Preacher's Boy

"You got to have enough boiling to dunk the whole bird, Pa. Else the feathers won't yank easy." She spied me about then. "Well, if it ain't Ned. Didn't speck to see you again."

"Fred," I corrected her, "Fred. I told you I was coming back. Look here. I brung the taters and carrots like I promised."

"Now, that's a good boy, hain't it, Vile?" Zeb said, but I could tell from the look on Vile's face she didn't think I was so good.

I laid out the vegetables on a blackened window frame. There was no furniture in the cabin. Vile came over and inspected my wrinkled brown carrots and soft, sprouting potatoes. She snorted in disdain.

"That's the best we got," I said bristling. "New carrots ain't ready, and Pa only digs new potatoes as we need them."

"I reckon you figure they'd be too tasty for the likes of us," she said.

"Shet your mouth, Vile," the man said. "The boy done what he could."

She sniffed, but turned her attention to the fire. Finally the water began to hum and then to bubble. Zeb picked up the dead hen by her yellow feet and poked her—glazed eyes, head, and broken neck first—into the boiling water until her whole feathered body had been dunked. Then he handed the wet hen to Vile. She took it outdoors and began to pluck out the feathers.

I waited for Zeb to throw out the dirty water they'd doused the chicken in and start fresh, but no, Zeb just took it off the pot hook and set it on the hearth so it wouldn't all boil away. "You gonna peel them taters, Ed?" he asked. "Or jest gaze at the scenery?"

I stuck my hand in my pocket. Then I remembered Ma making me change my britches before dinner. "I ain't got my pocketknife," I said. He took something off the mantel and pitched it at me. I jumped out of the way, making him laugh. It was a great horn-handled jackknife. I hid my red face, leaning to pick it up. The blade, when I pulled it out, was rusty and crusted with filth. I ran it back and forth across the side of my britches making him laugh again. It was awkward trying to peel with it. I was taking out hunks of potato flesh along with the skin.

"There ain't gonna be no tater left, rate you're going," Zeb said.

Vile poked her head in the door and watched me a minute. "Here," she said, handing her father the bird, "you finish this. I'll peel." She took the knife from my hand. "You cut jest like a boy," she said, finishing the job skillfully as Ma. "Now, hand me them carrots."

I fetched her the old bumpy carrots.

"Look worse'n your taters," she said.

"I'll wash them," I said, and raced out to the spring before she could stop me.

There was just a trickle and a little mud puddle to indicate where most Julys a lively spring burst the soil and ran down to meet the creek which joined the North Branch south of town. How would Vile and Zeb live if it dried up completely? I washed the carrots as best I could. They didn't look much better—still brown and lumpy. But I couldn't be blamed for that, could I? I dawdled at the spring, washed my own face and hands, knelt and put my mouth down near the trickle and got a mouthful of water. Vile must have the patience of Job to wait for a whole pot's worth.

When I got back to the cabin, they had already given me up. "Thought you'd taken those pitiful roots hostage and headed west," Zeb said.

"Naw. Run home to his mama, more's the likely," Vile said.

I ignored her and handed Zeb the carrots. He threw them, green stub, peel and all into the pot which was already scumming over from chicken juice. I couldn't tell if they'd even gutted the bird. They sure hadn't removed the head or the feet. I look

ed away. I didn't want to see those glassy eyes staring at me from the pot. Seemed like a cannibal stew.

"Wal," I said as casually as I could manage, "we got prayer meeting tonight. Best be on my way. Sorry I can't stay for supper."

"Who asked you?" Vile snapped.

It was my plan to stay away from the cabin. There was plenty for me and Willie to do elsewhere. But Willie's aunt would not cooperate. Anytime I came by during the next week, she found some chore for Willie to do. I guess she was anxious to keep Willie's soul out of mortal danger, since the Devil has so much work for idle hands. I was the preacher's boy, so she didn't say it outright, but she gave me the distinct impression that, lazy as I always seemed to be, she considered me a prime candidate for the Devil's payroll.

I was rereading Kidnapped for the fourth time, which was fine entertainment early in the day but by dinnertime Elliot's and my room, which is on the third floor and has two big windows to the southwest, gets hot as Hades. If I went downstairs, Ma could not seem to help herself finding me something to do. I give her credit. She never hangs "the Devil has work for idle hands" over my head, but the end result is mighty similar. She'll need me to look after Letty for just a minute while she runs an errand, or ask if I would take Elliot fishing, or, if Pa happens to emerge from the study, suggests that he'd appreciate another hand in the garden.

Truth be told, I don't think Pa really fancies me as a fellow gardener. I think he prefers Elliot, who is content to do exactly as he's told and doesn't ask questions. Sometimes I watch Pa yank out weeds and wonder if he's named each one after a troublesome parishioner. He gets so much satisfaction tearing those roots from the soil and knocking all the dirt from the roots. For a man who can hardly bear to spank a child, he sure does enjoy beating on those weeds.

Ma says I have an overactive imagination, but I don't think I'm just fancying this, because one Monday morning I was watching him pull at a really stubborn weed, falling near over when it came loose. As he was smacking it hard against the ground to loosen the dirt, I said, innocent as a newborn lamb, "Deacon Slaughter was sure riled up about your praying for the Filipinos yesterday, wasn't he?" His face turned red as a winter sunset. I know a guilty face when I see it. Still, guilt doesn't seem at home on Pa's face. It creeps up and sneaks around uncomfortably, as though even guilt knows this is a man who is pure of heart—just one who's been pushed past human limits.

Politics have been giving Pa trouble for some time. First there was the war in Cuba to end Spanish tyranny, which Pa, smart as he is, didn't have the gumption not to question out loud. I had a hard time blaming Deacon Slaughter on that one. When Vermont boys is signing up to die, even preachers got to talk patriotic, don't they?

But Pa really got riled up when President McKinley decided as long as we were stomping out Spanish tyranny in Cuba, we might just as well drive the Spaniards out of Asia while we were at it. So he sends Admiral Dewey, who is lazing around the Pacific with nothing much to do, over to the Philippines. And a few months later those Filipinos, that our battleships have gone to save, they get uppity and start trying to save themselves from us. And Admiral Dewey, a good Vermonter, by the way, who is out there doing his best for Old Glory, not to mention the end of Spanish tyranny, suddenly finds himself fighting the very people he's come to rescue. And my pa can't seem to help praying for the Filipinos.

Even though I couldn't bring myself to ask him directly why he kept praying for the misery of the Filipino people to end, I guess he thought he owed me an explanation.

"They just want their freedom, Robbie. They may not think American guns are all that different from Spanish guns."