A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
"Cook says she saw Emmie at the train station the other day. Selling pies and biscuits. She told Cook my mamma told her what to do, and she did it."
"I don't know. Maybe she likes being the strong one for a change. Maybe she never had a chance to be that," I said, kicking at the water. "Or maybe she just got tired of being the town fruitcake. Probably wears a body out after a while."
Weaver laughed, but it wasn't a real laugh. I could tell.
His mamma had lost her house. And some had said it was his fault for going to the justice. They said none of it would have ever happened if he'd just stepped aside for those trappers in the first place and kept his big mouth shut.
Mr. Austin Klock, the undersheriff, came up from Herkimer to investigate the fire. By the time he left, those three men had a whole new list of charges against them in addition to the ones Weaver originally filed. No one really thought they'd ever be made to answer them. They hadn't been seen since the day Weaver's house burned. Mr. Klock himself said that it would be next to impossible to catch three trappers who knew every tree, rock, and hidey-hole in the North Woods. He said they were probably halfway to Canada already, fixing to have themselves a time with Weaver's college money.
Weaver had hardly eaten since the fire. Or spoken. Or smiled.
"Cook's got a piece of pie for you. Coconut cream. Your favorite," I told him. He didn't say anything.
"Did I tell you my word of the day? Its leporine. It means like a rabbit."
He toed the water.
"You could use it to describe someone with buck-teeth, maybe. Or a twitchy nose. It's an interesting word, leporine."
No reply.
"I guess it's not so interesting."
"I'm staying on here, Matt," he finally said. "After Labor Day. I just talked to Mr. Morrison. He said he'd have work for me."
"How can you do that?" I asked. "You have to be in New York well before Labor Day. Don't your classes start the first week of September?"
"I'm not going."
"What?" wondered if I'd heard him right.
"I'm not going to Columbia. Not until my mamma's well. I can't leave her now. Not all by herself."
"She's not all by herself. She has Emmie looking after her."
"For how long? It's only another month or so before Emmie's land is auctioned. And besides, I don't have the money now for my room or train fare or books or any of it."
"What about your wages? Haven't you been saving them?"
"I'll need them to pay for a room for Mamma and me. My house burned down, remember?"
"But Weaver, what about your scholarship? Won't you lose it?"
"There's always next fall. I'm sure I could get them to hold it over for a year," he said, but I could hear in his voice that even he didn't believe it.
I did not cry when Miss Wilcox left. Or when Martha Miller said such mean things to me. I did not cry when Pa knocked me out of my chair, and I don't cry in my bed at night when I think about Barnard. But I cried then. Like a baby. I cried as if someone died.
Someone had.
I could see him in my mind's eye—a tall, proud black man in a suit and tie. He was dignified and fearsome. He was a man who could cut down a roomful of other men with only the brilliance of his words. I saw him walking down a city street, brisk and solemn, a briefcase under his arm. He glanced at me, walked up a flight of stone steps, and disappeared.
"Oh!" I sobbed. "Oh, Weaver, no!"
"Matt, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked.
I scrambled to my feet. I couldn't bear it. To think of him stuck here. Working in a dining room or a tannery or up at a lumber camp. Day after day. Year after year. Until he was old and used up and all his dreams were dead.
"Go, Weaver, just go!" I cried. "I'll look out for your mamma. Me and Royal and Minnie and Jim and Pa and Mrs. Loomis. All of us. We will. Just go! Before you're stuck here forever. Like an ant in pitch."
Like me.
It must be after four o'clock now. I haven't been able to go back to sleep. Not since Grace came to visit me. The sky outside my window is still dark, but I can hear the rustlings of night creatures seeking their beds and the first, questing chirrups of the birds.
I have read all of Grace's letters, all but the last one.
South Otselic
Julys, 1906
My Dear Chester,
I am curled up by the kitchen fire and you would shout if you could see me. Every one else is in bed. The girls came up and we shot the last firecrackers. Our lawn looks about as green as the Cortland House corner. I will tell all about my Fourth when I see you. I hope you had a nice time. This is the Last Utter I can write, dear. I feel as though you were not coming. Perhaps this is not right, I can't help feeling that I am never going to see you again. How I wish this was Monday. I am going down to stay with Maude next Sunday night, dear, and then go to DeRuyter the next morning and will get there about 10 o'clock. If you take the 9:45 train from the Lehigh there you will get there about 11. I am sorry I could not go to Hamilton, dear. Papa and mamma did not want me to go and there are so many things I have had to work hard for in the last two weeks. They think I am just going out there to De Ruyter for a visit.
Now, dear, when I get there I will go at once to the hotel and I don't think I will see any of the people. If I do and they ask me to come to the house, I will say something so they won't mistrust anything. Tell them I have a friend coming from Cortland; that we are to meet there to go to a funeral or a wedding in some town further along ... Maybe that won't be just what I will say but don't worry about anything for I shall manage somehow...
I have been bidding good-by to some places today. There are so many nooks, dear, and all of them so dear to me. I have lived here nearly all my life. First I said good-by to the spring house with its great masses of green moss, then the apple tree where we had our playhouse; then the "beehive," a cute little house in the orchard, and of course all of the neighbors that have mended my dresses from a little tot up, to save me a threshing I really deserved.
Oh, dear, you don't realize what all of this is to me. I know I shall never see any of them again, and mamma! great heavens how I love mamma! I don't know what I shall do without her. She is never cross and she always helps me so much. Sometimes I think if I could tell mamma, but I can't. She has trouble enough as it is, and I couldn't break her heart like that. If I come back dead, perhaps if she does know, she won't be angry with me. I will never be happy again, dear. I wish I could die. You will never know what you have made me suffer, dear. I miss you and I want to see you but I wish I could die. I am going to bed now, dear, please come and don't let me wait there. It is for both of us to be there...
She knew. Somehow Grace Brown knew that she wasn't ever coming back. She hoped that Chester would take her away and do the right thing by her, but deep down inside, a part of her knew. It's why she wrote about never seeing the things and places and people she loved again. And why she imagined coming back dead. And why she wanted her letters burned.
I slide the letter back into its envelope. I gather all the letters together, slip the ribbon around them, and carefully retie it. I can hear Grace's voice. I can hear the grief and desperation and sorrow. Not in my ears, in my heart.
Voice, according to Miss Wilcox, is not just the sound that comes from your throat but the feeling that comes from your words. I hadn't understood that at first. "But Miss Wilcox, you use words to write a story, not your voice," I'd said.
"No, you use what's inside of you," she said. "That's your voice. Your real voice. It's what makes Austen sound like Austen and no one else. What makes Yeats sound like Yeats and Shelley like Shelley. It's what makes Mattie Gokey sound like Mattie Gokey. You have a wonderful voice, Mattie. I know you do, I've heard it. Use it."
"Just look where your voice got you, Miss Wilcox," I whisper. "And look where Grace Brown's got her."
I sit perfectly still for a long time, just holding the letters and looking out the window. In another hour or s
I look down at the bundle in my hands. At the pale blue ribbon. At the loopy handwriting, so like my own.
If I burn these letters, who will hear Grace Brown's voice? Who will read her story?
ter • gi • ver • sa • tion
"Would you like a cup of tea, Mattie? How about you, Weaver?" Emmie Hubbard asked. Her eyes were calm and smiling and not the least bit crazy looking.
"Yes, all right. Thank you," I said, putting the chocolate cream pie I was holding down on the table.
"Yes, please," Weaver said.
Emmie took a tin of tea and some cups and saucers down from a shelf. As she turned, I saw a flash of white. It was the nape of her neck, pale as milk above her collar. Her hair was coiled neatly at the back of her head. Usually it was down or caught in a loose messy braid. I realized I'd never seen the back of Emmie Hubbard's neck before. Her faded cotton dress hung crisply from her narrow shoulders. It had been pressed. Maybe even starched.
Weaver and I glanced at each other. I could tell from the expression on his face that he couldn't believe what we were seeing, either.
Emmie's house was tidy. The floor had been swept and the bed made. Her kids were clean—mostly. Myrton's nose still dripped, Billy's ears needed attention, and Lucius had sticky hands, but their faces were scrubbed and their clothes had been washed.
"Mattie, please tell Mrs. Hennessey thank you for the pie," Emmie said.
"I ... I will," I said, embarrassed to find myself gawking.
Weaver and I had asked Mr. Sperry if we could take Demon to visit Weaver's mamma after the dinner service. He said we could, and Cook had given us a pie to take with us.
Weaver sat down on the bed next to his mother. She'd tried to get up to help Emmie with the tea, but Emmie had waved her away. "How are you feeling, Mamma?" he asked.
"My arm pains me some, but I'm all right," she said.
"I heard you got the pig back."
"That's right. The Loomis boys found her. They fixed her pen for me, too. I'm awful glad I didn't lose her."
The kettle whistled. Emmie leaned over the stove to get it. I remembered seeing her bent over the stove another time, for another reason. I had a feeling Frank Loomis wouldn't be fixing her stove again anytime soon. Not while Weaver's mamma was around. She was a righteous and upstanding woman. If she ever saw his bare ass in here, she'd tan it for him.
Emmie served the tea and cut slices of pie for everyone. The children loved the taste of chocolate. Even Lucius. He was too little to eat the crust, but Emmie gave him some whipped cream and filling and he smiled and clapped. We chatted for a while, and Weaver's mamma told us how Emmie was making fruit pies according to her recipe and selling every one down at the train station and how she, Weaver's mamma, minded Emmie's kids while Emmie was gone, but that was all she did, because Emmie didn't let her lift a finger. Emmie smiled and flushed and said it wasn't true—why, just the day before they'd both been over picking beans out of the Smiths' garden and at least the trappers hadn't managed to destroy that. Emmie's eyes darted to Weaver's mamma constantly as she spoke. It was like she was feeling for her, making sure she was there. Weaver's mamma nodded and smiled at her.
It was nice to sit in Emmie's neat house, watching her bustle about, seeing her kids smile as they ate Cook's pie. It was pleasant and peaceable and made a change from trying to haul her out from under the bed.
But then Weaver forgot himself and asked Emmie why she didn't plant a garden herself. It wasn't too late to get beans and greens out of one, he said, and then the whole room went quiet and I could see from the look on his face that he'd suddenly remembered about the auction. Nobody wanted to talk about it, though. Least of all me, knowing, as I did, who was going to buy it.
"But Mamma, we have to talk about it...," Weaver pressed.
"Hush, Weaver," she said, her eyes darting to Emmie. "I know, son. We will."
Emmie looked at us and bit her lip. She pulled at a tendril of hair.
"Where's Tommy?" I asked, anxious to change the subject.
"Over at your place. Helping your pa," Weaver's mamma said. "They've got an arrangement now. Tom's to help with the plowing and clearing, and your pa will pay him for it in milk and butter."
"I like butter," Myrton said, sniffing a string of snot back up his nose.
"Myrton, honey, what did I tell you about using your handkerchief?" Weaver's mamma said.
"Oh yeah."
He dug a piece of calico out of his pocket, wiped his nose on it, and showed it to me. I mustered an admiring smile for him.
We stayed for a few more minutes, and then we had to get back to the Glenmore. Weaver was quiet on the drive. I was the one who spoke first. "Your mamma's one tough nut," I said.
"Don't I know it."
"I didn't think anybody could ever shape Emmie Hubbard up. God only knows how she did it. And with one arm broken, to boot."
Weaver smiled a sad smile. "You know, Matt," he said. "Sometimes I wish there really was such a thing as a happy ending."
"Sometimes there is. Depends on who's writing the story."
"I mean in real life. Not in stories."
Tergiversation, my word of the day, means fickleness of conduct, inconstancy, turning renegade. I felt like a renegade myself just then. I didn't believe in happy endings. Not in stories or real life. I knew better. But then I thought about Emmie's shabby little house and how it was warm and welcoming now. I imagined my pa showing Tommy how to handle a plow, and Tommy all manly and important as he brought home the milk and butter he'd earned. I thought about Weaver's mamma being looked after for once in her life. And Emmie's pride in doing the looking after.
And then I thought of Mrs. Loomis crying in the barn, and Jim and Will tormenting the Hubbards every chance they got, and the set of Royal's jaw when he talked about wanting them gone.
"Me, too, Weaver," I sighed. "Me, too."
lu • cif • er • ous
"Mattie Gokey, what's ailing you? You're slow as a mule tonight and every bit as stupid! Pick up for table eight. Pick up!" Cook yelled.
It was evening, right in the middle of the supper service. The dining room was full to bursting and Cook was in one of her tempers. I ran one order out and came right back in with a new one. John Denio was sitting at Cook's worktable as I called the order out, eating his supper.
"Henry?" I heard him say. He was staring at the bite of food on his fork.
"Vat?"
"You make your biscuits with pepper in 'em?"
Henry had cooked the help stew and biscuits for supper. We'd all finished eating an hour ago, but John had missed supper as he had to go meet an evening train. Henry had kept the leftovers warm for him.
"Vat pepper?"
"You know, black pepper. From peppercorns."
"I don't know vat you talk. I don't put any pepper in any biscuit."
John put his fork down. He covered his supper with his napkin. "Then do me a favor, will you, Henry? Keep the damned mice out of the damned flour bin!"
Weaver laughed his head off. So did I.
"Don't know what you're laughing at. You et 'em, too," John growled.
We stopped laughing. I felt a little green. I didn't have long to dwell on it, though.
"Mattie, pick up for table seven. Pick up!" Cook barked.
I carried four bowls of soup to my table, sloshing them as I walked. I craned my neck trying to see the boathouse from the dining room windows. The boars were all in for the evening. The dock was empty.
"They must've gotten back," I said under my breath. "They must have. So where are the
There was cream of celery soup all around the rims of the bowls and down the sides, too, as I served them. The croutons had sunk. The guests at table seven did not look pleased.
"You got lead blocks for feet tonight?" Cook asked me, when I returned to the kitchen.
"No, ma'am."
"Look alive, then!'"
The kitchen doors flew open. "I need a pot of tea for room twelve, Mrs. Hennessey," Mrs. Morrison said, whirling by. "And a dish of milk toast. One of the Peterson boys is poorly."
"Am I running a dispensary now as well as a kitchen? Mattie, cut two slices of white bread—"
"Mrs. Peterson asked especially for you to make it, Mrs. Hennessey. She said your milk roast cured her little Teddy of his spastic bowel last summer."
"Give little Teddy some of Henry's mouse-shit biscuits. That'll cure him," John grumbled.
"Anything else I can do? Fluff Teddy's pillow? Sing him a lullaby?" Cook groused, pulling lamb chops from under the broiler. "Mattie, fix a pot of tea, will you? Or does Lady Peterson require that I boil the water, too?" she grumbled at Mrs. Morrison's back. "Eighty-five for supper, fifty of them in all at once, a special birthday meal for twelve, and now I'm a nursemaid as well..."
We were supposed to have eighty-seven for supper. Eighty-seven, not eighty-five. Two guests hadn't showed—rooms forty-two and forty-four. Carl Grahm and Grace Brown. They had table nine. I'd set it for them, but it was already eight o'clock and they still hadn't come in off the lake.
I'd waited on them earlier at dinner. They'd ordered soup and sandwiches, and they'd argued throughout the meal. I'd overheard them as I brought their food.
"...and there was a church right by the hotel in Utica," Grace Brown said. "We could have gone in and done it there."
"We can do it up here, Billy. We'll ask if there's a chapel," Carl Grahm said.
"Today, Chester. Please. You said you would. You promised me. I can't wait any longer. You mustn't expect me to."