything for granted.”
Kenny was acting really strange. He just stood there, digging at the ground with his toe as if he’d lost something in the dirt and was trying to unearth it. His face was red, and he wouldn’t look at her.
“Did they say anything to you at school today?” Maggie asked him.
“Billy and Orrin?” He shook his head. “They never came near.”
“Then why did you think they might show up again tonight?”
“I didn’t say I thought they would. I’m just keeping an eye out in case they do.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that.”
He raised his head but still didn’t make eye contact. “I know I don’t have to.”
“Then why are you?”
Now he looked at her, studying her as if he had something to say but didn’t know whether he ought to say it.
“Because I like you! Okay? Because I don’t want you getting hurt!”
His outburst caught Maggie completely off guard. She realized her mouth was open and snapped it shut.
As for Kenny, his face flamed and his eyeglasses slipped down his nose a little. When he moved to straighten them with one finger, he missed and poked himself in the forehead instead.
Maggie almost laughed but caught herself. In truth, she wondered if her face might not be red too. Her cheeks felt as if someone had singed them with a hot iron.
At the same time, she felt kind of…happy. Excited. It seemed that what the other girls had been telling her was true. Kenny liked her. He liked her, and now he had actually said so.
So what was she supposed to do? She reckoned she ought to say something, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of a thing that wouldn’t sound witless entirely.
Finally, she found her voice. “Well…okay, then. I’d best be getting on up to Summer’s.”
Kenny nodded. “I’ll just watch you up the Hill. How long will you stay?”
“Da said no more than an hour.”
He nodded. “I’ll have to get home before then. You be careful. Ask Mr. Rankin to walk you partway, why don’t you?”
Maggie had never asked Mr. Rankin anything of the kind and wasn’t about to start tonight, but she didn’t tell Kenny that. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
At last they looked at each other straight on. Still red-faced, Kenny cracked a somewhat wobbly smile. Maggie grinned at him and quickly turned to go.
She was almost halfway up the Hill when he called out to her.
“Maggie?”
Maggie stopped and turned. He hadn’t moved but was standing straight as a post, his hands in his pockets.
“Do you like me back?”
Maggie hesitated and took a couple of steps backward, all the while looking everywhere but at Kenny.
At last she pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “I might,” she shot back. “I’ll have to think on it!”
Without another word she whipped around and took off at a run.
Kenny’s stomach tightened, and he felt the fist in his chest as he always did at the rare times when his father actually gave him his full attention.
Judson Tallman was sitting at the kitchen table, papers strewn all over the place in front of him. The flame from the kerosene lamp flickered crazily in the draught as Kenny walked in.
Closing the door, he turned to find his father watching him, his heavy eyebrows knit in a frown, his expression impatient.
“Where have you been, boy?” His dark eyes bore into Kenny’s.
“Just—out looking for some more wood, Daddy.”
His father made a sound in his throat. “You’d be better advised to keep your nose in your books. Those toy boats of yours aren’t going to get you out of this stink hole.”
“I know, Daddy. I did my lessons before I went out.”
Kenny stood with his hands behind his back, unsure of whether there was more to come. He thought not. His father was obviously involved in his work, as he almost always was. Still, he waited, watching the movement of his father’s thick hands as he stacked a pile of papers neatly to one side.
“Why did you have your supper so early?”
“You said you’d be late, Daddy, so I went ahead. I wanted to go outside for a bit before dark.”
His father was already back at his work, dark, shaggy head bent over a ledger, one hand rolling a pencil between his fingers. Kenny knew he’d been dismissed.
“I guess I’ll go get ready for bed. Goodnight, Daddy.”
His father gave a distracted wave in response.
In his bedroom Kenny went directly to the table he used as both desk and work site for his ship building. He picked up the paper on which he’d drawn the plans for the four-master, but his mind wasn’t on the ship. Not tonight.
He knew he was a terrible disappointment to his father, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he’d been as much of a letdown to his mother, if that’s why she had left them.
The first time he’d asked about her, he’d been maybe three or four years old. Having noticed that the other children he played with seemed to have a mother, he grew curious. His father had simply dismissed his questions with a curt, “I’ll explain it to you when you’re older.”
The reply had been the same until the last time. He had been no more than seven or eight years old when he made the mistake of asking his father about her again, more specifically this time—where she had gone…and why she had gone.
Kenny hadn’t realized that this time his questions would bring on a firestorm. He would never forget the terrible look that had come over his father that day.
Judson Tallman’s always dour expression went livid. Kenny had actually jumped back, for fear of being struck.
His father hadn’t touched him, but his words had hammered harder than any blow. “You won’t speak of her in this house, boy! Not ever again. She’s dead to us, do you understand?”
He took a step toward Kenny, who again stumbled backward to get out of his path.
“She was no good, that’s what she was! A harlot and nothing more. She only married me in the first place to get away from the fists of her lunatic father. Don’t you ever speak of her again, do you hear? She’s gone, and good riddance to her.”
At the time, Kenny hadn’t known what a harlot was, but the venom in his father’s voice left no doubt but what it was something terrible. Not long after, he looked up the word in the big dictionary Mr. Stuart kept at the front of the schoolroom. He had to track down several other words before he grasped its meaning, but what he discovered made him so sick to his stomach he’d had to go to the outhouse and throw up.
He never asked about his mother again.
But he still thought about her. He wondered if it was wicked of him to think about a woman his father had condemned as bad. A harlot. Even worse, he sometimes caught himself wondering if, even though she had been a bad woman, she had ever rocked him as a baby or sang to him or sat on the side of his bed and told him stories…or maybe kissed him goodnight. Had she smelled powdery and nice and worn a ribbon in her hair like Maggie’s older sister Eva Grace?
What would it be like, Kenny wondered, to have a mother in the kitchen when he came home after school? A mother waiting for him, who would smile at him and ask him what he’d learned today and maybe even sit with him and help him do his lessons.