We got there just in time. The locomotive was whooshing and blowing steam as it slowed down. It was only the clank of metal wheels on those silver rails that made us know it was a mighty invention of man and not a fire-breathing dragon of the old stories. We strained to see who was in the cab.
"It's Mr. Webb!" Willie yelled. I could hardly hear him over the noise of the engine. We both yelled as loudly as we could and waved like crazy. Mr. Webb waved back from the cab window, yelling something we couldn't understand. Mr. Webb is our favorite engineer. He's never too proud or too busy to wave at you.
We waited in respectful silence while one or two passengers climbed aboard. I sighed. I'd only ridden the train a couple of times, and then only as far as Tyler, which was just ten miles down the track. This train went on to Montreal in Canada, and from there you could catch a train that would take you west to Chicago and then another that would take you straight to California.
"Wal," I said, after the train pulled out and it was quiet again, "that's one thing."
"What is?"
"One thing I want to do before ... you know. I want to ride a train so far west that it will drop into the Pacific Ocean if the brakes don't hold."
I could tell Willie didn't like the idea of dropping into the sea, but he didn't say so. "Won't you get homesick so far away from Vermont?"
"Nah," I said. "You know me, Willie. Do I strike you as the kind of feller who mopes around for his ma?"
"No," he said, "I guess not."
Later I remembered how he said it, and I wondered if he was remembering when his ma and pa died. He was only
a little kid. He must have missed them something terrible.
You might think a fellow who'd given up believing in God would lose his appetite, but I didn't find this to be the case. Besides, Sunday night supper was nearly always flapjacks with maple syrup. I figured a boy who might have only a few months to live ought to eat up so as to have strength for all the adventures he was going to have to pile into them. Let's see. It was nearly the end of June. That was good. July Fourth always promised firecrackers and about as much excitement as a boy might want for a few days. Then I could begin to plan the rest of the summer. I wondered, considering the impending apocalypse, if school would open in September. I sighed. It probably would. Grownups would see to it—just in case our future was extended into the next century, after all.
Still, there was the summer, or most of it, wide open.
Even with flapjacks, supper was a sober meal. I know Pa says I am unfair and judge people too harshly, and maybe it's because I still want to blame Reverend Pelham for things that in truth were nobody's fault but mine. Nonetheless, I can't erase the memory of Reverend Pelham shoveling in those good griddlecakes while at the same time talking about how we had to set our minds on heavenly things. He wanted Pa to rejoice at how many people had truly repented after the morning service, and how he was just warming up, and how, after the evening message, the angels in Heaven would be singing alleluias because of all the sinners he'd dragged in. All right. He didn't say it exactly that way, but that was more or less the gist of it.
"More griddlecakes, Reverend Pelham?" Ma asked quietly.
"Don't mind if I do," he said.
I told Pa after supper that I had a terrible bellyache (I didn't want to break his heart and tell him I'd lost my faith) and didn't believe I could sit through the evening service. He stood there for a minute listening. Reverend Pelham was in the study with the door closed, but we could hear him pacing up and down practicing his sermon. Pa looked at me thoughtfully, felt my forehead, and said in a whisper, "I'm not feeling all that well myself, boy, but that doesn't mean either of us can stay home."
By the time he got up into the pulpit, I could have given Reverend Pelham's sermon for him. Besides, hadn't I decided not to believe in God anymore? Why did I need to listen at all? I spent that hour trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the final days of my life.
Trains were high on the list, but getting to California by Christmas was about as likely as flying to the moon. Then I thought of something I had never done that would just break my heart if I never was able to do it in this life. I wanted once, just once, to ride in a motorcar. I even, just for a minute, imagined myself driving a motorcar, but that, like a train ride to California, seemed too far-fetched even for daydreaming. Riding in a motorcar would be enough. I began to make a picture in my mind of me riding in a motorcar, the wind blowing through my hair, horses shimmying off the road as I passed, people staring, their eyes full of envy and admiration.
Now, at that time I'd never actually seen a motorcar. I'd just read about them in the newspaper, where someone had done a drawing of one that was enough to make a boy's mouth water. Little did I imagine that motorcars were to play a large role in my future.
Reverend Pelham was to leave on the southbound morning train. I was rereading Tom Sawyer. I couldn't read it the day before because Mark Twain, like most of my favorite writers, is not thought suitable reading for a Sunday. I've tried to argue with Ma about this. "When does a person need comfort from a good book more than on a Sunday?" I asked. Beth just snorted. Seems all her favorite books are suitable for Sunday reading. What's happened to her? She used to like Mark Twain almost as much as I do. So I was in the kitchen reading fast and deep to make up for a whole day's deprivation, and I only half realized that Deacon Slaughter and Mr. Weston had come and were holed up with Pa and Reverend Pelham in Pa's study. The door was shut.
An hour or so later Ma hauled me out of my book in time to say good-bye to the reverend, which I did, being careful to use my best manners, so no one could tell how happy I was to be seeing the back of him.
The reverend thanked Ma very kindly for her gracious hospitality and good cooking and shook hands with all of us. He didn't even look funny when Elliot laughed and grabbed him by the left hand instead of the right.
Finally, he turned to Pa and said sort of sadly, "I will be praying for you, Brother Hewitt."
Pa was shaking his hand as he answered, "And I'll be praying for you, my friend."
Then Mr. Weston and Deacon Slaughter hustled the reverend out to Mr. Weston's buggy and off to the depot. I didn't know what all that praying back and forth meant until later that evening, when Ma sent me to the study to call Pa to supper. I opened the door and he was sitting there reading.
I guess I must have dropped my jaw to my knees for the pure shock. My pa was sitting right there in the manse of the Congregational church reading The Descent of Man by Mr. Charles Darwin. It was a well-known fact in Leonardstown that this book was inspired by the Devil himself.
Pa let me stare awhile before he said quietly, "J. K. Pelham is a good man, Robbie, but he appears to be afraid of new ideas. I don't believe God wants us to be afraid of ideas."
But the idea in that book, so Deacon Slaughter had announced one Wednesday night at prayer meeting, was that your great-great-great-great (and so forth) granddaddy was a monkey. I couldn't believe my pa, who was an ordained minister of the gospel and the father of impressionable children, would entertain such a horrifying notion. I said as much.
"I believe that God created us, Robbie, but I'm not wise enough to know just how he chose to do it. I think Mr. Darwin's theory merits study."