The Fires of Spring by James A. Michener
Then came a knocking at his door! That would be Toothless Tom with some food. Eagerly David ran to the door. “Here’s the waiter!” the toothless old man joked. “A little something from the kitchen.”
Like David, Toothless Tom was always hungry. He was a lean fellow from Solebury. Once he had owned a farm. Now his nephew owned it. Something had gone wrong, somehow, and Tom’s nephew owned the farm. Tom was in the poorhouse, and he was always hungry, but he would never eat alone. Not when a growing boy was about!
Tonight Toothless had an apple, fresh and cold from the apple barrels of some farm. He had begged it that afternoon from a trucker. “You done pretty well this month,” he said in the darkness. “Studyin’ is a fine thing for a boy, David. Never forget that. If I had of done a little studyin’ …”
Toothless never finished sentences beginning with if. In the poorhouse such clauses were constant currency. They filled the long hall like dead leaves clogging an alley in autumn, and whenever the old men talked to David, the sentences with if broke forth in profusion. The men would see his frank freckles, his eyes popping with delight at the prospect of extra food, or his eagerness to understand the ways of life, and they would cry, “If I had told Crouthamel ‘No’ when he suggested a mortgage …” “If I had only of finished high school …” “If I had had the operation when the doctor said …” “If … If … If …”
Toothless alone refused to finish those sentences which ride the lonely winds of a poorhouse. He alone had the honesty to realize that even if he had studied, his particular nature was one which ends its day in a poorhouse. Defeat and poverty were the destiny of the kind of man he was. His nephew was much smarter than he, a better farmer, too. Were the old days miraculously restored, were Tom to have his teeth and his farm once more, he knew in his heart that sooner or later his nephew—or some clever man like his nephew—would somehow or other get that farm.
“Gee!” David confessed, “I ate almost all the apple, Tom.”
“You’re a growin’ boy, ain’t you?”
“Tom! You’re very kind. I swear on a Bible, next time you get more’n half.” Positively, absolutely, next time Tom must get his share. David spit on his finger and crossed his heart. Of course, he had made this solemn promise at least sixty times before, but this was the first time he had ever spit on his finger, too.
The toothless old man gummed the last of the core and raised David’s window to throw it away. “Say!” he whispered in a farmer’s speculative voice. “Spring’s comin’.” He sniffed the air. ‘Sure’n shootin’, spring’s comin’.”
David stepped beside him and like a little farmer sniffed at the air. It was very cold, and he could perceive no spring in it. But he felt good, standing there with Tom. He took a deep breath. “Say!” he said. “Seems to me you can feel it. Spring’s comin’.”
When Tom left, David lay straight and quiet for a long time. There were so many wonderful things to think about. Hector in Troy. The rotten Greeks. Why you could never get a 100. The strange sobbing of Gracey Kelley. How could a boy’s brain ever stop hammering and let him get some sleep?
There was a gentle knocking at his door. Shivering in the cold night air, he jumped out of bed and admitted Old Daniel. The little old man didn’t have his teeth in. He was in a long nightshirt, and he carried a candle.
“I brought you something, David,” he whispered. He closed the door and cautiously lit the candle. “Sometimes you may want to read,” he said.
“I don’t have any books,” David explained.
“I brought you one,” said the shadowy old man. He handed a well-worn book to David and then stood away from the bed.
David opened the front cover of Oliver Twist, and there were the magic words: THIS BOOK BELONGS TO DAVID HARPER.
“Oh, Daniel!” he cried, running his fingers along the careful printing. The old man fixed the candle above David’s head and started to leave. “Is the candle mine, too?” the boy asked.
“Of course.” Daniel laughed. “How else could you read in bed?”
David wanted to laugh, too, but tears filled his eyes. There were many things he did not understand about the poorhouse. Twice he had found old men hanging by their necks in the barn, but he had not understood the passionate tragedy that put them there. He had watched an old woman go crazy, one spring, when she thought that the fields of the poorhouse farm were her garden in Doylestown. She had tried to till them all. There were other things, too, that he did not understand, but he did know the meaning of a candle that cost a penny.
In his eleven years he had spent—of his very own money—some twenty-eight pennies. They had not come from his aunt, of course, but from the old men on the hall, and every one of the twenty-eight had represented a real and terrible proportion of the wealth of the man who had given it. Presents in a poorhouse were not like presents at Christmas, when the kind people of Doylestown brought good things for everybody, and never seemed to miss them in the giving. No! When a poorhouse man gave even so much as a candle that cost a penny, he gave part of his decency, part of the miserable hoard that kept him from being a complete and utter pauper.
The candle flickered and Old Daniel’s white silken hair cast strange shadows on the wall. David rubbed his eyes and began to read, but as he did so the frail old man cried, “It’s so wonderful!”
“What is?” David asked.
“Reading your first book.”
“Why?” David asked, pulling the smelly bedclothes about him.
“It’s so wonderful to begin reading! And so terrible. Do you know what you’re doing? Learning leads only to unhappiness, David. When you start to learn and think and feel … Well, you step blindly into a fight you can never win.”
“I don’t want to fight,” David said.
“Your report card,” the old man said as he opened the door. “You must make it better next month.”
But David scarcely heard him. He was already lying on his stomach, starting that magic journey from which no boy returns the same. He was reading, for the first time in his life, a book which was his own.
It was not because of blindness or insensitivity that David loved his life in the poorhouse. During three seasons of the year, life in the long gray buildings was delightful. The men, no longer having money or position to protect, were kind and friendly.
And there was surprisingly little recrimination—that is, during three seasons of the year. Of course, men who had lost their farms were inclined to blame Mr. Crouthamel, but such gossip against rich men was inevitable. It was the other kind of recrimination that was not heard: the blind railing against fate as such.
Uncle Daniel, for example, found no one to blame. The wispy little old man had been a brilliant scholar in his youth. But the evil thing had happened. One day along the canal he had watched a loaded barge drifting down to Bristol, and like a magnet the barge had dragged him away, to Bristol, to Philadelphia, and on to Rome and Cyprus, and strange cities and to the Pyramids themselves. He had seen the world, even the Southern Cross. And now he was in the poorhouse.
Toothless Tom accepted his lot without complaint. He was at peace with the world and did not even blame his nephew for stealing the farm. “He’s a better farmer than I am,” the toothless fellow admitted.
Even crazy Luther Detwiler gave no one any trouble. He, like the rest, conjured up a fable that he was in the poorhouse because Mr. Crouthamel had stolen a cigar factory from him, but the mad Dutchman wouldn’t have known Mr. Crouthamel from a butcher boy.
Very occasionally some strange man, shadowy and terrible, would be forced into the poorhouse for a few days. Having lost position and wealth suddenly, he would be unprepared for poverty, and he would skulk along the corridor, stare into his food, and shiver. Young as he was, David learned that such men always followed the same pattern. Either relatives came to rescue these men, or the men sat apart in the poorhouse and shook as if the cold winds of death were upon them. Within a few days they hung themselves.
So, insulated by men who loved him, he grew up happy and untouched. He especially liked summer at the poorhouse. Corn grew in the lovely fields of Bucks County, and lima beans climbed on poles. Horses smelled strong and sweaty. Wagons creaked in the early morning and groaned their protests at night. Birds sang, and at every meal green things were served. In summer David went swimming at Edison. There were woods to explore, animals to track, and ripeness riot through all the land.
Autumn was golden and exciting. Then wagons worked overtime bringing in corn and pumpkins. After the first frost, apples were picked. Pears were wrapped in paper and stored in dark bins. Cider was made at the press, and celery was buried beneath the earth. Hundreds of heads of cabbage were sliced up for sauerkraut, and David helped Toothless Tom wire down the lids of the fermenting barrels. After the baling wire was drawn taut Tom would tap the barrels of kraut approvingly and cry, “Now let ’er fizz!”
But winter was best of all! A pleasing warmth settled over the poorhouse. For one thing, there wasn’t so much work to do. The stars were brighter, and Orion dominated the frozen skies. Like that vast warrior, David too went out to hunt. Day after day he rose at four and went with Toothless Tom along the creeks to see if their traps had snared any muskrats. Night came earlier, too, and on the long hall there was much good talking.
So for three seasons of the year, life was not at all bad in the poorhouse.
On the last Friday in February, David received a shocking jolt. Miss Clapp opened her blue book and continued the story about Achilles and the Trojans. David sat back and smiled. This time he knew that Achilles was not going to meet the second team. Hector was in the field for the Trojans!
As the great story of battle unfolded, David Harper sat transfixed, his mouth open a little, his tousled head tilted to one side. When the inevitability of Hector’s death bore in upon him, his sandy head lowered, not in defeat, but in despair. And when the flaming Trojan was trussed to the victor’s chariot and hauled through the dust, David could do nothing but sit and twist Harry Moomaugh’s pants, which were now his pants.
He did not protest to Miss Clapp. She was a funny woman, but he trusted her. If she read it that way, that’s the way it was. Nor did he blame the book. He had long since learned that books merely tell what happened. No, his despair was greater because it was formless. An evil thing had happened.
When the day ended, he closed his desk, went to the cloakroom in silence, and slipped into his thin coat. Harry Moomaugh punched him in a friendly manner. “You guessed wrong this time,” he joked.
David stopped and looked at Harry across a considerable void. Silently, he turned away from his friend and left the school. When he reached the poorhouse truck he climbed in back and did not speak to the driver. Grimly he reviewed what he had heard. Hector, the peer of them all, was dead. He was not only dead; he lay disgraced outside the walls of Troy.
At the poorhouse, meals were served in a long, dismal hall, which the women entered by one door and the men by another. Usually the women chattered and argued about seats, while the men were quieter, staring at the kitchen to get a hint of what the food was to be. But this night even the women were quiet, and David had the strange sensation of feeling that as they somberly entered the long hall they were acting out a lamentation over the body of dead Hector. The scene was so lonely and terrible that he had to leave the table, his food untouched.
That night he could not talk to the men on the long hall. He went directly to Door 8 and slammed it behind him. He fell upon his narrow bed and tried to understand what had happened at Troy. Always before he had been able to guess the ending of a story after the first instalment. But this time the story baffled him.
After lights were out Toothless Tom crept into his room with some cheese. David did not want any. “I’m not hungry, Tom,” he said.
“You ain’t et!” Tom insisted.
“I don’t want any,” the boy said dully.
When he found sleep impossible, he crept down the hall to Old Daniel’s room. The wizened man was reading in bed with a candle. “What’s up?” he asked.
“It’s about Hector,” David explained.
“Wrap yourself in those pants. It’s cold.”
“Hector was better than Achilles.”
“Of course he was.”
“Then why did Achilles win?”
Daniel lay in bed with the covers tightly around his thin neck. His delicate hands lay beneath the blankets, and now, as if he were about to say something of great importance, he stuck his left hand out and pointed to his visitor. “David,” he began earnestly. Then he reconsidered and laughed. “Did Miss Clapp finish the story?” he asked.
“Next week,” David explained.
The old man looked at the candle for a long time, so long that David thought he had fallen asleep. Finally he asked, “What do you think will happen next week?”
In the shadows the boy’s face brightened. “Well,” he exploded, “somebody from Troy will kill Achilles and the Greeks will go home.”
Old Daniel chuckled at the eager boy huddled in the blue denim pants. The round face was so pleased, so freckled, so pug-nosed and sure of itself. “That’s what you think will happen?” Daniel asked.
“Sure!” David added. “Troy is the best side.”
Again Daniel started to explain the tragedy that awaited every Hector, and Achilles, and Priam, and each city, whether it be Troy or Carthage or Sparta. But again he stopped. He realized that in every thinking life the moment must come when the bearer of that life must face the inexplicability of things as they are. By and large, the more penetrating the initial blow the better chance a man has of diffusing its meaning over his entire soul and welcoming this savage truth into the heart of his being. Old Daniel saw clearly that within a week this bright, cheery boy would receive his initial blow, for a boy may help to cut down two suicides and miss entirely their meaning, but when a boy grieves abstractly about the death of Hector, and when within a week he must also learn of the perfidy by which Achilles himself died and the foul trick that tumbled the topless towers of Troy, then he is dabbling with the soul’s fire and he must surely be burnt.
“It’s cold,” Daniel said. “Go to bed. Next week tell me how the story ends.”
“Sure!” the shivering little boy replied. “I’ll find out what happened for you.” He hung up Daniel’s pants and crept back to his own room. There, upon his pillow, was a chunk of cheese. Hungrily he ate it in the dark.
As Friday afternoon dragged on, David found himself nervous with anticipation. Finally Miss Clapp picked up the blue book. “This afternoon we are going to say good-bye to our friends the Greeks and the Trojans,” she said. She coughed, waited a moment for that strained silence which delighted her teacher’s heart, and began: “At night the Trojans crept out to get the body of Hector and give it decent burial within the walls.” David gasped when Achilles was tricked to death. Even Achilles should have been allowed to fight. Now the March sunlight crept across the blackboard like the hand of a clock rushing to end the tale. A wooden horse was built, and David chuckled to himself. The Trojans wouldn’t be that dumb!
The sunlight was clear across the board, filling the room like music, and Miss Clapp read on, her voice fraught with suspense. Now the walls of the city were knocked down to admit the horse. The treacherous beast was hauled into the heart of Troy. Stop them! It’s a trick! Night came on and much feasting. Oh, put a guard there! Trojans, Trojans! To the walls! But the city ignored all of David’s warnings, an
This time David could not keep silent. With sunlight flooding the room like the flames of Troy, he rose and asked, “Is that what it says in the book?”
Miss Clapp, who had been working for a crushing finale, was exasperated. “Of course that’s what it says!”
“I don’t believe it!” David blurted out.
“Oh!” Miss Clapp gasped. “You sit down!”
To his own great surprise, David glared at his teacher and cried, “No! It’s a crazy story!” And he dashed into the cloakroom exactly as Gracey Kelley had done. But instead of sobbing or kicking the wall, he grabbed his coat and ran out into the street. He ignored the poorhouse truck and wandered down the hill, down into the fields leading to Edison.
The ground under his feet was still frozen, but he could sense spring fighting for possession of the earth. In places a mild thaw had set in. Here the earth was moist and David’s feet sloshed up and down in rich mud. A path through the woods led him to a sunny spot where jack-in-the-pulpits were growing. Beside him the soft earth was pierced by the glorious leaves of the dogtooth violet.
David’s shoes were now a mess, but his turbulent heart was quieter. When he reached the stream he was fully decided as to what he must do. Miss Clapp could have the story her way. He would have it his way. His fingers were truly burning to get hold of a pencil! “I’ll write a book,” he mumbled defiantly, “that’ll take care of the Greeks!”
There are many reasons why men write books: vanity, a longing for old days, the need of money, a bursting desire to expostulate or to share experience. But in David Harper’s first aching desire to write he struck upon one of the finest and most difficult-to-control of all motivations: he was burning angry, fiery mad, and come gods or schoolteachers or friends or thrashings from his aunt or hunger or poorhouses or the despair of his own heart he would do something about it!