A Difficult Boy (19 page)

Mr. Bingham clapped Ethan so hard on his back that he nearly knocked the boy from his perch on the flour barrel. “There! That's thinking . . . thinking for you!” he said. “That's exactly it. Now . . .” He reached under the counter for the dog-eared book of legal forms.

Ethan groaned. “You mean there's a piece of paper to go with that, too?”

“There's always a piece . . . piece of paper,” Mr. Bingham said. “To keep everybody honest, hmmm?” One eye closed slowly. Then he stooped over the book, his nose almost touching the pages as he looked for the proper form to show Ethan.

A long shadow crossed the threshold and fell across the page. “I hope you're keeping him busy, Mr. Bingham,” said a deep voice.

“Pa!” Ethan whirled to stare at the gaunt figure in the doorway. He took two leaping steps toward the blue-coated man, then froze, halted by the sudden thought of what Mr. Lyman might tell Pa about him.

Pa's long, thin jaw softened with his laugh. “What is it, son? Now that you're a working man, you're too old to hug your pa?”

“I—no, Pa.” Pa's smile warmed Ethan's insides. But the momentum of his rush had been broken. The feel of Pa's arms around him was different somehow. Even though they touched, it seemed that there was a space between them. Pa didn't seem to notice. He squeezed Ethan's arms, pretending to check how his muscles had grown.

The door to the back room clicked open. “Gideon.” Mr. Lyman came forward, both hands out to grip Pa's in a firm handshake. “So good to see you. Your family's well, I hope?”

Pa nodded with something that looked like relief. “Yes, thank you. Hannah had a bit of a fever this week past, but she's much better now.”

Better?
Ethan felt a chill. He wanted to ask, but Pa and Mr. Lyman had the look of men with more important things on their minds than a boy's questions.

“Nothing serious, I hope?” The storekeeper laid a sympathetic hand on Pa's shoulder.

Pa shook his head. “I'd like to take Ethan home for a little. Only tonight and tomorrow. He'll be back Sunday afternoon. It'd do Hannah a world of good to see him again.”

Mr. Lyman raised one thick eyebrow at Ethan. “Hmmmm . . . We'll see. We'll see,” he said. “Gideon?” He extended a hand to invite Pa into the back room.

Ethan wished he could make out the words in the low murmur of voices on the other side of the door. If Mr. Bingham hadn't been there, he'd have pressed his ear against the wood to listen. But the clerk set him to sweeping up the shop and fetching kindling for the little box stove. When Pa emerged, his long face looked more solemn than usual. Ethan held his breath as Pa and Mr. Lyman shook hands.

“Well, boy, it seems you're to have a holiday,” Mr. Lyman said.

But Pa wasn't wearing his holiday face.

Ethan and his father had gotten well beyond the common before Ethan mustered up the courage to ask, “Is Ma really all right?”

“She's fine now. Still a bit weakish, but she'll mend.” Pa smiled crookedly. “To tell you the truth, son, I've had my hands full tending to us all. I tend to forget how much work your mama does 'til she's laid up.”

“You should'a sent for me. If I'd'a known, I'd'a come
home. I could'a helped. . . . I could'a done your chores and—”

Pa gave Ethan a gentle shake. “What good would you have done if you'd come home and taken sick, too? Then I'd have had one more to take care of, and you losing days or weeks of credit for working at Mr. Lyman's.”

“You should'a sent word to Mr. Lyman that you needed me,” Ethan insisted. “I could'a helped.”

“Don't fret about it, son. It's over and done with.” Pa took Ethan's hat and rumpled his hair. “Besides, I need you more over there, don't you see?”

Ethan nodded even though he didn't understand.

Pa twirled Ethan's hat between his hands, first spinning it on his finger like a top, then flipping it brim over crown over brim. “Working at Mr. Lyman's must be doing you good. Look how tall you've gotten. I bet you can even knock my hat off now.”

Ethan stared at his father. They hadn't played the hat game in ages. Ethan would try to capture Pa's hat while Pa would try to fend him off. When Ethan was very little, Pa would end the game by swooping Ethan into the air and letting him take the hat. Ethan had long been too big to be swooped up. The last time they'd played, the game had ended in a wrestling match that dissolved into laughter. It seemed silly and childish now. Maybe he was too old for it.

Pa's brown eyes creased deeply at the corners, teasing him, telling him Pa wasn't too old for the game. His hat did look much closer than it ever had before, even though Ethan couldn't have grown all that much in barely a month. The sun winked on the watery blue sheen of the jay's feather in Pa's hatband, daring Ethan to try. Ethan gathered himself, jumped, grabbed. Pa dodged, but not quickly enough. In one bound, Ethan captured the hat. Pa's eyes widened and his
mouth made a surprised
O
. Ethan's face mirrored his father's. Both of them stared at the faded black top hat in Ethan's hands, as if it had jumped there all on its own.

Pa laughed. “Guess I misjudged how much you've grown.” He gave Ethan's ragged straw hat a comical frown and slapped it onto his own head. Holding his head stiff, as if afraid the hat might fall off, Pa winked at Ethan.

Ethan nestled Pa's hat on his own head. As hard and hollow as a bandbox, the stiff black felt sat heavy on his temples and brow, casting a band of shadow across his vision. It was warm from Pa's head and smelled of tobacco and sweat and hay and barn. Ethan tipped his head back, so he could see from under the hat's brim. His eyes met Pa's and they laughed together.

After nearly a month of living in the Lymans' big white house, Ethan couldn't help noticing how stark and shabby his home looked, its dirt front yard barely a yard at all, but only an extension of the road. He'd never thought twice about the bones and broken crockery that lay outside the kitchen door, the chickens pecking in the slop bucket. But now all he could see were the cracked, weathered clapboards, the moss furring the roof with green, the refuse scattered in the yard. He thought of Mrs. Lyman and her flowers and her broom applied daily to her stone walks, of Silas and Daniel raking the yards clear of chicken droppings and rubble.

Scratch lay in a sunny corner of the yard, his tail sweeping a happy arc in the dust. Whining a greeting, he rose stiffly and limped over to lick Ethan's fingers.

Chloe darted into the yard, a faded rag baby clutched to her chest. She danced around Ethan and Pa as they made their way into the kitchen, where Maria was preparing bread and milk to go with their tea.

“Efan's home!” she started to sing out, but Pa scooped her up and silenced her with a kiss.

“It's a surprise,” he said softly. “A surprise for Mama.”

“What's a surprise?” a voice called out.

Ethan ducked under a strand of drying nappies and ran through the kitchen into the best room.

Ma was lacing up her dress with one hand and settling Benjamin with the other. Her brown eyes seemed to have faded to the shade of weathered wood, shadowed with ashy circles underneath. Frizzes of chestnut hair straggled from beneath her cap. Surely there hadn't been gray in Ma's hair when Ethan had left.

“Mama?” Ethan said tentatively. He hadn't called her “Mama” in years—ever since Massey Dunn had told him that only babies and girls said “Mama” and “Papa.” Big boys said “Ma” and “Pa.” But now it was “Mama” again, and he envied the baby, who only had to squeak to draw her around him like a cloak against hunger, pain, and fear.

Ma smiled, reaching out with her free hand. “Oh, Ethan, don't you look fine!” She held him at arm's length, looking him up and down so long, he felt his face grow red.

Maybe it was wearing Pa's hat that made him look so, Ethan thought. Ma looked fine, too, now that she was smiling, though when she hugged him, her arms felt thin and trembly. Pa's hat tumbled off, landing on the floor with a hollow clunk.

Then her gaze shifted toward the doorway. “Well, Gideon!” she said softly, her eyes blurry with tears.

Pa leaned against the doorjamb with Chloe in his arms, a grin spreading across his face. “Now, Hannah, didn't I promise I'd bring you something special from the store?”

“I had a talk with Mr. Lyman, and I didn't like everything I heard,” Pa said. He leaned against the fence, knotting a twist
of hay between his long fingers while he watched Ethan milk Tess. “He said he's been forced to—to discipline you.”

Ethan's hands pumped at Tess's teats. The milk made a brittle splash in the bottom of the pail. He pressed his forehead harder against Tess's flank. Funny how her hide suddenly felt so much cooler than his own skin. “I'm sorry about the plate and everything, Pa. I'll work extra hard to pay for it, and—”

Pa's long, thin fingers sat heavily on Ethan's shoulder. “It's not only a plate, son. Lying, stealing, disobedience. We taught you better than that.”

Fingers, udder, and pail melded into a blur of pinks and browns. Only the hollow sound of liquid against wood told Ethan that the milk still squirted into the bucket. “I'm sorry. I won't do it again.”

Pa crouched next to Ethan. “Son, you have to realize how important it is that you do well at Mr. Lyman's.”

Ethan couldn't meet Pa's eyes. “I don't like it there. Can't I just stay home?”

“You know we have a contract. There are penalties if I break it.”

Penalties
. That was what Daniel had said, too.

“Mr. Lyman's giving you a better home than we can, better food than you've had in your life. He's teaching you things I can't, things you need to learn. . . .” The weariness in Pa's voice stung Ethan harder than anger would have.

Ethan bit the inside of his mouth, tasted blood on his tongue. It hadn't been a lie, then, what Mr. Lyman had said about Pa sending him away to be disciplined.

“Your mama and your sisters and the baby,” Pa continued, “they're all depending on you, just like they depend on me. You can't come running home just because things don't suit you. Remember what I said the day you left?”

I need you to go
. The weight of that need sat harder on Ethan's shoulders than Mr. Lyman's switch. He nodded, chewing at his lower lip to stop it from trembling.

But Pa was remembering a different thing. “Remember what I said about setting your mind to be happy? It seems to me you've set your mind to be unhappy, and so you are. Like that Paddy.”

Ethan winced. “His name is Daniel. He's my friend.”

“Mr. Lyman says he's full of mischief and he sets you a poor example.”

Ethan looked up. Pa's face had never seemed so long and stern before. The space between them suddenly looked like miles instead of only a few feet. “He's not so bad as everybody thinks, Pa. He's only lonesome.”

“Ethan, son. You've got a good heart. If you had your way, you'd take in every stray dog and orphaned bird you come across. But the world's a hard place, with plenty of folk ready to take advantage of good-hearted people.”

Tess's udder sagged loose in Ethan's hands, the milk coming in trickles now. Pa's long fingers ruffled Ethan's hair. He fought the longing to close his eyes and lean into the familiar caress. “No. He's not like that,” Ethan insisted.

“He's a good six or seven years older than you. Why doesn't he have any friends his own age?”

“They all laugh at him on account of he's Irish and he talks different and he has red hair.” Surely Pa would understand that. If Pa remembered what it felt like to be taunted, he'd feel kindlier toward Daniel.

“If the boy has no friends his own age, there's more reason to it than something as foolish as red hair. Maybe it's because he's a troublemaker.”

“He's not, Pa! He's not!” The vehemence of his own denial surprised Ethan. He'd never dared to contradict his father
before. But Pa had never been wrong before, had he? Pa wasn't supposed to be wrong. “Daniel works hard. Really he does. And he's good with the animals, and he teaches me things, and—”

Pa's voice hardened. “That's enough. Paddy's been given more than anyone in his position has a right to expect, but all he does is scowl and sulk and make trouble where there is none.”

Ethan opened his mouth to deny Pa's accusations. But he couldn't tell Pa how Daniel came to his defense against Mr. Lyman's switchings, Mrs. Lyman's pinches and slaps, without telling all the ways he'd gone wrong, all the ways he'd been a disappointment and a failure. Worst of all, he couldn't bear to have Pa confirm that Mr. Lyman was right—that Pa had sent Ethan away because he was too soft to give Ethan the discipline he needed.

Ethan turned his face against Tess's side as he stripped the final drops of milk into the pail.

“I know you've no choice about working with him or living with him,” Pa said. “But when your time's your own, I don't think it's a good idea for you to spend it with this Paddy fellow, do you understand?”

Ethan picked up the pail and swiveled off the stool, away from his father.

Pa took the pail. It bumped Ethan's thigh and Pa's knee as it hung between them. “Mr. Ward has a couple boys your age. I think you'd be better off spending your time with them, don't you?”

“The Wards?” Their chant of “Sim-ple, sim-ple! Ethan's pa is sim-ple” echoed in his head. But telling Pa about it would be like saying it himself. It would be like making it true. “I—I dunno,” Ethan muttered. A month ago, there was nothing he couldn't tell his father. Now, suddenly, he couldn't tell him anything. Anything but “Yessir.”

The pail shifted to Pa's other hand. He picked up Ethan's hat, perched atop a fence post. “That's the way.” He settled the hat onto Ethan's head. It slipped sideways over one eye. “Your mother and I have enough worries without wondering what sort of company you're keeping while you're away from home.”