Hoggee (3 page)

On Christmas morning old Cyrus came early to the barn, amazing Howard with his holiday cheer. “Wake
up, hoggee! It's Christmas and it's lucky you are to have lived to see this fine Christmas Day.”

Howard awakened reluctantly. He did not feel lucky, and he did not sit up. He had no wish to consider Christmas, did not want to imagine his mother's kitchen, with its wonderful smells and his little sisters smiling.

Old Cyrus poked at the boy with the toe of his shoe. “So is it that you've no desire to get up and face Christmas?”

The boy made no response except to grunt, and Cyrus poked him again. “Up with you,” he said. “We've got the matter of Christmas dinner to settle.”

Howard, thinking perhaps Cyrus would promise to bring him a bit of food, pushed the straw away from his face and sat up.

“My daughter says it ain't Christian leaving you hungry on Christmas day. She's insisting I ask you to join us for a bit of celebrating,” Cyrus said, and he half smiled at the boy. “Captain Travis give me a chicken, he did, and my daughter has made a dressing and beans. Mince pies, too. We've enough to add an extra plate.”

Howard stared dumbly at the man.

“Well, boy, speak up. Will you be coming, then?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.”

“There's one more thing.” The old man's face was stern again. “It be about my daughter's girls.” He took a deep breath. “They ain't, like you'd say, used to company. I don't know as I could recollect the last time someone come in from the outside.” Cyrus looked hard at the boy as if he expected a response, but Howard, not knowing what to say, remained quiet. Finally the man went on. “You'd not devil them, would you?”

“I've been taught manners by my mother, sir,” Howard said, and Cyrus nodded. Howard wanted to ask about the oldest girl, but he knew Cyrus would not like the question. He would see her again and maybe learn what troubled her.

When the old man was gone, Howard washed his face and hands in the icy trough where the mules drank. Resisting the urge to dry his hands on his dirty clothing, he waved them in the air until they dried. Next he changed into the other clothing he had washed in the trough last week. He took up his comb and ran it through his long, limp hair to comb it back from his eyes. His mother would have been horrified to see him so dirty calling on anyone for Christmas dinner, but he feared the icy water would kill him if he tried to bathe.

When he was dressed, he went outside to the holly tree that grew near the barn. Howard had admired the red berries that grew there earlier, but now he wanted to bring a bit of Christmas inside. He broke some of the thin, berry-laden branches from the tree and took them into the barn. Twisting them together, he made a wreath to hang around Molly's neck. Stepping back, he admired his work. “Merry Christmas to you, old girl,” he said. “I'll keep my eye out for a bite of something for your Christmas pleasure.” He closed the barn door, climbed the slight hill, and stood looking down at Cyrus's little house behind the large one owned by Captain Travis.

Howard stopped for a minute on the front stoop. He wondered how the second oldest girl would react to his coming. She had been so hostile on the path. He did not wish to offend anyone. But the smell of roasting chicken seeped through the door, and he raised his
hand to knock. Before his knuckles hit the wood, the angry girl opened the door.

“Grandpa says you're to come in,” she said, and she turned away.

He followed her. The house was small, one main room with two doors opening off of it. Howard supposed those were sleeping rooms. There was a small pantry room off the kitchen, with the door open, and he could see shelves with food on them. A fireplace stood in one corner, but Howard also saw a large cast-iron stove like the one his father had bought his mother for cooking. A long sawbuck table stood near the stove, and there were empty plates on it, and dishes of food. Howard's eyes traveled over loaves of bread and a bowl of beans to a plate of apple slices, once dried and now freshened with water. He would, he decided, slip a piece or two of the apples into his pocket for Molly.

A woman standing near the stove looked up at Howard. “Well, Da,” she said to old Cyrus, who sat nearby smoking a pipe, “your visitor has come, it seems. Won't you make us acquainted?”

Cyrus took the pipe from his mouth and scratched at his beard. “This here is my daughter, Mistress Donaldson.” Next he pointed to three girls who stood nearby. The one who had opened the door had been joined by the two others, one smaller and one larger. Their hair, clean and dressed in shiny braids, was almost white.

The boy put his hand to his head. His own hair was also that fair, but it was so dirty now that it looked much darker. Cyrus pointed to the tallest girl. “This be
Sarie,” he said, and his face warmed with the saying of her name.

“Sarah,” his daughter corrected him, but Cyrus paid her no heed. “This be Laura,” he said, pointing to the next girl, “and little Grace.”

Howard nodded his head to acknowledge the introductions. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, but the girls said nothing.

“Da,” said Mistress Donaldson. “You've not told us our visitor's name, now have you?”

Old Cyrus twisted his face, thinking. “Why, I don't know your name, boy,” he said. “All I know is hoggee, and you ain't rightly a hoggee at the moment, are you? Not in the dead of winter, not on Christmas Day.”

The boy nodded. “I'm not,” he said. “I'm just plain Howard Gardner.”

The woman motioned toward the table. “Set yourself down, then, Howard Gardner. Our Christmas dinner wants eating.”

Don't grab, Howard told himself. He wanted to reach out and fill both hands with meat and bread, but he realized the chicken was small. Cyrus passed the platter first to Howard, and he took only a wing. “We'll have none of that holding back, boy,” said the man. “It's Christmas now, ain't it?” He used his own fork to spear a thigh to drop onto Howard's plate.

Mostly, he kept his eyes down, happier than he'd ever been to eat any meal. When, occasionally, he did glance up, he was aware of the girls. They sat on a bench across from Howard, and they watched him even as they ate, all three sets of blue eyes stared at him. Two sets were curious, as if he had two heads. The eyes of the older girl,
though, were like they were on the path, and Howard looked away from them.

They were, Howard decided, peculiar girls indeed, but he did not let them spoil his delight in the food. His only disappointment was becoming full so soon. His stomach, shrunk as it was, could hold only a small portion of what his eyes wanted.

The last two bites of dressing and beans left on his plate barely went down when he swallowed. Just then Mistress Donaldson took up the mince pie to cut. A small cry rose in his throat. Embarrassed, he choked back the sob. “None for me, ma'am,” he said. “I couldn't swallow it.”

“What?” The woman looked at him closely. “No mince pie on Christmas? What kind of daft notion is that? Are you that stuffed? You do have a taste for it, though, don't you?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” he said. “I love it, but I'm hurting from the chicken and all.”

“Well, then,” she said, “we'll have to wrap a slice for you to tote back with you, won't we?”

Joy filled his heart. He would have mince pie, after all.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for the meal, too.”

“You're welcome, boy.” Mistress Donaldson smiled at him.

The oldest girl followed him to the door. Howard noticed her as he turned to go out. She looked as if she wanted to speak to him, but her mother came, took her by the hand, and led her away, as she would lead a small child.

On the way home, he stopped for a minute, ignoring the cold of the night and looking up at the sky.
“Christmas stars,” he said aloud to himself. “Christmas stars.” He stared as if he had never before seen such beauty.

Back in the barn, he first gave Molly the apple slices he had slipped into his pocket. While the mule munched, he sat cross-legged in the straw, and very very slowly he ate his Christmas pie.

Howard carved his third message a few days after Christmas. Cyrus had gone immediately back to his cranky ways, and the boy was not invited again to his house. Once, just after a fresh snow, Howard saw three sets of footprints, and knowing they belonged to the girls, he followed them over a hill.

A small frozen pond lay at the bottom of the hill, and the girls skated there. They looked carefree and happy. Howard wanted to watch them, but he knew the girls would object. A cedar with low green branches grew halfway down the hill. While they were turned away from him, he dashed for the tree and slid in among the branches.

They were good skaters, gliding easily around the pond. The oldest of the three was especially graceful. Her legs seeming to move without effort, she was a willowy streak, her fair hair flying out behind her and shining in the winter sun.

He was not surprised to see that Sarah was different from her sisters. They laughed and called to each other as they skated, but Sarah seemed unaware of them. Watching, Howard remembered how it had been the middle
girl, Laura, who had spoken to him on the path. It had been Laura, too, who opened the door to him on Christmas Day. Howard knew from his life with Jack that the oldest child was always the leader at home. Something, he decided, was wrong with the girl Sarah. She must not be right in the head, addled. Yet, she didn't seem disturbed. He hurt for the skater, who moved so beautifully but had to be led by the hand of her mother or sisters.

He knew he should leave, go back to the barn or to the tavern to wait for scraps, but he was reluctant to move. At one point, Laura stopped skating and went to a basket they had set beside the pond. She took out bread and pieces of meat. This time both Sarah and Grace skated to her, and Laura handed out food to them.

Howard had not tasted food at all that day and had eaten only a few scraps from the inn the day before. His mouth watered with hunger. The girls seemed to have plenty, and he wondered if they would share if he called out to them. But remembering how Laura had acted toward him, he doubted it.

As they ate, bits of conversation drifted to him, but he could not understand any of their words. Once, the girl Sarah turned suddenly. For a split second, Howard felt her eyes on him. He dropped behind the tree, hoping she had not really seen him.

Not long after that, they left. He saw that Sarah had forgotten her muffler, left lying on a rock where they had stood eating. Deciding to retrieve the muffler and take it to the girls' mother, he was about to leave his spot behind the tree when Sarah ran back for the muffler. She looked for a long moment toward the tree where Howard hid. Then she lifted the muffler from the rock.
In its place she laid a slice of bread and a piece of meat, which she removed from her coat pocket.

“She knows I'm here,” he whispered to himself in amazement. “She knows I'm here, and she wants to give me food.” He stepped from his hiding place and called to her. “Sarah.” She did not look up at him as she took up the muffler and hurried away. Just before she disappeared among the pine trees on the other side of the pond, she stopped. Turning back to stare across at Howard, she stood still for a moment. Then she lifted her hand and waved it slightly.

Howard, too, lifted his arm to wave, but she was gone; like a startled deer, she ran into the trees. For a long time he stood staring after her, wondering.

Back at the barn, he took up his board, opened his knife, and carved. It felt strange, writing that he had a friend. There had been playmates at school when he was younger and boys on the canal with whom he had joked, but a friend was different. Howard believed that somehow he and Sarah had communicated, had acknowledged each other's suffering. He felt a strength grow inside him that had not been there for a long time. Looking down at his carved message, he drew himself up to sit very straight.

Sarah's gift was all he had to eat that day. At the inn, Howard waited in the cold shadows for a long time. Finally, the cook opened the door and threw out a plate of scraps, mostly crusts of bread. When the door closed, the boy sprang toward the food, but suddenly two big dogs blocked his way. Howard spotted a piece of potato worth fighting for. In a flash he bent, grabbed up a handful of stones, and tossed them at the animals. They growled without even lifting their heads to look in his direction.
In a matter of seconds, all morsels of food had been swallowed up.

On the way back to the barn that night, he lingered even longer than usual, looking at the lamplight streaming through the windows of old Cyrus's house. Inside was Sarah, the strange girl who had wanted to share her food with him. That did not seem to be the action of a girl whose mind was not right. He would get up his courage, he decided, to ask her grandfather about her.

Usually Cyrus woke him as he entered, but the next morning Howard was awake under the hay, waiting. The old man had refused Howard's help with the hay in the past. “It's my job and my wages,” he had said when Howard had taken up a pitchfork and started to fill a manger. “I'd sooner you left the haying to me.”

Howard had not tried to help again. Nor was Cyrus inclined to conversation other than an occasional muttered greeting. Usually Howard burrowed back under the straw after sitting up to see for sure that the person in the barn was indeed Cyrus.

This morning, though, he got up and followed the man to the last of the ten stalls where Cyrus always began the haying. Cyrus, ignoring the boy, began to fill his pitchfork with hay. He had just tossed the first load into a manger when Howard got up his courage. Clearing his throat, he said, “I saw your granddaughters yesterday, skating on the pond.”

The old man whirled, pitchfork still in the air, to look at the boy. His blue eyes flashed with fire. For one second Howard thought Cyrus might use the pitchfork as a spear, to slice through him and fasten him to the earthen barn floor. “I told you,” he said strongly, “they ain't used
to people.” He drove the pitchfork into the ground, hard. “Leave 'em be. I won't have you deviling them.”