EARLY JULY 1954
Icould hardly sleep. It didn’t matter that the hard work of weeding with the hoe, and hilling up the potatoes until the dirt was packed up high around them wore me out down to the core or how desperately I needed sleep to energize my body for the work that lay ahead. I spent my nights tossing and turning, finding the only consolation of anxious nights to be the gorgeous sunrises I’d witness when morning finally dawned.
The controversy over where the sun shines first in the whole United States was always funny to me. I know the sun kisses the top of Mars Hill, Maine, before any other spot. The rest of the country has given in, but it’s remained an argument among Mainers. Those on the coast say it’s Cadillac Mountain, a few say Lubec, but I know it’s Mars Hill, and my sleepless nights and early mornings solidified that for me.
So many mornings, when sleep wouldn’t come, I’d dress and head down to the woods off the back field. I did my best thinking and hoping there. These woods were thick with alders, and the pines jutted majestically into the sky. The forget-me-nots hung like clouds barely suspended above the earth and the moss lay like a beautiful blanket, making my steps stealthy. A big, old bull moose hung around this part of the woods but not even he could hear me coming thanks to the green moss cushion. I’d find my favorite rock, the one I’d been coming to for as long as I could remember. Whenever I needed some space to think or just wanted time alone to dream, I’d head for the big rock next to the little creek running through the back end of the farm.
That morning, I headed out to think and pray and hope that tensions would dissolve, that issues would come to some kind of resolution. And that I’d find a way for Mick to start talking to me again. Since Mick had sent that note—that picture of the woodchuck tunneling toward the fort—I’d hoped it meant he was somehow “tunneling” toward me, that he was looking for ways to see me, to talk to me, or to connect with me somehow. But it’d been three weeks since Mother had led me to the note in the basket and since then, nothing. Mick still came to the farm with the other Maliseet, and he still planted in the fields not far from me, but without even a glance from him, it became agonizing.
It’d been two weeks since Mother spoke up at the Hendersons’ and two weeks since any of us spoke of that at all. Mother seemed different, rather distant, at least from Mr. Pop. I’d never known my parents to not speak around mealtimes or to let their anger seep deep enough into them that it pulled their smiles down and turned their eyes glossy. I wasn’t sure if they had discussed his not being around when she spoke out or if Mother ever asked him about Mr. Carmichael’s threats toward Glenn or if she told him about Mick and me, but I knew something had changed. And I hated it. I hated all of this.
A twig snapped behind me. I swung around, startled. “Sorry,” he said. “I scare ya?” It was Old Man Stringer, steadying himself on an alder.
“Thought you were the moose.”
“If I were a moose, I’d make a lot more noise that this. You’d have heard me huffin’ at ya.”
I laughed. “And you’d have heard me screaming and running.”
“Some people do scream and run from me,” he said.
“That they do. But only ’cause they don’t know you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Miss Mercy. They scream and run because they do know me.”
I had to laugh. He was right. His smell, his torn, plaid flannel, his dirty and cracked bare feet scared people. That Old Man Stringer committed the sin of drinking so flagrantly only left people to speculate on what other sins he was up to privately.
Figuring my quiet time on the rock was over, I stood and offered Old Man a hand.
“Here,” I said. “Let me help you up to the house. Mother’ll have some biscuits for you.”
“If you don’t think she’d mind,” he said as he swaggered a bit toward me.
“You know she won’t and that’s what you’re doing out here.”
“Oh, you got me, Miss Mercy. Always so smart.”
I wove my arm through his elbow and patted his arm before aiming for the house.
“Not so smart,” I said, as we started walking together. “I can’t figure out why you’d have been coming up this way and not across the fields this morning. Whatcha been doing in the woods?”
“Ain’t been doin’ nothin’,” he said. “Just hoping to find you here.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, laughing again. “To find me?”
“Yup.”
“This isn’t just about biscuits?” I teased.
“Nope. I’m on a mission.”
“And what, may I ask, is your mission this morning?”
Another reason folks ran from Old Man Stringer was to avoid getting caught up in one of his gin-fueled fantasies. Through the years, he’d been known to bust through tavern doors, announcing that he’d been recruited by the government to go fight the Communists, and to stagger into church to warn everyone about the hurricane that was set to barrel through and drown the woods in the middle of winter. But I liked Old Man’s stories. And he never ceased to surprise me with them.
“Ma’am,” he said with dignity, “I am here to warn you to be on the lookout for moose and old drunks prowling these parts.” Old Man Stringer snorted and slapped his leg as he laughed, nearly falling over in the process.
I laughed along, but grabbed his elbow again and started walking, this time faster, toward the house.
“All right then,” I said. “Consider me warned. Let’s go.”
Old Man Stringer tried to stifle his laughter but every five or so steps would stumble again and burst into giggles. It was like walking with a two-year-old. When we could see the peaks of the house above the ridge, Old Man Stringer stopped and sniffed hard, still trying to stop cackling.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, as if that would shake the drunk from his brain. “This is serious. I did come to find you. It’s a very important errand,” he added, carefully pronouncing the words distinctly. “At least, that’s what Mick called it.”
I stopped, nearly tripping myself in the process, and pulled my arm from Old Man’s elbow. I looked around to make sure no farmhands were in the back field.
“Mick sent you?” I asked.
Old Man nodded and began rummaging through his pockets.
My eyes widened as he thrust his hand into his ratty jeans pocket, pulling it out empty before tapping his chest.
“Ah, this one,” he said as he pulled out a folded slip of paper. Old Man Stringer held the paper toward me like a king presenting a pardon.
“For you, madam.”
I took the paper from his hand and started to unfold it.
“Don’t read it here,” he said. “Wait till I get my biscuits.”
Old Man’s few moments of solemnity had been broken. We both smiled.
I quickly folded the note, shoved it into my pocket, and pulled Old Man Stringer toward the house, now hurrying. I had a million questions for Old Man, but I didn’t want those answers as much as I wanted to know what Mick sent to me.
After getting Old Man settled with a plate of biscuits and a tin cup of coffee on the front porch I skipped steps up to my room. Mother called after me to remember that I still had a breakfast table to set, and I called back that I’d be down in a minute.
I ran into the bathroom, figuring this place would buy me the most time. I perched on the edge of our claw-foot tub and unfolded Mick’s note. My hands trembled a bit. Maybe Old Man’s shaky hands were catching.
The note was addressed to no one and signed by no one. Mick was smart to avoid writing names down, but my heart sank a bit not seeing my name and his together on a page. Still, I knew Mick’s handwriting and I knew his intention. There was no denying this really was from Mick, for me.
Tommy? Really? You’re lucky I’ve hunted with you enough to know you’re an expert at throwing off a scent. Otherwise I’d be pummeling your new boyfriend every time he drove up to the house. Hardee-har-har.
I miss you. Still tunneling toward. Someday. Somehow.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I did both. Smiling as I thought of how well Mick knew me; that he understood Tommy’s frequent presence at the farm. That he understood was the best news I could’ve gotten.
Tommy had taken me up on my invitation for boysenberry pie, just a day after I’d extended it. I knew he would but thought it might take a bit of time, wished it would’ve. I was glad farmwork goes on, so Tommy helped out weeding and hoeing to hill up the potatoes. He even followed me into Mother’s garden to help me do some work there. He followed me around like a loyal dog hopeful for a treat. I struggled to keep up appearances with Tommy. Insincerity wasn’t my strong suit. Perhaps batting my eyes now and then blinded Tommy to my true agenda, but I was starting to like myself less and less.
Mick’s note helped me stomach my own behavior a bit easier, but I couldn’t keep this up for long. I couldn’t purposely keep leading Tommy on. I was pretty sure a fifteen-year-old’s life was not meant to be this complicated.
Mother called for me again from downstairs. I sniffed hard and cleared my throat, trying to rein in the cry-laughing the note brought out in me, before I answered back with, “One minute. Funny stomach!”
“I’ll get the Pepto-Bismol,” she said before her steps moved away from the base of the stairs toward the kitchen.
I read the note a third time and clutched it to my chest. I was tempted to smell it but knew any scent would hail from Old Man’s pocket, not from Mick. So I folded the note again, using the exact same creases Mick had made. I didn’t want to change anything about it. Though, for all I knew, Old Man had creased the note. Mick could’ve had it in an envelope. And who knew how long Old Man had the note. I’d have to find him later to ask. I’d also probably have to guarantee his silence with more than biscuits. I figured Mick had worked out a way to keep him quiet. More than once Old Man had stumbled to the Flats sick with need for a drink when the shops and bars in town had colluded to stop selling to him. But the Maliseet understood Old Man’s predicament. It was easy for the good Christian townsfolk to shake their heads at a man’s desperation for the evils of alcohol. But though Old Man wasn’t Maliseet, the Maliseet understood when it was less of a devil and more of a savior.
Somehow, one of these times, when Old Man had been shaking and begging for a drink, it’d been Mick to run to town to get it for him. Mr. Thibodeau at the liquor store would’ve never sold anything to a white sixteen-year-old, but he’d sell to Indians at any age. The only time I ever knew Mr. Pop to go into Thibodeau’s Food and Liquor was to confront Mr. Thibodeau when Mr. Pop got wind of his selling to Maliseet children.
Mother called me again. “I’ve got the Pepto when you’re ready, Mercy. I’ll go ahead and set the table.”
I shook my head. A funny stomach was the one surefire way to get out of chores in this house. Both Mr. Pop and Mother would keep working with broken legs and limbs, pounding headaches, stuffed noses and coughed-out lungs, and expect others to do so also. But digestion issues were another matter. They required tender care and lots of space and, of course, the pepperminty pink liquid. My mother had been traumatized by reading of cholera epidemics as a child and became convinced any slight disruption in digestion could signal another outbreak waiting in the wings.
For me, it was just a handy excuse. I always asked God to forgive me for lying, but somehow I imagined He understood. Mr. Pop had told me every Sunday for my whole life that we didn’t work on Sunday because “rest was God’s idea, not mine, Mercy.” So I figured if God invented rest, He might not mind if sometimes I snuck a bit extra in. Even if I had to come by it dishonestly.
I flushed the toilet and ran the water in the sink, knowing that wasting water for a faked illness would get me in more trouble than the fake illness itself. With my parents as well as with God. But I couldn’t worry about that now. Not with Mick still tunneling toward me and me needing to throw people off our trail.
“Well,” Mother said as I pulled my chair to the table. “Your color seems fine.”
She put her hand to my head. “And you don’t feel warm. Or cool.” Mother stepped back and looked at me quizzically. I looked across at Mr. Pop, who also studied my face.
“No, actually I feel fine now,” I said. “The Pepto is already working.”
“Think you’re coming down with something?” Mr. Pop asked, eyes scrunched.
“No,” I said, smiling first at Mother who moved the box of cornflakes closer to my bowl. The price to pay for my lies was not getting any biscuits, eggs, and bacon. So I figured I might as well continue. “I might have splashed some of the creek on my face this morning …”
Finally Mr. Pop smiled back at me.
“For goodness’ sake, Mercy!” Mother said, throwing up her hands. No matter how long Mother lived on this farm, she could not shake her disgust at the little creek that ran through the back field. Although the glacial water came crystal clear to us from the heights of Mt. Katahdin, Mother was convinced it was nothing more than a sewer for the tramps who passed through these parts. To her the creek positively sparkled with disease.
“I think I just saw a moose use it the other day,” Mr. Pop said and winked at me.
“You two will be the death of me, I swear,” Mother said.
“Better death by us than by funny tummies,” I said, winking back at Mr. Pop.
For a moment it felt like old times. My parents happy. Me laughing. Mr. Pop opening the Bible to read morning Scripture and then following up in prayer. But as Mr. Pop closed his prayer by asking for God’s “hand and guidance and wisdom” for the Indian Rights Council meeting coming up, I realized we had returned to the very new times we all now lived in.
I wasted no time after the amens. “What Indian Rights Council?”
“Mercy,” Mother said, passing a plate of biscuits to Mr. Pop. “Let your father get some food on his plate first, please.”
I shook the cornflakes into my bowl, reaching farther than Mother would like for the milk. Mr. Pop didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He gently pulled his biscuit apart and spread the butter, pausing only to ask Mother for the jam. He lifted two pieces of bacon off the plate in front of him and spooned a bit of egg before looking around the table.
“Is the pepper out here?”
“Goodness,” Mother said. “Forgot. Be right back.”
Mr. Pop nodded at Mother, and then I noticed Mother’s empty plate. A ruse if there ever was one. My stomach fluttered as I feared what was coming.
Sure enough, as soon as Mother could be heard opening drawers and cabinets in the kitchen as though she’d hadn’t kept the pepper mill in the same spot for twenty years, Mr. Pop answered my question.
“The mayor has asked for an Indian Rights Council to look into some of these new concerns with the Maliseet.”
“New concerns?” I asked.
“Well, maybe new situations that bring to light old concerns is a better way of putting it.”
“Like Glenn and Marjorie.”
“Yes,” Mr. Pop said. “For instance, like Glenn and Marjorie. But also like all this land settlement talk coming from the Maliseet and even how the Supreme Court’s school ruling for the Negroes in Topeka affects us up here.”
“But the Maliseet already go to school with us. No one objects to that.”
“Yes, they go to school with you. And I’m glad for that. But it’s not true that no one objects. Plenty of folks have thought the Maliseet children should be sent to their own school. Some have claimed the Maliseet influence on our children would be damaging. But up until now, most of us have argued that this was a terrible idea. Although, it’s gained popularity.”
“Because of Glenn and Marjorie,” I said.
Mr. Pop nodded at me. “Because of Glenn and Marjorie,” he said. “But, really. Just because we haven’t segregated schools doesn’t mean we’ve accepted the Maliseet into our lives.”
“You have,” I said.
He breathed in deeply. “To some degree. Maybe.”
I spooned some cornflakes and gave them a couple chews before asking, “So what do you think? What’s going to happen?”
A few months ago, I would’ve felt certain of Mr. Pop’s answer. Today, of course, I wondered. Having heard nothing but Mr. Pop’s silence when Mr. Carmichael raged about killing Glenn and having seen him sitting in the car while my mother defended the rights of the Maliseet showed that Mr. Pop might be coming around. The widespread community fear caused by Glenn and Marjorie had gotten to Mr. Pop and changed his heart and his mind.
“What I think,” Mr. Pop said, “would be best answered while you and I ride to pick up the men.”
He didn’t have to ask twice.
In the weeks before harvest when the fields showed off in their purple-flowered glory, the Maliseet came to the farm to work odd jobs with Mr. Pop and Ellery and Bud. Mr. Pop had mentioned something about needing a bigger potato house, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t want to ask, to throw him off the subject. Not that he was talking yet.
Instead, Mr. Pop was enjoying the beauty of the fields. It was hard not to. Potato fields in full bloom in July might be the most exquisite sight on a farm. Even though they signal backbreaking work of potato picking just around the bend, the grace and elegance of the flowing rows of blooms focuses all eyes on the joy of the present, not the work of the future. Purple blossoms up against the rich, dark green leaves are a striking sight. The creamy yellow blossoms look antique. The beauty came when, like patchwork, different varieties of potatoes grew in fields side by side. The delicate cream color echoes the hue of the tuber just below the surface of the rich brown dirt.
While folks in Augusta or Portland might have rolled their eyes at the idea of our holding a festival and crowning a Maine Potato Blossom Queen, well, if they’d just look at the soft waving fields, they’d agree it was only right to celebrate this bit of alluring and inviting brilliance in the midst of our otherwise rough and rugged landscape and life.
I wondered what this year’s Potato Blossom Festival, which was starting in less than a week, would be like. Certainly, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as fun as last year’s. It was hard to believe it’d been just last year when Mick and I first caught each other’s glances, and something changed in each of us. From childhood friends to whatever we were now: secret boyfriend-girlfriend? Or woodchucks, like Mick said.
It was hard to believe it was just last year that Marjorie Carmichael won the Maine Potato Blossom Queen title and had gotten to go to the Bangor Hotel. Of course, Molly had hoped to enter this year but her family put a quick stop to that. Mr. Carmichael was actually pushing the festival committee to put an end to the Potato Blossom Queen Pageant altogether. He credited it with driving the Indians wild with lust, and accused the pageant of being nothing more than a public peep show of sorts.
“So, the Indian Rights Council.” Mr. Pop’s words jarred me back to the present, to this truck, to the fields, to where we were headed. To Mick. “The mayor asked me to serve on it.”
“You’re on it?”
“I felt it important to say yes, especially now. We’ll meet in Fort Fairfield the weekend the Potato Blossom Festival begins.”
“But that’s next week!” I was surprised they were moving ahead so quickly. “Why now? Why not wait until after harvest?”
“I think the rumblings and speculations and anger seething under the surface has barely been held at bay. You were at the Hendersons’ after church that night. I might not have been inside, but I knew it was some hot supper of a meeting. Your mother is like a pot of beans simmering on the stove all day. When troubles bubble and boil inside, it doesn’t take long at all before the lid is pushed from the pot and her righteous anger rises to the top. With most people it’s just anger, but with your mother you can count on it being righteous anger—that’s why she made a speech. She’s always been a barometer I watch closely. It’s one of the things I love about her.”
“You love this about her?”
“Of course I do. How can you ask that?”
“Because it sure didn’t look like love when you were sitting in the car. At least, not to Mother.”
Mr. Pop sighed heavily. He clenched the steering wheel tighter, steadied his breathing, then relaxed his grip. “Your mother and I have talked about this. I apologized. Well, I apologized to her for not being there. I would’ve stayed had I known the pot of beans was about to boil over.”
Mr. Pop glanced over my way, hoping I’d crack a smile. I gave in.
“So you weren’t avoiding her speech?”
“Not at all. But I was avoiding everyone else’s.”
“But you never run from stuff like this!”
“I wasn’t running, Mercy. Just sitting it out. There’s a difference. None of us has to get involved in every little thing, every little conversation, every big fight no matter how much we care about it.”
“But you weren’t inside. She had no one to back her up.”
Mr. Pop clenched the wheel again. “She had you, Mercy. Did you back her up?”
I stared out the window. Of course, I hadn’t said a word to defend Mother. Until now, it hadn’t even occurred to me to do so.
“I’m sorry, Mercy. Wasn’t your job to back her up. Would’ve made it awkward for you. I know that.”
I turned to Mr. Pop as the car slowed at the stop sign, ready to roll into town. “You know what?” I asked.
“I know you’re worried about how people see you. I know you’re wondering what everyone thinks about you and Mick.”
I answered too quickly: “Mick and I are friends. Why would I worry what everyone thinks?”
Mr. Pop tried to hide a wry grin. “Your Mother and you think I don’t know anything. You think I’ve got my head buried deeper than the potatoes. You girls think I can’t see.”
I picked at my thumbnail and stared straight ahead at Second Baptist’s steeple coming up behind town. I was too nervous to say anything. I knew Mr. Pop could see. I just didn’t know what he had seen.
“Mick’s a nice boy, Mercy. He’s smart and a hard worker. In many ways, I’ve loved him like a son. So all I’m saying is … land sakes, what’s going on up there?”
My eyes shifted from the church’s steeple to the sidewalk just ahead where a crowd had gathered in front of Fulton’s. Mr. Carmichael was yelling and pointing.
Mr. Pop pulled the truck over and we both jumped out. Though, Mr. Pop raced far ahead of my more dazed steps. Somehow, as I drifted toward the crowd, I knew. Though I couldn’t hear his words, I recognized the fury of Mr. Carmichael’s voice.
Then a path cleared among the people, and I could see: Mick standing in the direct line of Mr. Carmichael’s finger above Old Man Stringer. Mr. Carmichael’s words rang clear to my ears now as well as he yelled to my father just what he had seen.
“He killed him, Paul! I saw him through the window. That boy struck Old Man. Cold blood. He’s dead.”
Mr. Carmichael swung around to the crowd, his eyes flashing, his hands waving. “It’s like I’ve been telling you people. Maliseet aren’t simply pagan. They’re monsters.” Mr. Carmichael lunged toward Mick. The crowd gasped as Mr. Pop grabbed Mr. Carmichael, restraining him.
And then something overtook me. I pressed through the crowd, stepped over Old Man and Dr. Benson, who someone had run to get, and grabbed Mick, wrapping my arms around him as though we were back in our fort, as though we were alone, as though not all eyes were on us.
I never heard the sirens or the commands for Mick to let go of me and go with them. I didn’t hear Mr. Pop urging me to let go. I never heard his words of assurances that all would be fine, that he’d sort this out. All I heard was Mick whispering “someday” before being pulled away and then Mr. Pop thrusting the keys into my hand and grabbing my shoulders.
“Go right back home. Tell your mother to call Uncle Roger. Now!”
I nodded and stepped backward toward the truck. People spilled out from the brick facades along Main Street, bunching together, at first staring and then turning toward each other to start churning the rumor mill. Then a few folks splintered off, running toward Dr. Benson’s office, following his pointed finger and clipped demands. While I walked backward, the scene ahead of me blurred, the bricks of the buildings and clear glass of the doors and height of the steeple at Second Baptist and the cross of St. Mary of the Visitation faded and whirled together in the terror of my mind.
I had lost sight of Mick, of the police who led him away, and of Mr. Pop. But as I stepped up onto the running board of the truck, I saw three figures walking up the steps of the jail, each with their hands on the boy in the center. Two police officers grasped Mick’s elbows, leading him ever forward, toward who-knew-what future. Mr. Pop rested one hand on Mick’s back and raised his other toward heaven, toward the One who knew that future.