Preacher's Boy by Katherine Paterson
I guess she felt me staring at her, because just then she turned around and smiled. I don't know any woman in the world with such a smile. It would charm the gruff off a Billy Goat, that smile. "You must be feeling better," she said, and came over and kissed my forehead. Ordinarily a boy who is nearly eleven would dodge a kiss from his ma, but I knew she meant no harm. It was just her way of taking my temperature. I lay back and let her tuck the quilt up. "Oatmeal this morning?" she asked, so sweetly that I felt tears starting in my eyes. I pulled the quilt up a bit to hide my face. "Or I could do griddlecakes, if you have the appetite."
Flapjacks for breakfast! She was making a pet of me. I pushed the covers off my face. "Yes, thank you," I said.
She laughed, a sound pleasing as the song of a hermit thrush. About then it dawned on me that my sickness had turned me into treacle pudding. I couldn't let that happen. But every time I tried to stop thinking about home and how glad I was to be there, my mind would go to Vile, who had none. How was she managing it alone? I tried to tell myself she was better off without that old villain, but she wouldn't know that. What was she eating? Why hadn't I made her take at least a handful of Montpelier crackers last night? The sweet smell of flapjacks on the griddle and sausage in the pan made me think all the more bitterly of some nauseous soup that might well be her only nourishment today.
Today? I sat up so fast, my head spun. "Ma!"
Ma wheeled around from the stove to study me. "What is it, Robbie? What's the matter?"
"Nothing." I shook my head, gently so as not to make my headache worse. Today they'd be sending Zeb to Tyler to stand trial. For kidnapping and attempted murder. Not just that, I told myself. He'd practically destroyed Wolcott's Drugstore, hadn't he? I fingered the bandage on my head. My poor head. Hadn't I nearly died?
I lay back down carefully. Let the rascal hang, or rather, let him rot in jail. What did I care? He deserved it, the old drunk. Vile would be better off if she never laid eyes on him again.
But what would happen to her? Where could she go? There were orphanages. I dropped that when scenes from Oliver Twist came to mind. Or kindly widows, as in Huckleberry Finn. I tried to picture Vile with somebody like Aunt Millie. They'd drive each other crazy in a week. I let out a giggle.
Ma turned again, looking a little puzzled, but when I just smiled and shrugged, she turned back to the stove. She's too much of a lady to pry.
Pa would know what to do about Vile. I'd tell him about her. He'd figure out something good. Wouldn't Vile be happier in a warm house with three sure meals a day than in a ruined cabin where you'd freeze even in July?
The family began to gather. Apparently they'd been eating in the parlor while I was sick so as not to disturb me. Beth took note of the flapjacks, snuck a look at me, and sniffed slightly before intercepting Letty at the door to put on her apron for her.
"Flajacks for breffast!" squealed Elliot and clapped his hands. Pa patted his shoulder and nodded at me.
"It appears your mother has killed the fatted calf, on a Wednesday, even."
I knew what the "fatted calf" meant. When the Prodigal Son comes home after wasting all his father's goods, instead of scolding him, the father throws a feast to welcome him. I didn't know quite how to feel, Pa likening me to the Prodigal.
When Ma announced that breakfast was ready, I sat up and made to put my feet on the floor. Pa stopped me. "You can eat your griddlecakes right there, Robbie. The doctor doesn't want you bouncing around for a few days yet." I lay back down. My head was throbbing from just trying to stand. Ma sent Letty to fetch a couple of cushions from the parlor. Then Pa propped me up so I could eat my breakfast from a tray.
At the table Pa said the blessing, adding a thanks to God that I was improving in health and strength. Everybody dug in except Ma, who was watching me like a mother hawk from her position at the stove. "Small bites, Robbie. You have to eat slowly. You haven't had any solid food for a week." My mouth was jammed full of sausage and flapjacks with maple syrup leaking out the corners. I could only nod in answer. "Small bites, Robbie, and chew each one."
"He'll be all right, Mother," said Pa. "Now you come sit down and enjoy some yourself." She looked at me doubtfully, but she put another platter of cakes on the table, served herself, and sat down.
It felt lonely watching the five of them gathered around the table eating and talking and me across the room on the daybed with my solitary tray. Maybe it sounds silly, but I felt as far away from them at that moment as I had up at the cabin.
Occasionally, Ma would peer across the table at me and smile as if to ask how I was. But it just made me feel lonelier and less a part of them all to be singled out. I was drifting down past melancholy toward self-pity when Beth said, "I heard they were moving that man to Tyler today."
A shiver went through me. I didn't want to be reminded.
"What man?" Letty asked.
"Da bad man wha' stole Robbie," answered Elliot, proud to be the one who knew the answer.
My stomach lurched. I grabbed the chamber pot and fed it all my breakfast.
13. The Impossible Occurs
"ROBBIE!" BOTH MA AND PA WERE BESIDE ME IN A HOP. "Oh, it's all my fault," Ma moaned. "I should have known better than to give him sausage."
"It's all right, Mother." Pa was wiping my face with his big white handkerchief. He put it back in his pocket, gave me a wry smile, and took hold of the chamber pot I was still clutching. "Need this any longer?"
I shook my head and lay back against the parlor cushions.
"It smells bad!" Letty protested.
"I'll take care of it," Pa said, bearing my late lamented breakfast out to the privy.
"Excuse me," Beth said primly. "I seem to have lost my appetite."
"Robbie din' mean to. Di' you, Robbie?" Elliot was leaning anxiously over me.
"No, Robbie didn't mean to be sick," Ma said, watching my face and not Elliot's while she spoke to him. "Now go back to the table and finish your breakfast."
The girls were soon out of the kitchen, leaving Ma still looking worried and guilty and Elliot reaching over to the girls' plates and helping himself to their flapjacks.
Pa brought the chamber pot, scrubbed clean, back in and put it down beside the daybed.
"Pa," I began, not sure how to say what I needed to say.
"Yes, Robbie?"
"The—the man they caught has a girl, a daughter. Is anyone seeing to her while—you know—while—"
Pa sat down on the side of the daybed, smiling as though I'd said a kindly thing. "We surely will take care of her when we find her, but right now no one knows where she is."
"I think—well, they were staying in that old abandoned cabin—"
"Yes, that's what the man said. But Willie and I looked there—"
"It ain't her fault, Pa. She can't help he's her father."
"No." Carefully, he pulled the parlor cushions out from under my back. "No. She can't help that." He patted my shoulder. "Now, you just lie here and get a good rest. Don't you fret about the girl. I'll ask around. Do you know her name?"
"Vile," I said. It felt good to be stretched out flat again.
"Vile?"
"For Violet. Violet Finch."
I tried to keep a picture in my mind of Pa climbing the hill again like the Good Shepherd looking for the lost lamb. Finding Vile huddled up in the cabin, frightened and alone, and gently persuading her to come home with him, taking her small dirty hand into his big strong clean one—It didn't work. No matter that I'd brought on another headache trying to concentrate on Vile's rescue, by midmorning Pa had come home alone.
"I went up to the cabin again. I'm afraid she's gone—cleared out. There's nothing to suggest that anyone has been there for the last day or so."
I didn't sleep well that night. Why should I have to feel responsible for Vile? She wasn't my care. She wouldn't want to be. I'd nearly got myself killed trying to save her life, and was she grateful? It was plain she didn't want me or anyone else trying to
I turned over again. I must have been groaning out loud, because before long Pa was sitting beside me, putting a cold compress to my forehead.
"Shh—shh. It's all right, Robbie. Just try to lie still and the pain will go away."
His hand felt warm and healing on my head. I wanted to grab it and hold it there, but it seemed a baby—an Elliot—kind of gesture. I kept my arms stiffly by my sides.
After a while he leaned over and kissed my forehead, just as Ma might have. "Can you get back to sleep, do you think?"
I wanted to beg him to stay with me. Instead I said, "Yessir," and he went quietly up the stairs.
Morning came at last. Pa was down as early as Ma, dressed in his Sunday suit. "I'll just take some bread and tea," he said to her. "I have to get on my way." He came over to the daybed before he left, but I pretended to be asleep. He was gone before I realized that it was important that I know where he'd gone.
Carefully, I propped myself up on my elbows, trying to avoid those sudden movements that sent my head to clanging. "Where'd Pa go?" I asked.
"Oh, Robbie. I was hoping you were still asleep."
"Pa. Where did he have to go?"
"To catch the early train," she said.
"Is somebody in the hospital?" Somehow when you're sick yourself, you tend to forget that things happen to other people at the same time. I'd forgot that Pa still had parishioners to think of.
"No. No one's sick. They've called him to testify."
"Testify?" A picture flashed in my head of a big prayer meeting in the city, where Pa would get up like Deacon Slaughter and make announcements about what God was up to. "Testify in Tyler?"
"About the kidnapping," she said gently. "Dr. Blake said you weren't well enough to be a witness yourself, so they called on your father."
"Oh." I lay back down slowly. I had to think. Even Pa thought Zeb had kidnapped me. Well, the bum had nearly killed me. What was the difference? Thou shalt not bear false witness.
I reasoned that Pa wouldn't know it was false. He'd only say what he believed to be true. But I knew better.
And Vile, wherever she was, knew better. She'd never forgive me if I let my pa send hers to prison for kidnapping. Why hadn't I told Pa the truth? I let out a sigh as long as a train pulling into the depot.
"Are you feeling all right, Robbie?" Ma asked.
"Yeah," I said, my voice strangling in my throat.
I watched the rest of them eat their oatmeal, my head whirling even though I was flat on my back. Was I to be the cause of my father lying in court after laying his hand on the Holy Bible and swearing to tell nothing but the truth? He doesn't know what the truth is or isn't. A voice came into my head powerful as though it had come down from Mount Sinai. But you know the truth, and you let him bear false witness.
I managed to choke down a little oatmeal with a lot of maple sugar and cream.
"Will you be all right if the girls and I go to the sewing circle this morning, Robbie? We missed it last week—"
All of a sudden it seemed God was clearing the way. "Sure," I said. "I just want to nap this morning, I think."
"If you need anything, just send Elliot down for us, all right?"
I waited until I was sure Ma and the girls were well out of sight of the house. Elliot was on the porch, where Ma had told him to stay in case I needed him. He was playing paper dolls, it sounded like, from the way he kept switching his voice from treble to bass. "Elliot!" I called.
He came at once, running in his lopsided way to my bedside. "Wha's a matter, Robbie? You need me t' get Ma?"
"No. Something else. Will you go upstairs and get me my Sunday suit and cap and my shoes and stockings?"
"Why for, Robbie?"
"I got to get dressed. Pa's in trouble, and I have to help him."
"Pa in trouble?" The idea was uncomprehensible. His eyes were wide as poppies and his mouth agape.
"Don't worry. He'll be all right. Only I have to get dressed." He didn't move. "Please, Elliot. Just go up and get my things. Now!"
He jumped a little at the last word, then hurried to obey.
I got up very slowly and even more slowly walked to the sink. I turned on the spigot and caught a little water in my hands and rubbed my face. Next thing I knew, I was grabbing the front of the sink with both hands. I held on until I stopped swaying. All the time since I'd been hurt, I'd only gotten up to use the chamber pot beside the daybed. Walking across the kitchen floor was about to do me in. I sat down on the nearest chair until my head settled.
"You aw right, Robbie?"
"Yeah," I said, pressing my lips together. "Just put the clothes down on the bed, Elliot. That's all."
"Not even 'Sank you, Elliot'?"
"Oh, sure. Thank you, Elliot." Behind my back I could hear a little grunt of pleasure. "Now go along to the porch and play or—whatever you do."
"I wanna help you, Robbie."
"No, I'm fine. Thank you, though."
"I wanna help you help Pa. Can I?"
"No, Elliot." It would be hard enough for me to pull this off alone. How could I manage if I had to take care of Elliot as well? He had come over to my chair and twisted his head around to put his face right into mine.
"Pleash." He looked as though he was about to burst into tears.
I pulled back away from his face. "Oh, yeah, there is something else you can do."
"Wha', Robbie?"
"Go get my bank off the dresser. We'll need some money."
At the word we he broke into a grin and lumbered over to the stairs and thundered up the two flights. I had to figure out something fast, some way to keep him occupied while I did what had to be done. Despite his clumsiness he was back by the time I'd gotten around the table and sat down on the daybed.
"Now"—I lowered my voice to a whisper, making it up as I went along—"your job—your job is to go down to the general store—"
He looked puzzled. "By myshel'?"
"Yeah," I said. "We're going to have to split up at first."
"Wha' I do at da store?"
"You—uh—wait. In case, just in case they show up."
"Who show up?"
"The—the bad men," I blurted out. I looked close to see if I'd scared him. I hadn't meant to.
"Da bad man gone to Tyler."
"Well, one of them has—the worst one. But he's got some bad friends. They're the ones we got to get for Pa."
"Oh." He hesitated, then raised his drooped shoulder a bit so he seemed to be standing up a little straighter. "'kay," he said. "How dey look?"
I had to think fast. What I was trying to do was keep Elliot safely on the porch of the general store until at least dinnertime. I wasn't trying to scare him, for heaven's sake. So I thought of the most impossible description in the world. "They'll be riding in a motorcar," I said.
"Wha'?"
"You know, Elliot. I've told you about them. They're just like buggies, but they don't need a horse."
"How dey go?"
"Magic," I said.
"Oh." It was explanation enough. "Wha' I do when dey come?"
I was getting impatient to be rid of him, so I said the first thing that came into my mind. "Catch 'em."
He nodded importantly. "'kay, Robbie."
"Here," I said, shaking two pennies into his hand. "Buy yourself a couple of fireballs to suck while you wait."
"Sank you, Robbie. You good braver." I think he might have hugged me if I hadn't ducked. "Why you goin' get aw dress' up?"
"I have to get dressed in case, you know, just in case they come here."
He looked totally confused, so I began to talk faster. "See, when you catch the bad guys for Pa—boy, he'll be proud, he'll say what a hero you've be
He nodded his big head seriously. I was relieved he didn't have the sense to ask me how he was supposed to make them come up to the manse. "I wouldn't want those villains to find me lying here in my nightshirt, now would I?"
He giggled.
"Hey! You better get going."
I had to sit down twice even before I came to pull my stockings up and buckle my stupid knickers. Crikey, but I'll be glad when Ma admits I'm man enough to wear long pants on Sundays. When I leaned down to tie the laces of my shoes, my head spun around so fast, I had to bring my foot up to the bed to get the job done.
Just dressing myself had exhausted me, but I couldn't go puny now. I stood up and held still until the spinning stopped. At the door I had a glimpse of myself in the kitchen mirror. The dratted bandage. I tried on my Sunday cap, but it sat on the top of my bound-up head like a rabbit on a snowdrift. On the porch I grabbed Pa's gardening hat off a peg. It would have to do.
I cannot adequately describe the horrors of that walk. I tried to pretend I was a prisoner, just released from Andersonville Prison after the Great War, making my way home to Vermont. My mind was telling my body to run, but my poor body was crying to lie down and die. Somehow I made it down School Street to West Hill Road, pausing to lean against the Martins' stone wall to catch my breath, praying that none of the neighbor ladies had stayed home from sewing circle. That was all I needed—some nosy woman to come running out to force me back home to bed. Or, worse yet, Rachel Martin to spy me in the state I was in.
When I finally got down the slope to Main Street, I was seen. But it was only a couple of the stonecutters taking a smoke outside the sheds. They stared at me, especially at my strange headgear, but I knew they wouldn't interfere.
It was ten miles from there. When I was young and healthy, I'd done it in under three hours. That day I was slower than a wounded veteran in the Fourth of July parade.