Preacher's Boy

There was no sign of him around the stone sheds, their low metal roofs gleaming ghostly under the single tall gaslight. It didn't help to know that under those roofs lay hundreds of gravestones in the making. We headed up West Hill Road, then turned at School Street, not talking until we reached the manse. Neither Elliot nor Pa was there, but Ma was so relieved to see Willie and me that she refused to let me go out again. "Go on home, Willie. Your aunt will be frantic if you stay out much longer. Mr. Hewitt will find Elliot. I know he will. Thank you, though." She gave him a large piece of pie to eat on the way and hurried him out the door.

Letty was already in bed. Ma and Beth and I sat at the table and tried not to look at each other's faces, pale and drawn in the gaslight of the kitchen.

"He's dead. I just know he's dead," Beth burst out.

"Oh, Beth, I'm sure he's all right." But how could Ma be so sure?

The silence among us was so huge that each tick of the hall clock hit my head like the stroke of Teacher's ruler against my palm. I cleared my throat.

"What, Robbie?" Ma looked at me all expectant, as though I might have come up with a good idea. I felt pushed to say something.

"Me and Willie combed the town—all Elliot's favorite spots. We even hunted up the creek." The look of fear that crossed her face made me hurry on. "It's running low," I said. "You know how dry it's been."

She tried to smile.

Beth scraped back her chair and got noisily to her feet. "I can't stand just sitting here staring," she said.

Ma looked up, all lit up with hope. She really thought one of us was going to come up with some great idea, but we didn't have any, not any we could bear to put into words. The quarries east of town and the pond to the south—they were too unthinkable.

I made a picture in my mind of Pa, the lantern swinging in his right hand, climbing East Hill Road toward Quarry Hill. He was calling out, Elliot! Elliot! and then a little voice from the dark calls back, Here I am, Pa. And he takes Elliot by his big left hand and brings him home, rejoicing.

"I'll make some tea," Beth said, bringing me back to reality.

"Thank you, Beth," Ma said, her voice low with disappointment. "That would be nice."

We drank our tea. I put two large lumps of maple sugar into mine, stirred it as hard as if it was porridge, blew across it, and slurped it. Nobody corrected me, not even Beth. I wished they would.

At first we couldn't be sure. When you been listening for what seems like hours, your ears strained with the waiting and wanting to hear the sound that's not there, you hardly dare to trust them when it does come. Then, suddenly, we all jumped up at once and ran to the door. Our chairs clattered backwards to the floor, but we didn't stop to right them. Ma got there first and yanked the door wide.

There was Pa, bent nearly in half with the effort of carrying a long load of what we knew was Elliot onto the porch. Ma gave a sharp cry and was still. None of us could breathe.

"He's all right," Pa said quietly, answering the question we couldn't bear to voice. "Just very, very tired." He came on into the kitchen and gently laid Elliot's crooked frame down on the daybed we keep in there in case someone is sick and needs to stay close to the stove. Slowly Pa straightened up and kind of crunched his shoulders. "He was in the cemetery. I found him stumbling around the tombstones. He didn't seem to know why he'd gone up there. I asked him, but he couldn't seem to explain." He turned toward Ma. "It doesn't matter, does it? He's safe."

"Oh, Frederick," Ma said. "Thank God."

He kept looking at her for a minute, and then he went over to the door where she was still standing and, right in front of us children, he put his arms around her, laid his head on top of hers, and commenced to weep.

"I went all the way to the quarry....It was too dark to see anything down in the ... in the ... I was so afraid..." The words were coming out between the sobs. I may not have heard them just right, but I swear that is what it sounded like he said.

I shut my eyes. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears as well. How could I bear to witness it? My pa hanging on to Ma, crying like a baby. It did something to the pit of my belly. I was ashamed for him. Even when he humiliated me or carried on against war, I'd never seen him when he was anything less than a real man. But at that moment he was not the tall preacher that folks had to crane their necks to look up to, not only physically but in every way. He was a scared little boy. It was all I could do to keep from running out of the room.

"It's all right now, Frederick. It's all over now." Ma was patting his back and comforting him like he was Letty and not her husband. "It's all right."

Finally, Pa let her go and reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and blew his nose. He laughed in a funny, choked kind of way. "My," he said, "you'd think I was the lost one."

He blew his nose once more before pocketing his handkerchief and going over to the daybed. He bent nearly double to get his head as close to Elliot's as he could. "How're we doing, young man?" he asked softly.

"It's aw right, Pa," Elliot whispered back. "I wa' scare', too."

"Good thing we found each other then, eh, son?" His voice was so gentle, so full of love that at that moment I was seized with such a jealousy of Elliot that if I had been abiding by the commandments, I would have shattered the one on covetousness to powdered smithereens. How could Pa love Elliot that much? Elliot wasn't a son a man could take pride in. He was a poor simpleton to be pitied. He'd never grow up and accomplish anything in this world. Mercy. He'd never even be able to shoulder the duties of the stupidest farmhand or stableboy. Pa and Ma were likely to be taking care of him the rest of their natural lives, and then who'd have the burden of him? No one in his right mind would want it. But here was Pa worshipping his poor simple boy like a wise man come to the manger. Whatever else it all meant, I knew better than I knew my own name that I had never heard Pa speak to me in such a voice. He'd never cried for me.

Nobody was paying me the least attention, so I climbed on upstairs to my room—to Elliot's and my room—and went to bed. I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing the sound of Pa's crying in my head. At long last I heard his heavy footsteps on the stairs. He was carrying Elliot to his own bed.

"Night, Robbie," he said. "Thanks for helping."

I turned my face to the wall and pretended to be asleep.

5. Disturbing Revelations