by BJ Hoff
A mother who would look at him and really see him, not just glance at him and look away as if the sight of him brought a bad taste to her mouth.
That was how his father looked at him. When he looked at him, which was seldom indeed.
Although he scarcely remembered her, it seemed to Kenny that he resembled his mother. He had no recollection of her voice or her touch, but he had a partly faded photograph he’d found one day at the bottom of his father’s storage trunk. He’d taken it and hidden it in his room, in the small Bible Mr. Stuart had given to each student.
He turned around to make sure his bedroom door was closed, and then he pulled the photograph from his Bible and studied it. He looked like her. His hair was light, like hers, only hers had been wavy, not straight like his. His face was thinner, and not so comely, of course, but there was a definite resemblance.
Certainly, he looked nothing like Daddy. His father was a storm cloud, a thickset, powerfully muscled bear of a man who seemed always in motion except when laboring over his paperwork. Even in his sleep, he tossed and thrashed and mumbled. Throughout the night, Kenny often heard the sound of his father’s bed, thumping and creaking under his heavy movements.
The son of a Welsh miner and a British orphan girl, Judson Tallman seemed to care about nothing but work. He worked most of his waking hours. He had no interests other than his job as mine superintendent, no friends, no living relatives other than his son. His life consisted of working, eating, and sleeping.
Kenny thought his father a hard man and an unfeeling one, and judging from the way they acted in Judson Tallman’s presence, others were of the same opinion. He had no memory whatsoever of his father ever touching him, except for one occasion when he had slapped him in the face hard enough to make his ears ring because Kenny had talked back.
He had never laid a hand on him again. Neither had he ever tucked Kenny into bed, read him a story, or taken him hunting or fishing. Kenny walked to church alone because his father refused to even discuss going with him. And on the one occasion when Kenny had tried to speak of God and faith, his father had given him such a withering look of contempt that Kenny would have cut out his tongue rather than raise the subject again.
As he grew older, he sought refuge from his father’s remoteness in his books, his handmade ships, and the schoolhouse. He had few friends, his closest being Maggie MacAuley and Lester Monk.
He and Lester were opposites in how they spent their time and in all things related to learning, but they were much the same in their dislike of noise and crowds. Besides, Lester needed him, and Kenny was grateful to have someone who depended on him.
Lester wasn’t exactly slow-witted, but learning came hard for him, and he also had trouble making decisions. Kenny helped him as best he could, and for his part, Lester regarded his friend with something akin to hero worship.
As for Maggie, he thought it likely he would court her when they were of an age and just as likely that he would marry her someday, even though her nature seemed to run contrary to his own.
Besides Maggie, the one person Kenny liked and admired more than anyone else he knew was Mr. Stuart. He was convinced that the schoolteacher was the smartest and kindest man in Skingle Creek, maybe in the whole state of Kentucky, and he trusted him more than he trusted his own father.
In truth, although the thought never came without a prickle of guilt, Kenny had often wished he had a father like Jonathan Stuart. He reckoned it a terrible shame that the teacher had no children of his own. Indeed, he could not imagine a finer thing in the world than to have a father like Mr. Stuart.
His gaze and his thoughts returned to the photograph in his hand, and he found himself wondering if his father would have been a different sort of man, had Kenny’s mother not been a harlot and if she had not abandoned them.
Thirteen
Heartsong, Heartache
I go down from the hill in gladness,
and half with a pain I depart.
“A. E.”
Maggie said nothing to Summer about what had transpired between her and Kenny earlier. She did, however, after swearing the younger girl to silence, tell her what had gone on with Billy Macken and Orrin Gaffney the night before.
Almost immediately she wished she had said nothing, for Summer was clearly upset when she learned what had happened.
“Don’t worry,” Maggie assured her. “Kenny says they won’t bother us again. And besides, I have more important stuff to tell you.”
Maggie proceeded then to tell her about the vote and about Mr. Stuart’s surprised—and obviously pleased—reaction when they turned the money jar over to him. She also confided the fact that their teacher had sold his gold watch in order to make his own donation.
Summer smiled at this and gave a small nod, as if she weren’t in the least bit surprised.
By the time Maggie completed a full account of her ideas for the birthday party, Summer looked to be weakening again. She leaned back against the pillows with her eyes closed, her thin hands clutching the quilt. A deep flush stained her hollow cheeks, and, even though the room seemed cold to Maggie, the other girl’s hair was damp from perspiration.
Watching her, Maggie felt a sting of disappointment at Summer’s tepid show of enthusiasm. But as she studied the other’s frail, unhealthy appearance and the small body that was little more than an outline under the bedclothes, disappointment quickly turned to guilt for the pettiness of her thoughts. Clearly, Summer’s quietness had nothing to do with a lack of interest. She simply hadn’t the strength to express her feelings.
Uneasiness stole over Maggie, dulling the luster of her earlier excitement, but she made an effort to force a cheerful note into her voice. “Now then, Summer Rankin, you have to get well in a hurry. I’m going to need your help getting everything done proper.”
Summer smiled but still didn’t open her eyes.
“I mean it now,” Maggie said, employing her seldom used I’molder-than-you tone. “You absolutely have to be at the birthday party! It will spoil everything if you’re not there, do you hear? And I will need your help. Lily is the only one who volunteered to help organize things, and you know how useless she is.”
Maggie thought a moment, and then she added, “Well, Kenny offered to help too, but we both know how boys can be.” She rolled her eyes, not wanting Summer to catch on to how things were with her and Kenny. In truth, she knew that Kenny was as good as his word. Mostly, she’d just wanted to say his name.
Summer opened her eyes, but a fierce coughing spasm seized her. When she was finally able to speak, her voice was faint, her words thick. “Kenny’s nice,” she said. “And smart too. He’ll be a big help.”
Maggie nodded, her mind now totally fixed on Summer.
She felt a little sick herself but didn’t want her friend to see how worried she was. “What will you give Mr. Stuart for his birthday?”
Was the false brightness in her tone as obvious to Summer as it was to her own ear? She hoped not. She was convinced it would only make Summer feel worse if she knew how frightened she was for her.
“I don’t know,” Summer said with a shake of the head. “I reckon I’d like to give him something real special, but I can’t think of anything just now.”
There was a faint rasp to her voice, and her usual wheezing seemed to be more ragged, more labored.
Maggie’s own chest felt heavy with the ache that had descended on it. “Never mind for now,” she said briskly. “The first thing is for you to get well. We can decide on your present for Mr. Stuart later. Besides,” she added, “I won’t actually have anything special to give him either, though I surely wish I did.”
Summer turned to look at her. “That’s not true a bit,” she said quietly. “You’ll be giving the most special thing of all.”
Maggie frowned. “How do you figure that?”
Summer lifted herself from the pillows a little and touched Maggie’s arm. Her fingers felt scorching hot and dry as paper.
“Why, Maggie, you’ll be giving the most important gift of anyone. You’ll be the one who sees that things get done and everything turns out right. Just like you always do. You’ll see to it that Mr. Stuart has the best party ever. That’ll be your gift.”
That said, she sank back against the pillows again. She had grown so slight, Maggie noticed again, that she scarcely made an impression in the bedding.
Maggie thought about her friend’s words. It would be nice if Summer were right, but no doubt her sisters would have a good laugh over her estimation of Maggie. Especially Eva Grace. As the oldest, she seemed to fancy herself a beauty and the smartest member of the family, whereas Maggie might as well be a toad on a river rock, hopelessly awkward and dumb as a doorstop.
Of course, in all fairness, Maggie sometimes believed Eva Grace to have the smarts of a pump handle.
They were quiet for a time, each thinking her own thoughts, until Summer again pushed herself up and leaned toward Maggie. “What if we were to give Mr. Stuart a birthday present from the two of us?”
“Like what?” Maggie said, at this point skeptical as to what sort of gift they might be able to come up with, given so little time and even less money.
“I might have an idea.”
Maggie looked at her. Summer’s eyes were bright and glistening, and Maggie wondered if the fever was rising.
“Well, it couldn’t cost much, you know. I hardly have anything left after the collection.”
“Me too. But I bet Junior Tyree’s daddy would make it for us real cheap. He’s awful clever with his hands, and he doesn’t charge much for anything he makes. He fixed some new handles for Mama’s stove for practically nothing.”
Maggie studied her friend, saw the flicker of excitement glinting in her sunken eyes where there had been only a glaze of pain before, and suddenly she felt desperate to keep that flame glowing so brightly it would burn away the fever and the dread illness that was draining away the life of her best friend.
“Well?” she prompted, scooting up a little closer to the bed. “So tell me!”
Summer hesitated. “I’ll show you,” she said, and with obvious effort pushed herself up a little more. “Ask Mama for some paper, why don’t you?”
It was dark when Maggie started down the Hill for home, Summer’s drawing in hand. A light freezing rain was falling, glazing the deeply pitted path and slowing her progress considerably.
She didn’t feel nearly as lighthearted as she had on the way up the Hill. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about Kenny now. Her excitement about his declaration that he liked her had been little more than an hour ago, but it seemed far removed indeed. And with Summer so weak and unable to fully share the enthusiasm about Mr. Stuart’s birthday party, she found it difficult to recapture her earlier cheerfulness.
She was also finding it hard to match her friend’s excitement about the gift for Mr. Stuart’s birthday. The idea seemed so far-fetched, so impossible to imagine. She didn’t understand why Summer was so convinced it would work.
But when she’d questioned her, Summer had insisted that “God will make it work if we ask Him to. We just…have to ask. And then believe. It will make Mr. Stuart happy, Maggie. I know it will.”
Maggie didn’t doubt God’s power to make anything happen, not for a minute. But weren’t they taking a risk that He would bother with something like this? It wasn’t as if she and Summer were some kind of important people. People of consequence, Lily would say.
Yet since it was for Mr. Stuart—who was definitely important, at least to his students—and because she had given Summer her word, tomorrow after school she would go down to the junkyard with Junior and ask his da about making what Summer had drawn. Of course, there was no guarantee Ezra Tyree would even agree to work on such a project without getting paid for it. There was no reason he should, after all. The Tyree family needed a living just as much as anyone else in town.
Yet Maggie was pretty sure Junior’s da would do it. He had made things free of charge for the school before, she was almost certain. Like the wall hanger that rolled the maps up and down. And the new frame and flower box for the building’s only window. She knew Ezra Tyree had done the work, and it must have been for no pay, because Da was a member of the school board, and he said there was never any extra money in the budget for the school building.
Just like home. In fact, just like everything in Skingle Creek: There was never any money for “extras.”
Maggie’s mood darkened as she picked her way over the ice-coated ruts leading off Pine Street, away from the railroad tracks. A terrible ache closed in on her as she turned the corner toward home. She imagined this was what it felt like to be squeezed between the metal jaws Da used to clamp two pieces of wood together. Not even the confirmation that Kenny liked her or the plans for Mr. Stuart’s party could make the ache go away.
She stopped and turned around once, looking up the Hill to Summer’s house. The lights glowing in the windows made it appear friendly and cheerful, even in the dark. But then she thought of Summer, who, surrounded by all the clamor and commotion of her rowdy family, lay alone in the cold back bedroom, fevered and coughing and weak to the point of wasting away.
Her throat swelled until she could hardly swallow, could barely draw in a breath. She was almost home before she realized that the cold dampness she’d been wiping away from her eyes ever since she’d left Summer’s house wasn’t rain.
Fourteen
Pity the Children
O God! That bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
Thomas Hood
Matthew MacAuley was just leaving No. 2 when Arthur Sheehan, one of the older breaker boys, came running up to him.
The boy gasped for a breath and then scooped off his cap. “Mr. Kelly said to come quick, sir! It’s Benny Pippino. He’s hurt bad!”
Matthew lifted a hand to shade his eyes. The daylight was painful after being in the tunnels most of the morning. “What happened?”
It was a bad sign for Sean Kelly, the breaker boss, to send for help. Never a man to panic, Kelly was used to injuries among the breaker boys and routinely handled most situations on his own—mostly small fingers caught in conveyors or wee lads falling down the chutes, where they could easily smother in the coal.
“Benny was oiling the shafting but got his hand caught in the gears. Mr. Kelly pulled him free, but his hand—” Sheehan stopped, his face pinched as though he were about to be sick.
Matthew felt the bile rise in his own throat. More than one boy had lost a limb—or a life—in the machinery. “But he’s alive, then?”
Sheehan nodded. “Aye, he is. But passed out, sir. And…bleedin’ bad.”
Matthew started to move but then stopped, catching the boy by the arm. “You go for Doc Woodbridge. I’ll get on over to the breaker and see what I can do in the meantime.”
Sheehan took off running while Matthew headed the other way. The little Pippino boy—“Pip,” as he was called by most of the miners —was the youngest of four boys, all of whom worked below.
He shouldn’t have been in the mines at all. Boys were supposed to be at least twelve, and Pip wasn’t more than nine, if he was that. But because Maria Pippino had lost her immigrant husband in last year’s cave-in and needed all her sons’ wages just to survive, the inspector had looked the other way when the youngest child signed on.
It was a common practice in the coal fields, where even a child’s wages could make the difference between life or death.
Matthew took the steep, narrow steps two at a time, ignoring the noise from the machinery.
At the top his eyes darted past the long chutes that extended from the roof of the breaker to the ground floor. Most of the boys were still at work, hunched on wooden boards, divided in rows, their clothing and faces black from the dust and smoke. As they worked, they lifted and lowered their feet to stop the coal pouring down the chutes just long enough to take out the culm—the pieces o
f slate and rock that needed to be separated from the coal itself—before letting the coal continue on to another boy. Their mouths were covered with handkerchiefs to block as much coal dust as possible, and most of them chewed tobacco in an effort to keep any escaping dust from going into their throats.
The sight of their dust-covered faces never failed to tug at Matthew’s heart, even more so their bare hands, which were always red and often bleeding. No gloves were allowed so as not to interfere with their finger movements and sense of touch.
He spied a small group huddled together at the far side of the building, watching Sean Kelly. Kelly was on his knees, clearly intent on the small form in front of him. By the time Matthew threaded his way through the rows of boys at work, Kelly had seen him and got to his feet, waiting.
Matthew took in the situation with a glance. The Pippino boy was on his back, eyes closed, his right hand swathed in a cloth that was already blood-soaked. He showed no sign of movement, but Matthew could see that he was breathing.
“He’s out cold,” Kelly said. “Has been from the time we got his hand free o’ the shafting.”
Matthew went to one knee and ran a hand over the boy’s forehead, and then he bent closer to check his heartbeat. His eyes went to the bloody cloth. They would have to get the bleeding stanched soon, or the lad wouldn’t have a chance. Perhaps he didn’t anyway, but they had to do their best for him.
“His hand?” Matthew said in a low voice, turning to look up at Kelly.
As if anticipating the question, the breaker boss shook his head. “Most of it’s gone. He’ll lose the rest.”
Matthew shuddered and touched the boy’s dusty cheek. “There, lad,” he murmured as if Pip could hear him. “We’ll get you fixed up, whatever it takes. Things will work out all right, you’ll see.”
He felt like a terrible liar the moment he uttered the words. There was little “fixing up” to be done for a small boy with a missing hand. And as for things working out all right—Maria Pippino and her brood would be fortunate indeed if they were not set out of their house onto the road, even in the dead of winter.