Preacher's Boy (4 page)

So, between my brother and all the poor and needy of the village and the church folks who demand lots of chatting up and tending to from their minister, there's
never been a lot of time left for me. Did Ma and the girls feel cheated? I don't know. I wasn't much worried about them. I was thinking mostly about myself those days.

So when Pa invited me to go to the city with him, I jumped at the chance. Besides, he had hired Nelly, who was my favorite horse in the livery stable. You'd think with a name like Nelly, she'd be as prim and set in her ways as a deacon's widow, but Nelly is about the jauntiest horse you could ever hope to see. When another horse pulls up alongside her, she's been known to break into a full gallop and keep it up most of the ten-mile road to Tyler. I was hoping something like that might occur, but it was a tame trip. Although Pa let me hold the reins most of the way, he wouldn't let me put her in a gallop on purpose. The excitement came after we hit the outskirts of Tyler.

There was such a hubbub at the town limits that Pa almost took the back road around to the sanatorium. Thank goodness he didn't. At first I didn't even recognize the thing. It just looked as though the crowd was milling about a carriage that had got unhitched. Then it hit me. The thing sitting right there on the main street of Tyler, Vermont, was a horseless carriage. I jumped out of the surrey. "I'll wait here!" I yelled to Pa.

The motorcar's wheels were big and spoked like buggy wheels. There was a high seat with a kind of lever. Someone said that was what you steered with. The motor was hidden. I think it was under the seat on which the driver sat. He was wearing a scarf and goggles and a huge overcoat even though it was hot enough to melt the tar in the sidewalks. He didn't smile much. I reckon when you own a motorcar, it doesn't do to
look too casual. Every now and again when some grimy-fingered urchin would get too close, he'd raise an eyebrow and growl something like "Don't touch the finish. The Winton's just been polished," which seemed only right for such a grand man to say.

I kept hoping he would start the engine so I could see how it was done. I really wanted to hear the roar and see the motorcar blazing down the road, sending all the horses into a panic. But he just sat there in the center of that curious and mostly awestruck crowd. Now and again someone would ask a question like, "How fast does it go really?" or taunt him, saying, "Bet you couldn't keep up with my horse." The driver would look superior—as well he might, owning such a beauty—and remark offhand that he wouldn't put it in a race with a horse, hinting by his manner that it would be cruel to get the poor beast in such a lather. Why, the poor critter might drop dead from exhaustion.

Pa came back far too soon, even though he had been gone fully an hour by the clock on the Unitarian church steeple. I tried to persuade him to wait a bit, hoping maybe the man would start the motorcar and we could actually see it run, but he just laughed. "It doesn't look as if that fellow is going to move until those gawkers head for home, and that may be suppertime. We've got to get the horse and buggy back to Jake's before then."

From that day on, my ambition was fixed. I was determined. Someday, if the world didn't end before I grew up and got rich, I was going to own a motorcar. And if six months was all I had left, I was at any rate determined to have a ride in one before the world went bust.

There was a problem, however. No one in Leonardstown owned a motorcar. How could I ride in one if no one I knew had one? To my knowledge, and I knew pretty near everything that went on in our village, no motorcar had ever even come through Leonardstown.

I consulted Willie the next morning when we went on our delayed fishing trip. He wasn't very happy with me going off to the city without letting him know
and
seeing a motorcar when he wasn't around. I tried to cheer him up, saying that when I owned one, I would give him a ride whenever he wanted.

"If the world comes to an end this year, there's not much chance you're ever going to own one," he grumped.

"Exactly what I was thinking, Willie. So my best bet is to get to ride in one sometime in the next six months."

"You ain't seen but one motorcar since you was born more than ten years ago. How come you're not only going to
see
another one in six months, but you're going to go
riding
in it to boot? Don't seem likely to me."

"Just what I was thinking, Willie. But there's got to be a way. I just got to have that one satisfaction before the end comes."

"Too bad you can't pray."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when I want something impossible, I ask God for it because God can do the impossible. But you can't pray."

"Why not? My father's the preacher. I'm a ten times better prayer than you are."

"You don't believe in God no more. Remember?"

"Well, I could pray just in case."

"I don't think it would work. God would know."

I ignored Willie and that evening slipped in a to-whom-it-may-concern prayer to say that before the world collapsed in dust and ashes, I would sure like to ride in a motorcar just once.

W
E ALWAYS GET EXCITED ABOUT THE
F
OURTH OF
J
ULY.
Why wouldn't we? It is the biggest thing ever to happen in our town, if you don't count the ice storm that broke down half the trees and let us ice-skate down Main Street on Christmas Day a few years back. But that only happened once. Fourth of July happens every year.

We love the parade. First comes the marshal, who also happens to be the mayor, and since we've had the same mayor all my life, it's always been Mr. Earl Weston. Mr. Weston is the mayor because no one else can spare the time. I don't mean that only lazy men go into politics, but Earl Weston has some mysterious source of money that means he doesn't have to farm, or work in the quarries or stone sheds, or slog away in the livery stable or blacksmith shop, or preach like my pa. He doesn't even clerk in his own store. He was the one, I understand, who thought a board of selectmen wasn't
a fancy-enough government for a growing town on the main line of the railroad and that we ought to have a mayor. When no one else could understand why, he volunteered. I reckon Mr. Weston figured out that somebody has to lead off the Fourth of July parade, and that it was only fitting that that someone be the town's mayor. If anybody grumbled, I never heard tell of it.

So first comes the mayor. He is riding, of course. Up until that time Mr. Earl Weston had not been known to walk far, and since he owns his own buggy, he might as well ride in it. Then, mostly walking, come the veterans. Now, the Civil War was over in 1865, and this is 1899, so only the ones who went as youngsters are near spry anymore, and some of them is downright decrepit. But they are mostly walking behind Mr. Weston's buggy, except for Colonel Weathersby, who is a farmer and owns his own horse and thinks that a colonel should ride a horse if he's got one handy. And all of us boys agree. Colonel Weathersby's horse is a beautiful Morgan. He's black and sleek and adds a lot of class to the parade. The veterans need the dignity of that horse, because they are by and large shuffling along. Rafe Morrison lost an arm, and so he's got this empty sleeve sewed up, and Warren Smith is still on crutches on account of a missing leg, but he insists on walking the whole route even so. I think he's kind of thumbing his nose at Mr. Earl Weston, but I ain't heard anyone else say as much, so I keep it to myself.

We got twenty-seven veterans in our town, but only about nineteen or twenty were in the parade. The other citizens that went to the Civil War are sleeping in the cemetery up on East Hill or in some cornfield grave down south.

This year there are two men returned from the war in Cuba, but neither of them got further away than Tennessee. They are walking toward the back of the parade so as not to draw attention away from the real veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The town band follows the veterans. We got a pretty good band for a town our size. This is on account of Mr. Pearson, who used to teach music at the military college in Northfield and then retired to his old family farm right outside town. He heard our band once and volunteered the next day to take it over. Believe me, he whipped it into shape, and now our band is the pride and envy of the whole county. Someday Pm going to get ahold of a cornet and play in the band, if I can just figure out how to get one. As I was listening to the band, wishing for a cornet, I caught myself hoping all over again that the world wouldn't come to an end. It would wreck all my plans for the future.

So there's the band, sixteen strong including a big bass drum that makes you jump like a bullfrog if Owen Higgins happens to boom it just as he passes you. But this past July I wasn't standing on the sidelines. Me and Willie decorated his old wagon, and we were marching in the parade. We meant to pull his aunt Millie's cat in the wagon, but every time we practiced, the cat would just jump out and run away.

"What about your little sister?" Willie asked. "I bet she'd sit there proper. Your ma could dress her in red, white, and blue." I was horrified. Letty was only five years old. I never got to be in the parade when I was five years old. It didn't seem fitting somehow. But the trouble was, Willie mentioned it to Letty before I made
up my mind, and she went running to Ma, and so we were stuck with pulling my baby sister in the wagon.

You may be surprised to know that it ain't easy pulling a little girl the whole length of a parade in a wagon. No, she didn't try to jump out or anything. She was pleased as punch just to sit there. But Willie thought as soon as he'd pulled a few feet that since she was my sister I should have the honor. I soon saw why. That little scallywag was heavy. I was sweating like a plow horse. And the wheels were funny, so no matter how straight I pulled, the wagon kept moving to the left.

First thing I knew, I had hit Ned Weston's brand-new bicycle. The Weston boys are very particular about their precious wheels, and Ned claimed right out loud that I was jealous and did it on purpose. Now, you're obliged to belt someone for an insult of that magnitude, parade or no parade. Willie caught my fist in midair. "People is watching!" he muttered, so I had to give up fighting for the time being and endure another of Ned's superior smirks.

Even including that unfortunate incident, it was a jim-dandy of a parade. The Ladies' Society of the Methodist church (they aren't as dignified as the Congregational ladies) had this farm wagon with streamers on it, and the ladies were standing and sitting around all decked out in flowers. I forget what the banner read—"The Methodist Ladies Are the Flower of Vermont Womanhood" or some such. The Congregational ladies smiled politely from the sidelines, but you could tell they were a little bit miffed.

The Grange had a wagon, too. July is too early to show off much in the way of the fruit of the land, but
they had a few unhappy lambs and heifers on board to baa and bleat and represent the glory of our agricultural tradition. Rachel Martin and some of the other girls were riding in that one. They were smiling bravely, though you had the feeling that, standing there in the middle of all that livestock, they'd rather be pinching their noses.

There was a wagon of stonecutters, mostly just the Scotch and French-Canadian ones. The Italian stonecutters stood on the sidelines, looking on and laughing. I think personally that some of their jollity came from a bottle of that homemade wine, which as you know is illegal, unlike cider, which may serve the same effect when it gets a little elderly but is a Vermont product and therefore perfectly legal and not frowned down upon. Pa says judgmentalism is one of my worst failings, next to my temper, and besides, spirits is spirits, and at least the Italians are honest about their drinking habits. Pa always takes up for the Italian stonecutters. He says they're not just stonecutters, they're sculptors in the tradition of Michelangelo and the only true artists we got around here.

This year the Wilson children were riding ponies. They are younger than me, but their rich grandpa gave them each a pony. Another of my failings, you might as well know, is the sin of envy. And to tell the truth, I was more jealous of those ponies than I was of Tom and Ned Weston's new sets of wheels. But since it was plain impossible to imagine ever owning a pony, I spent most of my sin of covetousness that day on the Weston boys' wheels, because owning a bicycle seemed closer to possible than owning a pony. No point in wasting a sin on
something that's just plain not going to happen in this world. I kept forgetting that I had decided not to believe in God and that therefore it didn't matter about sin anymore. Old habits die hard, as my grandma used to say.

It was a good parade while it lasted, but once it was done, Willie and I dragged Letty home as fast as her weight and those wobbly wheels would allow. It was nearly noon, but I begged off dinner, as did Willie. Ma made us sandwiches to take to the creek. She didn't have to tell us to be home before dark. There would be fireworks at dark, and besides, supper would come before that. A couple of sandwiches apiece would not suffice to stave off starvation between morning and bedtime.

Wouldn't you know? Fast as we hurried, Ned and his big brother Tom was sitting sassy as overfed cats at Willie's and my fishing spot. Ned knew perfectly well whose spot it was. He had seen Willie and me there often enough. I wanted like Christmas to teach him the lesson I hadn't been able to earlier that morning, but his brother Tom is two years older than me and a good boxer to boot, so I decided that it was one of those occasions when "digression is the better part of valor," and me and Willie had to be content with our second-favorite spot.

We were quiet for a long time, busying ourselves threading our worms on our hooks, making a few trial throws, until finally we settled back into the bank, our caps over our eyes to shade them from the sun. I sighed. With the heat and the loss of our best place, we weren't liable to need many worms.

"So," said Willie after a while, "you still an apeist, Robbie?"