A Difficult Boy (13 page)

Mr. Lyman looked down at Ethan, following the boy's glance to the cloth on the counter. “Yes, boy?” There was a knife-edge in the storekeeper's voice, and the gray-blue eyes that had been all warmth and softness for Mrs. Nye turned to steel. He tugged the cloth to properly meet the end of the marker. But he didn't go back to remeasure the rest.

Mr. Lyman's stare felt like a spider crawling across Ethan's face, down his neck, around his shoulders, then back up to the top of his head again. His hands itched to brush it away and cover his face and head against it. “Ah—I—uh—nutmegs. Here,” he choked out, placing the parcel in the basket and backing away quickly.

“Thank you, boy. That will be all.”

Ethan nodded dumbly and retreated to find a paper of
pins to add to Mrs. Nye's order. But he couldn't help surreptitiously watching Mr. Lyman as the storekeeper finished measuring the cloth out. Although he couldn't see quite as well, he was almost certain that the last two yards measured short again.

“Lemon!”

“Peppermint!”

“Lemon!”

Peter and Solomon Ward came into the store, Peter clutching something in his fist, and Sol struggling to take it away.

Ethan retreated into a corner of the shop, wishing himself invisible.

“It's
my
penny! I say what we can buy,” Peter said, shoving Sol aside.

“It's
my
penny now.” Joshua stepped in behind his brothers, separating them and snatching the penny from Peter. “And you won't get it back if you don't stop acting like a pair of heathens and—” He swept his hat off and bowed deeply to Mrs. Nye, giving her a delighted grin.

Mr. Ward followed Joshua in, muttering to himself and flipping through a small account book. Like Joshua, he tipped his hat and bowed to Mrs. Nye, but there seemed to be something a little sad in his face when he greeted her.

Peter and Sol wandered off to admire the pocketknives on display in one of the glass cases while Joshua chatted with Mrs. Nye and Mr. Ward placed his order with Mr. Bingham.

“Pins!” Mr. Lyman said. “Boy, where are those pins?”

“H-here,” Ethan said, coming out of his corner cautiously. He was relieved that the Wards all seemed too busy to notice him. He added the paper of pins to the parcels on the counter next to Mrs. Nye's overflowing basket. The tiny woman would never be able to carry it all home unless she
had a wheelbarrow sitting outside.

“That's all of it,” Mr. Lyman said. “No, wait,” he added as Mrs. Nye rose from her chair, leaning on her cane. He took a spool of cheap blue ribbon from the shelf behind him, measured out a length and snipped it off. Smiling at Mrs. Nye, he tucked it into one of the parcels. “No charge.” Her face glowed as if he'd given her a length of solid-gold chain.

“Here's a chance for Peter and Sol to earn their penny back,” Joshua said. He snapped his fingers and waved his brothers over, then divided up basket and packages between them. “Ma'am?” He held out his arm for Mrs. Nye. Beaming like a girl, she allowed Joshua to escort her from the store, the boys trailing behind.

Mr. Ward shook his head and made a little tut-tutting noise. “A shame, a true shame . . .”

Mr. Lyman nodded sagely. “It
is
sad to see her health failing so. And her all alone in that great big house.”

“That great big house. Yes, there's my problem.”

“Your problem? Surely it's hers, Robert.”

“Well, it would be if I hadn't sold her the lumber for her new roof and clapboards last year. She hasn't paid more than fifty cents on her account. I can't carry her on my books forever, George.” He thumbed through his account book. “But God help me if I have the heart to see her turned out over it. Joshua adores her; she's always been like an old auntie to him. And how could I face my Abby, knowing that I evicted the woman who delivered all our babies?”

Mr. Lyman smiled. “Indeed. How could you face any mother in this town? And yet—” He ran his finger along the edge of the counter. “It would be a mercy, wouldn't it? If she were to be taken out of that house.”

“That doesn't sound very charitable, George. You know
she has no family left since her daughter died. She'd have to go on the vendue.”

Ethan stifled a gasp of horror. He didn't entirely understand how the vendue worked, except that it was like an auction in reverse, with the town paying the lowest bidder to take care of an orphan or a widow or a pauper who had no family to take them in. Whenever Pa and Ma fretted about money, the specter of the vendue lurked about the household like an evil spirit.

“What charity is it that would leave her rattling around that dark, drafty house, growing older and sicker there, perhaps to freeze for want of fuel or to stumble into the fire with no one to rescue her? Wouldn't she be safer, healthier, if she were to move in with, say, the Ingersolls and have a great happy family around her, pleased to feed and shelter her in return for the pittance the town pays for her keep?”

“Yes. Well. When you put it that way . . . that way . . .” Mr. Bingham said, joining the discussion.

“Surely some people are better off with someone else to take care of them,” Mr. Lyman said.

“I suppose you're right,” Mr. Ward said. “I see, though, that
you're
still carrying her on your books. That was quite a stock of goods you sold her today. I don't suppose she paid for any of it, did she?”

Mr. Lyman shrugged.

Mr. Ward continued, “It's easy enough to talk about letting someone go on the vendue, but hard enough to do it. I wonder what if it was me? What then? Do you ever wonder about that, George?”

Mr. Lyman shook his head. “It would never be the likes of us, Robert. Men like us, we'll always be our own masters.”

“Well, shouldn't every man be?”

Mr. Lyman leaned across the counter, warming to his argument. “It's all well and good to
say
every man should be his own master, but you'll agree, surely, that some men are better off with a master over them—men who can't master themselves.”

“Yes,” Mr. Bingham said. “Yes . . . the drunk, the feeble . . . feebleminded, the cripple—”

“The poor,” Mr. Lyman concluded.

Mr. Ward propped his elbows on the counter. “Surely some are poor through no fault of their own. Would you make slaves of the poor, then?”

Mr. Lyman shook his head. “I'd have them taken care of. Relieve them of their burdens. Some men are weakened by vice, some are weak by nature. The former don't deserve the benefits of property. The latter are only burdened by it.”

“Burdened?” Mr. Ward asked.

“Yes, burdened, as a simpleminded mother is burdened with the care of a child. Now, which is the true charity—” He put his palms together before him. “—to leave child and mother together out of sentiment, or to turn the child over to someone who can tend it properly?” He separated his hands and held the right one out, palm up.

Ethan couldn't help but shiver, thinking about his own father. Did Mr. Lyman believe Pa was simple, like the Ward boys did? Worse, did Pa believe it, too? Was that why he'd sent Ethan away? Ethan shook his head. It wasn't—it couldn't be true.

“Of course both would be better served if they were separated,” Mr. Ward agreed.

“Exactly. The child is well reared,”—Mr. Lyman lifted the palm representing the child—“and the mother is freed of a burden too great for her.” He turned the other hand palm-up and moved his hands up and down as if they were the balances
of a scale. “But leave them together,”—he brought his hands together again, this time closed into opposing fists—“and both are destroyed. So, too, it is with men and property.”

“And
women
and property?” Mr. Ward asked with a half-smile.

“I was speaking hypothetically.” Mr. Lyman smiled and spread his hands wide again.

“Yes, but Mrs. Nye's debts are real. As real as this counter.” Mr. Ward knocked on the wooden surface.

“As is our responsibility to her. The weak—women, children, paupers—they are all our concern, are they not?” Mr. Lyman reached under the counter and drew out a piece of paper. “I'll buy out your note,” he said.

“What?” Mr. Ward backed away from the counter, startled.

“The promissory note you have from Mrs. Nye.”

“Charity, George?” Mr. Ward shook his head doubtfully. “To me or to her?”

“Business. I can afford to carry the debt longer than you can. She'll pay me. Eventually.”

Mr. Ward shook his head as Mr. Lyman wrote out the paper. “You're a better man than I am, George.”

After Mr. Ward had left, Mr. Lyman pulled out his black notebook and began to write in it, humming to himself a little as he did. Mr. Bingham bustled about, putting back tins and covering the barrels and boxes that he'd opened to fill Mrs. Nye's order. As he swept up a spill of flour, Ethan mulled over everything he'd heard, making a mental list of questions to ask Mr. Bingham later about promissory notes and debts and the vendue.

“Well, boy?”

Ethan's head snapped up at Mr. Lyman's voice. Mr. Bingham had disappeared into the back storeroom; Ethan could
hear the clerk muttering to himself as he looked for something. Ethan and Mr. Lyman were now alone in the shop. “Sir?”

Mr. Lyman opened a tin of lemon drops and held it out. Ethan's mouth puckered yearningly toward the sweets. Mr. Lyman chose one for himself, then gestured for Ethan to do the same. Ethan took one but didn't put it in his mouth.

“I hope you learned something useful today,” Mr. Lyman said. “It's an intelligent boy who knows when to speak and when to keep silent, hmmm?” He raised one eyebrow.

Ethan nodded dumbly, not feeling particularly intelligent at all.

Mr. Lyman pressed his lips together, the way Pa sometimes did when he was trying to figure out how to explain something so that Ethan could understand it. “You see, boy, everything's a lesson—to those who are intelligent enough to learn it.”

“A l-lesson, sir?” What, he wondered, was he supposed to have learned? That Mr. Lyman could cheat Mrs. Nye and be kind to her all at the same time? That maybe the vendue wasn't so very bad?

Mr. Lyman warmed to his lecture. “If we learn, we become strong. Successful. I know. I've learned.” He gestured at the evidence of his success that surrounded him. “If we don't, if we let events overcome us, we become undisciplined, weak.” His nose wrinkled over the last word.

“Weak, sir?” Ethan repeated, feeling a bit that way himself. Mrs. Nye was weak, he could see that. But she couldn't help it, could she? She was just old. His head started to go all fuzzy, the way it did when the schoolmaster would explain something far beyond his grasp.

“Weak. It all comes down to discipline and intelligence.”
His voice broke off, and he cupped his chin in his hand. “A lapse of discipline can be fatal. Fatal,” he said softly, as if he were talking to himself. His eyes drifted back to Ethan, and he resumed his lecturing tone. “You think I'm exaggerating, but I know what I'm speaking of, boy. I know.” Mr. Lyman's index finger tapped his breast.

Ethan nodded as if he understood. But what did discipline and intelligence have to do with Mrs. Nye and her debts? “And . . . and intelligence?” he asked.

“Why else did God give us intelligence if not to rule the weak and the foolish?”

“I d-don't know, sir. Maybe He wants us to help them.”

Mr. Lyman's hand caressed the black leather that covered his account book. “And what better way is there to help them, boy, than by relieving them of those burdens that are too great for them to bear?”

“Will you be needing Ethan today?” Silas asked his father at breakfast.

“Why?” Mr. Lyman responded.

“Ivy needs shoeing, and I thought he could go to the farrier's with Paddy.”

Mr. Lyman set his coffee down and raked a glance across the two boys at the end of the table.

Ethan and Daniel kept their heads bent over their meal. Ethan's eyes darted to the side, and Daniel's did the same. Their glances met with a flicker of raised eyebrows.

“Why send two boys on an errand that takes only one?” Mr. Lyman asked.

“I thought Paddy could show Ethan a little about managing the horse.”

A hopeful flutter quivered around Ethan's heart at the thought of tending Ivy, of wooing her into murmuring her mysterious love-noises to him, the way she did for Daniel. He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling. Best to keep still. Mr. Lyman hadn't said yes yet.

The storekeeper nodded. “Good idea. Then the next time you can send the younger one alone. No point in losing half a day's work from the bigger lad on a chore the little one can do.”

Ethan could barely swallow his eggs. To be allowed to take the mare out by himself was more than he'd wished for. He turned to nudge Daniel.

But Daniel only stared straight down at his plate, while crumbs from his bread dribbled between his clenched fingers and onto the tablecloth.

“Be back by dinner,” Silas said. “Make sure Mr. Hemenway charges you fair.” He handed Daniel the little brown book that he used to keep track of the farm accounts. “Sometimes he forgets she has only four feet.”

Daniel's mouth twisted as he took the little book and stuck it in his pocket. “Aye, I'll mind what he does.” He turned to lead the mare away, but Silas laid a hand on his arm to stop him.

“And don't let me hear about you riding that horse, understand?” Silas said in a voice so low Ethan barely heard it.

The bemused quirk left Daniel's mouth, and he nodded dully.

Daniel led the horse with long strides, the mare's head nodding sociably at his shoulder. Ethan sighed and wished his legs were longer. He was tired of always trotting to keep up with Daniel. “Are you angry with me?” he asked. Daniel had been sullen and silent all the time he'd been haltering the mare and taking her out of the barn. Ethan had tried to help, but Daniel and Ivy both had shrugged him off like a bothersome insect.