Me and Mr. Bell (2 page)

Chapter 2

T
he steamer arrived shortly before eight. A small crowd of locals gathered to welcome Mr. Bell back. They clapped when he stepped onto the dock, and shook his hand and wished him well. My father was not there. He arrived half an hour before ten, when the dock was in darkness and no one else was there. He waited for an hour, staring across the water for any sign of the boat. Then he came home, kicked the post of my bed and woke me up. I had never seen him so angry before. I hardly even recognized him. He waved the message in his hand as if it were on fire. “How could you be so
stupid
?”

I didn't know what to do. For a second I wondered if he was going to hit me. He had never hit me before, but some of my friends had been hit by their fathers. Maybe this was the first time it would happen to me. I lay still while he stared at me, his eyes wild with frustration and anger. I didn't understand why it was so important to meet the steamer, and I couldn't stand the way he was staring at me. It seemed like he was trying to make up his mind about something. He looked so disappointed.

It was the way he had looked when it rained all through the month of July the year before, when the hay was ruined. He dropped his head and shook it from side to side, like a horse that didn't want to wear the bridle. Suddenly I wished he would hit me instead of staring at me like that, because it felt like he didn't recognize me, as if I wasn't even his son anymore. I couldn't stand it. Then he left the room. A shiver went up my spine, and I pulled the covers tight around me. I didn't understand what had just happened; I just knew that it was bad.

In the morning, my father pretended not to see me. He walked right by me as if I wasn't even there. I turned to my mother, and she looked like she was trying to make up her mind about something, too. After my father went to the barn, she told me to sit at the table and gave me a pencil and a piece of paper. “You're a smart boy, Eddie, I know you are. Now, I want you to write out the word
eight
.”

“Write it?”

She smiled, but I could see that she was frustrated.

“Now, why would you ask me that? I just told you. Aren't you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then, write it out.”

I stared at the paper and the pencil.

“Pick it up,” she said.

I picked up the pencil, but couldn't remember how to hold it for writing; I was too upset. I felt like I was going to cry.

“Write it, Eddie. Write the word. I know you can.”

I stared at my mother's hands. They were always wrinkled after she did the washing. And when they weren't wrinkled, they were dry and had thin cracks that sometimes bled. Her hands were so strong. My father's hands were strong, but so were my mother's. I wondered if she would understand that I couldn't remember how to hold the pencil. She was the only one who might.

“Write it, Eddie!”

I looked up at her. My lips were shaking, and I was doing everything not to cry.

“I can't.”

She frowned. “What do you mean, you can't? Of course you can. Don't be stubborn, Eddie. It's not a good way to be. You've been to school a long time now; I know you can write the word
eight
. It's not that hard.”

“I can't remember….” My voice was breaking.

“Oh, come on now, don't be silly. Put the pencil against the paper and write it. It's just a simple word, Eddie. Don't be stubborn. Everyone can write the word
eight
.”

She was right. Everyone could write that word. It was simple. It had to be. I pressed the pencil against the paper and pushed it up. It made a mark, but I couldn't remember where to take it next, and I just drew a line that looked like a tree with only one branch. My mother leaned over my shoulder and looked at what I had done. She stared at the page as if she were staring at a loaf of bread that didn't rise, that came out of the oven like a block of wood. Then she stood up straight and took a deep breath the way she did at church when the priest was finally finished talking, and we could go home. “Lord Almighty, your father was right.”

After that, my family treated me differently. My older sister and younger brother took the trouble to show me how to write, and each thought that if only they showed me how, I would be able to do it, like them. I thought so, too. But I couldn't. And they got frustrated. Then my sister explained that it was just as if I had a lame leg or something like that. I was a learning cripple. That's how I should look at it. My brother said that I was just being stubborn, because that's what he heard my mother say. Then my mother said that there were lots of farmers who couldn't read or write, so I needn't worry; I could always be a farmer or work for a farmer, but I probably couldn't be anything else. I wondered if I would be happy being a farmer. I wouldn't mind, I guessed. Most people were farmers. But there was a small nagging feeling inside of me – what if I didn't want to be a farmer? What if I wanted to be something else? What would I do then? Luckily, I didn't have to worry about that yet; I was only ten.

My family talked to me differently, too. They slowed down when they spoke and explained things more carefully than they needed to. At first, I thought it was silly, but I quickly got used to it. We all did. Sometimes they would get impatient trying to explain something, especially my brother, and I would have to finish it for him, but we all got used to the idea that I was a learning cripple and never questioned it anymore. My father still expected me to do my chores, but he never asked me to run an errand for him again, and he started teaching my younger brother things that he didn't teach me.

My father didn't believe as my mother did, that a farmer didn't need to read and write. He thought that the most important thing a man could do was to read about the world and become smart, whether he was a farmer or a fisherman or a priest. And he took great pride in the fact that the smartest man in the world lived in our community, just a few miles away, even though he had never met him. Why he gave up on me so quickly, I never knew. I had never thought of my father as someone to give up easily.

The thing that bothered me the most was when my mother came to the school and explained to the teacher, in front of all of my friends, that I had a problem with learning and that the teacher shouldn't expect as much from me anymore, because it wasn't fair to me. The teacher nodded her head as if she knew all about it and never even said a word to me. She told my mother that she had known there was something wrong all along but never said anything about it, because she was just waiting for me to catch up.

My friends pretended nothing was different when we were outside of school, but in class they made funny faces and rolled their eyes at me. And I didn't like that the boys who were never as smart as me before suddenly thought they were smarter. I still got bored in class waiting for them to understand math, and I stared out the window when the teacher was explaining things to them that I already understood. They still asked me questions about how things worked when we were outside in the field. But in the classroom they could write things that I couldn't, and that seemed to be the most important thing. And they liked to come and show me their work and tell me that I should do it just like them. In my mind, I knew I was smarter. But I couldn't show it.

For a long time, this was how things were and how I thought they would always be. Summer came and went. We started a new school year. And then one day, I met a man who changed everything.

Chapter 3

T
he first time I met Mr. Bell, I was crossing a field and he was coming down the hill. There was no one else around. It was cloudy, but the air was warm. I wasn't walking anywhere in particular, just crossing the field and feeling the grass with my hands. Dandelions were sticking out of the grass like soldiers with bright yellow helmets. I was always amazed that where the grass was short, the dandelions were short. Where the grass was long, the dandelions were tall. I figured they had to keep up with the grass if they wanted to get any of the sunshine. The cows loved to eat them.

Mr. Bell came charging down the hill like a bear in a wool suit that was too small for him. I knew it was him even though I had never seen him before. He was tall, big and round and had a white bushy beard. He didn't look like a farmer; a farmer would never have such a big belly. It didn't seem to slow him down, though. He was talking loudly and waving his arms in the air, but there was nobody beside him. He was talking to himself.

He reached the bottom of the hill and crossed the field as if he didn't even see it. He walked right past me without seeing me, either! I wondered if maybe he was walking in his sleep. But it was the middle of the afternoon.

I followed him. At the end of the field was a pile of stones. I was curious to see if he would stop and go around it, climb over it or maybe walk right into it. He didn't seem to be looking where he was going.

He went right over the rocks without even slowing down. But as he did, a pencil fell out of his pocket. So I ran and picked it up and tried to catch up with him. He was walking fast! I called after him. “Mr. Bell!” He didn't hear me. “Mr. Bell!” Still he didn't hear me. So I shouted. “
Mr. Bell!”
Then he stopped.

He turned around and saw me. He looked confused. He frowned and squinted at me as if he were trying to figure out what I was. I held up the pencil. “You dropped this, Sir.”

He took a deep breath and let it out, and I thought I could feel it from twenty feet away. His face changed, like ice melting really fast. He turned from looking like a wild bear to looking like the friendliest person I had ever seen in my whole life. He came toward me, pushing the tall grass out of his way, reached out with fat fingers and took the pencil out of my hand. Then he smiled at me as if I were his best friend. His eyes twinkled under his bushy eyebrows.

“Now, who would you be?”

I didn't know how to answer him, so I said, “Nobody.”

“Nobody?” He grinned. “I never met
nobody
before. Are you sure you aren't
somebody
?”

“Well, my name is Eddie.”

When I said that, his eyes opened really wide, his cheeks fell and he suddenly looked sad. I wondered what was wrong, but was afraid to ask.

“What did you say your name was?”

“Eddie.”

He wasn't smiling now. He looked far away, and he looked sad.

“Eddie. Ah … my little brother was called Eddie. He died a long time ago, the poor fellow. A day doesn't go by I don't think of him.”

I didn't know what to say, so I said, “I have a brother, too.”

He stared at me and started smiling again. “Well, shake my hand, young Eddie. I'm Alec Bell. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir.” I stuck out my hand, and he shook it. His hand was large, hot and sweaty. Then he nodded his head at me, winked, turned around and walked away, pushing the grass and dandelions out of his way. I stood and watched him go. I was excited now. I had just met the smartest man in the world.

When I came in for supper and told my mother that I had met Mr. Bell, she made a face at me and told me to stop telling stories. I said that I wasn't; I had really met him. She looked up from the stove where she was mashing potatoes. “Where?”

“In the field above MacDougall's.”

She frowned into the pot. “I don't think it was Mr. Bell, Eddie, it must have been somebody else. Mr. Bell wouldn't be out walking in MacDougall's field.”

“It was him! He told me his name, and he shook my hand.”

“He shook your hand?” My mother smiled. She liked the thought that I had shaken hands with Mr. Bell. She turned her head and stared out the window for just a second, and she looked a little dreamy. Then she scooped the potatoes into a bowl. “You'd better wash up.” She leaned closer and spoke to me as if she were telling me a secret. “Better not tell your father about that, Eddie.”

I saw the look of confusion on her face. “Okay.”

At school, no one believed me, and I wished I had never said anything. But I couldn't help it, and it kind of slipped out. Our teacher, Miss Lawrence, seemed to have two faces: one with which she believed everything you said and one with which she didn't believe anything you said. When Joey MacDougall said that he and his father saw Mr. Bell out in a boat with another man, smoking cigars and creating a cloud of fog, I let it slip that I had just met Mr. Bell in the field, and that he shook my hand.

“Yeah, sure he did,” said Joey. “And was he standing on four legs and chewing his cud?”

Everybody laughed.

“I did!” I said, and looked toward Miss Lawrence, but her face had suddenly turned from belief to disbelief. After that, I went to MacDougall's field every day for two weeks but never saw Mr. Bell. The next time I met him was down at the lake, when he snuck up on me.

I was standing in the water up to my knees. There was no wind and the lake was flat and shiny, like a silver plate. But I knew it wasn't really flat because the earth is round. That means that everything on the earth is round, even the lake. I had heard that at the ocean you could watch a ship sink below the horizon as it sailed away and that that showed you the roundness of the earth. Well, I wanted to know if I could see any of the roundness of the earth by looking ten miles across Bras d'Or Lake.

So I rolled up my pants, crouched down in the water and brought my head close to the surface, which was kind of awkward. It would have been easier to walk up to my neck and look straight across the lake, but I didn't want to get my clothes all wet. There was a small boat in the distance, and I stared at it, trying to see if it was dropping below the horizon. I was pretty sure it was. But the stones were slippery, and I thought I'd better get a stick to hold on to so I wouldn't fall in. When I turned around, I got a fright. About ten feet behind me, Mr. Bell was crouching the same way I was and was staring out at the lake. He scared the heck out of me.

He was squinting really hard, trying to see whatever it was I was looking at. He was so curious, he was behaving like one of my friends might behave except that none of my friends was
that
curious.

“Heavens above! You'll have to tell me, dear boy,” said Mr. Bell, “what you have been staring at so intensely.”

I was shy about telling him. “Um … I was trying to see the roundness of the earth on the lake, Sir.”

Mr. Bell stood right up. “I knew it! I just knew that was it!” He wore a great big smile now. “And pray, tell me, did you see it?”

I nodded my head. “I think so, Sir.”

“Splendid!”

Mr. Bell walked into the water and stood beside me. “That boat way out there?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He blocked the sun with his hand and stared. “If only we had some way to measure it.”

I wondered if he was being serious. He sure sounded serious. He sounded like he really wanted to know.

“I saw in a math book that you can measure distances between far places if you know what the angles are between them, but I'm not sure how to do it.” I knew what angles were, but didn't know how to measure them. I knew that he would know.

Mr. Bell frowned. “Yes, well, mathematics has never been my strong point.”

I thought he was joking. How could the smartest man in the world not be good at math? I wanted to ask him what he meant, but was afraid to. He looked at me and must have read my mind. “I always get someone else to work out the math.” He winked.

“But….”

“You're wondering how someone can be good at inventing and not be good at math, are you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, it's because being an inventor hasn't got anything to do with being good at math or reading or writing or anything like that. It's about having a good imagination. Inventing is like … daydreaming. In fact, that's exactly what it is. Then you try to turn your daydreams into something real. And that is just plain hard work. If you put daydreams and hard work together, you get inventions, simple as that.” He looked at me and smiled, and his eyes sparkled. “But your daydreams have to be pretty good ones, and you have to work hard for a very long time. That's the part that confounds most people. And what do you want to be when you grow up, Eddie?”

I was surprised that Mr. Bell remembered my name. “I'll probably be a farmer,” I said. “I can't seem to learn to read or write very well, but my mom said I could still be a farmer.”

Mr. Bell raised his eyebrows. “Is that right? And do you want to be a farmer?”

“I don't know. I guess so, if I have to.”

Mr. Bell snorted loudly out of his nose, like a horse. “And who told you that you can't learn to read and write?”

“Everybody.”

“Is that so? Well, I have the feeling that I've met this
everybody
before, and it seems to me he's been wrong quite a few times. Have you ever heard of Helen Keller?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, I think you should meet her the next time she comes to visit. Helen has become quite a good writer herself, even though she can't see or hear. What do you think of that?”

“She can't see or hear at all?”

“Not even the tiniest bit.”

I tried to imagine what that was like, but it just confused me. How could someone not see
and
not hear? How would she communicate with anyone? It didn't make any sense. Wouldn't she be completely alone in the world? Mr. Bell was staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“I don't understand, Sir. If she is blind and deaf, how does she communicate with anyone?”

“I'll show you.” Mr. Bell reached out and put his hand on my face. I shut my eyes. I felt his big fat fingers touching my mouth. It was weird. “Okay. Now, say something, but don't say it out loud.”

I did as he told me. I felt his fingers on my mouth as I spoke the words silently.

“You just said, ‘The world is round.'”

“Yes, Sir.”

He took his hand away. “We learn because we want to learn, Eddie. Nothing in the world can stop us if we want it enough. The
everybody
you were talking to was simply wrong.”

I was amazed, but I was also curious about something else and hoped he wouldn't mind if I asked him. “What is it that you want the most, Mr. Bell?”

Mr. Bell looked at me as if he were surprised at my question, then burst out laughing. “Oh, too many things to count, my dear boy. I want
everything
the most.” Then he stared across the lake with the most determined look on his face. “Carrying people through the air on a flying ship – just like a sailing ship on the sea – that's one of them. And we're close now.”

Mr. Bell put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “Any boy smart enough to look for the roundness of the earth on the lake is smart enough to learn to read and write.” Then he winked at me and walked away. I watched him go.

On my way home, I thought about everything he said. This time, I wasn't in a hurry to tell anyone I had met Mr. Bell. They would just say I was making it up. And who would believe that he talked about inviting me to come to his house to meet Helen Keller? No one. I still found it hard to believe that Helen Keller could write when she couldn't see or hear. Mr. Bell said that she had become a really good writer. How? I couldn't get my head around it.