A Stranger in the Kingdom

by Howard Frank Mosher

  “You and your family sit with the Congregationalists?”

  “We sit where the Kinnesons have always sat.”

  “I see.”

  Reverend Andrews smoked thoughtfully for a minute. “If you don’t mind my presuming to say so, Mr. Kinneson, this tradition strikes me as rather pointless.”

  “Oh, it’s worse than pointless, it’s downright asinine. Every minister for the past fifteen years has tried to put a stop to it.”

  “And?”

  “Not one of them’s gotten to first base. I’m not telling you how to do your job, Reverend, but if I were you I wouldn’t waste an hour of my time on that one. In my opinion you’ll have much better luck sticking to your youth groups and fund-raising.”

  The minister flipped the stub of his cigarette a good ten feet out into the meadow and smiled. “When in Rome,” he said. “Where do you suppose your older son spirited my boy off to?”

  “I think they’re out behind the barn shooting baskets,” I said.

  “I could use a bit more exercise myself after that Dickensian feast,” Reverend Andrews said, winking at me. “Shall we join them?”

  As we came around the corner of the barn, Charlie was standing at the foot of the highdrive sloping up to the hayloft, shooting at the netless rim nailed over the huge sliding door. From where he stood at the bottom of the ramp the basket was at least twenty feet away and twelve feet high. Just the same, his graceful two-handed set shots had plenty of loft and spin. One after another, they dropped cleanly through the old iron hoop and bounced back down the drive to him. Nathan stood off to one side, watching. It was the first time that afternoon he’d looked interested in anything.

  “That’s pretty fair shooting, chum,” Reverend Andrews said. “How about a game of HORSE?”

  Charlie grinned. “HORSE,” he said.

  The minister took off his suit jacket, folded it neatly, and laid it over a sawhorse. He removed his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves, revealing arms more like a boxer’s than a preacher’s. As Charlie flipped the ball to him and he reached out and caught it, he actually looked too strong to be well coordinated.

  This was a misconception that Reverend Andrews corrected with his first practice shot. It was a set shot from the base of the highdrive. And although it glanced off the front of the rim and bounced sharply back down the ramp, I knew instantly that our new minister was an athlete.

  “Go ahead,” he said, tossing the ball back to Charlie.

  My brother squared to the basket and made one of his patented set shots—the shot that had been principally responsible for winning three consecutive Class D state basketball championships for the Academy, and more recently, the Memphremagog Town Team Crown for Kingdom Common.

  Reverend Andrews made the shot, too.

  Charlie sank another one from the same spot; so did the minister.

  Charlie moved back three steps and made his third consecutive shot. Reverend Andrews followed suit.

  “Two!” Charlie yelled. Now that he had finally found someone who could compete with him, he was ebullient. As the ball skipped back to him, he grabbed it, dribbled hard up the slope, angled off to the right just shy of the basket, and dropped a soft hook shot off the barn wall through the rim. Reverend Andrews duplicated the move exactly, with the same result.

  “Hoo!” Charlie hollered. “You’ve played this game before, Reverend.”

  “So have you, chum. And not just in a barnyard, I take it.”

  “Dartmouth, ’44 through ’48,” said my brother, never one to hide any of his many lights under a bushel.

  My father frowned. “I thought you came out here to play with Nathan.”

  “I have been,” Charlie said. “He’s terrific. Now I know where he gets it from. Next game, guys. You two against us.”

  As he spoke he took a push shot from the right of the highdrive. It rolled around the rim and spun out.

  Reverend Andrews moved to the same spot. He dribbled the ball twice, crouched, leapt suddenly straight up in the air off both feet, and took the first one-handed jump shot I’d ever seen. The ball arched high, spinning beautifully, and fell through the iron hoop as neatly as a swallow settling into one of last summer’s mud nests under the barn eaves.

  Charlie blinked. “What sort of trick shot was that?”

  “No trick to it,” Reverend Andrews said. “That, my friend, is the shot that will revolutionize the game of basketball. In two or three years everyone’s going to be using it.”

  My brother shook his head. He turned the ball over in his hands, trying to adjust them right on the seams, then jumped up flat-footed and shot an airball. He not only missed the basket, he literally missed the entire barn door.

  For the first time I could remember, my cocky brother, who always managed to seem graceful even when he struck out in baseball, had looked plain awkward.

  “H,” Reverend Andrews said casually, and made the same shot again.

  I glanced at Nathan, who was now watching intently.

  This time Charlie’s shot hit the front rim on a flat hard line and careened all the way back to him in the air.

  “H, O,” Reverend Andrews said, and promptly proceeded to give my brother two more letters. He cradled the ball thoughtfully, as though he was about to polish Charlie off with a fifth jump shot. Instead, he drove up the middle of the ramp, floated high with the ball in his right hand, transferred it to his left in midair, and dropped it neatly over the lip of the rim.

  Charlie failed to execute the transfer and the game was over.

  “HORSE,” he said quickly, to preempt the minister. Although my brother was smiling, I knew he was annoyed. Charlie had never been able to lose graciously at anything in his life.

  But Reverend Andrews didn’t seem to be gloating. “One of my more secular duties abroad was to set up and manage recreational programs for off-duty airmen. Truth to tell, I’ve had an abundance of time to practice.”

  “So have I,” Charlie said “But apparently I haven’t been practicing the right shots. Best of three?”

  Reverend Andrews shrugged. “If you like.”

  He looked at me. “You and Nathan want to get in on this one?”

  “Look who’s coming,” my father said before I could answer.

  Two men were heading down the lane off the ridge behind the barn. They walked slowly and appeared to be weaving slightly. One wore bib overalls and a black slouch hat like a Tennessee moonshiner’s. His companion had on a feed store cap and a tattered wool hunting jacket and held a half-full bottle of Old Duke wine. Trailing away from his other hand was a ratty hank of baling twine eight or ten feet long. Attached to the opposite end of the twine by one stout yellow leg was an enormous red rooster.

  It was my outlaw cousin, Resolvèd Kinneson, and his brother Welcome, who could nearly have been his twin, out exercising Resolvèd’s prize fighting Rhode Island Red rooster, Ethan Allen Kinneson, for their upcoming Decoration Day cockfight.

  When they reached the junction of the lane and the gool, all three members of this singular triumvirate made a sweeping about-face and started back up the ridge at the same zigzagging pace. Not one of them had appeared to so much as glance in our direction, though I was certain that Resolvèd and Welcome had spotted us from their dooryard and come down mainly to get a look at the Negro minister.

  “I would have thought cockfights were against the law in Vermont,” Reverend Andrews remarked when my brother told him what Resolvèd and Welcome were up to.

  “They are,” my father said. “That’s why they’re held up here in the Kingdom. Where there isn’t any.”

  “Any?”

  “Law.”

  “That’s intended for my benefit, Reverend,” Charlie said. “The crusading editor of the local paper here’s been urging me to run for prosecuting attorney this coming fall and clean up Kingdom County single-handedly.”

  The minister raised his eyebrows. “I had no idea Kingdom County needed to be cleaned up. I’ve alw
ays fancied Vermont to be one of the relatively few remaining places where folks obeyed the law and helped their neighbors in times of need and assiduously minded their own business the rest of the while.”

  “That’s Vermont,” my father said. “This is the Kingdom.”

  “But your ‘Kingdom’ is in Vermont,” Reverend Andrews protested.

  “Geographically, maybe. I’ll tell you a story you’ll hear sooner or later anyway. Seeing my cousins and their rooster reminded me of it.”

  As we walked back around to the dooryard, Dad told Reverend Andrews the sad tale of his predecessor, Reverend Twofoot, and the cockfight, and how Reverend Twofoot left Kingdom County a nervous wreck.

  “Good heavens, editor!” Reverend Andrews exclaimed. “I’m beginning to see what you mean about the lawlessness in Kingdom County. No wonder you want your son to run for prosecutor.”

  He turned to Charlie. “Why on earth don’t you, by the way? Not afraid you’ll lose, are you?”

  For a moment Charlie’s black eyes snapped. Then he grinned. “Hell no, Reverend. I’m afraid I’ll win.”

  Reverend Andrews got out another Lucky. “You know, mates, this Kingdom of yours is beginning to put me in mind of what I’ve read about your southern mountain states. Cockfights, church feuds and factions, a cavalier disregard for the law. My gracious!”

  “That’s it exactly, Reverend, a southern mountain state—only more so,” Charlie said. “Tell you what. The best place to show you some real local color is the annual county fair. No, I take that back. The best place is the Smash-up Crash-up Derby, which, by the way, I intend to win this year. The second best place is the fair. No other county fair can hold a candle to it. I’d be delighted to treat you to the night of your life there this summer—if you don’t mind being seen in public with a leading member of the notorious Kinneson clan.”

  Reverend Andrews laughed and said he’d definitely hold Charlie to his promise. “But if this area really does resemble the South,” he said in a serious voice, “what about the local attitude toward Negroes? That’s not a problem?”

  “It never has been,” Charlie said.

  My father said nothing.

  “Might that be because you’ve never had any Negroes living here?” Reverend Andrews said.

  Charlie laughed. “No, because Pliny Templeton, who built the Academy, was an ex-slave. As I’m sure my father’ll be all too willing to tell you, my own great-grandfather brought Pliny to Vermont on the Underground Railroad. Oh, there’s a certain amount of latent prejudice in these parts, as there is anywhere. You’ll hear the same mindless slurs from time to time, especially from the ignoramuses who don’t have anything better to do than sit around the commission sales barn and barbershop all day. But Pliny Templeton never ran into any serious difficulty because of his race, and you won’t, either.”

  “That would be a relief for both of us,” Reverend Andrews said, looking at Nat. “And I must say that your ex-slave Pliny Templeton sounds most interesting. I intend to look into his history at the first available opportunity. In the meantime, before I leave I’d like a word with Jim.”

  I was surprised. What could Reverend Andrews possibly want with me?

  “I heard you mention something about fly-fishing earlier this afternoon, didn’t I, Jim?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I’m wondering if you might teach Nathan how to fly-fish? I don’t know the first thing about it myself, but I think it’s something he’d enjoy.”

  Glancing quickly at Nathan, I didn’t have the impression that flyfishing, especially with a thirteen-year-old, would be his idea of a good time. But I said I’d be glad to take him any time he wanted to go, and Dad suggested the following Saturday evening, right after supper, when there ought to be a good hatch on the water.

  Reverend Andrews stepped inside briefly to thank my mother for the dinner. Just before he and Nathan headed back to town, Charlie suddenly asked him a question, teasingly, the way he’d asked Charlie if he was afraid to run for prosecutor for fear he’d lose. “Reverend, I’m dying to know something. Don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but what if you’d known in advance about the tragic fate of poor old Reverend Twofoot? Would you still have ventured out into this moral wilderness?”

  “Oh, surely,” Reverend Andrews said with a smile. “For one thing, I’m not about to go charging up that hill to interfere with your colorful local customs. But just between us, I shall tell you gentlemen something. If I ever do go up there, I won’t go packing my Bible.”

  “You won’t?”

  “No, sir. For that little outing, I’ll be much more apt to tote along my service revolver.”

  Charlie roared with laughter and slapped Reverend Andrews on the back. “For the roosters, of course!” he said. “Just for the roosters. Right, Reverend?”

  Reverend Andrews smiled. “Let’s get home, chum,” he said to Nat, and gave us a rapid, natty little two-fingered salute, like a World War I flying ace, and headed off along the gool with his quiet son.

  “There goes one tough hombre, Jimmy,” my brother said approvingly. “I like the guy even if he did beat me at HORSE. If he’s just half as good at baseball, I’m going to recruit him for my town team. But I’m curious about something.” Charlie turned to my father. “Did Reverend Andrews mention to the church trustees during his phone interview that he was a Negro?”

  “No. Why should he have?”

  “No reason. I just wondered. But I take it he’s had some rough sledding because of his race elsewhere.”

  “Evidently,” my father said. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Not at all. But he won’t here, will he, Jimmy? Just as I told him, there’s been the strongest tradition of racial tolerance in these parts since the days of Pliny Templeton and the Underground Railroad.”

  “Maybe so, James,” my father said. “But keep in mind that there hasn’t been a Negro family in the Kingdom since then. At best, it’s an untested tolerance we’re talking about.”

  “Come on, Jimmy,” Charlie said, gesturing out across the meadow and the river toward the village and the lovely greening hills beyond it, as peaceful-looking on that hazy spring afternoon as the nearly identical scene on the postcards summer people bought at Quinn’s Drugstore to send home to their friends and relatives. “This is Vermont in 1952, not Mississippi in 1852. Let’s go fishing.”

  3

  From the time I turned ten, I worked at the Monitor for my father every afternoon after school for an hour or two, with Saturday mornings reserved for chores at home on the gool with Mom. (Dad worked all day Saturday at the newspaper office, just as if it were any other day.) I was no fonder of chores, at home or abroad, than any other kid, but I loved spending time with my lively, youthful-looking mother, and on the Saturday after Easter Sunday (the day I was slated to take Nat Andrews fly-fishing in the evening), Mom and I boiled off the last sap run of the season. Late that week the weather had turned sharply colder again, with two frigid subfreezing nights followed by two sunny windless days, causing the sap to run hard one last time. Although the quality of the maple syrup wouldn’t be as high as earlier in the spring, we wouldn’t have missed this final “frog run”—so-called because the peeper frogs had already started to sing—for the world.

  It was yet another good morning, warmer and hazier than the previous two, and Mom and I spent the first couple of hours gathering sap from the two dozen big maples on the ridge above the farmhouse. As we moved from tree to tree, I wore a wooden yoke that fit snugly down over my shoulders, from whose ends depended two five-gallon pails. My mother poured the sap from the wooden buckets into these pails, and when they were three-quarters full I lugged them down to the house. There we strained the sap through cheesecloth into my grandmother Kinneson’s old cream pan, which we used as a boiling-off pan on top of the Home Comfort stove in the kitchen.

  One by one, as the kitchen grew hotter and hotter, my mother opened seven of the nine doors to draw off the heat—
all except the false door and the door to the “other side of the house,” since she didn’t want the moisture from the cooking sap to steam off the wallpaper in the dining room and front parlor. I made myself useful by feeding the firebox of the stove with chunks from the woodshed, adding sap to the cream pan, and dashing a sprinkle of Ruthie the Cow’s (named by my brother in honor of my mother) cream onto it whenever it simmered too hard and threatened to come to a rolling boil; running a clean rag mop over the ceiling to sponge off the condensing drops of sap; and chattering like a jay to Mom about this and that the entire time.

  About ten o’clock there was a loud knock at the door. The first batch of sap had just completed its magical sudden transformation into syrup, and my mother had moved the cream pan to the side of the stove and was ladling the syrup off into one-quart Ball canning jars. I was sitting on the woodbox reading Oliver Twist out loud to Mom, who was inordinately proud of my reading and also of the little stories (mostly hunting and fishing tales about dauntless boys who shot huge bucks and caught enormous wary trout, often nobly releasing them after hour-long battles) I’d begun writing recently but showed only to her.