A Difficult Boy (27 page)

“If you're not Irish, then what's that talk you do?” Ethan asked.

“It ain't proper Gaelic. That's why that boy of Mr. Stocking's was laughing. He said—he said I talk Irish no better'n a baby.”

“What d'you mean?”

“I got the words muddled. I don't—I don't remember 'em proper no more. I didn't even remember—” Daniel rubbed the back of his hand across his face. He looked away from Ethan. He seemed to be searching for something far beyond the scrubby undergrowth and scrawny trees around them.

“What?” Ethan said, trying to recall Daniel before he drifted away into that place inside himself. “What didn't you remember?”

“That song the lad was singing. Me ma used to sing it—only I'd forgotten all about it. I didn't remember I even knew it until I heard him. And then I thought—” Daniel's eyes narrowed and he swallowed.

“It sounded like your ma singing?” Ethan asked.

Daniel shook his head. “She never sang as good as that. She only wished she could. But I thought—maybe—” He bent to soak his handkerchief again. “It's daft, lad. But I thought maybe the saints and all might'a given her the voice she wished she had while she was here.” He shivered a little bit. “Daft,” he repeated. “When I was little, I knew all the words. When I heard that lad singing it today, I couldn't remember what some of 'em meant. I couldn't even—” He pressed his eyes closed. “I couldn't hardly remember her face.”

It was Ethan's turn to shiver. He couldn't imagine losing the picture in his head of Pa and Ma, the picture he summoned for comfort against the Lymans' scoldings and slaps and switchings. He sat with his knees drawn up under his chin, staring down at the brook, groping for something to say.

“If I went with that peddler, I couldn't talk to any of them people,” Daniel said. “They'd all laugh, like that Billy. They'd think I was only pretending to be Irish.”

“You can talk Irish to Ivy.” It was the only comforting thing Ethan could think of to say.

“Oh, aye, she's a grand one for listening, but she ain't much for talking back now, is she? Not in Gaelic, anyway. I'll lose how a word goes exactly, and maybe I'll be getting it sideways or some such, and there's no one around to be telling me I got it wrong.”

“I don't understand how you can forget how to talk—”

“Well, s'posing you was to be locked up in a room for six years and never could hear no one talking but yourself? Do you think you'd be remembering everything exactly right then?”

Ethan dabbled his toes in the stream, stirring it muddy. “I—I dunno.”

Daniel rubbed the soggy handkerchief across his face. “I don't remember me ma's songs or me da's stories. And maybe someday I'll not be remembering
them
, neither.”

Ethan hugged his legs to his chest and thought while Daniel scrubbed the dirt out of his cuts and the light faded behind the trees. It wasn't until Daniel rose stiffly to head home that Ethan spoke again. “Teach me. Teach me to talk Irish.”

“We'll get thrashed. I've told you that before.”

“We can be careful. No one will find out.”

“And what good would that be doing me?”

“Maybe you'd start remembering better if you had someone asking you the words for everything.”

“You won't know whether I'm telling you right no more'n Ivy does.”

“But it would make you think about it, wouldn't it? Like you had to think about how to ride when you showed me. And maybe if you thought about it harder, maybe you could remember more. Anyway, at least you could practice, couldn't you?”

“I'll only be teaching you wrong.”

Ethan shrugged. “That's all right. I won't know the difference.”

“I'm the king!”

Ethan twirled on top of the haystack, arms spread wide as he surveyed his domain: the big white house, the flower garden and the kitchen garden, the cattle yard, the sheds, the smokehouse, the privy, and the corncrib; the barn and all the newly made haystacks hunched around it like old ladies huddled beneath mustard-colored cloaks.

“King of what?” Daniel asked from below.

Ethan gestured grandly around him. “King of everything!” He danced a little jig on his haystack. His feet slipped out from under him, and he slid down the haystack on his backside, landing in an unregal heap at Daniel's feet.

Daniel held up a wreath he'd woven from the hay. “If you're a king, I s'pose you'll be wanting a crown, then.” He dropped the circlet on Ethan's head, where it settled over one eye.

Ethan shoved the prickly crown back from his forehead and stuck out his tongue.

“Lucky we got that lot of hay in today,” Daniel said. He stretched, no doubt aching from a week's worth of mowing, raking, pitching, and stacking. “Them clouds're piling on something fierce.”

The sky had been a perfect silken blue when they'd begun bringing in the hay that morning. Now flat-bottomed clouds piled up and rolled over each other like tufts of wool falling from the shearer's blades. Silas had been lucky to have
most of the week fair and dry for his haying. The backbreaking work had seemed endless, but at last the hay was safely packed in the barn's haymows and in the surrounding haystacks, carefully sloped to shed water and keep the center of each stack dry.

Ethan scrambled to his feet, dusting off the seat of his trousers. “If it rains tomorrow, d'you s'pose Silas might give us a holiday?”

Daniel squinted. “For me, maybe. After I'm done sharpening scythes and mending rakes and such. But s'posing themselves come home from their grand trip tomorrow? I wager Lyman'll be wanting a turn at you in the store then.”

Ethan's lower lip drooped. “It's not fair.” He hoped it would rain long and hard and bottle Mr. and Mrs. Lyman up in Springfield for another week. Having only Silas and Mr. Bingham to answer to for eight whole days had felt almost like freedom.

“Well, I fancy he'd let you off if you explain to him about you being king and all.” With a sharp tug, Daniel yanked the hay crown down over Ethan's face and leaped away.

“You—you—” Ethan spluttered. Pulling the crown off, he lunged after Daniel, trying to swat him with the twisted hay.

Daniel barked a laugh and dodged out of reach. He stretched one leg forward and bowed. “Careful, your dustiness, you're spoiling your crown.”

“You—” Ethan grinned as the word came to him.
“Cráin!”

“A sow, am I, now? Couldn't you at least be making me a boar?”

“Oh.” Ethan frowned as he searched his memory for the proper word.

Daniel took advantage of Ethan's distraction to swoop him up and hold him upside down. Whenever he saw an
opening between Ethan's flailing arms and legs, Daniel poked the ticklish spots along Ethan's ribs and under his arms.

“Put me down,” Ethan tried to shout, but it was difficult to get the words out between his giggles.

“Not 'til you learn your words proper. Now, what am I again?”

“
Muc
 . . . No . . . 
Collach
.” (“Pig . . . No . . . Boar.”)

Daniel stopped tickling but kept a firm grasp on Ethan's legs.
“Is fearr sin é. Agus Nell?”
(“That's better. And Nell?”)

“Bó.”
(“Cow.”) Ethan's voice jogged as Daniel bounced him. “Can I get down now?”

“Cad é Ivy é?”
(“What's Ivy?”)

“Capall.”
(“Horse.”)

“Agus cad atá tusa?”
(“And what are you?”)

“Rí!”
Ethan crowed. (“King!”) He hung with his knees against Daniel's shoulder, Daniel's arms around his waist. He poked at Daniel's knee, wondering if there was a ticklish spot at the back of it.
“Is mise an rí!”
Ethan said. (“I'm the king!”)

“Ní tusa.”
(“You are not.”) Daniel shook him. A handful of skipping stones fell out of Ethan's pocket and bounced around Daniel's feet.
“Tá tusa bunoscionn.”

“Cod 'ta mise?”
(“I'm what?”) Ethan squirmed, trying to twist up to see Daniel's face.

“Upside down,” Daniel translated.

Ethan couldn't find Daniel's ticklish spot, so he punched the back of Daniel's knee instead.
“Nil níos nío!”
(“Not anymore!”) he said, as Daniel's leg buckled and the boys tumbled down into a laughing heap.

Daniel shoved Ethan off him.
“Tá tusa bunoscionn agus trom,”
he said.

“Say that again.” Ethan rolled onto his belly.

“
Trom.
It means heavy. I taught you that one last week, didn't I?”

“No. The other one. The upside-down one. It's a funny one.”

“Bunoscionn,”
Daniel repeated. He took a running start and launched himself at the haystack. “Now it's me own turn to be king, eh, lad?” A shower of hay spilled down as Daniel scrambled for the top.

Ethan recognized the word Daniel used when he reached the top. Daniel had always refused to translate it for him, so he knew it was a rude one.

“What?” Ethan called.

“Bloody hell, they're coming back already. Putting Ivy into a lather, too, to beat the storm.” Daniel slid back to the ground. “Run and tell Lizzie they're coming. And wash up proper, not like you been doing all week. And have an umbrella ready for 'em, too.”

The Lymans' carriage reached the house just as a streak of lightning brightened the yard. The ensuing thunder sounded ragged, like something tearing. Almost immediately, fat raindrops poured down, as if the sky were a great sack that had suddenly burst at the seams.

“Not a second too soon,” Mr. Lyman said, tossing the reins to Daniel. Between the rapid pace Mr. Lyman had set and the storm, Ivy looked frazzled. She pawed and snorted anxiously, her eyes rolling until Daniel took her head and shushed her—in English, Ethan noticed.

Ethan had expected Mr. Lyman to be upset by the weather, but both he and his wife were grinning together. He rubbed his hands and laughed. “Well, I haven't raced like that in years. Quite the exciting ride, eh, Mercy?”

Ethan wondered if somebody had replaced Mr. Lyman with a twin. He never called Mrs. Lyman by her first name. Daniel had once speculated that they called each other Mr. and Mrs. even in their bedchamber. He'd never seen either of them look so jolly before.

“Ah, there's a good boy.” Mr. Lyman smiled as Ethan held the umbrella over him. “Thinking ahead, that's what I like to see, hmm?” He patted Ethan on the head as if he were a favorite dog. Putting his arms out, he helped his wife down and the two of them dashed into the house, hand in hand, Ethan trotting alongside with the umbrella.

“A good trip, sir?” Silas asked, greeting them at the front door.

“Excellent, excellent!” Mr. Lyman said. “Cheese and butter are up, cotton's down, and that investment in—”

“Papa! Mama! Did you bring us presents?” The three girls clamored around their parents.

“For pity's sake, let them in the house first,” Silas said, shooing the girls down the hallway.

“Presents for everyone,” Mr. Lyman said, swooping Ruth into his arms and giving her a kiss.

“Even Lizzie?” Ruth asked. “And Ethan and Paddy?”

“Everyone. And more to come,” Mr. Lyman said. “Your mama's new cookstove wouldn't fit in the carriage, so I'm having it sent.”

“A stove!” Lizzie exclaimed, her eyes wide.

“A cookstove
and
a heating stove for the parlor,” Mr. Lyman said. “Silas, why don't you and the boys bring in the packages from the carriage?”

“What's it mean?” Ethan asked Daniel as soon as he could slip away to join the Irish boy in the barn. Daniel had been walking Ivy up and down the barn's central aisle to cool her off while Silas and Ethan had taken care of the boxes and carriage.

“Good days for a bit,” Daniel said. The mare grumbled softly as lightning blazed and thunder shook the barn.
“Éist, a mhuirnín. Fil ach stoirm í,”
Daniel said. (“Hush, sweetheart. It's only a storm.”) Even though Ethan knew what some of Daniel's words meant now, and could half say them himself, it
didn't take away the magic as Daniel soothed the mare and cooled her down. The magic wasn't in the words after all, Ethan realized. Ethan could say them himself, and they'd have no power. But Daniel could say
fence post
or
doornail
or
ladder
instead of
There, lass, it's all right,
and the mare's nervous feet would grow still and her tail stop switching. “He could'a been easier on the lass, though,” Daniel said, rubbing a rag across her sweaty neck.

“What's he so happy for? I thought he'd be cross about the rain.”

“Some fellas need drink to brighten their moods. For Lyman, it's profits. He must'a sold high and bought low and made good on his speculations and such. That's all you need to know. If it'd gone the other way, though, you'd not be able to keep shy of his temper even if you was to be as perfect as the entire Holy Family altogether.”

“How long does it last?”

Daniel shrugged. “No telling. Best enjoy it while you can, lad. If I was Silas, I'd ask for that new plow and the merino ram he's been wanting, though. Maybe two rams and a cow, then he'll be sure to at least get the plow and the ram.”

“And what do we get?”

“A pocket of sweets, maybe. Perhaps a bit of a holiday from being thrashed.”

At dinner the next day, Mr. Lyman approved the plow and one ram without debate. On the second ram and the cow, however, Mr. Lyman said, “I don't know. What would you say to a new horse?”

Ethan held his breath.
A new horse.
A horse that he could mind just as Daniel minded Ivy. He could already feel the velvety nose exploring his palm, hear the throaty whicker meant just for him.