I WAKE UP AT NOON, edgy with the trembles of a bad dream. And then I remember it wasn’t a dream. All of us are worn out, between Father and me riding all night and the baby getting born. At noon we sit around the table eating cheese and bread, staying quiet so as not to wake Mam and the baby. None of us has much to say, anyway.
In the afternoon, Tom Breckenridge’s father brings grain to be milled, but he doesn’t stay much longer than it takes for Father and me to grind the single sack of wheat he’s brought with him. I open the sluice gate to let the water rush in from the wheel and drive the runner stone, while Father empties the wheat into the hopper. Then I hurry down to the meal floor to collect the flour in the sack as it comes down the chute. From upstairs, I can hear Mr. Breckenridge repeating to Father what Mr. Moultray told us at The Crossing about keeping quiet—as though he thinks Father needs reminding. I wonder if the real purpose of Mr. Breckenridge’s visit is to deliver that message.
FRIDAY MORNING OUTSIDE the school, while we’re waiting for Miss Carmichael to ring the bell, Pete refuses to speak to me, except to tell me that we Gillies are Indian lovers because Father spoke up in favor of letting Louie Sam stand trial. John and I deny it hotly, but Tom Breckenridge says it’s true—he heard the same thing from his pa. I think it’s curious how Mr. Breckenridge told Tom what happened, after making a special trip to our place to warn Father to keep quiet. Tom says that as Mr. Bell’s closest neighbors, it could just as easily have been them that Louie Sam attacked. Tom counts himself lucky that he and his family are still alive.
“My pa says the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” Tom proclaims to the whole schoolyard. “We won’t be safe until every last one of them is wiped out.”
Pretty soon, it seems that Pete and Tom have got the whole school agreeing with them about us being Indian lovers. Adding to our reputation is the fact that it was Agnes rather than a proper settler’s wife who helped bring my baby brother into the world. I try to explain to Pete and Tom that Agnes was closest at hand to our cabin, and that John didn’t know what else to do but fetch her, with Father and me gone and Mam crying out that the baby was coming and coming fast. But nothing I say matters.
Pete is busy turning himself into some kind of hero, boasting to Abigail Stevens and the other girls about how he rode with the men on some very important business. He’s stepping around the vow we all took not to say anything. But seeing as how just about everybody’s father rode with the posse, everybody knows what happened, anyway, except for the lurid details—which Pete is pleased to provide, whispering them to the girls in a corner of the schoolyard.
After Miss Carmichael calls us inside, Abigail comes up to me in the cloakroom.
“Why are you letting Pete take all the attention, George?”
“He can have it,” I tell her.
“You know what he’s saying about you, don’t you? He says you and your pa were cowards out there.”
“He’s a liar,” I say.
“Then you better let folks know that,” she replies.
Lately, Abigail seems more like a woman than a girl—and not just because her figure has rounded out. There’s a matter-of-factness about her, like she’s annoyed the other kids don’t see the way things are in the grown-up world as clearly as she does. Abigail has always been smart at school. Also, she has pretty eyes.
“We were sworn not to talk about what happened,” I tell her.
“Seems you’re the only one keeping that promise. My pa told my ma all about it. He said he thought your pa had a good point, about letting that Indian have his day in court.”
“Then why didn’t your pa speak up?” I say.
“How should I know, George? Was I there? And don’t go raising your voice to me when I’m trying to help you.”
Outside, there is a sudden hullabaloo—shouting and hollering. Those of us who are indoors hurry out to the schoolyard to see what’s the matter. By the time Abigail and I get there, a crowd three deep has circled around two boys flying fists at each other. The crowd—girls as well as boys—is egging them on, sounding just like the posse did in the minutes before Louie Sam died.
I push my way through to the front, and I see two things. The first is Pete, watching the fight with a stupid grin on his face. He’s also leading the cheer. The second thing I see is that one of the boys is my brother, John, and the other is Jimmy Bell. Jimmy’s half a head taller than John and has got the advantage of weight on his side. But John is a wiry scrapper and will never give up, which I know from wrassling with him myself.
Jimmy gets John in a headlock with his left arm and starts punching his face with his right fist.
“Give it to him, Jimmy!” yells Tom Breckenridge, standing at Pete’s side.
I’m itching to run in and pull Jimmy off of my brother, but I know that if I do, John will never forgive me for saving him like that in front of everybody.
Now Abigail is shouting, “Stop it, Jimmy! You’re hurting him!”
Miss Carmichael is on the front porch of the schoolhouse, blowing her whistle for them to stop—to no effect whatsoever. John’s face is bloodied, his nose broken for sure. Annie and Will are across the circle from me.
“Let go of him!” Annie calls to Jimmy. Then she sees me across the way. “George, make him stop!”
But John manages to hook Jimmy’s leg with his foot. Jimmy falls hard on his back and John is on top of him, his small fists pounding into Jimmy’s big face—giving him back the beating that he just took. Now that John is winning, it’s safe for me to mix in. I hold off for a second or two, though, to give John his due revenge. I look over to Pete, thinking he might be wanting to rescue Jimmy, his more-or-less stepbrother. Pete has stopped shouting for blood, but I see he’s smiling a little—like he’s just as pleased to see Jimmy being pummeled as he was to see John in that spot a minute ago.
I make my move. Striding forward, I grab hold of John by both his arms and drag him off of Jimmy.
“That’s enough!” I say.
John struggles to get free from me, but I can tell it’s mostly for show. He’s had enough. There’s blood running out of his nose, and he’ll have two shiners. The kids around us step back, loosening the circle they formed to watch the fight—those who a moment ago wanted a ringside view suddenly wanting to melt away into the background as Miss Carmichael descends from the porch, blowing her whistle. Her voice is tight and high when she demands to know, “What in heaven’s name is going on here?”
“He called my ma a whore!” Jimmy cries out, staggering to his feet and pointing at John.
“Only because you called Agnes one!” shouts John right back.
“She’s just an Indian,” says Jimmy. “She doesn’t count.”
John can’t keep quiet. “Agnes is nice! She helped Mam!”
I think to myself, There’s our reputation as Indian lovers—set in stone.
Abigail says, “Everybody knows your ma’s a whore, Jimmy.”
Miss Carmichael is scandalized. “Abigail Stevens!”
“Well, it’s true.”
I notice that Pete Harkness gives Abigail no argument whatsoever in defense of Mrs. Bell.
MISS CARMICHAEL KICKS John out of school for the rest of the day for fighting, but not Jimmy because she says his father just died and he deserves special consideration. But each boy is sporting a bloody nose, so she winds up sending them both home, anyway. John is in no condition to be walking all that distance alone, so I tell Miss Carmichael I’m going with him, and Will can walk Annie home later. To make up for missing another whole day of school, Miss Carmichael makes me take home a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson, her favorite writer, and tells me to memorize one of his poems for Monday.
Mam, barely on her feet after having the baby, gets upset with John. His nose has swollen up fiercely by the time we get home and she says it will never look right again. But when she learns what the fight was about, that John was defending Agnes, she is more forgiving. She soaks a rag in hot water and makes a poultice for him to hold over his nose and his eyes.
Father has little to say about the fight, other than that John should have kept his fists higher to protect his face. Since Wednesday night, he’s been quiet, preferring to spend most of his time alone in the mill instead of with the rest of us in the cabin. He barely pays attention to Teddy. With Father spending all his time in the mill, the chores fall to John and me. That’s fine with me. It feels good to keep busy, and I like spending the rest of the day away from people.
Late in the afternoon, before John and I have to give the cows their evening milking, I settle myself in a quiet corner of the shed and open the book by Mr. Emerson to a poem called “Nature.” It’s full of fancy language, the gist of which is that God is all around us. That seems like a wrong-headed idea to me—everybody knows God is in Heaven. Isn’t Nature what leads us astray, like the snake tempting Eve with the apple? I thought Nature was what we sinners were put on earth to overcome, but here this poem seems to say that Nature is its own kind of god. I wish I could talk with Father about what it means, but remembering the scowl he wore when he came into the house for the noon meal warns me against it. He isn’t even talking to Mam, not very much.
IT RAINS ALL DAY SATURDAY. After supper, when Teddy and the younger kids have gone to bed and Father has taken a lantern back down to the mill, I find a moment alone with Mam. She’s sitting in the rocking chair we brought all the way from England. Her eyes are closed, but I can tell she’s awake from the way she’s rocking herself ever so gently.
“Will you listen to this poem I had to learn?” I ask her.
She opens her eyes, so weary that I think she might have been sleeping after all.
“Aye, Georgie. Let me hear it.”
I begin reciting, but when I get to the part—
For Nature listens in the rose
And hearkens in the berry’s bell
To help her friends, to plague her foes,
And likewise God she judges well.
—I stop. Mam’s eyes have been closed again, her face soft while she’s been listening. Now she comes back to the world.
“Is that the end of it?”
“No. There’s more.”
“Why did you stop?”
“It doesn’t seem right, Nature judging God. God made Nature. Only God can judge.”
“I suppose,” she says, all dreamy.
It surprises me that she isn’t troubled the way I am, she being the one who insists we go to church every Sunday.
“But it’s wrong,” I tell her.
“It’s just a poem, George. A nice poem. You learned it well.” She eases herself up from the rocking chair. You can tell she’s stiff and sore. “Time to get to bed now, for both of us.”
She takes a candle and moves slowly toward her bed, pulling the curtain across behind her. I watch through the gap as she reaches into Teddy’s cradle and pulls a blanket up over him. In the candlelight, her eyes shine and her smile is full of wonder. One thing I’ll say for Mr. Emerson’s poetry: Mam sure seems to like it.