A Difficult Boy (11 page)

“Well, that's done with,” Daniel said, tossing his pitchfork into the cart. He squinted at the sun.

“Do we have time for another load?” Ethan stared out at the mounds of manure they'd scattered across the field. Tomorrow they'd plow it, then the next day they'd plant it to mangel-wurzels, the big beets that Silas used to feed the cattle over the winter.

Daniel shook his head. “Enough time to fetch it, but not enough time to spread it about before we got to get the cows in for the milking.” He stretched until his joints popped. He jerked his chin toward the road that led to the far pasture where the cattle had been grazing all day. “And since they're already out here, I s'pose we got no choice but to stay with 'em until it's time to be bringing 'em in, eh, lad?”

Ethan studied Daniel carefully. Where normally he approached his chores with dour concentration, he'd seemed almost cheerful when Silas had sent them to the farthest corner of the farm to work, as if he liked nothing better than to spend the afternoon flinging manure about. At first Ethan had supposed that it was just being out of range of Mr. Pease's teasing that pleased Daniel. But there was something else, something vaguely expectant about his posture and face.

“So—um—what do we do until then?” Ethan asked, sure that there was some chore or other that needed doing. There always was.

But Daniel wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers as if he were finished for the day. “Can you keep a secret, lad?” he asked.

Ethan's heart jumped. “A secret?” he repeated. “Of course I can. Better'n anyone.”

Daniel glanced over one shoulder, then the other, although there was nobody but the oxen to see or hear them. He stooped so that he and Ethan were nose to nose, then he grabbed Ethan's arm so hard that it hurt. “Come along, then. But if you tell anyone, I'll thump you worse than Lyman, understand?”

Ethan was disappointed to find that Daniel's secret place was only the pasture where they'd turned out the livestock after the morning's feeding and milking. Just a little bit south
of the field where the boys had been working, the pasture was sheltered in a little hollow scooped out of the land so that it seemed like the world began and ended at its edges.

As they neared the stone wall that bordered the field, Daniel's legs stretched into long, eager strides. The lash twitched in his hand, as if he were impatient with the oxen's slow pace. When they reached the wall, he flung off his frock and cap and tossed them to Ethan along with the lash. “Here. Mind these. And mind the team.”

Ethan glanced at Mark and Luke. The oxen drooped their heads sleepily. “Where're you going?”

But Daniel had already vaulted over the wall and broken into a run. Ethan clambered up onto the wall to watch.

He heard a wild shriek, like a scream and a whistle and a laugh all mixed up together. Then the sod thudded with clustered hoofbeats that vibrated through his perch on the wall.

“Daniel, look out!” Ethan shouted in panic.

Ivy galloped wildly across the field, a fierce tilt to her head. She headed straight for Daniel. Ethan was sure she'd trample him. She'd gone mad, and she was going to kill Daniel sure as anything—Daniel, who brushed her and crooned secret love-words to her every morning.

Daniel stood as still as a headstone, as trusting as a calf going to slaughter. It was all Ethan could do not to close his eyes.

But the mare did stop, tearing up a shower of clods as she skidded to a halt. She threw herself up on her haunches and shrieked again. The placid mare Ethan knew was now a wild thing, pawing the air and snorting, shaking her mane and swishing her tail as if she were tossing off some outer skin. She dropped back to the ground, bouncing on her front hooves and kicking her back legs out behind her.

Then, incredibly, Daniel and Ivy began to dance. The mare circled and swayed and capered around the boy while he feinted left, then right. She whirled to meet him, arching her body around him, then wheeling on her haunches. The pale, frowning mask Daniel usually wore turned soft and bright as a grin parted his lips and his cheeks reddened with exertion. His unruly hair flopped on his forehead, the sun making the dull orange strands glow like pale copper.

It was a dangerous dance; one slip or stumble, and
Daniel would be crushed beneath those sharp flashing hooves. But Daniel reveled in it, taking wild chances that made Ethan hold his breath.

Ethan realized that the dance had a purpose. Ivy's circles and arches herded Daniel in a meandering line toward the wall. Every now and again, the mare drew close enough to nudge Daniel's chest with her nose or to prod at his pockets. Then Daniel would laugh and spring away, each time a little closer to the wall.

At last Daniel's back was against the wall. The mare swiveled before him, bobbing her head from side to side to keep the grinning boy cornered. He raised his hands in surrender and praised her in their secret language. Ivy arched her neck and pressed her forehead against Daniel's chest, pinning him against the stones. Her nostrils quivered, and a happy rumble sounded in her throat.

Daniel pulled a handful of carrots from his pocket. He laid a piece of one across his palm. With comical delicacy, the mare brushed her lips across his hand. The carrot disappeared. When three more pieces vanished in similar fashion, Ethan began to laugh.

Daniel and the mare turned toward Ethan. “She's grand, ain't she?” he said as he rubbed Ivy's cheek.

Ethan nodded. “Aren't you afraid she'll step on you?”

“Nah. She'd never do naught to me. Just a big baby, she is, ain't you, lass?”

The mare's ears twitched. She prodded Daniel for another carrot.

Ethan wondered how often Daniel stole carrots from the root cellar for Ivy, and whether Mrs. Lyman would notice her supply steadily dwindling. “What if Mr. Lyman catches you stealing?”

Daniel tilted his head and pursed his lips. “We-l-l-l-l,
whose horse is she?”

“Mr. Lyman's,” Ethan said, although he wasn't sure Ivy would agree.

“And whose carrots are these?” Another one disappeared between Ivy's lips.

“Mr. Lyman's.”

“So how can it be stealing when I'm feeding Lyman's carrots to Lyman's horse?” Daniel scratched the mare's chin. She bobbed her head as if in agreement.

Before Ethan could respond, Daniel grabbed the mare's mane and leaped onto her back, the motion so swift and graceful that it looked as if the mare herself had swept him up. She spun on her hind legs and bolted across the field.

Ethan had never seen anyone ride the way Daniel rode Ivy. She galloped recklessly, every now and again dipping her head and flinging up her heels. Daniel clung fast, sometimes bent low over her neck, sometimes riding straight and tall, his hands buried in her mane, his legs wrapped tightly around her body. He laughed as they ran: a harsh, joyful noise like the crows made when they feasted in the corn. As they leaped imaginary obstacles and ran circles around the cows, it seemed to Ethan that they were no longer Daniel and Ivy, but some new fantastic creature that was neither horse nor boy but both at once. Ethan half expected this new creature to sprout wings and fly.

At first, it felt wonderful to watch, but after a while sitting on the wagon and watching weren't enough. He wanted Ivy to dance for him, too.

Daniel finally steered the mare back to the wall. Her flanks and withers shone with sweat. He slid from her back and thumped her shoulder fondly. Finger-combing his sweaty hair away from his eyes, he settled his cap in place. “We have to walk for a bit now,” he said. “To cool her off. She
won't mind if you come. The boys'll stay put, I fancy.”

Indeed, except for occasionally rolling their cud around on their tongues, Mark and Luke seemed to be napping. Ethan jumped down and joined Daniel. The mare plodded behind, the old Ivy again, with no trace of the wild mare who'd danced around the field a few moments ago. Ethan rubbed his eyes, wondering if he'd dozed in the sun and dreamed it all. But Daniel's shirt had wet patches under the arms and along the back where his braces crossed, and the mare's long winter hair curled with sweat. She huffed and shook the damp mane from her neck.

“Who taught you to ride like that?” Ethan asked.

“She did.” Daniel cocked his head toward the mare.

“But how?”

Daniel shrugged, as if it had been so long ago that he could hardly remember. “I just kept getting on until I stopped falling off, that's all.”

Ethan looked up. The mare's back seemed impossibly high. He imagined falling onto the hard ground from that height over and over. Then he imagined flying across the fields, the wind tearing at his hair and his face, and the falling didn't seem such a high price to pay. “Can you teach me?”

In a moment, the Irish boy became the old Daniel again, who looked at the world with a sullen frown. His hand went up to the mare's neck, and he placed himself solidly between Ivy and Ethan. “I can't. You'll fall and you'll run to Lyman, crying about what I done to you.”

“I wouldn't. Didn't I say I wouldn't tell?”

Daniel's face struggled for a long time. For a moment, Ethan thought he would relent. Then his mouth hardened. “Aye,” he said. “And you said you wouldn't call me Paddy, neither.”

The late-afternoon chores passed in awkward silences as Ethan wondered how to recapture Daniel's trust. Now and again, Daniel would seem ready to say something, but instead he would tighten his mouth into a firm line and turn away.

After tea, when the boys had finally retreated to the attic, Daniel stood for a long time, staring out the rear window at the disappearing sun. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little wooden horse. The reddening sun streamed in through the fanlight and rippled across the tiny figure so that it seemed to move.

“He's beautiful,” Ethan said. “He looks just like Ivy did this afternoon.”

Daniel turned away from the window, blinking hard.

“Does he have a name?”

“Horse, I s'pose. He's only wood. It's not as if he'd care.” But Daniel's finger caressed the horse's back as gently as if it could really feel his touch. He sat on the floor next to Ethan and held his hand out flat, the way he had held it out to feed the mare. The wooden figure lay on its side, cushioned in his palm.

Ethan cast a wary glance at the other boy. Daniel nodded. “Only to look at, mind. Not to keep.”

Ethan picked up the horse, running his finger over muscles so finely sanded that the figure felt more like glass than wood. He laid it reverently back in Daniel's palm. “Did you make it?” he asked.

Daniel shook his head. “Me da did. He gave it to me when we come over.”

When we come over
. Ethan held his breath. Until that moment, Daniel's Irishness had been vaguely connected with his pale orange hair, his odd way of speaking, the secret
language he shared with Ivy, and his reputation for questionable morals. The fact that Daniel had come from an entirely different land and had traveled across an entire ocean and most of Massachusetts to reach Farmington had never settled on Ethan's imagination before. Now it landed with its full weight, transforming Daniel into a boy who had been places, a boy who had seen things. Daniel was a boy who had had an adventure.

“What was it like in Ireland?” Ethan asked.

Daniel shrugged impatiently. “How should I know? I wasn't but four when we come.”

“Don't you remember any of it?”

“A bit.”

“And?”

Daniel chewed his lower lip. “Green. Green and wet.” He nodded as if pleased with his summary.

“Was it pretty?”

“Oh, lovely. For them that had money.” His mouth made that funny twist of his. “See? Not so different from here, eh?”

“You came over on a ship, didn't you?”

“I'm hardly the one you'd be seeing walking on water, now, am I?”

“Was it very exciting?” Ethan's head filled with images of sailors scrambling monkeylike in webs of rigging, hoisting billowing sheets of snowy canvas, of a gallant captain swaggering across the deck, leading his weather-toughened crew across the sea in the face of raging storms, ferocious sea monsters, and treacherous pirates.

“Aye, if you find it exciting to be spending a coupl'a months crammed into a dark rat hole smelling like a privy, with everyone crying and puking all the time, and barely room to walk about without stepping on someone—if you can stand at all without the floor sliding out from under
you.” He shivered a little, and Ethan remembered how green Daniel had looked the day they'd cleaned out the privy. He wondered how many bad memories that dark, foul space had evoked.

“Didn't you ever go on deck and look at the sea?”

“Folk'd come up now and again for a bit. But me ma was too sick most of the time to take me about.” His voice softened and he shook his head. “She hadn't no stomach for the sea.”

“But—but when you did go up . . . what was it like?”

“Wet. Wet and gray.”

“That's all?”

Daniel's hands flapped at his sides. “What'd you have me say? I wasn't but four.”

“Were you afraid?”

“I was four.”

Ethan sighed. He could never get a story out of Daniel all at once. He had to draw out one answer at a time, always wary that the next question would poke Daniel the wrong way. “What about your pa? Did he get seasick, too?”

“Me da was already here waiting for us.”

“Already here?”

“Well, he had to get work first before he could send for us, didn't he, now?” Daniel's voice grew impatient, as if any idiot should have known that.

“Oh.” Ethan mulled the idea over for a while. “You must have been happy to see him again.”

“Again?” Daniel cocked his head toward Ethan.

“Well, yes. I mean, after all those months . . .”