Me and Mr. Bell (4 page)

Chapter 6

T
he third time I met Mr. Bell I was down at the lake on a gloomy, rainy day. I was walking along the beach, picking up shells and stones and throwing them into the water. As I wandered along, I wondered if nature really did make mistakes. Were any of these shells a mistake? Were any of these stones a mistake? What about those waves? Were they all perfect, or were some not as perfect as the others? What was a mistake anyway, something that didn't do what it was supposed to do? Why would a calf be born blind then die? Why did some potatoes grow big and others small? Why were some apples shrivelled up and covered with rough skin? Why was I born with a stronger left hand if I wasn't allowed to use it for writing? Why would I be good at math but hopeless at writing? I stared far out on the lake. It was so dark and gloomy. If nature did make mistakes, could they be fixed?

As I reached the far side of the cove where the beach ended and where the rocks went up the hill into the woods that led to Beinn Bhreagh, the land owned by the Bells, I saw a large man bent over the water, picking up a piece of wood. He looked like one of the locals from a distance. Up close I saw that it was Mr. Bell. He was standing close to the trees, as he if had just snuck out of the woods and didn't want anybody to see him. He looked sleepy. When he saw me, he smiled. I didn't want to bother him, but he waved for me to come over. “Ahoy! Eddie! Come and say hello!”

“Good morning, Mr. Bell.”

“Good morning, lad. Have you ever seen a finer morning on the lake?”

I looked at the darkness of the lake to see if I had missed anything. “No, Sir.”

“And how does it go, my friend? I can see by the look on your face that you're carrying a weight.”

I didn't know anyone could see it in my face. “Mr. Bell, do you believe that nature makes mistakes?”

Mr. Bell stood up straight and stared at me with a look almost of shock, as if I had poked him with a stick. “Nature makes mistakes? Good heavens, my boy, the last time I saw you, you were trying to measure the roundness of the earth. Today, you're considering nature's manufacturability. You're quite the philosopher, my young friend.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I didn't know why he called me a philosopher, but I didn't mind.

He raised a hand to his beard, and I could tell he was thinking about it. He continued to look surprised. “Does nature make mistakes? Well, I suppose that would be like asking if God makes mistakes, wouldn't it? And I suppose I would have to answer that, no, God doesn't make mistakes. Thus, we would have to conclude that nature doesn't make mistakes either.” He furrowed his brow. “But I sense that you are asking this question for a deeper reason than just a passing curiosity. Why do you want to know?”

I dropped my head. “Because I think nature made a mistake with me. I'm good at math, and I think I'm smart enough, but when I try to read or write, it just doesn't work. When I just look at words it feels like a cow is sitting on my head. There must be a mistake somewhere.”

He squinted at me. “Yes, you're smart enough; I can see that for myself. Tell me what happened.”

So I told him about my attempts to write out numbers. And he listened as carefully as if I had been explaining how the planets moved around the sun. When I finished, he was silent for a while. He was thinking. Finally he said, “How many letters are in the alphabet?”

“Twenty-six.”

“What's half of twenty-six?”

“Thirteen.”

“What's half of thirteen?”

“Six and a half.”

“What's half of that?”

“Um … three and a quarter.”

“Okay. And what's a hundred times three and a quarter?”

I had to think about that for a while. Mr. Bell took out a small notepad from his jacket pocket and wrote something down while he waited for me. I recognized his pencil.

“I think it is three hundred and twenty-five, Sir.”

“Right you are! Now, how do you spell boat?”

I took a deep breath. I was pretty sure it started with a
b
, because of the sound of it. And it probably ended with a
d
or a
t
; I wasn't sure which. It only had an
o
sound in the middle. “Is it
b-o-d
?”

He twisted his head sideways, but didn't answer. “And how do you spell lake?”

I was glad he was asking me easy words. “I think it's l-a-k
.”

He rubbed his beard. “Hmmm. And how do you spell dream?”

I closed my eyes and thought about it. I could hear the
e
sound and knew that it must end with an
m
, but I couldn't figure out how it started.

“Does it start with a
j?
”

He shook his head.

“I'm sorry. I don't know.”

Mr. Bell frowned. He was thinking hard now. “Let's try something else. See if you can remember these numbers.”

“Okay.”

“Thirteen … twenty-six … thirty-nine … forty-five … fifty-six. Here, I'll say them again.” And he did. I closed my eyes and concentrated hard. “Now, before you try to repeat them, try to remember these letters:
d
–
r
–
e
–
a
–
m
. I'll repeat them, too.” And he did. “Okay. What were the numbers?”

“Thirteen, twenty-six, thirty-nine, forty-five and fifty-six.”

“Excellent! And the letters?”

I tried hard to remember. “Um …
d
….” What came next? I didn't know. But I thought I remembered an
m
. “
M
? I can't remember any more of them.”

Mr. Bell looked at me beneath his bushy eyebrows and smiled. “Yes, I see what you mean, Eddie. We've got something here that begs looking at.” He raised his eyebrows and his face suddenly lit up. “Did you know, recently, we crashed another flying machine?”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Sir.”

“Bah! There's nothing to be sorry about. The crash is just a detail, Eddie. The miracle is that we got the thing in the air in the first place. And it was carrying a man! It was a glorious success!” He stared at me to see what I would say. But I didn't know how to answer.

“Before you go any further, Eddie, you must learn to celebrate your successes. You can certainly celebrate that you've got a first-class mind in mathematics. And you're a smart boy, you really are. And you might even consider celebrating that you spelled the word
eight
correctly eight times out of ten. Celebrate your success with it. Don't dwell on your failures.” He stopped, pulled on his beard and frowned. “On the other hand, our failures are our friends, too.”

“What?” Now he was losing me.

“Well, truth is, we learn quite a lot from our failures. We learn, for instance, what didn't work. This helps us to try something new. In fact, maybe if we didn't have failure at all, we wouldn't keep on trying. We wouldn't work so hard.” Now it sounded like Mr. Bell was talking to himself as much as he was talking to me. “And so … as much as we should celebrate our successes, I suppose we have to be grateful for our failures, too. That's a funny thought now, isn't it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Tell me, Eddie, can you come to our house next week on Saturday, in the afternoon? I would like you to meet a very special lady who will be visiting us then.”

I knew he meant Helen Keller. “Yes, Sir. I would love to.”

“Good! Come in the early afternoon. We'll be on the porch. Just come up and show yourself, and I'll introduce you to everyone. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Sir. I will. Thank you very much.”

“You're welcome. Now, in the meantime, concentrate on celebrating your successes and being grateful for your failures, too. And when we meet next, tell me which you have found more useful to you.”

“Yes, Sir, I will.”

“Good then.” Mr. Bell squeezed my shoulder with his hand, turned around, climbed up the rocks and disappeared into the woods. Under the shadows of the trees, he looked like a bear.

Chapter 7

E
very night for a week, I went to bed with excited nervous energy. And it was hard to sleep. I was excited to be invited to the Bells' house at Beinn Bhreagh but got nervous when I thought about actually going there. How should I behave? What would I say? What if I said something stupid, and everyone laughed at me? I promised myself that I would only speak when someone spoke to me. Every night I told myself that over and over until I felt sure that that's what I would do. Still, it was hard to sleep. And I didn't tell anyone I was going, not even my mother or father. I didn't think anyone would believe me anyway, and maybe they'd even try to keep me from going.

When Saturday finally came, I hurried through my chores. I fed the cows, shovelled manure, fed the chickens and collected eggs. I fed the horses, let them out and swept the barn. When we sat down for lunch, I could hardly sit still I was so anxious. My mother noticed it. “Eddie. What's with you today?”

“Nothing.”

“You're all fidgety. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes.”

“You're not sick?”

“No, I feel fine.”

My father raised his eyes to look at me but didn't say anything. I wondered what he was thinking.

“May I be excused now?”

My father spoke without raising his eyes from his tea. His lips were still touching the cup. “Did you finish all your chores?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Where ya goin'?” asked my brother.

“Nowhere.”

“Can I come?”

“No.”

“You must be going somewhere,” said my sister, “you didn't wait for dessert.”

I forgot we were even having dessert. “I'm just not very hungry today.”

My mother put her hand on my head and felt for a fever. “You feel a little warm, Eddie. Maybe you should have a lie-down this afternoon.”

“No! No, I'm fine. Really, I am. I'm just going out for a walk.”

“I know where he's going,” said my sister. “He's hoping to run into Mr. Bell again.”

“Can I come?” said my brother again.

“No!”

I carried my dishes to the counter and put them down. I grabbed my jacket off the hook, put my boots on and went out the door. “Come back if you start to feel a fever, Eddie!”

“Okay, Mom!”

I went across the yard and into the field. In the field, I took off running as fast as I could until I was out of sight and could look back through the winter wheat and see my brother coming out of the house. I knew he was going to follow me. Now, he couldn't see me. I turned down the hill toward the lake.

It took almost two hours to get to the Bell house. I was afraid I was going to be late. I had never been there before, but I knew where it was. Everyone did. But even though I knew it was the biggest house in Baddeck, nothing prepared me for the size of it. When I came up the lane and caught sight of it, my mouth dropped. It was bigger than our church and bigger than the biggest barn. It was tall and fat, with lots of roofs sticking up in different directions and too many windows to count. It sat on the lawn as if it had grown out of the ground like a gigantic mushroom. On one side, I saw a large porch filled with people. I heard laughter. Now I was really nervous.

I climbed the first step of the porch and was greeted by a very friendly young woman, who was probably one of Mr. Bell's daughters. She reached down and offered me her hand. I wasn't used to shaking a woman's hand, so I just stuck my hand up and gently squeezed her fingers.

“You must be Eddie,” she said.

I nodded my head.

“Come up and meet everyone.”

She let go of my hand, and I followed her up the steps. There were so many people here I didn't know which way to turn. I looked for Mr. Bell, but there seemed to be two of him. One was standing up, and the other one was lying in a chair with a blanket over his lap. Both were smoking pipes. Both had white hair and bushy beards, but the one who was standing turned to look at me, and I knew it was Mr. Bell. “Ah, young Eddie! Come over and meet everyone. This is my darling wife, Mrs. Bell.”

Mrs. Bell offered me her hand, and I took it the way I had taken her daughter's hand. Mrs. Bell squinted and smiled so warmly she reminded me of Mr. Bell right away. She looked like a very special person, like a queen or something. “Hello, Eddie. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. I have heard that you are a most promising young man. My husband has a gift for surrounding himself with men of talent.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bell. Thank you for inviting me to your home.”

She tilted her head and smiled so sweetly her eyes twinkled like Mr. Bell's, although they were smaller. “It is a pleasure.”

“And here is my father, the illustrious Mr. Bell,” boomed Mr. Bell. I could tell that Mr. Bell was speaking loudly so that his father could hear him. His father put his pipe in his mouth, reached up and shook my hand. “Welcome,” he said roughly. His hand was older and shakier and a little smaller than Mr. Bell's hand.

Then Mr. Bell introduced me to his other daughters and to his granddaughters, who were very pretty, and then to Casey Baldwin and Douglas McCurdy, who were friendly, too, and looked very smart. There were a few more people but too many for me to remember their names. I was wondering where Helen Keller was. Maybe she was in the house. Maybe it was too confusing for her to be around so many people.

“Have you ever seen a finer afternoon, Eddie?” said Mr. Bell. I was starting to realize that Mr. Bell found every day better than the one before it.

“No, Sir.”

“Here. Have a glass of Nana's famous lemonade.” He pointed to a tray that a maid was carrying around the porch. “Have you met everyone?”

“Um … I haven't met Helen Keller yet, Sir.”

“Oh, but you did, my boy.”

“I did?”

“You did. She greeted you on the step. Here she is again.”

I turned around, and standing behind me was the first lady I had met on the steps. She was smiling. “Tell me something about yourself, Eddie,” she said, and her hand came up quickly and rested against my mouth.