# **Contents**

Cover Image

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Forward

Chapter 1: Midwife

Chapter 2: Groanings that cannot be uttered...

Chapter 3: The Liniment Egg

Chapter 4: Provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged

Chapter 5: Blessed are the Peacemakers

Chapter 6: He Whistles for the Cricket

Chapter 7: Sarah

Chapter 8: Moses

Chapter 9: Chickens and Pipe Wrenches

Chapter 10: The Comfort Wherewith We Ourselves are Comforted

Chapter 11: Nanny

Chapter 12: Faith

Chapter 13: Merry

Chapter 14: Christmas

Chapter 15: The Quarry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He Whistles for the Cricket

Gwen Walker
Copyright © 2010 Gwen Walker

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1463768893

ISBN-13: 978-1463768898

DEDICATION

To my beloved family.
Forward

Babe came to our deck door in a waddling neighborliness. I opened the door and leaned down to pet her head and return her "good morning."

"Wait a minute, Babe," I urged her conversationally.

The birds' chirps and clatter filled the background, activating the wispy greenery of the just visible day. I went to the kitchen for a bone I had frozen for Babe earlier in the week. I never knew, these days, just when she would stop over, so I couldn't have chanced keeping it unfrozen. Before, Babe had come daily.

As I returned to the porch, I tore away the waxed paper, frozen to the bone, and offered Babe her treat. She had understood the request to wait, and now she wriggled her gratitude. Without ceremony, she left, holding her frozen treasure firmly in her greying jaws. She found a prominent spot on the back yard slope and settled down with her bone. The birds waited, perched in the nearby trees and under the low sprawling porch roof, until she had settled. Then they rose again to their morning chorus and perpetual motion, singing-seeding-tugging. I wondered if Babe missed Holly, as I did. This story is for Holly, and all those who know something of the kind of friendship a beloved pet can bestow.
Chapter 1

Midwife

****

Miriam didn't know what to do. She held the nestling pup close to her in the back of the trailer. She was glad her brother Jeff had let her come along that morning. He had to return the trailer to the service station in town. They'd borrowed it to move a washing machine from the Johnson's basement. The washing machine was free, and only needed minor repairs, but the trailer had to be returned by eight a.m.

Miriam was heart-heavy in spite of the early morning, late seasonal sun. It came up almost a caricature of itself in its screaming orange roundness. She was startled by it as much as Jeff had been startled by her wanting to get up so early to ride along with him. But she'd had to.

The pup wriggling so happily nosey inside her jacket, had been taken from the litter of pups next door. Poor little things. She'd been there just after they'd been born. She had walked along the edge of the creek one early autumn morning, watching the bugs dimple the shallow waters as it ran between the grass islands which looked as though they grew from the mud bottom of the creek. The houses were acres apart, and Miriam's house was between a large open field on the west, and the Johnson's farm was on the east. Farther west, past the open field through which a large drainage ditch ran to the creek, was the Zender's farm. The Zender boys, Hank and Abe, would often be down at the creek later in the day, fishing or throwing stones in the waters. Miriam liked the early time, alone. The Zender's part of the creek property wasn't kept very tidy. There were old tires piled high on the other side of the creek, and occasionally an old dresser or refrigerator would be added to the pile. The Johnson's property was much neater, Miriam thought, but not like the Chaney's, who lived four miles closer to town. Miriam's class had had a school picnic there one time, and she had spent the afternoon throwing sticks for their dog who took to her, it seemed, more than to the other children who soon lost interest. Dogs and Miriam had always gotten along, and this dog, who had only spent one afternoon picnic with her, let her visit her litter of pups. Miriam was even allowed to pick them up in affectionate inquiry.

"Why," Mrs. Chaney had said, "Missy never let _anyone_ do that before!"

Missy was "feisty" with strangers in general, and a real she-wolf when it came to her brood. Miriam, then, had Missy's invisible passport. This made her feel very special, and she loved to hear Mrs. Chaney tell others about it. She would look away and pretend she wasn't listening, or else she would stoop to pat Missy, but she would glow inside, and love Missy the more for having been the avenue of such acclaim.

Just recently, Missy had had another litter of pups. Mr. Green had been talking with Mr. Chaney in the hardware store, and Mr. Chaney had said, "Be sure your little girl comes by." And so he had dropped by with her that very weekend. Mrs. Chaney sent Miriam down to the barn to see them without even going with her. When she came back by the house, Mr. Green and Mr. Chaney were talking, out in the driveway. Mrs. Chaney invited her in to see something special. There, in a basket by the kitchen window, she showed Miriam a little kitten. She was mostly white, but mottled with black "feathers" on her back legs and a black spot on her right ear, touching into her cheek. Miriam loved the little thing who looked like her face was dirty. Together, she and Mrs. Chaney enjoyed the round softness of the young animal, complacent in its expectancy that life would treat it well. This kitten, Mrs. Chaney told her, was brought home from college by her son. Someone had placed the litter of kittens in a closed cardboard box in the middle of the highway.

"Wretch!" she had said.

A couple of students, returning from a football game, had disbursed the orphans among themselves, and had eyedropper fed them in their various dorm rooms. The Chaney's son had brought this foundling to his parents, and now it rested and accepted the affectionate hospitality of the Chaney home.

As she walked along the creek, Miriam had heard a mewing much like the sound of the Chaney's kitten. She'd followed the piercing mews to the old slaughterhouse, rusting on the creek bank on the Johnson's property. She'd been here before, now and then, and remembered that the door never had closed well. She'd pushed it inward, and saw, just barely, in its protected darkness, Greg Johnson's dog: Queenie. This dog had often pushed her long nose into Miriam's hand as she sat in the woods near the creek. Then she would leave to nuzzle tree trunks. Sometimes one of the trees would offer up a possum, or, less happily, ground bees. Miriam would watch Queenie back away, readying herself to attack, or to be quickly diverted to the next sound which seemed audible only to her attentive ears. Queenie would perk up her ears at the sound of Greg Johnson's whistle, and run toward it when she was sure it was him. But she would always acknowledge Miriam with her quick attention and greeting. Now, in the darkened slaughterhouse, she thumped her tail heavily on the clay floor, as though she were occupied, but Miriam was yet welcome. Miriam went in, and as she reached to pet Queenie's uplifted head, she saw the pups. Seven mewing sucklings, outstretched against their mother's belly, oblivious to outside intrusion. Miriam took in her breath in a rush of wonder. She reached out her hand gingerly, and fingered the silken back of a little brown pup. She was cautious, looking to see Queenie's reaction. Queenie shifted, and made effort to push her nose against Miriam's hand. Miriam needed no further confirmation of their friendship, and the trust this mother dog had in her. She flattened herself against the floor, propped on one elbow, and gently stroked each pup, as she had the first. She laughed at their blind industriousness, with their tiny paws probing, pawing, hitching themselves up against the soft bodies of their brothers or sisters to secure a better vantage point. Their evident newborn feebleness was a funny contrast to their fierce determination and steadfastness of purpose. Suddenly Queenie shifted again and Miriam saw the motionless little black pup pushed under her right foreleg. She thought for a moment it was dead, and she swelled with a sudden revulsion and fear. Even so, she reached for the pup, and laid it in the palm of her hand. A flicker of motion, and Miriam's hopes stirred. She brought the pup to its mother's nose. Queenie immediately began her natal ministrations as though this were her first and only offspring. Miriam watched the pup's tiny frame begin to visibly pulse with life, awaking to its own mewing power. With buoyant relief, Miriam placed the new life against the mother's belly and watched, hesitantly hopeful that the pup would nurse.

The pup didn't have to be coaxed or coached. Miriam sat up and laughed, and Queenie thumped her tail in gratitude. Their joint accomplishment, oblivious to mother or midwife, pushed and prodded and suckled as though it had been born into the world for this very purpose. It did not know the mystery and wonder its small existence had created in the soul of a young girl.

Miriam felt wonder, and also responsibility. Each day, usually early as it was on that morning of their birth, she visited the energetic brood. She saw Queenie shake herself loose with that universal exasperation of motherhood gendered by the clinging, demanding dependence of childhood. The pups' squeaks had by now developed into sharp little barks with which they signaled their complaint. To no avail, however. Queenie pushed her way outside, and stood, relieved, beside her friend. She nosed her way into Miriam's palm for a moment, and then ambled to the creek edge for a drink. Miriam sat in the doorway of the slaughterhouse, enjoying her family. She reached for the little black pup, so naturally her favorite. She hadn't named him. He was not really hers to name. Even so, she rolled names around out loud. She wondered if her parents had known what they would name her, before she'd been born. She wondered if they had taken that time and thought. And then she wondered if they had had a name all picked out for her if she'd been a boy. She wondered, once, if Adam had come up with personal names for his animal friends in Eden. She thought of foolish names for the pup, like Squeak, but already the squeak was disappearing. In fact, the black pup was one of the less vocal pups in the litter. His little paws padded and pushed with the full vigor of his short days of life, but his small bark itself seemed lower, to Miriam's ears, than that of the others. Sometimes she called him Silky, like his soft ears. Sometimes Candy.

She'd asked if she could have a pup, just in general, and the answer had been no. She'd thought it would be. Once, four years ago, when she was six, she had asked. She'd known her father could be sharp, but she had rarely ever had it directed toward herself. He was a gentle man. But that time he'd been sharp with her in his refusal. Her mom had sympathized silently, and it was the same this time. She didn't even appeal to her mother by a glance.

Mr. Green had always worked long hours to provide for the four of them, but there was no provision for luxuries. A pup was a luxury. When Miriam had been six, and had asked so eagerly, her dad had seemed angry. She remembered the words, and the shock she'd felt at the anger in her father's words. Now, at ten, she'd not have asked at all, if it had not been for the little black pup multiplying its sleek little form day by day in the Johnson's slaughterhouse, and on the creek bank just outside. The hungering for _this_ pup gave her hesitant boldness even though she didn't expect a yes. She had come to realize that her father's anger at that request four years in the past had been the anger of frustration and weariness and poor health...and, perhaps, the regret at having to deny his daughter her request.

She'd seen her father down in the basement at his tool bench where he spent so much time repairing broken appliances, or fixing torn screens. He would bend forward suddenly and clutch at his abdomen and stay that way for a few minutes. She learned from hearing her mother and father talk that it was a hernia which caused her father so much pain. There was no time or money for surgery, and he could live with it if he had to. Even so, Miriam knew he felt sorry for his sharpness with her. When her mother called her in from the front yard for bedtime that night, she'd heard her father say, "Oh, give her a while longer, Jane." She'd been channelling the late June fireflies into a green mason jar, and the call to come in was never welcomed. She looked to her mother on the porch, it had been agreed that she could be out longer, and the busy activity of collecting had helped cover her disappointment. Before she came in, she set the jar on the porch swing and lifted the lid off. Fireflies shouldn't be owned.

All that had been a long time ago. As she rode in the back of the trailer Jeff was returning, she remembered these things in snatches of feeling without a chronological network. Some feelings she could mull over - even brood over - but she seldom did for long if it left her heavy-spirited. She had learned in the long summer days and dreams to divert the thoughts which brought her distress. But that bruise of disappointment had not altogether healed, and so she had asked once again, four years later, could she have a pup? In the growing self-consciousness of youth, she was on the defensive, even as she asked. She was prepared for a refusal. The question, however, was buffeted by a glimmer of hope. Things were some better, financially. Her father was less distinguished by that gaunt withdrawal of pain and responsibility. Her mother had found part-time work in the Chicago mail-order house, and there was more to eat now.

Her mother had tried to help her understand. Once, she told Miriam, she had had a cat all her own. Buffy. He was angora, and colored like his name. He sat inside the curve of her wooden rocker and slept with her at night. Mrs. Green had loved Buffy. He was independent and affectionate, setting the terms of endearment. But he had been shot by a neighbor boy's pellet gun, and abscesses had festered in his hip and his nose. The vicious pellets had been carefully removed with tweezers, and the wounds had been washed with a solution of boric acid crystals and warm water around the clock the first night, and for days afterward. Even so, the wounds had not healed, and there was no money to pay for a veterinarian's care. Buffy had died, matted and suffering and beloved, in the awful odor of infection. It wasn't right, Mrs. Green concluded, to keep a pet you couldn't care for properly. Pets could eat on leftovers, but they needed shots and tags and medical care too.

Miriam understood. At least she understood the seriousness of her mother's concern. Sickness and injury were things that might not happen. In her six-year old supplication, she couldn't have understood those fears for things in a remote, possible future. She had had no history to give it practical meaning. But now, at ten, she had seen things which enlarged her understanding. She had seen a trapped and frantic raccoon, squealing in pain. She had the daily observances of small roadway corpses and breakfasting crows who withdrew from feeding only long enough to let the cars and trucks pass by. This always brought momentary sadness, and she usually averted her eyes. She knew that life had been snuffed out, and the revulsion was better dealt with if not entertained. She'd been in the car on a foggy morning when a deer sped in front of them. It was an almost magical leap. The deer seemed to have grown out of the fog bank on the right side of the road. It appeared for one startling moment in the yellowness of the headlights, and disappeared into the twin fog bank on the left. It happened so fast that Miriam and Mr. Green could only draw in their breath. There was no time for braking or conversation. Almost immediately, then, a second deer hit the right fender of the car. Mr. Green braked and muttered, breathless and shocked. The car was badly hit, and Miriam knew it before they got out to investigate. She couldn't open her door, and so she waited for her father to get out. Silent and breathless, she climbed out past the driver's seat to look.

The deer, she was certain, had lived for a moment. She saw pain and a silent plea in the soft brown eyes. Then silence. So much power and life one moment, and now stillness, lifelessness. She looked to her father for some word to help her assimilate the violence of the deer's death, some recall to normalcy.

Mr. Green said, "Come on. Let's see if we can get to town. We might have to get a tow. We'll give it a try."

Her father assured her that the death had been quick and painless, and she had felt better. The car had started, but it wheezed and began to sputter. They got to town in it, and pulled it into the nearest service station. The attendant let them use his tools to pound out the fender, but Mr. Green had checked and found damage to the radiator. They called a tow truck to have it taken to Olney's garage, further up the road about a mile. Mr. Olney always took care of their major automobile problems. This time, he told them, they'd need a new radiator; he could pry open the passenger door, but they'd need a new one as soon as they could get over to the junk yard and get another.

When Mr. Olney heard what had happened, he went back for the deer, but it was too late to save the meat. Miriam was glad, somehow. She couldn't have helped the deer. Not ever. Not by having warned him in the early morning fog. Not by refusing to eat whatever could be salvaged. But she didn't want him to be butchered. She understood her mother's message about Buffy, when she thought of the deer.

Miriam never persuaded or wheedled. Truth was, she didn't even know how. Her dad's decisions were facts in her young life. She didn't make many requests, and when she did there was usually a fair expectation of a good return. Her dad said yes to most of her requests, and her mom generally anticipated her needs.

Besides, not owning the pup was bearable. She could visit and play with him each day. She saw his early ventures outside the slaughterhouse, and took notice of his irrepressible good will among his brothers and sisters. They yipped and tumbled and played together, and Queenie extended the distance and duration of her absences, little by little. Miriam would watch the pup until he would rush to her in sudden recognition, always with a surge of bumptious affection. He would come to her outstretched hand and push the velvet roundness of his nose against it. Miriam would circle the tan spatters of fur above each of his eyes with her finger. His eyes were a deep liquid brown. The deer's eyes had been like that, only there had been no mirror of recognition in them. Miriam idly wondered if all animal eyes were brown, but then she remembered a Siamese cat she had once seen. Its eyes had caused her to stare in slow realization of their strange blueness. She also remembered that at night the headlights of the car would sometimes pick up the sheen of animal eyes along the roadside and in the bordering bushes and trees; they were yellow beacons of alertness, and a reminder of an animal forest world quite apart from Miriam's world of school and work and long summer days and occasional evening drives.

The pups were all friendly, and Miriam fondled them and named them, and changed their names according to their habits. One would nip and tug, and she would name it Friskie, or Snap. She named them after the Seven Dwarves, then tried to remember which one was which. She was Snow White, and these were her little flock. But the black pup was the eighth, and had to have a special name. Miriam picked him up and tucked him inside her sweater. She looked to see if Queenie would object to one of her pups being borrowed. Queenie pushed against her gently, and then lay down in the sun. Immediately, the horde descended upon her to nurse. Miriam laughed, and took her lying down as ready acquiescence to the loan of the pup. Queenie was fully occupied, and obviously trusted her young friend. She seemed grateful, Miriam thought. Perhaps, too, she was a trifle pleased at the child's interest in her young offspring.

Miriam carried the pup across the low swamp-like grasses sloping up from the building on the creek to the swing in her back yard. Her mother had put the swing up, half-carrying, half-dragging the long wooden ladder from their garage. She'd leaned it precariously against the high and misshapen branch of the slender walnut tree in their back yard. The branch was high enough for a really long rope. This made a swing which would glide long and slowly, and was a wonderful place to spend a rainy day outside. Her mother had known that. She also knew that the shortness of the branch would probably guarantee its safety from the high winter winds. The long, high branches of the old walnuts were the winds' yearly targets, and they lay broken under the snow until spring cleanup time, before mowing could begin. Miriam fitted the jagged board which her brother had notched for the swing. It always came off because the notches weren't quite deep enough, but it served. She slipped it into place with one hand, holding the pup with the other. She was still in sight of the slaughterhouse, and the sleeping Queenie. She glided back and forth, naming and renaming the pup, who eventually slept in the sweater which soft-pocketed his small body so fittingly.

Miriam's mother and father would be home from work in an hour. Jeff worked on the Johnson's farm most days after school, and in the summers. Miriam was responsible for starting supper and for setting the table. Afterwards, she would run or roller skate about a block down to the corner where her parents would turn in from the highway. Her father would slow the car almost to a stop and let her climb on the running board. She would ride home that way with the wind in her hair. The sun now told her it was near time, and so she carried the pup, still sleeping, back to the slaughterhouse. She laid him, still wrapped in her sweater, on a soft, dusty pile of burlap grain bags, which were stored there on top of an abandoned back seat of an old truck. As she set the pup down, the pile of burlap sacks reminded Miriam of the story of Heidi. Heidi's grandpa had gruffly accepted her small presence, and a bed had been prepared for her in the loft of his cabin. Miriam thought of this as she left the sleeping pup. She knelt to quickly pet the others, who had also fallen asleep stretched lazily between the legs of their mother. Queenie awoke for a moment, and thumped her tail tiredly against the dirt floor. Miriam started home.
Chapter 2

"Groanings that cannot be uttered..."

****

A few drops of rain splashed her arms, then her face, as she hurried up the hill. She loved the cool wetness and the look of the sky. It was suddenly truly dark and the thunders marshaled themselves in baritone warnings. Before she reached the inside garage door the rains had come and she slipped out of her soggy loafers almost unconsciously as she went in. No running board ride tonight, she knew, as she listened to the rain. She took four plates from the dish rack where they had dried from the morning dish washing. She set them around the table. Tonight they would have Campbell's pork and beans, "souped up" with brown sugar, molasses, a little catsup, and hot dogs on top. Her ten year old hands were adept at opening the two cans and mixing the condiments. She poured the ingredients into a Pyrex casserole, and opened the oven door. The pilot had to be relit sometimes. She turned on the gas and dropped a lighted match down the hole in the front of the stove. It popped, proving the pilot was on, and in a minute the blue flames followed the rectangular perimeter of the gas pipe. Soon the oven began to have its influence over the cool and dampish early evening kitchen. The rain poured down, driving in against the windows. It continued steadily.

Her folks came home, and as Mr. Green was putting their coats away, Mrs. Green said, "My, how good your supper smells, Miriam!"

Miriam was pleased, and even more so when Jeff complimented her.

"Not bad!" He raised his eyebrows in appreciation and grinned at her. He didn't even wipe out the niceness by making a face at her. Somehow, she savored these small tributes from her big brother.

Mr. Green read Silver Chief, Dog of the North out loud that evening. Usually there was time to be outside after supper, but tonight the rain kept them in, and they had popcorn and apples with their story. Miriam sliced her apple with a knife, and salted each piece lightly just before she ate it. Mrs. Green and Jeff took turns reading with Mr. Green. Miriam liked to read out loud sometimes, and she did a good job, even with the big words, but often she would get too choked up to read some parts well, especially in dog stories, and so she preferred to just listen. When they had finished three chapters, it seemed time for bed. It was still a little early, but the sky was dark and the rhythmic constancy of the rain on the roof made Miriam sleepy. Everyone felt the same way, and so they put the day away and settled in.

Miriam awakened early the next morning before the sun was really up. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen. She was shocked when she looked out the window. A sudden fear gripped her. The lower stretch of her back yard looked like a lake, muddy and quiet. She thought of the slaughterhouse. She got her jacket from the hook on the porch off the kitchen and ran down the hill until she could make out the outline of the shed. The higher part of the yard was soggy, but when she got to the bottom of the railroad tie steps terracing the hill to the lower part of the back yard, she stepped into water which covered her shoes, her ankles, and hit the calves of her pajama legs. They were sloppily wet and cold, and she ran, slowed by the water, until she came to the old building.

The door was three-quarters opened. It seemed the sun was almost ashamed to look upon the scene. Queenie stood, half-whining, half-moaning, over a pile of sodden puppy corpses, lying in six inches of cold flood waters from the creek. She was trying to coax life back into them by "talking" to them, licking, sniffing, prodding with her long friendly nose, but they did not respond.

Miriam stood mute at the door, overwhelmed with the stark lifelessness of the scene. She felt a deluge of personal loss. She yearned from the bottom of her ten-year old soul toward the genuine mother-grief she was witnessing. As natural as the mother toward her pups, Miriam reached out and put her arms around Queenie and groaned with her. She petted her and put her own cheek, wet with tears, down upon the little dead bodies of the pups. She hurt with a new wash of pain for Queenie, because the dog took sudden new hope from Miriam's very contact with her pups. So she turned from them and lay her head instead against the living dog, closing her arms around Queenie's wet body, as if to take her wholly in. She crooned and solaced and stroked her in wordless companionship of loss. Her eyes closed, buried against the dog's ruff, and together, they just huddled there, the living responding to death and loss in all its vital misery.

Then, a small, imperative bark cut across the muffle of their consolations. Miriam looked up toward what she thought was the source. There to her right was the pile of burlap bags, rising above the waters of the shed floor. On top of the bags, where she had set him the night before, stood the little black pup, hungry and forlorn. He was unaware of the devastation the simple, seasonal rains had brought upon his kin and his expectancy. Miriam reached for the pup and had him cradled in her arms and extended to Queenie all in a moment. The bereaved mother drank in her pup as new wine. Her full maternal benefit focused and poured out on her little living pup. Miriam sat back, breathtakingly, tearfully content in her exclusion from their sweet and private exchange. Once again she felt she had given this little pup life. But now it was so much more. She had given the pup to his mother, and she had sensed the gratitude of each of them. Once, only a few short weeks before, she had had the taste of rescuing a life, but that time the little pup had not known about his rescue and had not known her, at all. Miriam's fulfillment was in that exhilaration of participating in the saving of a life. But now the pup had a personal kinship with her. She loved him, and he loved her in return. These three, Miriam thought, were a circle. They needed each other.

She returned to her own garage and got a spade to bury the pups. She knew she could do this, now, and she did not think to question the appropriateness of burying her neighbor's pups. It did not seem right to her that they should have to come upon this scene. Her parents and Jeff were still sleeping, and she went quietly into her bedroom and took down the embroidered scarf which covered her dresser. She emptied a carton containing some treasures from the back of her closet and went back outside and across the waters to the slaughterhouse. The waters on the shed floor had receded and Queenie lay atop the burlap grain sacks that Miriam had pushed together to make a sort of bed for her and the pup. The pup was nursing, and Miriam found it easier to lay the little bodies of the dead pups in the box lined with her dresser scarf in the presence of such gusty life. Even so, she wept, and petted the small corpses before she closed the lid on the box. She set it into the creekside grave, which she had made. The digging was not difficult, for her ten-year old arms and legs had been toughened by summer's bicycling and swimming, and by her daily chores. Besides, the creek spot she had chosen was soft mud, and she didn't know how deep to dig the grave. It was her first. She had made it only deep enough to cover the box, and when she placed it in the hole she'd dug, she covered it again with the soft mud. In another three days, another rain would come and unearth the tender coffin. The box would soon soak apart and the pups would be carried far down the creek into the larger Fox River, but Miriam never knew. At the burial spot she wondered how best to say goodbye, as she listened to the single pup nurse. Finally, she made a simple cross of two green twigs, and fixed them firmly against a stump beside the grave.

She started back to her house to tell her mother and father and Jeff. She knew after that she would have to go over and tell the Johnsons, too. It was a cold, wet morning of sadness for seven, and so, as she walked, she fixed her thoughts on the two.

All these things Miriam thought of, with the little pup now nestled in her jacket, sleeping as they approached the Chaney farm. There had been the two, and now just one. Queenie, too, was dead. Miriam had to get to the Chaney's. She was going to ask Jeff to drop her off there while he returned the trailer, farther down the road, near town. She had told Mrs. Chaney the story of the pup that day they had petted the kitten in her kitchen. Miriam felt that somehow, Mrs. Chaney would understand the great need she had, right now, and would help her.
Chapter 3

The Liniment Egg

****

The morning she had buried the pups, Miriam went to tell the Johnsons after she had gone in and told her own family. Her experience had weathered her, and she overcame her natural shyness as she went to their door.

The Johnsons worked their small farm, and they depended upon their chickens for a good part of their income, even though both Mr. and Mrs. Johnson worked in the canning factory in town. Their sons, Greg and Tom, tended to the chickens. They carried the feed from the dilapidated barn "hoppers" to the chicken yard, and gathered the eggs every evening. Miriam had helped them sometimes, and they were glad for the help. But as they grew older, a shyness had come over her, and they more or less ignored her in the chance times they would look across their property to the Greens, and see her. Once in a great while she would meet Greg or Tom down at the creek, and they would say hello and together watch Queenie retrieve a stick. She would sometimes ride her bicycle across their land and wave. They would wave back, but there was not much else unless she was with Jeff when they met. Jeff got along fine with Greg and Tom, though he was three years older than Greg and five years older than Tom. He worked on the farm when there was plowing or harvesting to be done, and had even helped with the milking at times. When the three boys talked together with Miriam in their presence, it seemed as if they had another world to talk in apart from hers. She mostly listened when she was with them, and let her mind wander. That morning, however, she went right up to the house with purpose and knocked. They asked her in and she told them about the pups. Only one was left, she told them when she had finished.

Mr. Johnson yelled at Greg and Tom, "Y' ought to have gotten them dogs out of there. I told you before!"

Greg and Tom didn't say anything, but Miriam could tell they were embarrassed and hurt and angry. Mr. Johnson yelled a lot. Especially at Greg, who was older and ought to have known better. About everything, Miriam thought. She looked at him and didn't know what to say that might help. She felt sorry for Greg. He seemed bleak, lonely, and defensive. But she had learned that some people just "got on" that way.

"About that dog," she heard Mr. Johnson say as she turned to leave, "you've got to tie her up. She's been suckin' eggs."

This direction was aimed at Greg. Miriam was startled. Tie up Queenie? She'd always been free, and never caused anybody any trouble - never left the Johnson's property, even. Greg and Tom walked with Miriam to the door. Mr. Johnson had also told them to help her clean up the tools.

"She done what you boys should've done," he continued. He thanked her, nonetheless.

At the door, she asked Greg why Queenie had to be tied, and about the egg sucking.

Tom answered for him, "Well, since she had the pups, she's been extra hungry, I guess. Prob'bly found a cracked egg and ate it, and liked it. Once a dog learns to suck eggs, she'll just keep on less she's broke of it."

"How do you do that?" Miriam asked, anxious and yet glad that Tom was willing to talk with her about it. Queenie and the pups were her concern as well as theirs, she thought.

"It's somethin' to do with liniment, ain't it, Greg?" Tom offered, as they walked across the yard to the Green's house.

"Yep." Greg was over his sullenness in his position now of advisor. "You take an egg and blow it out and fill it with liniment. Then you make certain your dog gets THAT one - hope your mom doesn't put it in the pancakes!"

They laughed together at the thought of that, and Miriam breathed a sigh of relief. There was something that could be done about Queenie, so that she wouldn't have to be tied.

"You gonna do it, Greg?" she urged.

"Sure thing. Got chores right now, but I'll take care of it later on today. Won't catch that dog sucking eggs for long! She's a good girl. Wouldn't have ever begun if that litter hadn't been too big for her. Bet that little one left of hers grows like a weed now!" Greg turned with Tom to go, after they had rinsed the shovel with the garage hose and rehung it on the special hook Mr. Green had put up in the garage.

Miriam had seen Greg play with Queenie. He would throw sticks across the creek for her, and she would bring them back to him every time. Miriam was glad he had a plan. She thought of the staunch little black pup standing on the pile of burlap, drawing attention to his need. She thought of Queenie and her pup and again it made her feel warm just to think of Queenie's having someone all her own to love. She wondered if the pup missed his brothers and sisters. Of course! He had to! He'd noticed them when they were there, in all the natural body-warmth of sleep, and in the nipping and tussling of play. He'd have to notice them gone.

Miriam returned to the shed and found that Queenie had moved her pup even further away from the receding creek waters. She was playing with him on a stretch of grass between the Johnson's two barns. Miriam watched them in their leisure, and then walked over to join them. The pup came to her without any coaxing, and Queenie pushed her nose into Miriam's hand again and again.

"I've got to go," she told them wistfully. "Keep away from the chickens," she told Queenie. Miriam had seen a bird chase a squirrel who'd stolen her egg. She didn't get the egg back, but she sure gave the squirrel a run for its money. She was _mad!_ Miriam wished a chicken would have cared that much about her eggs. Queenie would never have put up a fight. She was much too docile. Well, if a mother hen wouldn't do it, the liniment would. Secure in that thought, Miriam started home, and the pup followed. She scooped him up and gave him a hug.

"You stay, boy. Your mother needs you," she said. With a pat once again, she set the pup down. He found a movement in the grasses and began to investigate. Miriam took the opportunity to break away. By then, she was ready for breakfast.

Greg felt himself smoldering inside when his dad told him the death of the pups was his fault, but he also felt bad, and very guilty. He'd seen the waters rise from the creek that way before, but it never mattered much. Sometimes he had sat by the creek and just skipped stones and thought. He never had much time for that. It was always in the times he just slipped away from carrying feed for the chickens or from plowing or milking. There really wasn't an end to the chores to be done. You could never be finished, but you could stop. He and Tom enjoyed the time out of sight of Mr. Johnson. He "got on them" most of the time, either in a bearable chiding or in a stinging indictment. Most of the time it could be tuned out. Once, Greg remembered, things had been different. He didn't remember quite when the change had come about - it must have been sort of gradual. He could remember a time when he was much younger, and he couldn't start the tractor. Greg and Tom had been driving the tractors for so long he could hardly remember how old he was when he had first begun. He drove the old Allis Chalmers. Tom got the newer John Deere, because it was lighter and easier to handle. But the Chalmers was touchy. No matter what he did to it that time, it would not catch. The motor would turn over, and then die. But his dad hadn't yelled. He'd been more like Greg could remember him from the times when they were little. Too little, even to drive the tractor. He'd come over and said, "Lemme see, Greg." Called him Greg. Wasn't long before he had it going, and then he had said, "Sometimes you have to choke it a little, and sometimes just play with it, and see what it wants." He said it in a friendly sort of way, leaving Greg wanting to learn more - not feeling inept, and stupid. The feeling, at one time, was one Greg could bask in all day. He could recall it from time to time and let it wash over him. It reminded him he was teachable and worthwhile. But the feeling had faded. Today, he fixed his thoughts on what he needed to do. Miriam and Tom counted on him to cure Queenie of the egg-sucking habit, and he planned out in his mind how he'd go about it.

After chores, he went to the hen house and got a large brownish egg. The chicken had clucked as he reached under her warm feathers, lazily capping the two eggs.

"One for you and one for me," he said, as she squawked her complaint.

The egg was still warm with a few pieces of straw glued to its shell. Greg carried it to the horse trough where they set the canisters of fresh milk into cold water drawn from the pump, to keep them cool until they were picked up and taken into town to sell. He rinsed the egg and deftly rubbed off the straw. He dried it on the soft worn flannel of his shirt sleeve, and set it, for a moment, on the plank work bench just inside the barn. Between the rafters overhead he reached for the liniment bottle and set it by the egg. With the tip of his jackknife he carefully broke the narrow tip of the egg and cut once into the thin whitish membrane. He was careful that the hole would be very small. Then he did the same thing to the other end. He put the narrowed end of the egg to his lips and blew the contents into the cat dish on the floor near the cows' stanchions. A barn cat, always ready for a squirt of warm milk directed to the pan, was now upon the egg which blew out raw and yellowish. It was gone in a few licks. Greg enlarged the hole on the wide end of the egg and tipped the lip of the liniment bottle into it. The thin liquid smelled strong and streamed down the side of the egg. The cat ran, abandoning hope for another egg. About a quarter of a cup actually got into the egg, and Greg decided it was enough. He capped the liniment bottle and set it back. Holding both ends of the egg between his thumb and his index finger, he rinsed it once again in the horse trough. He made a sort of plaster out of his spit and mud from the dirt floor of the barn, and he pasted it over the ends of the egg. The liniment did not leak out, and he was satisfied.

He cupped the egg in his hand and started for the grass in front of the old unused barn where he had seen Queenie and the pup. They'd built this newer barn after Mrs. Johnson had started working in town. Queenie saw him and approached with amiable welcome. Greg put the egg on the ground in front of her, hoping she would seize upon it. She disappointed him by totally ignoring the egg. Instead she looked to him.

"Come on, girl. It's good!" he lied. She snuffed at it accommodatingly and looked up for his caress. "Not interested," he thought. "Needs a little help." He lifted the egg to her nose, but she turned away. "You're not so dumb," Greg decided. He lifted the egg himself and sniffed. It did smell a little strange. She probably wouldn't suck this egg without some help, so he put his strong young arm around Queenie's neck and broke the egg quickly into her mouth, tilting her head back so that she would have to swallow at least a little. She spluttered and coughed, and quickly, but kindly, twisted her neck from his loose grasp.

"Burns, I'll bet," Greg thought. "Go for a drink girl, I'm really sorry! I had to..." he apologized.

Queenie, in the way of gentle dogs, in all her own physical distress, almost apologized for her retreat from Greg to the creek. Her pup, who'd been playing nearby, saw her and followed awkwardly behind, watching her cool her mouth and throat in the cool muddy waters which washed alongside a little green twig cross on the bank. Greg watched them for a moment, and then started back to the house. He hoped that would do it, and that Queenie wouldn't have to be tied.

Just twenty-four hours after Miriam had buried the pups, Greg wakened early with Queenie on his mind. He thought he heard a small, sharp bark. He dressed quickly and pulled on his work boots in the corner of his room. He tied them swiftly and went outside to the old barn where Queenie had moved with her pup. Halfway there, he saw her, stretched out, stiff and lifeless. The pup stood, head cocked in that quizzical, forlorn expectancy that the boy might bring her back, as she had been before. Greg sickened from head to toe. He didn't even touch the dog who had trusted him. He knew - not why, not how - but he knew the egg had done it. And he himself had given her the egg. He had forced it down her throat. With a rush of sobs and explanation to his dead friend he tumbled out his apology.

"Oh, Queenie! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, girl. I didn't mean to do it. I thought it would help you. Queenie, I didn't want you to be tied up, but Queenie, I didn't want you to die! Oh, Queenie - I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..."

He couldn't stay any longer. He had no solace for the pup. No resources left within, to give. He had an overpowering need for comfort - for someone to reassure him deep within that he was not a killer, that his motive was right when all else was wrong. But there was no one. And, so, he fled from the emptiness without and within. He could not bear to think, and so he ran.
Chapter 4

"Provoke not your children to wrath, lest they be discouraged"

****

Greg came home after Queenie's body had been discovered. Tom, with remarkable wisdom, had taken her heavy body out of sight, half-carrying, half-dragging her to the slope behind the hen house. There, he covered her with an old tarp taken from the barn. The pup, who had not left his mother's still body, followed him as he put Queenie's body down, and stood there looking at him sorrowfully. Tom didn't quite know what to do with him, but he had the sense to know where he would be well-cared for, until things settled down. He felt bad for Queenie, but more than just about her death. He sensed the anger and turmoil that would follow. He knew his dad pretty well, and he, like Greg, sensed that the liniment egg which Greg had told him about, had done this. He carried the pup across the yard to Miriam's house, and when she came to the door, he asked her if she would take care of him for a while. Then he told her about Queenie.

Miriam hadn't known she could feel so sad. She wondered if you could ever be filled up with so much sadness that no more could fit. Once again, it was the living pup which drew her focus. This was how her mother must have felt over Buffy, only Buffy had been her own. Even so, she and Queenie had been such special friends. They mattered to each other. She hugged Queenie's pup, and carried him to the backyard swing. She rocked him as she went slowly back and forth, wanting to be able to claim this pup for her very own, now. She knew he was not hers, and that she could not have him, but when he belonged to Queenie in the special way she had participated in, it hadn't mattered so much. But now it did - so very much. She had often, recently, sensed a wistfulness in her mother, wanting to offer the pup to Miriam, but the offer just wasn't forthcoming. Miriam knew it was not just something her parents hadn't thought about, and so she had not asked again.

Mr. Johnson lambasted Greg at the door of the barn. His words cut like a whip across the boy's already bruised consciousness. Mr. Johnson just didn't stop. He told Greg that he was not fit to own a dog. The liniment bottle had contained cow vaccine, and he ought to have checked. The cow vaccine cost a mint, and a little too much would kill a cow, let alone a dog. Why, he blasted out again, hadn't Greg asked? Dumb fool boy. Good dog like that gone in a day. Pups too. Where was his head? Greg stood mute, planted to the barn floor. He'd not learned verbal retort. His guilt-heavy conscience retreated, and he stiffened to the whip lash of words heaped upon his thirteen-year old attention. He met the charges in frozen subjection. The charges confirmed what he already knew.

Somewhere in the tirade, Mr. Johnson crossed that point of cruel tutelage and Greg toughed inside to the scourge. It didn't matter what more was said then. The barrage of words fell on insensitive ears, for Greg had withdrawn. Mr. Johnson must have sensed the withdrawal, and he too withdrew, spent. Tom stood, trying not to be noticed. He wanted to help Greg. That's all. Just help Greg. Mr. Johnson caught Tom's eye, but turned away toward the house without acknowledging him.

However, in a moment he turned back to Tom and said, "Get rid of that pup. It ain't safe around here."

Greg went to the corner of the barn and slumped to the ground.

"Greg," Tom began, but he couldn't find anything to finish with, so he puttered around the barn a minute, then left. He walked over to Miriam's house to tell her she could have the pup if she wanted. He didn't want to go home, for a while.

Miriam rode silently in the back of the truck, holding the pup. She knew every tree along this well-traveled route, and when she saw the big white farm house on the left she called out, "Stop here, will you Jeff?"

Jeff looked back at her in surprise. "Sure! Chaneys?" he asked.

She nodded, "Will you pick me up on your way back home?"

He would, and so she climbed out with the pup. Jeff continued down the road to return the borrowed trailer.

Mrs. Chaney came to the door, surprised and delighted with her early visitor. Miriam had told her about the day of the pup's birth, and about the flood. Now she told her about Queenie and the liniment egg, and why she had the little pup with her now.

"I never heard of liniment killing a dog," Mrs. Chaney said. "It must have been something else!"

She fixed Miriam a cup of hot chocolate and held the pup while she drank it. The white kitten had the run of the Chaney farm house, and she spat in miniature feline imperiousness at the furry black visitor who surveyed the kitchen and the kitten from his lap vantage point. Miriam laughed at the two of them. Being with Mrs. Chaney and telling her made things seem normal again.

"Well," Mrs. Chaney took charge when she had heard the whole story. "That pup could still use some mothering. What we can do is see if Missy will wet-nurse him. You never can tell unless you try." She smiled at Miriam and encouraged her. Then she led the way to the barn where Missy sunned with her latest litter of pups.

Mrs. Chaney herself had an authority about her that insured the safety of the pup in her presence. She set him down a few yards from Missy and coaxed invitingly.

"Look at this, Miss! A poor little orphan who needs mothering. Want the job?"

Missy ventured over in appreciation of the gentle overtures, and she gave Miriam a good welcome, sniffing against her outstretched hand as Queenie so often had. This was her "Welcome, friend!" But when she took full notice of the pup, the hair on her neck rose, and her low growl froze the pup in his wriggling anticipation of the mother-affection he had never before been denied.

"Missy, stop that!" Mrs. Chaney was sharp, and Missy obeyed. At least, the letter of the law. She eyed the pup threateningly, and retreated to her litter.

"It takes a little time," Mrs. Chaney told Miriam, who looked discouraged, and a little frightened. "They have to make their own way, mostly."

"But will she hurt him?" Miriam asked.

"She might. That's why we'll watch a bit." Mrs. Chaney comforted. "She won't kill him, but she might abuse him. We'll just have to watch and see."

The pup was more resilient than Miriam could have imagined. Brothers and sisters gone, mother gone, he _wanted_ the family and the nurture this angry mother-dog obviously had the ability to supply. He'd been nipped by his own mother before - sometimes angrily - when he himself had bitten her too sharply with his little white teeth. He'd been cuffed about in the general tussle of sibling rivalry and didn't take it to heart too much. Missy's rebuff was just something to be borne and effectually gotten around. He arched back into a sitting position and barked a sharp little challenge. He wagged his furry whip of a tail. Missy growled again, but this time less threateningly. The pup closed in, but not for long. Missy sent him ki-eyeing backward, snapping viciously. Mrs. Chaney put her hand on Miriam's knee when she started to go to his rescue.

"No, Miriam. Missy has to let him know who's boss," she instructed.

They continued to watch the little drama. Again and again the pup made attempt to join the litter, and was snapped or growled into retreat. But Missy's growls became warning barks, less dangerous, and her snaps became nip-like gestures.

After some time, the pup was exhausted, and lay in the grass, head on outstretched front paws. Missy's pups came over, one at a time, and sniffed the now-silent pup. Then, after what seemed a very long time to Miriam, in the late afternoon sun, Missy lay stretched on the grass. It was her lunch invitation to her litter. Slowly, the afternoon pup, less naive than the morning pup, questioned his way to the mother dog. He moved in, tentatively, to nurse. Missy, for all her previous challenge, ignored the intrusion, averting her eyes in maternal acquiescence. The foundling pup nursed and slept once again, accepting the natural graces of life in a new and subdued humility.

Mrs. Chaney put her arm around Miriam, who turned and hugged her quickly, and ran to the honk of the car. Jeff was back, and she was so glad for the pup's acceptance by Missy that her natural buoyancy returned.

"Oh thank you, Mrs. Chaney!" she called from the truck.

Jeff wondered, as she settled beside him, if there might not be more going on inside this little sister of his than he knew about. She sure seemed to be involved in a lot more than paper dolls, this year!

"That's quite a little girl," Mrs. Chaney told her husband that night. She told him about the pup and all that had happened. "She reminds me so much of Sarah. Her folks can't afford the expense of a pet for her, but if ever a child would do well by an animal, that one would."

Mr. Chaney suggested, "Well, we have plenty to share! Seems to me you could use a little help over here a couple of hours a day. That way she could see the pup and help you. Earn a little money too."

Mrs. Chaney liked the idea. In fact, she liked it so much that she drove straight over to see Miriam's parents. They had a good talk, Mrs. Chaney had a way of approaching things that made everything seem to fit right in.

That night, Mrs. Green asked, "Miriam, would you like to do some work for Mrs. Chaney? She'd like you on a regular basis, and we could pick you up on our way home from work."

Miriam couldn't believe it. "Mom! Do you mean it? Me? She wants me to _work_ for her? I could do it!"

Of course, at that point it didn't matter if the Chaneys had wanted her to move pianos or paint barns, she was certain she could do it! She could work hard, in fact, she would work double hard for Mrs. Chaney. Mrs. Chaney was a good woman, Mom, and she would do right by her! Jeff took all this in, and was patronizingly amused at the enthusiasm of his little sister for a work offer.

"Mom, I'd do a good job, I know I would!" Miriam continued.

"Why, Miriam, you don't have to convince me, and you sure don't need to convince yourself, evidently!" Mrs. Green smiled.

Mr. Green took this in and said, "Couldn't be that little black pup they have over there has anything to do with all this, could it?"

Miriam looked surprised, "Dad, do you know about that little pup? Missy likes him just fine, and I would sure like to be able to see him, but I'd do a good job for Mrs. Chaney, no matter!"

"I know you would, Punkin'."

It was his pet name for her, and she knew then that he was supportive of the whole idea. Jeff even offered to drive her there on days when he could. Oh, she was grateful, but she could ride her bike! In the snow? Well, she hadn't thought of that ... when would she start? Right away, tomorrow, if that were possible? It was! It was!

The tomorrows came, and Miriam sorted beautiful woolen scraps and cut them into strips for a rug Mrs. Chaney planned on hooking in the long winter days. Miriam could learn how, and help her. She put library books in alphabetical order, and made a list of the authors and titles. She weeded the late autumn chrysanthemums in the flower garden. Mrs. Chaney taught her to use a saw-toothed knife for weeding. There was a long white picket fence which stretched from the Chaney's driveway, past the silos and the fresh-painted outbuilding that fronted the country road. Miriam had driven by so many times and had enjoyed the red and white petunias blossoming from late April all the way through October. She had watched them gradually grow and fill in the whole flower garden which edged this fence. In midsummer, she had seen the tall, spiky red flowers appear behind the row of petunias. Her mother called them salvia. Creeping white alyssum laced the edges, and got prettier and prettier as the weather got colder. The flowers were always there, right up until the first good frost, and the mums and alyssum lasted even after that. When November came, the fence posts would appear, what seemed to be almost magically, decorated with cornstalks tied in the middle, and Indian corn would be hung from each bundle. At the bottom of each cornstalk would be a bright, golden-orange pumpkin. Miriam had loved the changing scenes. Mr. and Mrs. Green would slow the car as they drove by on the way to town, to take in the meticulous art work of the Chaney home, which graced the country road with such colorful satisfaction. Now, working for Mrs. Chaney, she was learning what labor went into the making of such a scene. Miriam worked her knife into the soil on cool autumn afternoons, and learned how much easier it was to work after a gentle fall of rain. She helped pick out the pumpkins, and she helped tie the cornstalks with long vines. And all the while, the pup played alongside or under her feet, and she talked to him, telling him he was a scamp and a bother. He didn't believe her at all.

Missy's pups were older than Miriam's, and were soon given away. But Mrs. Chaney kept the black pup, just for Miriam. Missy had assumed proprietorship, and it was as though the pup had been born to her, now that the others were gone. The bonds of adoption were strengthened with just the two of them.

Missy was a smart dog, Mrs. Chaney had told Miriam. She had her own special chair she was allowed to sit in, in the sunroom off the parlor of the old farmhouse. She knew enough not to sit on any of the other furniture, but this one chair was given to her as her own.

"Once," Mrs. Chaney went on, "Mr. Chaney sat in the chair to put his shoes on. Missy was fit to be tied, and he knew it. So he teased her by staying put. But, rather than brood, she made a plan. She went to the door and barked to go out. Mr. Chaney laughed, and got up to go to the door and open it for her. He figured he'd won that little contest, but no sooner had he gotten two feet away from the chair than Missy had circled around behind him, and landed on it. If ever a dog could have chortled," Mrs. Chaney said, "Missy would have! She didn't move from that chair all morning!"

The days were filled with hard work and puppy play. The pup greeted Miriam each day with a wild rush of welcome. He had the run of the kitchen and part of the house. During the stretches of time when she was in school or at home, he played with the white kitten, inside or out. Just as he had made his way into Missy's affections, so he had won over the kitten who lay stomach up between his growing young legs. She would bat his face with her rounded paws gently at times, but sometimes with claws exposed. She would register a "hit," and he would respond with a sniff or a little cry, withdrawing only for a second or two from the play. They grew up together into the winter months, and extended their play to the hearth in front of the fireplace, with the energetic laziness of youthful leisure. Only, the pup grew four inches to the kitten's one.

Some mornings as they wrestled together, Mrs. Chaney would find the kitten soaked from the pup's mouthing her.

"She feels like a wet sock!" Mrs. Chaney would tell Mr. Chaney. "He gets her whole head in his mouth!"

Mrs. Chaney was well-aware of the bond of love between Miriam and the pup. She longed to do something more about this good thing she was being allowed to observe. She found her opportunity through the kitten her son had entrusted to her keeping. Occasionally, the pup had to be rebuked because the play got too rough. The kitten had to be rescued more and more frequently as the pup got bigger and stronger. Once, Mrs. Chaney thought the little kitten's neck had been snapped. There had been an awful cry, and she saw the kitten fly up into the air. The pup looked gleeful, waiting for the kitten to come down, so they could resume their play. The kitten most surely did come down, but in no condition to play. It lay still, and Mrs. Chaney ran, scolding the pup and frightened for the kitten. The toss had stunned the little puddle of soggy white and black fur, and that was all, but it was enough to cause Mrs. Chaney to think seriously about the pup and his future with them. Besides, she had long been working on how she could help Miriam. Mrs. Chaney understood animals and the way they were, but this kitten was under her special protection, and so she necessarily favored it. She started for the phone thoughtfully, and then remembered again that the Greens didn't have one. Instead, then, she drove over, to have a talk with them. Before, she had come up with a working arrangement. This time, she would go talk to them about a boarding arrangement. She prayed, as she drove, for wisdom, and the Lord had ample provision.

That afternoon, when Miriam walked over after school to begin her work, Mrs. Chaney met her out in the yard. The pup was with her, and she received her usual lively greeting. It was so good to be so very special to someone!

Mrs. Chaney said, "Miriam, I have an offer for you. I've already talked it over with your folks, and it's fine with them, if you want to do it..."

Miriam looked at her in question, and so Mrs. Chaney continued, "The pup has had his shots. He has his tag. He's in fine shape. Trouble is, he's too rough on our kitten. Fact of the matter is, I thought she was a goner today." Miriam took in her breath, and looked down at the pup in dismay. But Mrs. Chaney put forth her hand to Miriam's shoulder in quick reassurance. "Everything's fine - just that the pup almost snapped her neck today in their wrestling."

"Oh, Mrs. Chaney! Do you think he's mean?" Miriam was fearful. She knew a mean dog was not to be tolerated, and she had to ask the question.

"No," Mrs. Chaney said thoughtfully. "That pup's not got a mean bone in his body. But when two young animals play, the littler one has to set the limits in his own defense. Kitty hasn't done that. See, that's why I need you. I'd like to place this pup in your keeping, if you will. Your folks have agreed. If he gets sick or needs care, you just bring him on back, and we'll take care of him. I'll add a dollar a week to your wages for caring for him for me - it's just that it can't be around here. What do you think, Miriam?"

How could Miriam say what she thought? A gladness welled up in her that came with tears just spilling over, and adding to her helpless confusion of gratitude. She did not think to question why in the world Mrs. Chaney would want to "board out" a pup she had only taken in to be a help to someone else! She did not know how to adequately communicate her love and thanks, and so she just nodded her head up and down while the tears splashed down across her cheeks. She wanted to run and holler and race with the pup, all the four miles to home. Mrs. Chaney seemed possessed of an uncanny perceptiveness, which told her things like that, and so she said, "Run on home with him now, Miriam, if you want to."

Miriam looked up, and felt, desperately, that she had to find some trickle of a way to express her heart. She found it in a simple supplication.

"Would you name him first, please, Mrs. Chaney?"

Mrs. Chaney answered, realizing the honor bestowed in the simple question, in a choked voice, "Why child, there's never been any question in my mind! This little fellow has been through some pretty rough waters with you. I'm certain the Lord would understand. His name ought to be Moses!"
Chapter 5

"Blessed are the Peacemakers"

****

The rebukes of childhood unsoftened by compassion were pebbles and stones in Greg's soul. They tumbled about and hit him now and then, or they lay dormant, lodged in the routine of his days. But the day Queenie died they were fashioned together into a wall plastered tight by the cement of rejection on both sides. He fortressed himself on the one side from his father's hurled abuse on the other. Suddenly, there was no more abuse, no more hurled words. Greg never talked about that day to Tom or to anyone else. He didn't talk to his dad at all. His dad did not seem to take notice of this. Greg responded to commands, but that was it. It was not that Greg purposed not to speak to his father, it was just that the wall was there, and the relationship, such as it had been, was cut off. Tom was very much aware of it, and was frustrated by his helplessness to change anything. Greg was distant and unreachable. They didn't have the fun they once had when they stole away from chores to fish or swim on a hot summer day down where the creek widened into the Fox River. Something inside Greg had died, or lay dying.

Mrs. Johnson fussed over Greg more than she ever had before. She, like Tom, sensed the remoteness of her first-born and tried to coax a little bit of life into him, by her attention. She cooked his favorite foods a little more often. On a week night she made meatloaf and wild rice, which he loved, but he said nothing until she prodded him for some small recognition.

"Is the meatloaf salty enough, Greg?" she asked.

He caught the wistfulness in her question and answered, "It's real good, Mom."

That was all, but it was enough. Mr. Johnson pushed away from the table and went to the door. Mrs. Johnson's eyes followed him, but she stayed with her sons, and filled the kitchen with domestic sounds of dish clatter and running water. It was hard to keep things smooth at home and work a full day, too. She aways had the huge milking cans to wash before morning. They were half as tall as she was. Tom was becoming more thoughtful in his growing concern to Greg; this thoughtfulness extended to a new awareness of his mother, also. He voluntarily carried the canisters from the lean-to to the kitchen counter for her.

"Why, thank you, Tom," she said, surprised.

He was embarrassed, yet pleased by her surprise, and he left to begin his evening chores. Greg had pushed away from the table too, but he did not follow his father outside. Unconsciously, he was careful that their paths did not deliberately cross. In a while, he too went outside. He looked across the swell of land toward the Green's house. That dog sure had grown. Tom had told him she called him Moses. He stood and watched Miriam play with Moses, tossing him a stick. She threw it so pitifully, but he didn't go over to show her how it ought to be done.

Tom stood at the barn and watched Greg. There just wasn't much fun left in him, Tom thought. Greg was unaware of Tom's observance. Just then, Moses looked across the yard and ran toward Greg, wagging his tail happily. Miriam followed him, holding in her hand the blunt branch she had been tossing.

When she caught up with Moses, she spoke to Greg. "He's a good dog, Greg - real fast, too!"

Greg looked at her, and registered her acceptance of him. "Could be a lot faster. Ya gotta _toss_ this stick for him," he said. "Here, lemme show ya..." He took the stick and threw it with the power of his muscled young arm. The branch flew yards away and Moses flew with it, at almost the same speed.

"Wow! Lookit him go!" Tom had been watching, and now he ran over to where the action was. The three of them focused on the young Moses, in amazement at his speed.

"He's really smart, isn't he?" Miriam said, happy at their joining her.

"Naw. Any dog knows how to chase a stick!" Tom said. "If he was smart, he wouldn't have chewed the bark off that tree of ours!" He waited to see Miriam's reaction. She was embarrassed and a little angry at Tom.

"Well, you got your tree back, didn't you? Besides, he was just teething, my dad said. That's not dumb, that's just growing up..." She waited to see what Tom would answer, certain that he would.

"Yeah, I know," Tom answered in a surprisingly conciliatory way. He was glad for the ease and lightheartedness of this time with the three of them were enjoying Moses together. Greg seemed to have come back to life a little, and Tom wanted the flicker to continue.

"What kind of tree was that your dad got us?" he asked.

"Same as yours was - a red bud," Miriam told him.

"It can't be." Tom answered. "Ours was all pink." He hadn't ever noticed the tree before, until Moses had stripped the bark off, and Miriam and her mom and dad had walked over and told the Johnsons they would get them a new tree.

That had happened about three weeks ago. Miriam had stayed at Chaney's for extra work, and Moses had been lonely and bored. Now, at seven months, his teething, which had stopped for a while, had become vigorous again.

"He chews everything," Miriam commented. She had had to fetch one of her loafers from the backyard swing area where Moses had carried it.

"You've got to watch that," her dad reminded her. "Might not be _your_ shoe next time, young lady! Mine would make a better meal, but I need them!"

He smiled, but he meant it, and Miriam had tried to keep Moses from shoes by giving him an old leather purse her mother had thrown away. Moses particularly loved that old purse. It was just fine! But he continued to like everything else just fine, also. That afternoon, three weeks past, he had sprawled in the sun between the Johnson's and the Green's, waiting for Miriam. A ground mole caught his attention. It disappeared across the lawn where Moses traced it frantically to the red bud tree in the Johnson's yard. The tree's dainty pink blossoms made a pretty contrast with the wooly black fur of the gawky youngster beneath its branches. Moses lost the ground mole, and settled down to wait for a reappearance. In the wait, he saw a snag of tree bark. He took it gingerly between his sharp white teeth. It felt sinewy and challenging in his inquisitive jaws. He pulled at it just a little. The bark did a surprising thing: it just kept rising along the tree trunk. Moses loved it! He found another snatch of bark, and followed it up the trunk of the tree. This was great fun! He soon circumferenced the tree with one-inch strips of bark which danced in the breeze where he left them hanging when he heard Miriam's approach. She saw his afternoon's work in dismay.

"Moses! Did you do that?" she scolded. The tree looked awful, yet funny at the same time. She didn't know it would die - that its bark was its life, but she thought she'd better tell her mother and father right away.

Her mother came over to look. "Well, Miriam, that tree's not going to make it. Moses!" she called to the pup sharply. "Bad dog!" Moses retreated at the rebuke and Miriam was more concerned about the problem than she was about Moses, just then.

"What'll we do, Mom?" she asked.

"We'll have to replace that tree, Miriam," her mother answered her. "It was such a pretty thing!"

Before they went home they knocked at the Johnson's door and apologized.

"I just can't tell you how sorry I am," Mrs. Green said to Mrs. Johnson. "A tree's such a blessing, but we'll do what we can to make it right. We'll get another tree in that spot for you."

Greg was on the porch and he looked over. "You mean Moses did that?" He almost smiled, and Mrs. Johnson looked at him quickly. "I never knew a dog to like the taste of trees," he'd said.

"Oh, Moses likes _everything_!" Miriam had replied, and then felt a little foolish that she had not seemed properly repentant.

Mrs. Johnson had told them not to bother, in a kind, neighborly way. She was a distant sort of woman, Mrs. Green had always thought. But through this trouble, she seemed to warm up to the concern which had come about through the loss of her tree.

Later that week, Mr. Green had come home with not one, but with two sturdy trees. The trunks had been about as big around as Miriam's forearm.

"Why two, Dad?" she asked. "What kind are they, anyway?" They didn't look like the one Moses had teethed on.

"Red bud, like Moses' lunch the other day," he kidded her. "The other one is for your mother. She always liked that tree over there, especially in the spring."

Miriam hadn't noticed it more than Tom had, until this episode, but now she was able to share her recent knowledge with Tom, as they stood, discussing Moses and trees.

"This tree's the same kind, only Dad dug it up after its season," she told him. "It gets all pink and pretty about the middle of April, and then gets like this about the second week in May. Won't be in blossom again until next year."

Mrs. Green had been so thrilled with the tree Mr. Green had brought home for her. The roots had been carefully wrapped in an old grain sack. They had planted both trees that same night. She watered them faithfully, even when there was a good hope of an early summer rain, most nights. She seemed to take a special pride in tending the tree, and Miriam would see her standing at the kitchen window, just enjoying it.

She didn't tell all this to Greg and Tom as they tossed the branch for Moses. She didn't like them thinking Moses was dumb, but she knew he wasn't smart like Missy, either. Besides, they criticized Moses in a kindly, teasing way. You could always tell the difference. Her father had told her well-meaning folks never tease you in your weak points, only in your strengths.

Greg gave the branch a long toss after Moses had laid it at his feet. He was awaiting its return when Mr. Johnson walked from the barn towards the house. He looked over at the children, and caught Greg's eye during a sudden moment of vulnerability. Greg turned and went toward the barn. At that moment, Moses came racing back with the retrieved branch, and looked for Greg. Instead, he saw Mr. Johnson, standing near where Greg had been. He took the branch and offered it at Mr. Johnson's feet, modestly. Then he took a step back, awaiting acclamation. Mr. Johnson stood there for an awkward moment. Miriam sensed heavy tension. She could not consciously identify it. It was as though some heaviness had come into the atmosphere. She wanted to bring some word of help and so she said, "Moses likes you, Mr. Johnson." He looked up at her, thoughtful for a moment.

"You call him Moses?"

"Yes," Miriam answered. "Mrs. Chaney says it's because he's come through some waters..." Then she was sorry she'd said that because she didn't want to bring up those days to him.

He caught her hesitancy, and so did Tom. Tom wanted to change the subject, and an opportunity was provided. Someone had come up their drive.

"Someone's here, Dad," he said.

They all looked toward the Johnson's. A tall man came up the driveway, leading a horse by the bridle. He worked with Mr. Johnson at the canning factory.

"It's Bob Olson," Mr. Johnson said, and left with no further word of explanation.

He walked over to Bob, and the children watched for a moment. With Greg gone, the two of them seemed to have less to talk about now, and so they continued tossing the stick for a few minutes, and then each returned to their own yards.

"H'lo, Bob," Mr. Johnson greeted him. "Surprised you came by..."

Bob Olson replied, "Told you I would! Think you can look at these shoes?"

His horse had been somewhat lame. Talking at lunch, Mr. Johnson had told him sometimes shoes needed replacing, and that he could do that for him. Bob was here to take him up on his casual offer.

"You go on down to the barn with him. I'll be along in a minute," Mr. Johnson told him. He went to the house for the freshly watered milk cans, which were draining upside down on the lean-to porch.

Bob Olson hitched his horse to the fence, which leaned toward the land, and went into the barn. He looked around until he sighted what he'd come in for. He was a tall man, and just above his eye level he found a bottle of liniment, set in the rafters. He pulled a red kerchief from his pocket, and walked back outside to his horse. At the same time, Mr. Johnson got there.

"What are you doin' there, Bob?" he asked.

"Gonna put some liniment on his knee - maybe that's it. Seems kinda swollen..." Bob answered.

"That ain't liniment," Mr. Johnson said.

"No? Says so on the bottle?" Bob looked at the label again, to be certain.

"Well, it's not. It's cow vaccine." There was a sudden truculence in Mr. Johnson's voice.

"Cow vaccine!" Bob returned. "That's a good one on me! Only a fool would think there'd be liniment in a liniment bottle, don't you think?" He laughed in a friendly, chiding way, expecting Mr. Johnson to laugh with him. Instead, Mr. Johnson stared at him for a moment, and then just as quickly, took the liniment bottle and put it into his hip pocket.

"Let's see that horse," he said, without reference again to the bottle. This was not the only time Bob Olson had thought Ted Johnson a strange, angry sort of man. But he knew his stuff, and was therefore a man to be cultivated.

That same evening, Mrs. Green looked at her tree once again from her kitchen window. Mr. Green came up behind her, and without turning she said, "You know, Sam, I've always enjoyed the Johnson's tree so. It's one of the few really pretty things over there." She was not a critical woman. She just spoke the truth simply. She went on. "Seeing theirs gave me pleasure, but having this one of my own is something different. It's been making me think."

"What about?" he asked.

"Oh, about Moses," she answered. "And Miriam."

"You mean about that rascal stripping their tree?"

"No, I mean about owning. She couldn't love him more, and I don't believe he could love her more. But there's something special about _owning_."

They stood for a long while, contemplating the tree. Finally Mr. Green said, "Let's say we go over to the Chaney's." It was agreed.

That evening, they told Miriam, "Moses is yours, now, Miriam... that is, if you want him?" They smiled their offer.

"Mine? But he belongs to Mrs. Chaney..."

"We've asked her. It's fine with her. She kind of considered Moses yours, anyhow, but we've taken care of his shots and all, and..."

"Oh, Mom and Dad!" Miriam ran to them and hugged each of them. This was still her best expression of gratitude. But she was better able now to speak her thanks, also. She'd talked to Moses almost constantly when she was with him, and she was able to talk much more easily with Tom and Jeff, in her eleventh summer.

"It'll be so special having him really my own! I'll pay for his care when he needs it!" She'd saved her "Mrs. Chaney money" pretty faithfully, and had the confidence of youth in her financial capabilities.

"Better not feed him any more trees, then," Mr. Green teased. "Or at least feed him the free ones, down by the creek!"

She went outside to be with her first dog who was her very own. Together they walked to the swing in the backyard. Somehow it seemed fitting.

Miriam sat in the swing and faced the creek. The slaughterhouse where she had first met Moses and Queenie and the pups was in eyesight. She got off the swing and walked toward the spot. Bittersweet memories washed over her once again. Moses darted here and there, circling her as they walked. When she was quite close to the shed, she saw Greg with his back up against the partially opened door, tossing pebbles into the creek.

"Hi, Greg," she said. He looked up at both her and Moses. A wash of awful nostalgia for other times like this, throwing stones for Queenie, hit him.

"For a minute I thought that was Queenie," he said.

Just a short time ago, she had been on the hill with Greg and Tom, playing with Moses, and it had seemed as though it was possible to have a time of lightheartedness once again. A childhood time. For just this moment, she felt very much closer to Greg than she ever had, as though she could touch his feelings. Somehow she felt older, and she didn't find it necessary to withdraw, as though she had intruded upon something which was not quite hers to know. Moses wagged his way to Greg and pushed his nose into Greg's hand, which was halfway into his pocket, as he sat there, leaning against the shed. Miriam thought of how Queenie had done that with her so often, and she felt a hungry, yearning feeling which she could not identify.

"He likes you, Greg," Miriam spoke softly. She said to Greg what she had said to his father a while earlier.

Greg looked at her. He suddenly had found an audience for the feelings which had pressed in on him for so long. "Can't think why," he answered bitterly. "Must like dog-killers."

"Oh, Greg! You're not!" The awfulness of the admission overwhelmed her, and she denied it, for him.

"Am too!" His eyes, too old for this admission before the little girl next door, brimmed suddenly with a rage of hot tears. "It's just what I am!" He got up and left, in fury at himself for exposing his vulnerability, and at her for seeing it.

"Greg!" she called after him, helpless. "You're not! You're..."

She stood with the words dangling, as he moved so quickly away. All the while the creek waters pushed against a green twig cross, whose vertical branch had rooted to the creek bank.

Miriam did instinctively what she never could have brought herself to do if she had taken the time to reflect. If she had returned to her swing and pondered her new position as owner of the dog who loved her and followed her, who lay at the foot of her bed, and waited for her on the long school days and chewed trees in the loneliness of wanting her presence and voice and caress.

Moses followed her now, as she made the long walk up the hill across the Johnson's farmyard, and found Mr. Johnson still in the barn. He was alone, as she had prayed he would be. Though her decision had come to her very suddenly, it seemed to her as though it had been in her heart for a long while, and that this was far more than an impulse. The pain that she had known to be in Greg pressed in upon her so intensely down at the creek, and she felt she could not bear letting him go on like that, if she had the ability to help. She said to Mr. Johnson what she had come to say, and she meant it with her whole heart. The cost of her sacrifice was great, but it had been paid, down at the creek, in a moment of solemn, painful resolution.

"Mr. Johnson, I want Greg to have Moses," she said. "Would you give him...?" Her voice broke, and she hadn't wanted it to, but she'd said what she wanted to. She couldn't quite finish. She couldn't say, "He thinks he's a dog killer." The words stuck in her throat, and so she just stood there, hoping this gift, more precious than anything she owned, could heal Greg.

Mr. Johnson looked at her with an awareness of the extent of her offer. His hand went to the liniment bottle in his pocket for a moment. He remembered his dad, so long in the past, and another kind of bottle which had worked such devastation on his family. Since Bob Olson had left, he could not get away from the implication of his words, "Only a fool'd think there was liniment in a liniment bottle!" He could not escape the memory of the helpless inadequacy he'd grown up with, in the presence of his own father, and the anger and the silent years, which were now beyond repair.

"Little girl," he said, drawn back to the present by her waiting there so helplessly. "You just take your pup and run on home with him." He said it gently, touching her shoulder in a clumsy gesture of gratitude. He did not avert his eyes from her as she'd seen him do with others so many times in the past. He became real. Moses pushed his nose up to Mr. Johnson and tried to take the liniment bottle from his grasp. Mr. Johnson said, almost in relief, "Sure is a fine pup - a lot like Queenie, seems to me."

Miriam didn't quite know what to say, exactly, so she said, "Queenie was Greg's dog," as though Mr. Johnson didn't know that! "...and so, I thought maybe he'd like her pup." Moses had been offered up, but refused, and now she was not able to sort all the emotions she was experiencing. Mr. Johnson continued looking at her, and talking.

"No, that's your pup, for sure. You two are a sort of pair. What Greg needs, little girl, isn't a dog. It's a dad..."

Mr. Johnson found Greg in his room late that night.

"Greg," he began.

Greg had not been sleeping. He looked up, walled, and sullen. He didn't say anything.

Like Moses offering the branch, like Miriam offering up all that she had, with unpracticed humility, Mr. Johnson made an offering of himself.

"Greg, your old man's the dumb fool. Not you ... not you...." It was the only way he knew. The Lord understood the father's inadequacy, and was able to impart what was necessary, to the son. With His help, Mr. Johnson had made a chink in the wall. A fortress began to crumble, and Greg met him on the other side. A prodigal father had found his way home.
Chapter 6

"He Whistles for the Cricket"

****

Moses nosed his way into the marsh grasses along the creek. It was the Fourth of July, and he hated the distant sound of firecrackers in town. He loved the cool waters of the creek after the spring rains, and he found this July creek-bed disappointingly low and warm. Even so, he'd wade in where he earlier had had to swim. He drank from the muddy waters. Miriam didn't come to the creek often on these hot summer days. It was too buggy, she told him. When she was home he was usually within a few yards of her voice. When she was away, his "territory" was an increasingly wider area, extending along the creek from the Green's, past the Johnson's, and into the forest which bordered the Fox River. This morning it was hot, and he had only come for a drink, wanting to get away from the noises and the smell of powder smoke which his tender young nostrils abhorred. He walked out onto a fallen tree trunk, which fell halfway across the creek, and lowered his nose into the waters. He could see the bottom, and the small fish which grouped there excited him, even on this hot day. As he was drinking, a mosquito-like insect landed on his velvety nostril, and bit him, slowly and hard. Moses shook his head quickly, and tried to paw away the sting. It really hurt him, and he cried out for a second. But it was no more than the quick dart of a cat's claw. He had experienced that, many times in his play with the Chaney's Kitty, and with other barn cats he had encountered. Sometimes the claw would hit him in play, sometimes in warning. But there was no challenge or play in this sting, no opponent, no parry and thrust! Moses didn't quite know what had stung him, so he continued watching the tiny schools of fish under the water alongside the log. He put his paw into the water, and instantly the fish were gone. He waited for the water to settle, and "fished" again, with the same result. Finally, with too energetic a thrust, he toppled off the log into the muddy water. Feeling foolish, he walked out, and shook himself vigorously. It had little effect. His back and shoulders were not even wet, and his feet were no less muddy. Finished with his creek "monitoring" he started for the house to look for Miriam.

His nose was beginning to burn. He snorted and blew as he walked toward the house. Moses rarely just walked. He ran. His enthusiasm for everything was a delight to Miriam. "He'd just as soon get up as sleep!" she often said. "In fact, sooner!" He slept on the foot of her bed at night. Mrs. Green didn't approve, but she overlooked it. He would jump onto the bed to sleep, and jump off to awake. Miriam hated to get up in the night because Moses would think it was morning, and it was hard to convince him to settle down again. He would dutifully jump back on the bed, but she knew he sat there, fully alert, with his ears perked, panting with the enthusiasm of day, even though there might be two or three hours left before daybreak. But now, instead of running, he walked back to the house. His nostrils had begun to swell. Miriam found him, laying under the swing, halfway to the house, breathing heavily. He looked odd, to her.

"Moses!" she was alarmed. "What happened to your face?"

He thumped his tail, but only halfway rose to his feet. His face had swelled like a balloon, and his eyes were barely visible. They were like slits, hidden deep in the roundness of his face. He looked pathetic and sounded worse. Miriam was frightened.

"You stay here, Mo. I'll get Dad!"

She ran to the house and Mr. Green returned with her. In those short minutes, Moses' condition had intensified. Mr. Green could see he was in real distress. His breathing was worse than labored. He lay on his side and his whole rib cage collapsed and expanded, devoting its total energies to the intake of air.

"He's in trouble, Miriam," Mr. Green said. "Run tell your mom to call Dr. Friedland. I'll be up with Moses."

Miriam didn't question her father. She knelt to caress Moses' swollen face and laboring body.

"It'll be ok, boy. It'll be ok," she soothed with fright and concern in her voice.

Her love for him was near-tangible, Mr. Green thought, and so was Moses' love for her, in return. In all of his distress, he thumped his tail at her caressing words, and tried to acknowledge by lifting his head, but he could not. Miriam had no further moments for questions or caresses. She ran toward the house, following her father's instructions.

Doc Friedland couldn't be reached. He was away for the holiday. Mrs. Green went over to the Johnsons to ask their help. For all their remote ways, they did have a way with animals, she knew. Mr. Johnson seemed to have some knowledge of about everything that went on in farm living. He came over now, and hurried with Mrs. Green and Miriam down the hill. They met Mr. Green who was walking with Moses lying heavily in his arms. Greg and Tom came over, and looked at the dog silently.

"He's been bit by something," Mr. Johnson diagnosed. "Mebbe a mosquito. Mebbe a snake."

"A poison one?" Miriam was horrified.

"Well, he's been poisoned by something. Don't much matter what, right now. Thing is to get him breathing again."

"Do you think a vapor would help?" Mrs. Green asked.

Miriam remembered the times she'd been so wheezy and breathless in the past. Hay fever, her mother had called it. Mrs. Green had filled an old empty coffee can with water, and put it on the front burner of the stove. Then she'd dropped a wooden spatula full of Vick's Vaporub into it, and brought it to a boil. She turned it down to a low simmer, and made a canopy out of a bath towel, draping it over the coffee can, and around Miriam's head and shoulders. Within seconds, Miriam could breathe again, and she stayed there off and on all morning. From time to time her mother would add more Vicks. Miriam would come out from under the canopy as her breathing became normal, in a kind of oily sweat, and her eyes burned so that she couldn't even read. But anything was better than that awful shortness of breath. That had frightened her. Now she remembered, and hoped that the vapor could help Moses. But Mr. Johnson said no.

"Thing you've got to do for Moses is get that swelling down," he said. His sinuses and throat are all tight as a drum. If he could, he'd be down at the river now, letting the cool water and mud do what Doc Friedland'd try, could we get him here."

Mr. Johnson had taken up the battle for Moses with them in his "we," and there was strength in partnership. He said to Mr. Green, "Why don't you give that fella to Greg here, and you 'n me'll see what ice we can get together?"

"Sure thing," Mr. Green said, and he transferred Moses to Greg. "He's heavy, Greg. Got him?" Greg had him, fine. "Take him on up to the porch, would you?" Mr. Green asked. "It's not so hot there." Together, then, he and Mr. Johnson walked over to the Johnson's kitchen.

Miriam, Greg, and Mrs. Green settled Moses on a rug in the corner. Mrs. Green left for a minute, and came back from the kitchen with a pan of cold water, and an old bath towel. She tore it into quarters and wet the squares in the cold water. She folded them one at a time, and laid the first one on Moses' nose. Miriam watched her, and soon followed her example. All the while, they talked and soothed, and Moses responded, pathetically lifting his tail no more than an inch from the rug. His business was breathing.

The men had to drive in to town for ice. On the way, Mr. Green told Mr. Johnson about the deer which had hit their car when they passed the spot. Funny. He'd lived next to the Johnsons for years and yet they had never talked together long enough to have related an experience like that. It turned out that had happened to Mr. Johnson not once, but three times. He'd had to shoot the deer once. Only thing to do when an animal was in pain like that, and was certain to take a long time to die. Another time the deer had hit, but had run by, into the woods on the other side of the road. Car was damaged, too, but the deer was able to run far enough not to be found easily anyway. Maybe it had lived. Once, he told Mr. Green, he'd had to drown pups. Hated that job. There just hadn't been any food for them. Mother dog had fourteen pups. Seven of her own, seven from another litter where the mother had been killed along the road. She accepted the orphans right off - just a day old, too. But she couldn't feed 'em... just couldn't do it.

"A man has to do some things he doesn't like, sometimes," Mr. Green said, with a new awareness of his neighbor. They passed the Chaney farm when they returned with the ice.

"Nice folk there," Mr. Green pointed, certain that he and Mr. Johnson had no mutual acquaintances, but he was mistaken.

"Yep, they came here the same year as we did. Had a daughter, Sarah. She took care of the boys when they were little. The wife and I'd go to work, 'n drop 'em off."

"I never knew they had a daughter..."

"She died of polio," Mr. Johnson offered. "Hit 'em real hard. Greg was just school age, so we begun Tom a year early along with him, after that."

They reached the Green's with the ice and Mr. Johnson drove up their drive. They went in together. Their ice cooled the compresses, and Moses seemed to be rallying, somewhat.

Late that night, Miriam and her mother sat on the floor near Moses, backs up agains the porch wall, letting the night breeze cool them. The porch had ventilation on three sides. Mr. Green had made screens which extended from two feet above the floor to just below the ceiling, and they bordered the full extension of the porch walls. It was a good place to hear the frogs and crickets, and to wait together, and talk. Moses' breathing was less labored, but the swelling was still bad. He slept as though his body had gone into shock.

"Do you think he'll be okay, Mom?" Miriam wanted the reassurance which came so much more easily in the daylight than at night.

"Wish I could promise you, Hon," her mother answered.

"We can take him to Doc Friedland. I have money saved up, still," she offered, fanning the flame of encouragement with a question.

"We'll be sure to do that if he's not better by the time Doc returns. Sometimes, though, time is the best medicine," her mother answered her. Mrs. Green remembered Buffy, and her own hopes lying so beaten. It was a long time past, but pictures like that are indelible.

"Let me tell you about a teacher-friend of mine, Miriam," Mrs. Green said. Conversation helped so much, and Miriam took in the waiting-time words.

"She'd always say, 'Now, I want to tell you something,' and that way she'd have my attention, and whose ever else she was talking to. All the kids were scared of her until they got to her class. Some of them even after that! But they saw something in her they hadn't seen from far off, once they got up close. They found they couldn't help but learn. She was a teacher, and we knew she loved us, too. But we also knew she was going to make us learn. She was the most fun teacher I ever had. She made us laugh a lot, but most of all, she knew the Lord."

"But you know Him too, don't you Mom?"

"Yes, Miriam, but there's no end to knowing Him, and she knew Him in a special way that let others know Him too. And when Buffy died..." She didn't quite know whether to go on because she didn't want Miriam to think she was leading up to Moses having to die. After a pause she went on, in the easy seriousness of this time alone together.

"When Buffy died, I was so sick and tied up inside, and I wasn't able to get my work done well at school. People have a way of hiding themselves..." Miriam thought of Greg, as she listened attentively to her mother. "Mrs. Jordan had a way of seeing right through things like that. She called me to stay in after class, and I told her about Buffy. She said to me, 'Jane, you're angry with God, and you may as well tell Him about it!' I was shocked. I'd thought I'd be afraid to be mad at God, and so I never even let myself think such a thought. But her saying it made me see it in a different light. And so, I let myself think about it. It was sort of like a defense coming down. I asked her, 'But won't God be mad at me for thinking that way about Him?'"

"What did she say?" Miriam asked, seeing her mother with new eyes through the wisdom of this teacher far in her past.

"Well, she told me, 'The Lord knows all about it, Jane. You might as well tell Him just how you feel.' And you know, Miriam, I found myself wanting to do that. Then she told me some more. She told me, 'Now, I want to tell you somethin' else!'"

Mrs. Green looked at Miriam, and together they smiled at Mrs. Jordan's way.

"'Our little girl, Ann,' she told me, 'used to think that the Lord sees every sparrow, but that it didn't matter a hill of beans to Him. That He would just sit back and watch them fall and say, 'There goes another one... plop. There goes another one... plop.'"

"Did she learn different, Mom?" Miriam moved over to lay another cool cloth on Moses' nose, which was beginning to look a little less swollen. She wanted the story to continue.

"Yes, she did. Mrs. Jordan told _her_ something, when she found out how Ann felt! She told her, 'Ann, the Lord made the sparrow, and that sparrow's going to die. He made me, and I'm going to die, and so are you. I don't like to think about that. But the same Lord who made you and that sparrow cares about both you and that sparrow, and don't you ever forget it!' She told her this world is not all there is, and that the same Lord who made the sparrow also made the waterfall, and the Painted Desert, and the Grand Canyon. And if He who made all those things is preparing a place for each of us who trusts in Him, who are we to say there's no place for that little dead sparrow?"

"Mom!" Miriam asked, "Do you think animals go to Heaven?" She'd wondered that many times before, but hadn't asked because she dreaded a "no" answer. But she felt safe and snug in the exchanged confidences of this night.

"I can't tell you yes or no, Miriam, but I'll tell you something!" she smiled. "There's going to come a time for certain when the lion's going to lie down with the lamb and there won't be any more viciousness among people or animals..."

"Are you sure, Mom?"

"Sure as I can be about anything. It says so in the book of Isaiah. Why, Miriam, the Bible is just full of God's care for animals. Do you know He whistles for the bee?"

"He _what_ , Mom?"

"He whistles for the bee! I read that one day, and asked Mrs. Jordan about it. You could talk to her about things like that. She told our class one time that she'd gotten up early to have morning devotions, but there was a cricket in the house, and he kept interrupting her with his chirping."

Miriam laughed at the thought of a saucy cricket interrupting Mrs. Jordan's morning devotions.

"Mrs. Jordan asked the Lord, 'Lord, Your Word says You whistle for the fly, and you whistle for the bee, so right now, would You please whistle for that cricket and make him be quiet so I can pray?' You know, she told me that was the end of the chirping cricket for that morning!"

"Oh Mom, do you think He did that?" Miriam wanted her mother's own assurance through the fun of the story that the Lord truly had whistled for the cricket.

"Well, Miriam, she thought so, and I did too. All my life. And I still do! She made me know the Lord like that. Do you know our finch feeder over there on the red bud tree?" She pointed, in the dark, and Miriam nodded. It hung there, low to the ground, because the red bud branches weren't strong enough yet to support it well, but the yellow finches ornamented the tree daily, looking like yellow Christmas tree lights so fairy-like and out of season.

"I wanted finches to come, and asked the Lord to send them..."

"You did, Mom?" Miriam was amazed, not knowing her mother made such requests.

"Yes, and all I got was a flock of sparrows, for weeks," her mother went on. "The Lord sort of spoke a sermon through those sparrows, telling me, 'Those are mine, too. Nobody asks for sparrows, but I care for them.'"

Miriam sat, appreciating the thought of the drab little bird in a new way.

"And you know, Miriam, I thanked Him for the sparrows, and not long after that, He whistled for the finches. One morning, bright and early, there they were, and they've been coming and sharing with the sparrows, ever since."

"Mom, I just love those little finches!"

"So do we all, Miriam, but God gets our attention in the drab little things of life, like the cricket and the sparrow, more often. Life is made up of lots of little things."

Miriam was lying down, leaned up against her mother, confident not in any certain outcome, but in a deeper knowledge of her mother, and of a certain Mrs. Jordan, and not least, of a Lord who not only died and rose and lived, but who also whistled.

The three slept and awoke to the chorus of birds. It was Moses who prodded the sleeping Miriam to wake up, with a nose reduced to normal size and eyes which now seemed to fit properly. He was welcomed back to life not knowing the concern he'd caused. He was blissfully excited over the rush of endearments heaped upon his gawky shoulders and compress-soaked head. He didn't bark, but he "talked" his appreciation to Miriam, and accepted the huge bowl of milk with egg beaten into it which Mrs. Green poured for him, with bountiful puppy delight. And all day long, Miriam felt like whistling.
Chapter 7

Sarah

****

Miriam poured linseed oil into Mr. Chaney's old T-shirt and rubbed it into the parched bamboo chair on the Chaney's sun-porch. She polished industriously, and was pleased with the shiny new look the oil gave to the old furniture. Mrs. Chaney looked up from her tub of string beans she was snapping into a pail of cold water.

"Sure brings them to life, Miriam," she encouraged. "I've had that table and chairs since the first year we were married."

"How long is that, Mrs. Chaney?" Miriam asked. She liked the company and the approval. The bamboo reeds of the chairs, which had baked in many afternoon suns, now inhaled the oil, and the room had a pleasant lemony odor. Miriam's hands, too, began to be oiled, and she tried snapping her fingers. They slipped against one another, and she was amused by her ineffectual attempts.

"Why, almost thirty years, now," Mrs. Chaney answered her question thoughtfully. "Hard for me to think Sarah'd be almost that old by now."

Miriam looked up, surprised. She had never heard Mrs. Chaney mention Sarah before, but she herself knew there had been a Sarah. Mrs. Chaney caught her look and offered a little more.

"Why, she'd be twenty-three, now," she paused, and Miriam felt almost as though she were stepping out onto holy ground when she asked.

"What happened, Mrs. Chaney?" She felt somehow it was all right now to ask, though there were many things you just left alone. Mr. Green had told the family that the Chaney's had a daughter, named Sarah, who had died. This was the most she had ever heard about it, now, in the naturalness of the bean-snapping and linseed oil.

"Sarah got sick real sudden," Mrs. Chaney said. "She'd just had one year of high school, and there was always something going around. It was late in the summer, like now..." her voice slowed, but she went on. "We weren't even frightened, it all happened so fast. It just seemed like a fever, normal as any summer cold, but by evening she was so hot, we got real scared. Mr. Chaney and I drove her into Redney to the hospital, and Dr. Williams met us there."

The recollection was a vivid memory for Mrs. Chaney, but a new picture for Miriam. She could sense a vulnerability in this kindly couple who seemed so confident of all things in life. It was like the distant watercolor of a fisherman her mother had on the living room wall. He always looked, to Miriam, like a person that nothing could ruffle or upset. Someone who would never raise his voice if his house burned down or if a war started or if he hurt himself like people always did when they worked hard. Miriam assimilated all this in a growing awareness that Mrs. Chaney's gentle authority was not a gift, but a result. She remembered a poem they'd read in literature class about a primrose path, and another one with thorns and thistles, and this reminded her of that, though she wasn't just certain why. Having a little girl die was something Miriam could only imagine. Maybe the man who drew the fisherman had had things like that happen in his life, too.

"It was polio, Miriam, and summer's the worst time. Now they've learned so much about how to cure it. The Lord is good to have shown a way."

"Did you think He was good when she died?" The calm in Mrs. Chaney's voice invited Miriam's boldness.

"Why, yes, child, I did. Oh, we hurt, but we had One to go to who knows what it is to hurt, and He just wrapped us up, and comforted us, all the while."

Miriam was amazed, at the calm, at the assurance, even way back then, when the hurt must have been terrible. People were always so quiet at death, or the thought of it. It was something hard to be talked about, and here was Mrs. Chaney telling her right out about the death of her little daughter. Plain and simple, telling her about the Lord comforting, not years after it was over, but right then, at the time! And then Mrs. Chaney even laughed!

"You know," she said, "the Lord has some ways to lighten our hearts when they are most likely to bog us down into despair. Our Sarah wasn't afraid to die, and though we didn't know she would, it helped us to know she wasn't afraid. I think the Lord speaks to children's hearts about things like that." Mrs. Chaney said, snapping the beans. She got up and left the room for a moment, and came back with a small framed photograph.

"This is Sarah, Miriam," she said, offering the photo. Miriam felt honored. She held the small frame and examined it thoughtfully.

"She's pretty," she said. "How old was she?"

"Fourteen when she died. That was taken a year before, at her eighth grade graduation." Mrs. Chaney went on, invited by Miriam's interest. She seemed glad for the opportunity for recalling.

"One night, when Sarah lay so sick, we'd been with her for seventy-two hours, and things looked some better. The fever had come down. Doctor told us to go home and get a shower and freshen up, and get some rest and then come back, and so we did. But on the way out, there was this young man on a bed in the hall. Hospital seemed to be full those hot summer days. Well, he was cussing at the nurses and I never heard such misery and pain coming out of one person in all my days. Pain kind of brings out the worst in you, sometimes. It can made a person strong, or it can make him bitter."

Miriam said, "Mom says so, too. Makes me cantankerous, she says."

Mrs. Chaney smiled. "Well, you might have called him cantankerous, then! I couldn't just leave him like that without some way to bring a little comfort. It's hurt or anger makes a person tear out like that, you know." Miriam had put down her oiled cloth to listen. She thought she did know, especially when she thought of Mr. Johnson, and how he used to be to Greg. Mrs. Chaney went on.

"I went over to him. Turns out he was blind. He'd lost a kidney. Had a wife and two youngsters, and the kidney disease hit him sudden. Poor soul. He'd had his world turned upside down in just a short time." So had the Chaney's, Miriam thought. "I went over and took his hand when I knew he couldn't see me. He was sort of shocked, but he got real quiet, after all the thrashing around. I asked him, 'Son, wouldn't you like to give your life to the Lord?'"

"What did he say?" Miriam was not surprised at her boldness. She wouldn't put anything past Mrs. Chaney!

"He surprised me, Miriam. Doesn't matter how much you learn, you'll never be ready for every situation the Lord allows to come your way! He said to me, 'Give my life to Him? He can _have_ it! It never did _me_ any good!' Oh, he was spiteful, but I just felt that the Lord understood all that inside raging. I didn't have any more questions for him, so I just stood there holding his hand. He never pulled his away, in spite of all that anger, and I didn't let go. Well, it was so pitiful. I wasn't able to do a thing for him, but I kept calling out to the Lord inside, and I found something out, later on."

"What did you find out?" Miriam's question was natural, but eager.

"I found out he went home about three weeks later. I don't know what happened to him, but a woman in town told me he'd said to his wife he'd never have made it through the night if some lady hadn't come by and held his hand and reminded him there was a God out there after all. When he realized how mad he was he didn't think it was possible to be so mad at nothing, and so, mad or not, realizing there was a God helped."

"Did you ever feel He wasn't there?" Miriam asked. "Especially when Sarah died?" She felt that Sarah was her friend now, as well as Mrs. Chaney's daughter.

"No, I can't say as I did, Miriam. I sure do understand folks who do feel that way at times, though." She looked for words to help explain. "There was a man I met once," she went on, "didn't believe there was a God." Miriam looked startled. "Matter of fact, Miriam, it was your neighbor, Ted Johnson." Mrs. Chaney offered this information after careful thought, and then she went on. "His father had been a drunkard, and the family didn't have a good name, for all the bills that man'd run up. Ted couldn't seem to get out from under the shame of it, though we'd hoped so, once he married Martha. She had a way of settling him. Seemed real content for a little while, but time went on, and he seemed to start taking it out by being hard and sullen to his own sons. He scoffed at the idea of a God, let alone a personal God who died for him, and cared about his life."

"Did he ever find out different?" Miriam asked, with the persistence of a child who _will_ have a happy ending to the story.

"I don't know. Our Sarah used to care for his boys before she died. He liked her real well. She was special to him, and he had a soft spot in his heart for her, through all that toughness."

"Did Sarah know he didn't believe there is a God?"

"I believe she did, Miriam. You don't want to go making someone something they weren't, but I believe the Lord gives wisdom to young folks we sometimes lose when we get older. Maybe when we're less complicated, we have a clearer vision of things. Anyhow, when our Sarah died, he came to the cemetery. Didn't come to the funeral, but he was there at the grave. He looked so helpless. I found my heart going out to him. I told him Sarah was safe home with Jesus. But he just stared at me, then he said something real hurtful..."

"What was that?" Miriam asked in a small voice.

"He said, 'Can't make me b'lieve there's a God'd let _that_ happen.'"

"Maybe he was mad at God?" Miriam remembered Buffy and her mom, and Mrs. Jordan.

Mrs. Chaney smiled, "Why, I suspect that's right, Miriam. If you didn't know the suffering Savior, you wouldn't understand such a thing without being mad. I was going to wait till later on, but it seemed then was the time. So I told him Sarah had wanted his boys to have Missy. She was just a pup then, born to our Pearl. She was Sarah's special pup, and she'd play with the boys when Sarah would babysit them."

Miriam knew the Johnsons didn't have Missy, so she waited. Mrs. Chaney's eyes had filled with tears.

"Guess the tears are never gone, Miriam. But I'm glad to share them a bit. It'd be so easy never to talk about our loved ones gone on ahead, but you know, it leaves such an awful hole down here. Helps fill it up, to talk..."

Miriam wanted so badly to help fill up that empty hole, and all the while her listening heart was doing that, admirably.

"She told me that if ever she died - I believe she knew she would soon, but didn't want to frighten me - she thought Mr. Johnson would help the boys raise Missy. She sure loved those little scamps, Greg and Tom."

"Did she frighten you when she talked that way?"

"Well, you'd think so, but the Lord has a special way of bearing you up, times like that. I'd read Little Women to Sarah when she was younger, and we'd cried together over Beth's dying. But she thought it was too bad she and Jo hadn't talked more, about it. I always remembered that..."

Miriam remembered Little Women too, but she'd never talked about it with anyone. "Did you talk about Heaven, Mrs. Chaney?" she asked.

"Yes, we did, Miriam. And do you know, Heaven becomes dearer, when a loved one goes on ahead. My daddy always told me he didn't want to live a long life. People who live long, he said, live to see their children die. He lived to see his granddaughter die. Miriam, there's just no place to put pain like that except in Jesus." She had picked up the beans again, and busied herself.

It was some moments later when Miriam asked, "What about Missy?"

"He never answered me. Just turned and walked away. I think my timing was poor. It just seemed to come out then about Sarah wanting his boys to have Missy. He hadn't settled with himself yet. There's a lot of anger in that man, but there's a lot of tenderness, down deep. He used to bring eggs to pay for the babysitting, and Thanksgiving time, he'd bring over two of his best chickens. Mrs. Johnson'd have them plucked clean as a whistle. And one Easter, he came over with Greg and Tom. They were about three and four, I believe. They had a Sears Roebuck shoe box - said it was for Sarah. Well, inside were two fluffy, little, newborn chicks, peeping for all they were worth. The boys had seen them hatch, and bringing them to Sarah was Easter, for them! She raised them, and knew that they were a very special gift. That's why she wanted them to have Missy... there just never was a good time to offer, again. A person has to sort things out. You have to be careful of trodding on their feelings."

Miriam couldn't imagine Mrs. Chaney trodding on anything!

"Missy became Josh's dog." Miriam knew Joshua was the Chaney's son, away at college for another year. "He was twelve then - time when you're starting to ignore a sister, a little."  Miriam could remember when Jeff was twelve, and she was six. That was before the teasing had become sort of warm, and friendly. He hadn't paid much attention to her at all, as she remembered back. She felt she understood what Mrs. Chaney was describing.

"Missy became sort of a gap-filler, for Josh. He began taking her with him everywhere, and now when he comes home from school she about goes crazy. Came time we couldn't have given her away even if they'd come for her!"

"How did they get Queenie, do you know?" Miriam asked.

"Would you believe Josh brought her home?" Mrs. Chaney smiled, remembering with Miriam, the arrival of Kitty. "He and Sarah loved all the animals."

Miriam smiled, assimilating all this. "Why, then, Sarah sort of did have her way, didn't she?" The whole idea was thrilling Miriam. "One of your dogs went to Tom and Greg!"

"I put Queenie in that same shoe box they'd brought the chicks in. She didn't fit well, but it seemed a good way to give, without having to explain. We brought her over and asked Mrs. Johnson if we could give her to the boys. We told her Sarah would like that. Besides, a good dog's a help on a farm, and we knew the Johnsons would be good to her. She was touched, I know, but there never was a comment from Mr. Johnson."

"Mr. Johnson's not angry inside anymore, Mrs. Chaney."

Miriam told her, then, about offering Moses, and what Mr. Johnson had said to her, and how he and Greg were talking and friendly now. She told her, too, about how they had all helped when Moses had been bitten. Mrs. Chaney thought what a heart softener a little girl could be.

Miriam asked, "Mrs. Chaney, why is it some people get strong, and some people get sort of mean, when sad things happen? Like Mr. Johnson's father being a drunkard..."

"I think, Miriam, it has a lot to do with receiving comfort. There's usually always lots of comfort all about. Some people know just what to say, and some know just what _not_ to say, but there's something in being able to hear beyond the words or the quiet, and to know that other heart is just caring and caring, and if you can lean into that sort of, and receive the comfort they're just nearly groaning to give, why then it can make you strong. But if you somehow can't receive it, or don't recognize it, or even try to lean in to it, then I suppose you can get hardened up, some." Miriam was making Mrs. Chaney thoughtful, and she wasn't sure if she really had helped Miriam understand better. But Miriam looked thoughtful too, and satisfied.

"She really does remind me of Sarah," Mrs. Chaney told Mr. Chaney that night.

They sat together on the linseed oiled chairs, and he squeezed her hand, glad that she would not allow the memory of Sarah in their lives to become distant and barren. He suspected that, left to himself, he might do that, for his own equilibrium. Maybe equilibrium wasn't always so important. He realized again how much he loved this woman with a sprawling white cat in her lap and a feisty dog at her feet, and her returned squeeze assured him that it was mutual.
Chapter 8

Moses

****

Moses sat near the back door with his leather purse. He often dragged it about by the one strap which had long since detached at one end. He would carry it with him to the creek, and it sometimes smelled of dead fish. It wasn't allowed in the house anymore because it had been under the tree-swing in the last heavy rain, and it smelled of mildew. Ants crawled in and out, and field mice had once made a nest inside. It was rotted and stiff, and despised of men. To Moses it was most beloved. Moses picked it up by its bedraggled strap, and dragged it to the creek.

Early mornings Miriam would let Moses out and he would run to the creek and follow his well-travelled itinerary. If he were king of this, his own small corner of the world, then he surveyed his domain in excited inquiry without a hint of proprietorship, for he was challenged daily by a woodchuck who would rise up on his hind legs in a face-off with Moses, awaiting a challenge. Moses' few barks were kept for the woodchuck. He would prance forward and brace his front paws on a forty-five degree angle with the ground so that his head and shoulders were lower than his hind quarters. Then he would bark ferociously until the woodchuck would tire of his harangue, and walk off in disdain. At these times, Moses considered himself the absolute victor. Sometimes Moses' adversary would turn and almost meander into a burrow as if bored with the frivolity of the foolish youngster. This retreat would inspire Moses to a wonderful chase, directly into the burrow after the woodchuck, as fast and as far as he could go. But he always seemed to hit a dead end tunnel. He did not know that a woodchuck is able to seal off his burrow from outside intrusion with heavy digging claws whose excavation skills far exceed the digging skills of any dog. These were perplexing dilemmas for Moses. But when the woodchuck would exhibit bad temper, and his chirping and whistling would become a low ominous growl, Queenie's nature would rise up in her pup and have dominion. Moses would retreat, and find other interests. Occasionally, it would be Nero.

Nero was owned by Hank and Abe Zender, the boys who lived about half a mile east of the Greens, with the open field between their properties. Hank was Jeff's age, and Abe was two years younger. They both had bellicose natures well-touted by the principals in their small town, especially those connected with the high school. When their pranks were confined to egg-throwing and hurled epithets on the last day of school, the officials tended not to see these things, and to breathe a second sigh of relief for summer. But when bicycles went missing from the rack outside the main office entrance, and students were urged to padlock their lockers, the obvious suspects were Hank and Abe, with ample history to substantiate the suspicions. Nero seemed to reflect his owners' temperaments, as is often the case. The boys were much more formidable when paired. Singly, they were at least civil, and at times, near-teachable. When together, as they usually were, their company was unsolicited and unsavory. Nero, however, needed no partner, only a victim. He found Moses right handy.

When Moses would trot along his self-appointed rounds, it was Nero's sadistic nature to "pace" him. Moses was irrepressibly friendly on their first encounter, slavish in his young welcome. He pranced up to Nero in exuberant naivete. Nero's slash, cutting Moses' ear until it drew blood, came without even a warning snarl. Moses would have bowed quickly to the authority of the older dog had there been the least indication. Non-vicious dogs have a sort of civil code implicit in first encounters. But Nero was not amenable to civil codes, canine or otherwise. Moses had cried out, and retreated, but in near-pathetic yearning for friendliness, he left the door ever open for Nero to change his mind. And so, whenever he and Nero would cross paths, he had the good sense not to initiate an exchange, but he did not run or retreat. He would sit and wait and hope. Nero sensed this, and capitalized on it, in a daily drama which seemed to gratify his power-lust temporarily. He would look at Moses, and then turn and trot off as though inviting Moses to follow. And Moses would. As soon as this walk was established, Nero would stop, and Moses would have to freeze where he was. In an almost hypnotic fashion, Nero would choreograph the daily walk, enticing Moses, then freezing him, until he would tire of the whole thing, and dismiss his subject by a sudden slash of his teeth at the pup, then by stalking off alone. Moses was free to return home when Nero was out of sight.

Moses had left his purse on the bank of the creek. Though the straps had been chewed thin and soft, the main body of the purse stood gaping like an open mouth, sun-parched and cracked, one strap lying stretched out on the slope of the bank.

This is how the second morning visitor of the cool creek waters found it. The skunk had made Moses' acquaintance once before, and they had had a cordial relationship, since. The first time Moses had come upon the small white-striped animal, ambling toward the waters in a bear-like roll, he had barked an initiative greeting. The skunk looked at Moses, unperturbed, and then continued toward the creek. Moses was not platonic. He _would_ have an exchange with this calm, furry stranger. In fact, he insisted upon it with a series of staccato barks. And they were fruitful. The animal so wont to ignore him now seemed to turn amiably to face him. Moses was highly interested. If a clip of greeting barks brought this interest, then surely a volley of ferocious barks such as were reserved for the woodchuck were in order! He filled the morning mists with energetic challenge. The skunk responded, first, by staring at Moses. Then he slowly shook his head from side to side. When Moses continued barking, he arched his back, and thumped the ground with flat-soled paw-like tappings. This did nothing to reduce the volley, and so, reluctantly perhaps, the little skunk lifted his tail, turned away from Moses, and sprayed. A thin stream of acrid sulfide covered all the ground within a radius of ten feet, including wild phlox, marsh grasses, a tumbled down river oak, and the terrified Moses. He was momentarily blinded, and near asphyxiated. He finished the day rinsing in the creek waters, and when he had returned to the house, he had the grace to look sheepish and to approach cautiously. And even after Miriam had washed him in three quarts of her mother's homemade tomato juice to neutralize the skunk odor, and had lathered him unmercifully with Lifeboy bar soap, he was not allowed back into the house for a full three days.

Moses remembered all this now as he withdrew a respectful and healthy distance. The little black and white skunk took leisurely dominion of the territory, beloved purse and all. The skunk found it interesting, and he routed about the purse, investigating for bees, wasps, or ants. Any one of these would make an acceptable breakfast. Moses watched, and the skunk, finding a collection of ants in the purse, waddled in after them, content in his investigations. It was at this time that Nero raced down to the creek, and saw Moses several yards from his purse. This, perhaps, offered a new avenue of entertainment. Nero knew the purse belonged to Moses, and so now, without even a greeting snarl, he took over. Head down, with the hair on his scruff raised, he lifted the purse by the bottom with the clear intention of claiming it for his own. Being Moses' exclusive property made this a better treasure than even a succulent bone for the new distress it would afford his victim. And Moses looked as though the whole scene pained him, though eyeing his beloved purse, he didn't advance an inch. He simply crouched in the grasses, about twenty feet off, watching.

Nero did not have long to savor his advantage, and his thievery. The purse, lying so passively one moment, now seemed to attack him! More quickly than Nero could follow with his eyes, which had been directed toward Moses in his discomfiture, the furry, white-plumed visitor left the bag, lifted his tail, and baptized Nero in near total immersion - eyes, throat, lungs, head, body, all.

Nero, after that, disdained the company of Moses entirely. Moses took on a new dignity, by putting away childish things, and laying aside his purse, once for all.
Chapter 9

"Chickens and Pipe Wrenches"

****

Moses could not have understood the significance of all that Mrs. Chaney had implied in the little Jochabed offspring laid again into sister Miriam's arms, but as he grew to fill out the boney frame, large paws and donkey-like ears, he also grew to fulfill a purpose. He led no people forth, but instead he followed a little girl, and in his days taught her qualities so like the One she would follow, through other waters, deeper yet, but not wholly unlike those she had come through with her Moses.

He looked like a young black wolf, with his long slender muzzle and erect ears. His large feet gave hint of his potential size, and Mr. Green assured Miriam he would probably be a seventy to eighty pound dog when full grown.

"He'll have to grow into those feet, that's for sure!" he told her. He encouraged her to be certain Moses was given milk each day. "Dogs that size are prone to aches in their joints, just like people, if they don't get their calcium," he reminded her, and she was assiduous in this responsibility.

Moses' chest, legs, and underbelly were sandy colored, and he still had the brown circles over each eye that Miriam had stroked so delicately in the early days after his birth. Two strips of sandy-colored fur lined each side of his upper jaw. His outer coat was of straight, shiny black hair, coarse to the touch, overlaying a soft, fluffy undercoat of downy fur. The black outer coat seemed almost waterproof to Miriam when she would swing with him at her feet in the rain. His undercoat seemed to shed year round, yielding tufts of fur which Miriam would faithfully brush out. No matter, the supply did not seem to decrease.

"I think I could make a pillow of this," she told Jeff as she brushed Moses, who was preening lazily in the shade of the walnut tree.

Jeff walked by on his way over to the Johnson's. He stopped for a moment and looked at the two of them.

"Don't give it to me for Christmas if you do," he teased her. "You could get yourself a nice little business, though. Package it and sell it - might have fleas, though!"

"Moses doesn't have fleas!" Miriam defended, and this was Jeff's opportunity.

"No? I never knew an outdoor dog not to have them! But ticks are better, anyway, you could advertise 'pillow ticking!'"

"Sure, Jeff! I'll get some special and give you the first pillow."

Miriam was six years younger than Jeff, and she liked it when he spent time like this, in easy banter. It made her feel important.

Jeff laughed and walked on, glad that she was learning to fight back. Mr. and Mrs. Green were at work, so Miriam was then alone with Moses. She had not stopped her way of talking to him about everything that came to her mind, and the sound of her voice, in banter or complaint or in news was waters of life to him. But the times when she sweet-talked him in her affectionate endearments were his pure nectar, and he could hardly contain his response. He would croon with low rumbles, interrupted with a sudden bark of joy. Then he would resume his own love-talk. For Moses loved his young friend and mistress with all that was in him to love. He did not hurl himself in front of a train for her, and found no such heroics such as Silver Chief, Dog of the North was able to boast. Yet it was beyond question to all who took note that it was never lack of heart, but only lack of opportunity that made this so. He slept at her feet, and walked at her side, and listened to her words. He inclined himself toward the least inflection in her voice. As best he was able to understand, he was fully obedient to her every command. He postured apology for the least inconvenience he might ever cause her, by way of being sick, or of having his foot under hers in an awkward move. As she got up now, and pulled his hairs from the brush she had been using on his undercoat, he shadowed her back to the sunporch, and waited for her next assignment.

Hank Zender knocked at the Johnson door, and when Mrs. Johnson responded to his knock, he asked her for the loan of a pipe wrench.

"I'd have to ask my husband," she answered him, feeling unneighborly. Past experience had taught her there was slim chance of its return. "Can you wait a bit?" she then asked.

"Fergit it," he answered.

Hank would just as soon look elsewhere as deal with Mr. Johnson. He knew Mr. Johnson wouldn't mind refusing him. Without further comment, he left.

In a while Mr. Johnson came to the lean-to, followed by Tom, and called, "Martha, got a minute here?"

She came to the door. Ted was a new man, it seemed to her, and his recent gentleness seemed to have affected every aspect of his life. Whereas he used to mumble commands and seem near unaware of her, his tenderness toward the boys had extended to her also. She hardly knew how to take it in. Without her quite knowing it, there was now a warmth to life that made the workload seem easy. She went to the door.

"Yes, Ted - what ya got there?" she asked.

Ted opened his big hands a little sheepishly to show her. Tom spoke for him.

"Baby chick. Couple days old. Dad thinks maybe Miriam'd like to have it!"

"That little girl sure has a fondness for animals, and this chick just seemed to be sayin' so!" Ted looked up at Martha, and caught her surprise.

"I've got just the thing, Ted," she said quickly.

She turned back to the kitchen a minute and came back holding a box. There are many substitutes for the picture which replaces a thousand words. This time it was a Sears Roebuck shoebox, one that Mr. Johnson had seen before. It was the box he had hunted up, a few years back. Martha had filled it with a little handful of fresh straw once before. It was in this box that he had placed the baby chicks for Sarah. They had driven to the Chaney's with Greg and Tom to say their happy Easter. His recollection of how the box had come back to them with Queenie in it almost overwhelmed him. He paused, and then, with a gentle humility he looked directly at his wife.

"I'm glad you saved this, Martha," and a moment of sweetness was captured. Together, the three of them nested the chick in a few handfuls of grass, which Tom pulled from the yard.

"She's outside. Let's go over now, okay?" Tom asked.

"Sure," Mr. Johnson said. He noted that Tom had probably been too little to remember the first time the box had held a chicken. Greg would probably remember, but not Tom. They started over and caught Miriam just before she and Moses went in.

"Oh, Mr. Johnson! Mrs. Johnson! I love it! It's so soft! How old is it?" Miriam was genuinely thrilled.

Though they did not know it, Miriam knew the whole episode of the little chicks given to Sarah in the shoebox, and she recognized that it had been then as it was now, a gift of love and caring. She felt a wonderful sense of miracle and goodness in this touching gift of the young chick, peeping and inquisitive to every impulse of touch and light and sound. She remembered how little time had passed since she had tried to give Moses away, and now here she was, being given to instead of giving up. There was a sense of the goodness of God that she was unable to express. The Johnsons smiled their pleasure in having so pleased their little neighbor, and when they had gone, Miriam sat on the step of the porch introducing Moses to her chick. What belonged to Miriam was set apart to Moses, and this fluffy bird which fit in her hand was too insignificant, even, to cause him jealousy.

It was then that Abe came to the door, with Nero following a few yards behind. He and Hank had been sent out to come back with a pipe wrench, one way or another. Abe had been to the farm across the street, still striking out on his request for the pipe wrench his dad was waiting for. Nero kept a respectful distance from Moses, and the two dogs ignored each other.

Abe said, "Kin I borrow a pipe wrench fer my dad?" He sounded exasperated. It was not in his nature to make requests, but rather to demand. However, his dad would be angrier than usual if he came home without the pipe wrench.

Miriam knew there was one under the kitchen sink, but she wasn't sure if she should loan it. "I'd better wait until my mom and dad get home," she answered.

Abe looked angry and disappointed. "When'll that be?" he asked.

But at that moment, Nero saw the chicken in Miriam's hand and lunged for it in his usual manner, without a warning growl. His target was the chicken, and Moses may or may not have realized that, but it was unlikely to have changed anything. What he saw was Nero lunging in full attack toward Miriam.

The meek Moses, son of the Quaker-like Queenie, went to her defense. It seemed that he flew, snarling and fearless, at Nero's head. Nero, focused on the destruction of the chicken, and aware of Moses' nature, did not anticipate the attack of the younger dog. The two dogs seemed to fight in the air, snarling and slashing. At the outset, Moses had the advantage of righteous aggression and surprise. Soon, however, his advantage was balanced by Nero's natural viciousness. He was bigger, older, and much more battle-wise in such encounters. At the beginning of the battle, his upper lip had been ripped by Moses, and this enraged him, but he had not exacted as bloody a retaliation because of Moses' thick undercoat, which remained in spite of his recent brushing. Miriam and Abe shouted for them to stop. Miriam was terrified. Abe might have stood by, watching the fray with a semi-bloodthirsty glee had he been in other company, but now, with Miriam, he was beset with a common terror in violence. He physically pulled Nero off, and kicked Moses away viciously. He was humiliated and angry for his dog's attack and near defeat.

He said, breathless from his interference, "It's yer dog's fault..."

Miriam didn't say anything, in her gratitude that Moses was safe and it was over. She got him and her chick safe inside the back door. In her desire to see things peaceful and resolved she said, "Wait a minute, Abe!" She went in quickly and got the pipe wrench from under the sink and opened the door, extending it to him.

Abe took it and said, "I'll bring it back," but she knew the Zenders never brought anything back, and this time she wished they wouldn't.

Abe left, abashed, and Nero slunk behind him, face bleeding, winded, and sullen. On his last encounter with Moses, a skunk had put him to shame, and now the young pup had had the audacity to attack. It is not in the nature of a bully to enjoy such encounters. It did nothing to sweeten his temper. In sheepishness, and also in relief, Abe would have been satisfied to drop the whole subject, but he made the mistake of telling Hank about it that evening.

Hank had noticed Nero's lip, and asked, "What's this mutt been up to?"

The whole story followed.

"Ya mean that stupid dog that drags a purse around?" Hank asked, when Abe had finished relaying the tale. "Got what ya deserved, Nero." He gave Nero a kick, but it didn't land. Nero had learned the adeptness at avoiding his kicks. Missing him angered Hank because it upset his balance. He stumbled and looked foolish. His oft-proven antidote was belligerence.

"Abe, I know how to fix that stupid dog," he spit the words, and Abe was drawn into his plan.

"I seen that Green's dog's purse down by the creek the other day. Let's go git it - got an idea," Hank said.

Abe's interest was sparked, and now, like John Bunyan's "Pliable" he was willing to be persuaded that he and Nero had been meanly treated. They walked the half mile along the highway between their farm and the Green's property, and Nero followed behind. They cut diagonally across the field to the creek which bordered the properties in the area. The creek bank was a natural path to follow. It was used by hunters in duck season, and those who searched for wild mushrooms and mustard greens and the blackberries which tangled in the long, marshy grasses and around the trees, and for the early spring fishermen and for the young student freed from classroom exactions. It was the path for idle summer hours of exploration and meditation, for the gentle Moses' inquisitiveness, and for the more aggressive Nero's research. It was for the bashful, thirsty deer, the presumptuous woodchuck, and the waddling, bush-tailed skunk.

It was along this creek path that Hank had walked with Nero one hot summer afternoon, and had seen Moses' purse. He had picked it up, hoping there might be something inside, but threw it from him in disgust. It smelled awful. He did not notice Nero's strange withdrawal at the time, and he tossed the bag aside and walked on. Now he had remembered. He and Abe got to the creek bank, and there it lay as he had remembered.

"Git that thing, Abe," he directed, and Abe did as he was told, grumbling.

"This stinks, Hank, what ya want with it?"

"Just c'mon. We'll fix that dumb dog. Kill two birds with one stone's what we'll do." And Abe followed him along the creek behind the Johnson's slaughterhouse and up to the hen-yard.

Shortly afterward, Mrs. Johnson heard an awful ruckus in the hen house. There was squalling and the chickens were wildly flapping about.

"Sounds like a weasel's in there," she thought, as she hurried to the door.

Before she even went to the barn to get Ted or the boys, she ran directly to the hen house herself. It was past sunset, but not yet really dark. She could not see clearly, but she could see well enough to be certain a black dog ran out behind a figure she couldn't identify. Afraid to go further in alone, she turned for the barn. There she found Greg and Tom who ran with her back to the hen house.

Inside, they found two chickens with their necks wrung, and many eggs smashed up against the wire mesh of the feeders and along the ground. The yellows, still viscous and liquidy, were glued here and there to patches of straw on the dirt floor. In the middle of the mess lay an almost unrecognizable leather handbag. Greg picked it up.

"Looks like Moses' purse," he said. The Johnsons had laughed many times at the big dog next door with his silly purse.

"I'm sure it is, Greg, but it sure can't be Moses that did this," Mrs. Johnson exclaimed. "Just can't make me believe that. I saw a black dog, about his size, too, but it wasn't Moses." She was emphatic, but she certainly wasn't arguing with anyone.

Greg answered, "Me neither, Mom. Any more than I could see Miriam in here with a hammer doin' this to our eggs!" His eye caught something. Going over to the door, he saw, under a patch of egg-splattered straw, a tool. Lifting it he said, "Well, I know it wasn't a hammer they used. It was a pipe wrench - at least for the egg smashing..."

The whole scene was disgusting. It was not the sort of thing to just "let go." It had to be resolved. The three of them cleaned up. They removed the dead chickens, which were salvageable, and swept the eggs, which weren't, and the wetted straw outside the door, closing it firmly behind them. Then they waited for Mr. Johnson to come up to the house from evening chores, and they all walked over to the Green's, pretty confident that the pipe wrench, as well as the purse, belonged to them. They might have some ideas of who might have visited the hen house.

Mr. and Mrs. Green participated in their disgust and desire to expose the vandal or vandals. Moses saw his purse in Mrs. Johnson's hand and kept a healthy distance, even yet.

"Why, Moses hasn't chewed his purse for weeks, Mrs. Johnson," Miriam made unnecessary excuse.

Mr. Johnson smiled at her. "Don't you worry, little girl. He's too smart to fool with somethin' smells this bad." He indicated the purse. "We just wondered if you'd know where he may have left it last?" In his other hand he held the pipe wrench.

"Why, no, Mr. Johnson. I wondered where he'd left it ever since Mom said he couldn't bring it inside anymore. I figured he'd buried it. Guess he should have!" She was relieved at the Johnson's obvious vote of confidence in Moses' integrity. "I know where that came from, though," she said, pointing to the pipe wrench. "I loaned that to Abe Zender just this afternoon."

"Got that pipe wrench, Hank?" Mr. Zender yelled.

He stood at his kitchen sink later that same evening. The water, which had been drawn that morning over the breakfast plates still stood, but was now cold and gray with oily puddles floating on the top. The dishes had been removed and stood congealed with hardened egg yolk, on the sideboard.

Hank came into the kitchen looking at the mess. He made excuse. "Couldn't get one from the Johnsons or the Olneys. Ask Abe."

"Abe! Git in here!" Mr. Zender called, and Abe, who had been on the step with Nero, came in.

"I got a pipe wrench from the Greens," he said, glad to have something positive to lend to the climate.

He looked to the old gate leg table on the porch where he tended to lay his belongings whenever he would come inside. The pipe wrench wasn't there, and a vague uneasiness clouded his mind until it culminated in a very clear recollection of where he had last seen the borrowed pipe wrench. He looked up, and knew the time for excuses was probably past. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Green were walking toward the back door of the Zender's house, in spite of Nero's noisy blast of angry barks, in his usual welcome. The two men caught the fear and defensiveness on Abe's face as they opened the screen door and stepped inside.

Much later that night, Jeff and Miriam and Mr. and Mrs. Green sat at the table having coffee and Salerno Butter cookies. Having a cup of coffee was part of their evening routine. Mrs. Green would chide about it stunting their growth, and she insisted on pouring Miriam's cup half full with milk. However, it was not the taste or the temperature or the milk which assured its value. It was the companionship and the acceptance into the adult world which provided the nourishment.

"We left him to deal with his boys," Mr. Green said.

"Are they gonna pay the Johnsons for the chickens and the eggs?" Jeff asked.

"Yep. That was the understanding."

"How did he take it when you two walked over?" Mrs. Green asked.

Mr. Green answered, "Well, you know the Zenders. First thing is to deny any wrong-doing. Next thing, look for an excuse. But this time there was no place to hide. Caught 'em red-handed... egg on their face, ya might say?" He grinned.

Miriam took it all in avidly. Mrs. Green felt it necessary to curb any possibility of her children becoming too harsh in their judgment of their neighbors. She knew the memorized admonition from her childhood catechism about your neighbor, "To defend him, speak well of him, and to put the best construction on everything." This she endeavored to do, for the sake of her eleven-year old daughter and her seventeen-year old son.

"You know," she began, "Hank and Abe's folks haven't taught them right from wrong. You can't quite hold them accountable for _all_ they get into..." her excuse was feeble though her intention was generous.

Jeff's reaction was immediate. "Aw, Mom. You don't need to be taught it's wrong to wring the necks of your neighbor's chickens and clunk a few dozen of their eggs with a borrowed pipe wrench."

Mr. Green looked at Mrs. Green. "He's right, Jane," he said, emphatically. "Some things a person ought to know without being told."

Miriam had been a little quiet during this exchange, sipping her coffee. Now she asked, "What about Hank and Abe? Think they'll always be like that?"

"Can't tell. Seems so, pretty often. Anybody can change, though. Not much hope for the human race without change," Mr. Green suggested.

"But how?" Miriam asked.

"Well," Mrs. Green tried to encourage the possibility, "story of two missionaries I heard once tells of a way."

"What's the story, Mom?" Miriam asked, and the three of them listened as she tried to remember the details.

"It's a true story, about two Chinese people who'd come to know the Lord through a missionary who'd come to their land. Every night they'd carry water to their garden. Took a lot of carrying, but it had to be done." She paused. "Seems their neighbor would drain off the water they'd carry, soon as they'd leave, into his own garden, by digging a trench from theirs to his. Every night this would happen, and those two men just kept it up and kept it up for about a week."

"What happened then?" Miriam prodded.

"Well," Mrs. Green went on, "they went back to the mission and told the missionary that the Lord's way didn't work. No matter how many times they overlooked their neighbor's theft and kept on carrying water without objecting, nothing changed. They felt like fools, and they were angry too. But the missionary told them, 'You didn't really do it the Lord's way,' he said."

"Why not?" Jeff asked, thinking they had sure turned the other cheek for longer than he would have been able.

Mrs. Green continued. "He told them the Lord's way was to carry water first to their neighbor's garden - then to their own."

"Did it work?" Miriam asked.

"Yes, it did. The Lord's way is to 'go the twain,'" Mrs. Green was confident in her answer.

"Does that mean we should loan the Zenders things before they steal them?" Jeff asked a little sarcastically, "Or give them, because they're going to get them anyway?" He wasn't sure he liked the application.

Mr. Green answered, "I'm not sure that's the way, but you continue to be neighborly where you can, Jeff." He knew Jeff would have to have time to sort these things out for himself - that he wouldn't learn justice except he saw some of it himself. He had confidence Jeff would come to the right conclusions in the long run, and that his own part was to keep on teaching him the things he knew to be right and good. He finished, "Doesn't mean you have to be a fool..."

Mrs. Green agreed, "Well, no. But sometimes you can look for an opportunity to help or loan something, and that changes things sometimes. Sometimes it comes about that you need them, too, and that all works to make them feel more kindly about life."

Miriam had settled her new chick in a large cardboard box just inside the kitchen door. She looked over to it and said, "I suppose we could loan them something sometime, but it sure won't be a pipe wrench, or my chicken!"
Chapter 10

"The Comfort Wherewith We Ourselves are Comforted"

****

The Greens and the Johnsons had gone to the county fair at Redney together, where Mr. Green and Mr. Johnson planned on watching the tractor pulls, while Mrs. Green and Mrs. Johnson watched the judging of the homemade pies, cakes, fudge, and preserves. Greg and Tom had been to the fair the day before, and now Mr. Johnson reminded Greg to fill the gas tank of the truck and to finish the chores before evening set in. The Johnsons drove, waving goodbye to Miriam who would wait for Jeff to return from mowing the Johnson's fields. Not long after, Jeff came in from the field, ashen-white, and calling for Mr. or Mrs. Green. Miriam hurried in response to the imperative sound in his voice. She saw him on the sun-porch, wrapping a dish cloth around his left hand.

"I cut my finger bad, Mir," he told her. It was obvious by the blood quickly soaking through the rag. This caused her to gasp, but she swallowed quickly and rallied to the need.

"What happened, Jeff?" It helped her to be running for cold water and more cloths as she asked.

"I stopped the tractor because the sickle-bar was jammed. A rock was caught between the teeth, so I pushed it out with my fingers. I had to push it hard - so hard that when it moved my fingers pushed down between the cutting teeth," Jeff shuddered, "and they came together." Jeff knew, now that it was too late, that if he had released the tension on the sickle-bar, the teeth could not have come together.

Miriam had filled a pan with cold water and she carried it to Jeff, sloshing hurriedly on the way. He was sitting now, looking whiter than ever. By the cloth it was apparent that he'd lost considerable blood. She remembered to say, "Put your head down between your knees, Jeff." He followed her direction weakly but obediently.

"I think the bleeding's nearly stopped now, Miriam," he encouraged her.

He was sensitive to how his injury might affect her. She in turn took heart from this expression of selflessness. As the water soaked the towel off the torn flesh she asked to see. He raised his hand from the water and was more horrified than she was. The tip of the index finger on his right hand hung limp and was badly cut. The middle finger hung nearly severed. It looked crushed, as though it didn't belong to his hand.

"Oh Jeff!" The distress in Miriam's voice helped, strangely.

Instinctively, Jeff sought to support his little sister. "I'll be ok, Mir. Only, we have to get some help."

"I'll go to the Johnson's, they can drive us to town!" Then she remembered that they were in Redney with the Greens and weren't planning on being back until eight o'clock. "I think only Greg and Tom are home, shall I go, Jeff?" She was frightened then, and undecided, but Jeff was able to think for her, at that point.

"Yeah, better see if they can come over, or go for help or something?"

Jeff had put his head back down between his knees, and Miriam put her hand on his head the way she'd seen her mother do when one of them was sick. Then she ran next door, Moses following right behind.

"Try not to faint, Jeff," she called, ineffectually.

"That's what I'm tryin'. Hurry, ok?" he called back, weakly, but with enough strength in his voice to push her on over to the Johnson's. She knocked at their back door, but no one answered, so she ran to the chicken yard and found Tom gathering eggs.

"Jeff hurt his hand bad, Tom. He's bleeding. One finger's nearly off..." Tom was sufficiently impressed.

"I'll go get Greg," he said, and ran to the barn, yelling for Greg as he went.

"What's up?" Greg asked, realizing the urgency.

Tom answered for Miriam, "Jeff's hurt his hand, needs a doctor."

The three of them ran back to the Green's. Jeff was sitting back against the wall, looking sickish, but controlled.

"Need some help. Think you can drive me to town, Greg?" he asked.

"Know I can. No license, but I can get you there." There wasn't time even for pride in his ability. They both knew he could handle a tractor or a truck as well as Jeff could. He'd been doing it for so many years already.

"I'll go for the truck," he said, and left.

In a few moments he was back in the drive, and Miriam held Jeff's good hand and insisted he lean on her. Tom opened the passenger door of the cab for Jeff, and closed it when he was settled, head back against the seat, looking ghostly white to the three of them.

"C'mon, Miriam," Tom instructed. "You'n me 'n Moses'll ride in the back."

Greg backed out of the drive and headed for town. About three-quarters of a mile down the road, as they were passing the Zender's farm, his dad's reminder came back to him. He had not remembered to fill the gas tank, and he knew that what was in the tank would never get them to town. He looked over at Jeff, three years his senior. Jeff's eyes were closed, and he looked so helpless Greg didn't want him to even know there was another problem. His first thought was to park and run the three-quarters of a mile back for gas to fill up, so that they could get to town. He pulled over to the side and got out without saying anything to Jeff, who appeared to be sleeping.

He hitched up on the running board and said to Miriam and Tom in the truck bed, "Need gas. I'll go back for it."

Tom said, "That'll take at least fifteen minutes, Greg."

"Best I can do," Greg answered, angry at himself, and at Tom for most any comment that could have been made at that time.

Miriam said, distressed at the delay, "Let me go ask Zenders. Can you back up into their drive? It'd be quicker."

"The Zenders! What good'll that do?" Greg muttered. It was closer, though.

"Let me try," Miriam said, confident that this was worth a try.

Greg got back in the truck and backed up into the Zender's drive. Miriam got out without the hesitancy which might have prevented such a call on another occasion. Hank and Abe both came out, pugnacious, but interested. They waited for her to speak.

"Hank," she seemed to know he being older would have the authority, which consideration he recognized. "My brother Jeff's hurt bad. We need some gas, can we borrow some?" Hank also recognized the fright in her voice, and the appeal.

He looked hard at her, undecided. Nero stood behind him, alert to the sound of the truck, to Moses in the back with Tom, to the tension in Hank. Instinctively, Miriam went down on one knee and extended her hand to him, waiting for Hank's answer. Nero moved forward, and just as instinctively responded to the gentleness so foreign to his experience. He licked her hand. Hank saw this brief transaction. He made his decision.

"Go get the gas can, Abe! Be sure it's filled up!" he ordered. "How bad's he hurt?" he asked then, and together they hurried to the truck. "Lemme see yer hand," he said to Jeff.

Jeff uncovered the damaged hand as best he could without tearing the towel from the dried blood. Greg looked too, and for the first time saw the injury. He shuddered as Jeff had, and looked away. Hank looked at Greg.

"Want me to drive?" he asked.

"Naw, I think it'll be ok. C'mon along though, in case I get stopped?" The offer on both parts was gracious, and not awkward, in the extremity of the situation.

Abe was there in a minute with a five-gallon gas can, filled to the top. He lifted it heavily and poured it into the tank. Tom put the gas cap back on.

"Hop in?" Tom asked Abe, and Abe returned, "Sure."

Greg pulled out of the drive. Three in the cab, three in the truck bed with Moses settled on the floor, they headed for town. It had been about ten minutes from Miriam's call for Greg and Tom, but now it seemed a long time ago to Miriam.

Abe said, "Rabbit bit off the tip of my little finger once." He held it up and Tom stared, appreciatively. Miriam, however, looked beyond it.

She heard Tom say, "How'd that happen?" He was impressed, and Abe was glad to embellish the incident of severance.

"I was just a little kid," Abe said, and Tom nodded, knowingly. "I stuck my finger into the rabbit cage and the big buck bit it off. Hurt like crazy, but it surprised me, more. Ran screaming to my mom and she drove me right to the hospital. When we got there she was worse off'n I was, and the nurse told her she shoulda brought the piece of the finger with her."

Miriam had been listening in spite of herself, and he just didn't stop!

"Well, my mom drove back for the piece, but the rabbit had ate it up."

"Oh, Abe! Shut up! You're making me sick!" Miriam's voice raised and when the boys looked at her they thought she looked like she meant it. She was greenish.

"'S ok now," Abe encouraged.

He looked at Tom, and they seemed to agree, "Girls!" But under the circumstances they changed the subject. Before more sordid and fitting recollections could be exchanged, they were at Doc Williams' office. Everyone got out, and Greg opened Jeff's door for him. At this point Miriam took over. She was family, and rightly took her place as small nurse-mother. With some small authority and tender solicitousness, she led Jeff to the receptionist, and did the careful explanation. The nurse approved the treatment thus far.

"Well! You kids did very well, and we'll have him fixed up in no time!" While she was talking, she was leaving to call Dr. Williams from another patient in the back room. In a moment he was carefully unwrapping the damaged hand.

"What'd you do, Jeff?" He talked busily and kindly as he unwrapped.

Jeff stumbled out an apology. "My dad always warned me about releasing the tension bar 'fore I'd put my hand in. I just forgot," he explained. He needed to acknowledge his foolishness himself, before someone else could. This he was not ready for, though he felt he deserved it.

Dr. Williams soothed, "Jeff, I have never yet had anyone come in here with a smart accident. You just ask your dad how to have them, for me, will you? Jeff smiled and Miriam was so relieved.

The nurse led her out and said, "You'd better wait with your friends, honey." So Miriam sat in the lobby with Greg and Hank.

Tom and Abe stayed in the back of the truck with Moses who behaved like a gentleman through it all. Hank and Greg stood at the side of the building, waiting. After about half an hour, Abe and Tom walked with Moses to the corner drug store and bought five soda pops. They asked for a paper cup full of water for Moses who slobbered his appreciation, drinking from the cup as they tilted it for him. They finished their sodas, and Moses followed them back to the truck. Tom gave Hank and Greg each a soda, and carried one inside for Miriam. The nurse was telling her it would be a while before Jeff would be all fixed up, and could they - did they think they could get Mr. and Mrs. Green over? Miriam said they were at the fair in Redney with the Johnsons and weren't expected back for another two or three hours.

"Think anyone could go for them?" the nurse asked. Miriam felt her stomach turn, knowing it sounded more serious than she had hoped.

"I think the Olney's would go," she said. The nurse told her that would be very good!

"Think these boys would take you to ask them?" she asked.

Tom said, "Sure! C'mon Miriam, we'll get them," and together they left, carrying their pop bottles.

Olney's garage was just up the street about a block. Greg drove there, beginning to be concerned about his driving to town and also about the gas gauge, now that the crisis was settled. He was glad to pull into the Olney's garage.

Mr. Olney came out. "Well! Greg Johnson! Bit young to be about town, aren't you?" It was a kindly, but genuine, question.

"Yessir, Jeff Green got his hand hurt bad. Had to get him into town for help. Doc Williams wants his folks."

Mr. Olney said, "They still up to the fair?"

"Yep. That's why we're here," Greg answered.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "if you boys here mind the place for me, I'll run over to Redney and get them. It won't take long. Hank Zender, how old are you now?"

Hank didn't answer, "Year older'n I was last year at this time." He wasn't smart-alecky at all. Instead he answered, "Seventeen, same age as Jeff."

"Good," Mr. Olney came back. "If anyone comes by here, you just sit on 'em, till I get back, y'hear?" Mr. Olney's instructions indicated a trust, and this gave Hank a vote of confidence.

After Mr. Olney had left for Redney, Greg was amazed at Hank's apparent friendliness, even willingness to sit and talk with him. Seemed like working together, he might be halfway decent. Greg and his dad worked together a lot now, and were really good friends. Maybe Hank just needed someone he could be friends with, too.

"Think Jeff's finger can be sewn back on, Hank?" he asked.

"Dunno. Looked bad to me. Only lose one knuckle, probably." He was looking at his own hand stretched out. Then he got up from the cement stoop in the entrance-way of the garage and went inside. Greg watched him go in, but in a minute he was back outside, with a broom.

"Maybe we could sweep up. It'd pass the time. Abe, you'n Tom go get us some more soda pops!" He was used to taking charge, but he generously reached into his pocket for coins, and handed them to Abe. Greg moved a stack of tires and straightened, while Hank swept.

Miriam sat in the back of the truck, watching for Mr. Olney's return, while Abe and Tom started down the road. Moses started to walk with them, and Miriam, distracted with her thoughts, let him go. In a moment, when he saw she was not coming too, he returned and lay under the shade of the truck, alert to any new possibilities, but quiet. Miriam saw him return, and wished he could be with Jeff right now. Many times she had seen Jeff call or whistle to Moses, and Moses didn't go very often or very quickly. She wondered if it made Jeff feel bad. It would have made her feel bad, she thought. She hadn't wanted Moses to be only hers. But she couldn't make Moses like Jeff the same way he liked her, either. Mostly, it didn't seem to matter. In fact, Jeff kidded about it, and thought it was funny. He'd say, "Boy, Miriam! Think your boyfriend'll follow you around like that?" and then he would smile or laugh at her. But now she wished with all her heart that Moses could be lying alongside Jeff, to help comfort him, as he so often did her.

In about half an hour, Mr. Olney returned. He was alone in his car, but right behind were the Johnsons. Mr. Olney pulled in and called to Miriam within hearing of the boys.

"Miriam, I dropped your folks off at Doc Williams'. C'mon. I'll bring you back there, too. Thanks for tending the store for me, boys. Place looks nice! Soon's I get back, the Johnsons'll take the rest of you back home."

Miriam hopped in the car and waved at the Johnsons. She looked to Mr. Olney to see about Moses, who was standing beside the car door. It was presumptuous to think a person would want a dog in their car without being asked.

"Let him in the back there," he said kindly, and so she reached back for the door, calling the invitation to Moses.

"C'mon, boy! Good boy!" Moses believed her, and when he had hopped in, they backed out, once again.

They rode home that evening, Miriam and Jeff in the back seat of the car, with Moses on the floor under their feet.

Mrs. Green said, "Jeff, every time I think of that finger, I'll thank God for the hand," and Mr. Green said Amen.

There had been no chiding for not having a "smart" accident, and Jeff had been relieved. But now, in the wake of things, there was an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, on top of the throbbing in his hand. Doc Williams had had to remove two knuckles on the middle finger. Right up until the last minute he'd held on to the hope of his hand being "fixed up," but lying on the table, he'd had to hold back tears when the Doctor had told the three of them it couldn't be saved. His mom hadn't said anything, but squeezed his good hand hard, over and over. His dad had said quietly to Doc Williams, "You just do what you have to do, Doc." And now Miriam sat with him so silent next to her, and she didn't know how to comfort him. She could help him when there was a big emergency need, but she didn't know how to let him know how badly she felt for him. She, too, was relieved that his whole hand hadn't been caught. She'd not thought of the possibility earlier, but it might have happened so easily. Yet, to lose your finger was so awful, so awful. She didn't want to shudder when she thought of looking at it, because she didn't want Jeff to feel bad. She remembered what Mrs. Chaney had said about receiving comfort, but how could you give it? Sometimes, she had said, it was with words, and sometimes without words. How, Jesus? She asked, half audibly. Just then, Moses looked up, responding to what was almost her sigh. His head leaned toward the source, as best he could maneuver in the cramped back seat. He rested his long, sympathizing face across Jeff's knee. Miriam reached to pet his head, as she always did, but Jeff, eyes closed, had laid his good hand upon the dog's head, and was ruffling his ears, and stroking his silky neck and shoulders. Moses lay quietly under his hand, sharing the loss in every ounce of his canine soul. He too closed his eyes, absorbing Jeff's caress.

"Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Moses," Miriam whispered.

Hank and Abe boiled themselves some hot dogs that night, and sat on the porch eating them. They tossed one to Nero, who swallowed it whole, and waited, alert for another contribution.

"Jeff's ok," Hank said. "Too bad about his finger."

"Oh, he'll get over it all right. I did," Abe offered, condescendingly.

Together they went in, without a surly comment. They even soaked the pan in the sink, and put the mustard away.
Chapter 11

"Nanny"

****

The chicken had the freedom of the upper yard each day, before it was put away in the box each evening. Moses was its insurance against predators, and so it passed its days confidently, peeping its way noisily into everything penetrable with its sharp little bill. Miriam scattered handfuls of oatmeal in the grass, and her chicken would peck at it appreciatively, and eat the grass about it, along with the oatmeal. Moses was fascinated. Just as he had played with the Chaney's Kitty, he now played with the chicken, only his rash puppy frivolity had tempered over the months, and he did not throw the chicken into the air. He only mouthed it and carried it about gently.

The first time Miriam saw this, she was terrified, and called out to Moses so hastily that he seemed frightened too. He quickly dropped his little charge and came running. The chicken fell from his jaws, and Miriam half expected it to lay there, but it raised wobbly to its feet, looked about, and started pecking the grass.

Jeff, who had been nearby, looked over and laughed. "Mo won't hurt him, Miriam!" he assured her.

"How do you know?" she asked, glad of the reassurance.

"I've seen him with birds he catches."

"You have?" Miriam was surprised.

"Yep. Couple weeks ago I caught him with a bird in his mouth, down by the creek. I thought it was a goner! But I called him over, and he came right away, and dropped the bird right at my feet. Bird was ok. Just a little wet!" Jeff laughed.

"That's what he used to do with the Chaney's kitten. He just slobbered all over her!" Miriam smiled, when she remembered. She didn't know if Jeff knew all the details of how it was she had come to own Moses. Probably not, she thought. Somehow, though, he was much more interested in Moses, ever since he'd hurt his hand. Moses had been a comfort to him, and now they really were closer! Miriam liked that.

Jeff went on, "When I saw what he had done with that little bird, I was really surprised. I thought dogs killed what they caught, mostly. That's their way."

"I know," Miriam responded. "I don't like to let him hurt anything when I'm around to help it, but I know that he chases squirrels and rabbits all the time. And moles! I figured he'd catch birds too, if he could."

"Guess you don't have to worry about that! Your finches are safe," Jeff answered. Jeff knew she loved the finches. They all watched them from the breakfast table when they would flock around the feeder their mother kept filled with thistle. "You know that time I was filling water balloons for the church picnic, Miriam?"

"Yes! That was fun."

"Well, Moses was watching me, and he was really getting nosey, so I filled one up only halfway, to see what he would do with it. I thought it would pop in his mouth right away, and that would keep him out of my hair."

"Did it?"

"Kept him out of my hair, and my water balloons, but not the way I thought it would. He took the one I gave him, carried it a little ways away, and sat down with it. It never busted all the while he carried it. He just held it in his mouth, and then he'd lay it on the ground and pick it up again. The feeling of it must have been strange to him. He kept picking it up and laying it down again. Finally, he picked it up and started walking with it. Maybe he thought he'd bury it. Probably thought it was some strange sort of bone. Well, he laid it down once again, only this time it must have been on a sharp thorn or something, 'cause it popped, right in his face! You should have seen him! He backed up, and set down on his haunches and barked and barked at that thing, and when he was done, he didn't come near the ones I was filling."

Miriam laughed, and rubbed Moses' ears. He had dropped the chicken, which seemed grateful for the privilege of resuming its foraging, and had come close to be a part of their conversation. Every time his name was mentioned, his black ears would twitch or tilt. He loved the voices and the attention.

"Strange dog," she said.

"Well, maybe he's part retriever," Jeff told her. "I've always heard they're taught to retrieve birds very carefully, and not to injure them with their mouths. Thats part of the breed. Also, it helps explain how gentle he is."

Miriam liked that idea, and it did seem to fit. It gave her great assurance about her chick's safety, and it was nice that Moses had a living toy! She could hardly consider the chicken a playmate. It didn't play back. It just escaped, and went on eating. Chickens must eat _all_ the time, she thought.

The cooler autumn days returned early, Moses' first year of life. School began just after Labor Day. Miriam started sixth grade and Jeff began his senior year in high school. They took the same bus, but Miriam was dropped off before Jeff. Washington Elementary School was on the outskirts of town off the main highway, past Olney's garage about a mile and a half. The high school was in Redney, about seven miles east. In nice weather, the year before, Miriam had walked to the Chaney's after school. In the winter, she and Jeff rode the same bus home, and Jeff had driven her back to Chaney's in the Johnson's truck, which they were glad to lend. Now, this year, Jeff would get out of school two hours earlier than Miriam, and would be able to work longer for the Johnsons.

"It's no problem, Miriam. Even in bad weather," he told her. "Mr. Wilson will drop you off right at the Chaney's. Always would have!" Jeff knew Miriam had been too shy to ask special favors, but he couldn't see that this was such a big one to ask. "I'll even ask for you," he offered magnanimously.

"No, I can. Do you really think he wouldn't mind?"

"Course not. What's a stop, anyway? Doesn't cost him more than a minute."

"But once I heard him tell Hank Zender he wasn't a taxi service," she still hesitated.

"How do you suppose Hank asked?" Jeff replied.

"Well, I guess you're right. He just shouted for Mr. Wilson to stop and let him off..."  Miriam remembered that the Zender boys seemed to bring out the worst in people, and she hoped this year things would be a little better, anyway. They hadn't had any problems with them at all, ever since they had been so helpful, the time Jeff lost his finger. They'd even been together down at the creek, talking and tossing stones, and they'd asked how Jeff's hand was coming along, as though they had a personal concern in it. For the first summer, there had been a feeling of neighborliness. Mrs. Green had sent along a loaf of homemade bread, and some grape jelly when they had returned the five gallon can of gasoline. Mr. Zender sent the gas back, even. Kept the bread, though he didn't say anything. Miriam thought, if he had been the one to drive them, perhaps it would be easier for him to feel neighborly, now, too. But she was glad for the boys, and wondered what changes might be coming up in the school year ahead. She and Tom were in the sixth grade, and Greg in ninth grade. This year he would go to the high school building with Jeff. It would be different, seeing Greg go off to a different school building this year.

Miriam asked Mr. Wilson herself, if he would mind dropping her off at the Chaney's after school on days when she couldn't walk from the school. She worked there, she told him, and it would be real helpful, if he didn't mind, though it wasn't a usual stop for him. He responded to Miriam with the common courtesies of life with which we grace one another, and told her he didn't mind at all. She wouldn't be stopping there this first week, she told him, because the Chaneys were out of town. He told her to just let him know, and to remind him by coming up to him on the days when she'd want to be let off.

Moses was left on the sun porch when Miriam and Jeff left in the morning. Mr. and Mrs. Green had to leave an hour earlier than they did. He could leave the porch by pushing the screen open with his nose, but he could not get back in. Miriam had tried to teach him to push the door with his nose or paw, and if she wedged it with a small stick, it was easily done. But instead, Moses would push his way out, and then pick up the stick with which she had wedged the door, and carry it a few yards away to gnaw on it until he would grow bored. When he would return to the door, it would be shut tight against the possibility of his pawing his way back in. It wasn't a problem, though; he would rather be outside, anyway, than in an empty house.

This first day of school, Moses had an impending feeling of long lonely hours. He probably did not remember the end of the last school year, and the lonely days finally coming to an end. He accepted Miriam's constant presence with great joy, and without that human dread which accompanies foreknowledge, that these days too, shall pass. He simply enjoyed. There was an intuitive foreboding to a minor extent, which probably helped prepare him for the lonely hours. When she would dress up, and leave with her parents in the car on summer days or evenings, he would sense that this was different from a run over to the Johnson's, on which trips he would always go along. His reaction was to almost sulk away, ears down, tail disconsolate, a picture of dejection. Miriam always took note, and consoled him, telling him exactly what her plans were and when she would be back, but if he took heart, he did not let her know. Her consolations were not well-received, though she was immediately forgiven, if for some reason she returned to the house because she had forgotten something. He would initiate a riotous welcome, though the absence may have covered all of sixty seconds or so, until she would return to the car once again. He would audibly slump, and brood. In mercy, Miriam kept her momentary returns to a minimum. Mr. Green took the whole thing in, and thought it was very funny.

Moses saw the bus which carried Miriam away. She caught it in front of the house, and Moses could see her get on, from his large screen view, from the sunporch. When she had one, she gave him a special treat before she left, knowing it would bring some comfort, eventually. A bone was especially good, because it would occupy him a considerable time, depending upon its size. Miriam would ask the butcher for bones when they were shopping in town, and she saved them for the going away times. She had given him one this morning, and she left for the bus, with Jeff. Moses disdained his bone, and watched the embarkment lamentably. In a moment he sighed, and turned to the succulence of the bone, but at that moment, the little chick made its presence known, peeping and scratching just outside the sunporch door. Moses pushed his way outside, and pounced upon his plaything, lifting it, gently, in his jaws. The chicken objected, to no avail. It did not have powers of persuasion, and therefore could not capitalize on the dilemma Moses immediately found himself in. There was a succulent bone lying inaccessibly on the other side of the screen door, this chicken to be brought under submission, and Miriam, riding in the wrong direction from him, down the country road at good speed. His was not the character of vacillation. He took two of his three options, and started down the road after the bus, with the chicken in his mouth.

Moses was just under a year, and he trotted with the vigor of youth after the bus. Within minutes, the bus was out of sight, lost to his vision over the rising hill of the country road, and turning onto the highway. Moses knew the well-travelled path to town, and did not question his turns. The chicken rode quietly, and the morning was cool so that Moses had little trouble breathing, at least for a while. He sat once, and let the chicken go, but it was too unbalanced to do more than shake itself, and to get its land legs. By then, Moses had regained his energies, and again pounced upon his protege, and resumed his travels. Another trotting quarter of a mile, another stop, another fluffing of chicken wings, another repacking, and Moses and his chicken carried on.

Moses was beginning to get very winded. He'd not had a drink since he left home. The creek was his usual supply, at home, or the water bowl on the porch. Sometimes along the road there would be puddles, or abandoned tires partly filled with rain water, but it was a dry time of year, and Moses found no water supply on the bus-trek. About four miles from home, he recognized the familiar territory of the Chaney's farm. After he had been given wholly to Miriam she had often been here with Moses, and as always, the hospitality continued to extend and embrace. Instinctively, he knew it as a place of refreshing waters, and he turned in for his drink.

He found the house quiet, and so turned toward the barn. As he approached, Missy came out to greet him. He dropped the chicken, and went forward to return her greeting. Their tails wagged joyously, they touched noses and nuzzled each other in genuine welcome. The chick got to its feet, shook its feathers, and foraged. There was a water dish outside the barn door, well filled, and Moses went to it and drank long and deep. The chicken followed, and did the same. Missy totally ignored the second water dish visitor. She was quite used to the strange ways of chickens, and had been well-taught not to bother them. The idea of one being her playmate was totally foreign to her, though she accepted the aberrations of her foster-son without comment. He had forgotten his two-legged burden in his reunion with Missy, and after greeting and refreshment they romped together and toured the farm as friends. The chicken finally succumbed to the exactions of its journey, and balled up its small feathered tabernacle under the broad shelter of a burdock leaf, and went to sleep.

The Chaney's tool shed was attached to the barn, and between the house and the barn where it could be seen clearly by a quick look out any of the windows on three sides of the house. Their tools were loaned generously, but were also well-accounted for. Tools were a man's bread and butter, Miriam had heard Mr. Chaney say. Lee Whitcomb knew the value of good tools, also. He lived near Redney and had worked part time for Mr. Olney. He had often borrowed Mr. Olney's tools, which was a courtesy extended to all of his hands. But Mr. Whitcomb had to be reminded to return the wrench or the socket set or the drill so often that Mr. Olney started suggesting that he bring his work in to the garage and do it there. When he found Lee borrowing without asking, he did the only thing a man could rightly do under the circumstances, and let him go. Lee Whitcomb was a good mechanic, and could have made his way very well by the skill of both his mind and his hands, but he was not trustworthy, and that was intolerable, in any business. It was with regret, but also with solid conviction of necessity, that Mr. Olney gave him his final pay envelope. Lee didn't ask why. It wasn't the first time he had been let go without specific warning. He seethed inside, and somehow the tools which had been borrowed in the past continued to be missing, but new ones also turned up missing from time to time, and Mr. Olney wondered about them.

Hank Zender had come in asking for part time work, and Mr. Olney had put him on. He didn't know if he were doing himself any favors, he told his wife, getting rid of Lee Whitcomb and taking on the Zender boy to replace him.

"He says he'll do a good job for me, and I want to trust him," Mr. Olney told her. "It'd be good for that boy to have someone about town trust him. Thing going for him is he knows what his reputation is. Also knows I know it."

"Maybe that'll put him on his guard," Mrs. Olney suggested.

"Yep. And that's not bad. Depends on what the guard is for. To keep from gettin' caught, or to keep a trust."

It hadn't been a quick decision, but the next time Hank came in, Mr. Olney had hired him, and Hank seemed to hold his head up straighter, and look forward to the after school occupation. Mr. Olney also kept his eyes on him, and never saw him do anything to suspect that the missing tools were in any way connected to his comings and goings. Mr. Olney was correct.

Lee Whitcomb had had a key made to the Olney's side door one afternoon in Redney. The key hung on a hook by the cash register inside the garage, and was rarely used. Fact is, Mr. Olney came in through the big garage doors early every morning of the week, opening the place himself. He was the only one who had the key to the wide doors. The side door was only needed if he'd ever wanted to come in without opening the big doors. They, then, could be opened from the inside without a key, but Mr. Olney never actually did this, and so the side door remained locked with the key hanging inside. He had nearly forgotten about it. But Lee Whitcomb had not.

Lee had a history of practiced cunning about him. His intention was not to steal from Mr. Olney in some future necessity. It was just his way of capitalizing upon every opportunity which presented itself. The unused key was one of those items which had caught his eye and stimulated his lust for self-aggrandization. Every man needed his tools, and this key was a potential tool. He lifted it surreptitiously from its hook, and pocketed it for the next trip to Redney. There he had the key duplicated in the hardware store, where no questions were asked, and as far as he knew, no eyebrows raised. The duplicating of keys was a universal Saturday morning activity. He paid for his investment, and pocketed the two keys, re-clipping the one to its leather Olney Garage identification tag, on his way out. That afternoon, he quietly returned the key and its tag to the hook on the garage wall. It had never been missed.

Not many days after Lee's dismissal, when Hank Zender was still a very new employee, Mr. Olney started missing things. At first he wasn't sure of himself or of what he was missing, but he was not a man to entertain doubt for long. His drill, which he had been using on a car door, was not hung on its appointed hook, and so he asked Hank about it. Hank seemed genuinely perplexed, but his habit of defensiveness, so long an appendage to his character, influenced his reaction, and Mr. Olney could not be sure of his sincerity. Mr. Olney was a generous-hearted man, and chose to believe Hank. When his best hammer went missing, he did the same thing, but he began to be on his guard, and he watched Hank's comings and goings very carefully. He began coming earlier and staying later. He found no grounds for criticism or protest, but his surveillance affected the relationship of trust which he had so readily extended to Hank. Hank's head, which had begun to be carried high, was carried less proudly and more haughtily. He wanted and needed the job, but had lost all confidence in his ability to keep it.

Lee Whitcomb had used his key for entering the garage at night, when it would be closed down for the evening. He kept his theft petty. It provided a place of small but ongoing resource for his needs. He found soon, however, that his small but growing supply of tools was marketable. He had acquaintances who knew good tools and who would buy according to the quality and availability of the tool and not by its marketing credentials or warranty. Mr. Olney's tools were first class. Problem was, Lee knew that he was being more careful now, and so he had to back off his night visits for a while. Another man in town who kept good tools was Mr. Chaney. Lee had talked with him when he would come in to the Olney's garage. He appreciated that this was a man who knew what he was doing and what he was purchasing. He was a man to be sought out, after dark, according to Lee's way of assessing things. By way of many evening drives past the Chaney's farm he had put together a mental blueprint of their buildings. He had not seen the inside of the tool shed, but he had come to the right conclusion: that it was a protected area, and that it probably held something worth protecting, very likely tools. He could see from the road that it boasted a large padlock, and the chief significance of this to Lee Whitcomb was not that entrance was barred, but that you didn't padlock the door of an empty shed. It was worth investigating. He would wait for his opportunity.

Conversation in town told him that the Chaneys were on a three-day trip out of town. The place would be unoccupied, he guessed. A longer trip would probably mean someone would come in and stay during the Chaneys' absence. Such a time was choice, and ought not to be passed up. Procrastination in such matters was not among his storehouse of flaws. He made his plans and moved upon them the Tuesday morning after Labor Day, being certain that the school bus, filled with inquisitive eyes, would already have passed the Chaney farm. It would probably be a half day of school this first day of the new year, and so he would have to get in and get out before the bus would pass the other way. He pulled his truck into a lane just on the outer edge of the Chaney's farmland, where it would sit, partially hidden in the tall grasses, and would be unnoticed by passersby, who were likely to be very few, on any normal working day. He took with him a well-made, ingeniously begotten crowbar, and made his way to the Chaney tool shed.

Missy would have met any such visitor halfway, and readily escorted him from the premises, had not her attentions been drawn away by Moses from her usual surveillance in front of the barn door. Lee Whitcomb's investigations around town had not made him aware of the feisty nature of the Chaney dog. To know such things he would have had to have a more local and ongoing interest in the people among whom he lived, and upon whom he planned to live. Since he did not know, he walked furtively, but quickly to the shed door, and had the large padlock removed, not by trying various keys, but rather by wrenching off the hasp of the door to which it was attached, with the crowbar.

The chicken, refreshed now by the nap under the burdock shade, had pecked its way around the barn and was now near the door of the tool shed. Missy and Moses had covered familiar territory in their romp, and now returned for a rest in the shade of the barn's doorway. They had perpetual access into the barn through a door which swung either way and allowed exit and entrance, a perquisite Moses' sunporch did not offer. There was cold water in the barn, and a well supplied dish of dry dog meal. The dogs enjoyed the companionship the long day offered them. As they approached the barn, Moses saw Lee Whitcomb first, and was glad to extend their fellowship to him. Missy, seeing him just seconds afterward, was not. She growled and flew at him, all in the same moment. She had him in a fair hold by the seat of his pants, with more than denim involved, so that he yelled before he quite knew what had hit him, or was prepared to defend himself. Moses took it all in, tremendously excited at the game of the day. Missy was clearly in charge here, and he wanted to be in on whatever fun would be allowed him, and so he danced alongside her, growling and barking simultaneously. It was a wonderfully menacing drama, exactly suited to his every instinct! What a marvelous day this was turning out to be!

Lee Whitcomb didn't think so. He might have handled Missy with the crowbar if he could have gotten his hands back on it. He had laid it down after detaching the hasp, and was just in the process of going inside when he had been attacked. Even so, he could have armed her off, and retrieved it, but in the flash of the attack, he lost his footing and went to his knees, Missy on top of him, still holding her grip. Down in that position, he got a look at Moses, barking, growling, looking like a ferocious wolf, waiting his turn. Two such demons were too much for him. He wrenched himself from Missy's grip and ran for the cover of the tool shed, shoving the door with the broken hasp between himself and his two adversaries. There was no window in the tool shed, and so once inside, he could not determine the whereabouts of the dogs. When he opened the door just a crack to look outside, they were quick to enlighten him as to their whereabouts, and so he settled in to recoup himself and nurse his wounds.

Missy had the perseverance of age. She could wait patiently. She could even nap in front of the tool shed door, and be alert at the first rustle of sound from inside. Moses soon became bored with the inactivity, and so turned his attentions to his chicken, once again, after having refreshed himself with the cool water and dog meal from Missy's dish in the barn. He had greeted the barn cats there, and met Kitty, once again, who spat at him nicely, and then received his old but still irrepressible friendliness. He went outside and picked up his chicken, who more or less took the interruption with its usual squawk, and settled down to be carried and wetted in Moses' jaws. He carried it to the petunia bed within sight of the tool shed and Missy, and sat down to play.

The school bus passed by at quarter past noon. Lee Whitcomb was correct in judging this to be a half day of school. As they passed the Chaney farm, Miriam looked out the window in total amazement. She ran to the front of the bus and put her small hand on Mr. Wilson's arm.

"Mr. Wilson, I wasn't going to ask you to stop, but would you? Could you, please? That's my dog over there at the Chaneys', and I don't know how he got there. He must be lost, or maybe he followed the bus? I know that's him, and if you'll let me off..."

Before she could finish, Mr. Wilson had looked back, and the scene made him smile.

"There was this big black dog," he told Mrs. Wilson that night, "lyin' amongst the petunias with a chicken in its mouth. And this little girl was so upset and yet so polite, I just couldn't help goin' back there and helpin' her get her dog."

"You mean you just backed up the bus and took her back?"

"Yep. Didn't know what I was getting into either, but I'm sure glad I did," Mr. Wilson answered. "Other dog of Chaneys', Missy, I believe she called her, was just barkin' for all she was worth, but didn't make a move toward us. Moses, that's what her dog is called, he was so glad to see us, and he let go that chicken and ran over to see that little girl, and you just knew she was somethin' special to _him_ all right!" Mr. Wilson smiled at the remembrance.

"Then what happened?" Mrs. Wilson wanted him to tell her again, about the excitement of the midday surprise.

"Well, first that chicken was just fine, bit damp..." Mr. Wilson grinned. "Moses sort of led us over to this other dog, Missy, and didn't take long before we could see we wasn't alone. Or hear, that is! There was a voice callin' to us from the tool shed, and I thought it was some poor soul in trouble, but you know? That voice sounded a bit familiar, and so I asked who it was."

"Who was it?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"He didn't want to say, right off, but it wasn't more than a few seconds before he decided he'd say, 'Lee Whitcomb,' he says, and we both knew right away he had no business in that tool shed, no matter what he'd say to make it seem right."

"What did you do?" she prodded. Such adventures were rare in their small town, and were made much of in evening conversation!

"That's when I told him I'd be right back with the police, or else he could go along with me peaceable in the school bus, and I'd take him there and let him explain himself to them. He chose that way, and I led him to the bus with his crowbar in my hand."

"You didn't!"

"I sure enough did! And he sat amongst those school kids proper, all the rest of my rounds. Course, Hank Zender and Jeff Green were on the bus, and I was mighty glad for their company. Hank seemed to think that crowbar belonged to Mr. Olney, and he asked me if I'd come in with him, to ask. We're going in tomorrow to see about that. Seems the boy thinks Mr. Olney suspects him, and this might help clear him. Hank's been okay to me on the bus this year, and it wouldn't hurt a bit to help him along. Miriam Green got on with her dog, and that chicken," they both stopped to smile at the image, "but I don't know whether Lee Whitcomb ever looked him square in the face and got a right size of things yet. Still looked like a big black wolf to him, I think, and a hungry one at that! Wonder what he'll be telling the judge?

The weekend of Labor Day, Mr. Olney had missed his crowbar. That was the last straw. He intended to "hole up" in his garage, and wait for the offender. If it was Hank, he wasn't taking the tools out with him, he was certain of that. Had to be coming back at night. Mr. Olney would be ready for the thief, whoever it was. When he left work that evening, he lifted the side door key from its hook by the cash register, and put it into his pocket. He would need it for getting back in that night, without the commotion of lifting the large doors. He locked up, and left for supper.

An hour later, Mr. Olney returned, and quietly took the key out of his pocket. He tried to insert it into the side door lock. The key would not go in without forcing, and he figured it must be rusty from disuse. He took out his handkerchief and quickly rubbed the key with it. It snagged the handkerchief and so he lifted it to look at it more carefully. "Why, this is a brand new key," he saw right away. He jiggled it now more persistently into the lock and went inside. He had some mental detective work to do, while he waited.

For a few days after that, Miriam left Moses on the porch and hooked it from the outside, hoping he would forget his travels. At the beginning of the next week she left it open again so that he could spend some of the long day hours down at the creek. Instead of leaving through the sunporch door, she gave him his bone and returned to the kitchen, completely fooling him about her departure. The bone offered under such conditions, with Miriam safely returned to the house as he thought, tasted truly wonderful, and occupied him for a good hour. By that time, Miriam had left out the front door, closing it softly behind her as she ran for the bus. If this were a deception, then surely it was one of mercy, and everyone prospered; especially the chicken, who would be free from the jaws of its nanny for the duration of a bone.
Chapter 12

"Faith"

****

The crowbar was returned to the special hook in the Olney Garage and Hank Zender continued to work for Mr. Olney after school and on weekends. It was not long before Mr. Olney felt free to leave him in charge as he had the day he had gone for the Greens and the Johnsons, at the fair in Redney. The trust was not misplaced, and Hank did not "lord it over" his classmates who stopped by for air for their tires or for a small repair job or piece of advice they needed.

Kitty-corner from the Washington Elementary School was Faith's house. She was a school friend of Miriam's, and when the children would get off the bus, Miriam would walk over to Faith's house, and spend the twenty minutes before the first school bell with Faith. Faith could easily leave once she heard the bell. The children who live nearest school are the most likely ones to be late for school each day, but not so with Faith. She never got there late. She never got there early, either. Faith kept herself remote from most of the classroom activities and friendships, other than to do her work. She was an average student in her grades, and never was faulted for not having her homework. But she never brought a permission slip to go on a field trip. The teacher would even tell her she would wait, and let Faith run home, but Faith said, very politely, no, thank you, she would just go to the library. This is what students who forgot their slips or who had doctor's appointments had to do if the class was going somewhere. Faith never had a doctor's appointment, or a dentist appointment, and she never missed school. But she never went on a field trip or a class party. Miriam knew the reason why. There was always a small charge for the transportation, and for milk, usually twenty cents. Faith did not have twenty cents, and though her mother might have found a way of coming up with it, Miriam knew Faith didn't ask her. Miriam understood this, when, in a moment of quiet exchange of confidences which their friendship allowed, Faith had told her. Miriam could have paid Faith's way. Her salary for working for Mrs. Chaney continued, and afforded her many little things the previous years had denied her. She had offered Faith the money, and Faith was not offended, but she did not accept it, telling Miriam she would have her own one day soon, and she didn't like to borrow. Miriam had told her it would be a gift, but Faith said no, thank you, and that was the end of it. But it did not hurt their friendship.

Miriam and Faith got along well. It was strange, because Faith did not talk easily to anyone, but in Miriam she had a special friend who accepted her with so little interchange. Miriam had learned to spend long, long hours alone in the summer days, and also in the after school hours before her parents would return from work, and when Jeff was in the fields, working. Having Moses as an almost constant companion with his attentive ears and unquestioning approval, Miriam seemed to have developed the ability of accepting Faith on the terms with which Moses accepted her. She did long to know more of Faith, as she herself grew in the self-consciousness which parallels a growing awareness of others.

When Miriam went to Faith's house in the morning, Faith would greet her at the door with a shy smile of welcome. Usually she was just finishing dressing, and Miriam would sit at the kitchen table with her, while her mother would set out cereal, a cereal bowl and spoon, and the gallon of milk which was awkward to pour from, but manageable with two hands. She would ask Miriam if she didn't want to have a bowl of cereal, too, and sometimes, after the long bus ride, Miriam would have a small second breakfast with Faith. Faith's mother did not eat with them, and Miriam wondered about that. The Greens ate their meals together most every morning and night, and it was a way of life. Faith's household did things differently.

Faith's mother, Mrs. Vitale, always welcomed Miriam with a gush of enthusiasm, as though trying to balance the quiet of her own daughter. She talked for Faith when Faith seemed to have nothing to say, but it was a warm and well-intentioned covering of the gap. Sometimes it seemed as though she were afraid Miriam would stop coming, and she seemed to know how very important it was in her own little girl's life that she had a friend. Miriam, apparently, was the only friend Faith had, and so she was a treasure to Mrs. Vitale, devoutly to be cherished. Her flurry of activity and words about them was selfless rather than banal, and both girls sensed this. Miriam and Faith would carry their bowls to the sink, and one of them would put the milk away. Then Miriam would watch in the bathroom doorway while Faith brushed her teeth, and gave her hair a quick combing. They would gather up their books, and Mrs. Vitale would give them each a hug goodbye. Faith would kiss her mother's cheek the last thing before the two girls ran across the street to the school yard.

"Does your Mom work, Faith?" Miriam asked her, when they were first getting acquainted.

"Yes, after I leave," she had answered.

Miriam didn't ask where. Parents worked. When she was younger she thought her father worked "papers" and that her mother helped him. She didn't know much about offices and catalog houses before fifth grade, and the Weekly Reader somehow introduced her to the wider adult world of work and wages. She did like the atmosphere of Mrs. Vitale being there in the morning when Faith was getting ready for school. It was like Saturdays and Sundays, when she knew Mrs. Green was there in the house, no matter what she herself would be doing. There was a real solid sense of security on those days, though they had all adjusted to the routine of weekdays as they were growing up. Miriam could remember how it had been before her mother started to work, and the strange wistfulness about those mornings washed over her at Faith's house. This was one of the initial threads weaving her friendship with Faith, and the camaraderie of their early morning time together followed naturally.

Mrs. Petak taught the sixth grade. She was cordial to most, friendly to a few, and stiffish in her attitude toward Faith. Miriam learned from her, but tried to keep out of her line of scrutiny most of the time. She was different from most of the teachers which Miriam had had in the past. Mr. Heileman had taught fifth grade, and the students laughed in his classroom and found it a good place to be. He had a way of joshing with them that made them all feel accepted, even if they came to school with two different color socks on, like Abe did! Mr. Heileman pointed it out and made everyone look and laugh, but almost right away he walked over and pulled up his own pants legs long enough for the kids to see he had done the same thing! He put out his hand to Abe and said, "Welcome, brother!" and everyone had a good laugh on both of them. Nobody laughed in Mrs. Petak's class, unless it was behind her back, and under their breaths. It seemed like it was going to be a "countdown" year, until the end of May!

Mrs. Petak did not like Faith. Of course, there was no statement to substantiate this truth, but it was implicit in everyone's understanding. The first day, when she had asked Faith a question, and Faith did not answer right away, Mrs. Petak seemed to take it as a personal insult, and asked sharply for Faith to sit down. Faith sat without trying to explain that she knew the answer, but that she was not quick with words. Before the inertia-first-day-fear of a new class, and new teacher could be overcome in Faith's slow way, Mrs. Petak had made her conclusion.

The year before, Mr. Heileman had loved teaching the Weekly Reader to the class, best of all. He talked about the Great Depression of the early thirties, when these students of his had been in kindergarten or first grade. Now, he told them with relish, they were able to understand what it was all about! It was in these discussions that Miriam was better able to understand the financial stress of her early childhood years, and how difficult it must have been for her parents. When Mr. Heileman asked the class if they could remember any incidents which would have related to those difficult years, she told everyone about how she had wanted a dog back then, but that her family couldn't afford it. Then she told about Moses, and how it was that she was able to take care of him with her part-time work. She was surprised at her own boldness, and it opened up the conversation for many other offerings. Tom remembered that there were never any desserts, and Abe told that his dad had been out of work for a long time. He couldn't remember how long.

Mr. Heileman took in all their observances, and made them feel comfortable and adult and aware of hard things and a togetherness they shared in these things. Faith had contributed nothing to the conversation, but she listened and was very much included. Then Mr. Heileman told them about his own mother's school teaching days, twenty some years before that.

"The Great Depression was bad," he told them, "but that isn't the only time things were hard. Things were more frightening in the Great Depression, because they were so unpredictable. There wasn't any assurance that if you worked hard and saved, you would be able to pay your bills and feed your family. Men did that, and lost their homes anyway. People used their savings and finally the banks closed and others who had saved lost all their savings. One-fourth of our working people didn't have work, and that's hard! Times for my mother weren't like that, but people were poor in a different sort of way, without the mass fear - not knowing what you could count on. Maybe expectations weren't so high then, either. Let me tell you about a little farm boy who came to my mom's class," he enticed them, and they set their pencils down in the slot at the head of their desks, and almost imperceptibly gave him their full attention. Stories, especially true ones, were the best part of the school day.

"My mother taught in this one-room schoolhouse, just like you read about," he told them. "Truly, the kids wore shoes in the bad weather only. The little potbellied stove had to be stoked with wood or coal on cold mornings, and the kids gathered around with their lunch pails. That's what they were - pails!" he assured them in response to their looks of incredulity.

Miriam thought of her newspaper wrapped lunch and how she had often envied the kids with neat little brown sacks which had to be purchased. Better than a pail, she thought! Mr. Heileman continued, slowly, drawing his audience aback with him to the school room they could begin to see and smell and hear. Pails set on the floor next to wooden pew-type benches. Wood being carried to the stove. A bell clanging to announce the day.

"Well, Jimmy - I don't know what his last name was - was the poorest of them all. He had a lunch pail, but sometimes all it had in it was a couple of apples, and that's not very satisfying for a hungry young boy. Think of it! What if you all knew that the only thing you were going to get between now and supper time was an apple or two?" The boys groaned, but one of the girls said, that would be ok with her! "Yes," Mr. Heileman agreed, "Perhaps so, but that's because you can go home to a big supper, and stoke-up, just like stokin' up the stove!" He smiled, and invited her agreement. She laughed, agreeing, and a few supper favorites were thrown into the conversation.

"Well, Jimmy had his apples, and once in a while a slice of bread, plain. That was all. My mother knew he was hungry most of the time, and she would bring something extra for him, but it was awkward trying not to draw attention to him." Miriam wanted to look at Faith, and she did look over a little, but Faith was fixed on Mr. Heileman and his story.

"So, she invited him home to her house for lunch one day. This was before she got married and had me to feed!" he emphasized. "She fixed a real feast. Fried chicken she had fried up the night before. Potato salad, corn bread with hot apple butter!" The kids were groaning deliciously and licking their lips as Mr. Heileman embellished the fare set before Jimmy. "Well, my mom has told me many times, Jimmy ate as though he just couldn't get enough, and to top things off, she brought out one of those deep-dish apple pies," he paused, waiting for the class to groan their appreciation with new exclamations. "Well! Jimmy just looked at that thing, and my mom cut him about a quarter of it. It was running all over with cinnamon and butter, and the flaky kind of crust that tastes better than the pie itself, you know?" They all knew! "Jimmy ate that piece of pie, and sat there with his thumbs holding out his belt to make more room, and he looked as though he were going to try and fit in another piece if only she would ask. But it was time for them to get back to school for the afternoon. She only lived a short walk to the school house and could have come home to eat every day, but mostly she stayed and ate with the students. She told him they had to go, and he looked so disappointed that she said, 'Why, Jimmy, how about taking a piece along with you, for after school?' and she was intending to cut him a piece and wrap it up, when he looked up at her and said, 'Kin I?' Before she could even finish saying sure, he had that other quarter of the pie scooped into his pocket, with is bare hand!" Mr. Heileman smiled with the class at the remembrance. "But that wasn't the end of the story!" he went on, and they were glad, waiting for the chance to ask the myriad of questions such a history always brings to an excited class. "Yep. Jimmy was well-fed, that day, and he didn't forget it! Before that week was out, he brought his lunch pail up to my mom, and told her, 'I'm bringin' yer lunch today, Miss Jackson!' My mother didn't know quite what to do, knowing how short his family was for food, but she knew that eating the lunch he needed worse than her was the only right thing she could do." He paused to see if the class understood, and they did. He could tell by the solemn looks on their faces. Jimmy was becoming real to them, and they wanted to hear more.

"She said, 'Why thank you, Jimmy! I'll enjoy it!' and you know, it may have been the biggest lie my mother ever told! At lunch time he gave her his lunch pail, and she would have been glad for two wizened up apples, that's for sure. Because inside, there was a huge hunk of homemade bread, Jimmy had probably cut from the loaf himself. And it was slathered thick with two inches of lard!" This time the class demonstrated with gags and "yuks," entirely fitting. "He sat and watched her eat that thing, as though he were giving her his most precious treasure. And he was, too." Mr. Heileman concluded. "And so, you see," he told his class, now sobered and edified in their new knowledge of another time and another student and another class, "times were hard for others too, but some things don't change. What are some of those things, do you think?" The discussion opened up, and continued for the rest of the afternoon.

That day, Faith had talked to Miriam after school and told her that her father had been one of those men who lost all his savings during that depression they had talked about. They had had a clothing business, she said. But they lost it.

"Miriam, if I tell you something, will you promise never to tell anyone?" Faith asked her this as they sat together on the porch swing, each pushing with one toe, to keep themselves going. Miriam nodded, without saying anything, knowing this was a near-sacred link in their friendship. Faith had never asked such a thing before, and so she knew it wasn't the sort of secret people entrust loosely to one another. Faith accepted her nod, and waited a minute before going on.

"My father killed himself," she told Miriam. That was all. She looked at Miriam to see if she had been safe in disclosing this. Miriam suddenly had a look of real grief, and only replied after a minute of her own assimilation.

"Oh, Faith, I never knew! I feel so badly for you and your mom!" She moved closer on the swing, and wanted badly to let Faith know that her confidence was safe, and that she was somehow sad, but honored, that Faith could share this with her. Faith didn't have tears in her eyes, and that helped Miriam go on talking with her about it. Was it still hard for Mrs. Vitale, she wanted to know? Mrs. Vitale never talked about it, Faith told her, but Faith knew it was hard on her. She cried all the time at first, and people came over and didn't know what to say, and Faith just took it all in, missing her father, and not understanding. No one said anything right to her, but they talked about her a lot, and someone knew of this house they could stay in near Redney. Some distant relative of theirs owned it. He had had to close out his farm. The house was just sitting there and Faith and her mother could stay in it for nothing. Mrs. Vitale had found work in Redney, as Faith had shared in her response to Miriam's question at another time. Now, in their sixth grade year together, the girls were able to share many more things alone together, which Faith was unable or unwilling to share within her classroom situation. Mr. Heileman had not drawn her out among them, but he had opened a doorway of communication between two friends through the medium of teaching, lecturing, and story-telling. Some of their school year classes would be obliterated in their retrospective chronologies, but fifth grade and the teacher who hungered to feed the vital minds and hearts nested under his wing for a short nine months would remain.

Some things of fifth grade would remain, also. Mrs. Petak, too, scheduled the Weekly Reader session the last hour of the day. The students read paragraphs and answered the questions on the back, and then handed them in to be graded. There was no discussion, and little explanation. Once a month, a Weekly Reader Examination was sent. It was made up of twenty-five questions on current events, and weighed heavily in the grading of this course. The terms were difficult, but not above the vocabulary skills of a sixth grade class, according to the standardized national tests report. Redney County students were well above the national average, Mrs. Petak was quick to assert, if challenged by a concerned parent about the test scores. The students could do well, and the only reason anyone would ever not do well was because most assuredly they had not tried.

The third month of the Weekly Reader examination, after two dismal class average outcomes and the accompanying harangue, they put forth great effort. The Weekly Reader Examinations lay on Mrs. Petak's desk, and underneath the kleenex box lay the key to the test. Jack Stebbin saw it there, and didn't quite know what to do with this piece of information, but it enticed him, until opportunity to use it presented itself in wonderfully lucid manner. Mrs. Petak left the class just before the last hour of the day, to get herself a cup of coffee. This she would drink, grading papers, while her students read their Weekly Readers and answered questions. This day, the moment she left, Jack's leadership "gifts" asserted themselves. He moved to her desk quickly and slipped the answer key from under the kleenex box.

"I've got the key!" he told the class, inviting their participation and leaving little time for moral consideration. "Let's pass it fast and copy down the answers!" He assumed the class would, and no one spoke up to insist on the return of the key.

Miriam wanted to, but she didn't want to be the one to say. Abe waited for someone else's reaction, as they all did, to a man! Loyalty to each other, fear of exposure, dislike for their teacher, age-old excuses for dishonesty held sway for the brief and hasty moments of passing and copying. Miriam knew she could not copy the answers, and she knew just as well that she could not stand up and tell Jack to put the key away. She didn't know what she was going to do, and was in absolute misery for herself, not even thinking about Faith, who would get the key just before she would. The key had already passed through the hands of thirteen of the twenty-one students in the class. It was slipped quickly onto Faith's desk, and eyes were divided between the doorway of the class room and Faith. Jack had gone to the pencil sharpener near the door to "watch," and he urged everyone to hurry, but so far, he had not heard Mrs. Petak's steps, coming around the corner of the hallway perpendicular to their own.

Every eye turned from the doorway to Faith when she got up from her desk and went towards Mrs. Petak's desk. Jack went quickly back to his seat, and forgot about watching for Mrs. Petak. Something more important was happening, and he was not certain of the outcome, or of how his new position might need defending. Faith lay the key back under the kleenex box, took a kleenex from the box, and turned back to her seat. At that moment, Mrs. Petak returned to the room and saw Faith leaving her desk. She looked down at her desk, and remembered the key.

"Faith, did you have this key?" she asked harshly. She waited for an answer in the stillness of the class, with the others.

Faith answered slowly, "I came up for a kleenex, Mrs. Petak," she said.

"You didn't answer my question! I said, 'Did you have the answer key?'" Mrs. Petak waited again, and Faith hesitated with her answer even longer.

"Yes, M'am," she finally answered, looking close to tears, but right at Mrs. Petak.

Mrs. Petak told her grimly to be seated, and without another word she picked up the Weekly Reader Examinations and passed them out. She did not say another word except, "You may begin," and at the end of the hour she collected the papers and dismissed the class. Miriam knew she had to go to Mrs. Petak. She felt absolutely miserable, for everyone, but the way she felt about what Faith had done and how she had been treated took preeminence over everything. She stayed in her desk, but Faith came to her with a look of real anguish which Miriam couldn't ignore.

"Can I see you a minute, Miriam, please?" she implored her, and Miriam went outside with her. "Please don't say anything, Miriam, please?" This time Faith was crying, and Miriam felt more helpless than she had in the class.

"But why, Faith? I've got to! It isn't fair! You're the only one who did the right thing!" Miriam's troubled response came through her own tears. She felt dirty and troubled for herself and for the class, and angry with Mrs. Petak, and somehow telling the truth for Faith's sake would have helped, in spite of Jack, and her own involvement. But Faith wouldn't let her.

"She won't believe you, anyway! She doesn't like me, and wouldn't ever believe me or anything good about me," Faith whispered, and it was too sad a fact for Miriam to want to accept.

"Even if she doesn't, she has to be told the truth," Miriam still insisted. Even so, she had to have Faith's permission. Their friendship was based on trust, and she could not break Faith's trust in her. "You've got to let me, Faith," she urged.

Faith said, "At least, not now, ok?" She seemed to realize Miriam's own dilemma now, and they left together, hand in hand. They sat on the porch swing for awhile, and Miriam asked Faith if she would like to come over some time, and meet Moses. Faith said she would love to, and they would ask their mothers that night. They did not talk about the test at all.

The following afternoon, Mrs. Petak returned the tests, and told the class that there had been three perfect papers, eight B's, six C's, two D's, two F's, and one zero. Everyone looked over at Faith, who looked straight ahead, trembling. Miriam looked too, and saw Faith's lip quiver. Nothing more was said until the students had looked over their papers and adjusted to their successes or failures. Faith looked down at her paper quietly, then up to Mrs. Petak. Then Mrs. Petak walked to the podium and addressed the class.

"Yesterday, class, my answer key was taken." She paused, though she already had their complete attention. She went on, as though deliberating on just how she would handle the situation. "Just now," she went on, "I think I know what you were all thinking, and I let you do that for a minute. I hope I can help you all to learn something that I think I have just been learning for the first time, myself." Mrs. Petak's mouth trembled and the defenses of her students were jarred, considerably.

"I want to talk to you about heroism," she went on, more controlled. "I let you believe for a minute that it was Faith Vitale who received the zero. Am I right?" She waited for the class to giver her some sort of a response, and there were enough nods to assure her of this. "I thought so," she said quietly. "But it is not Faith who received the zero. It is Jack Stebbins." They all looked to him in surprise, and he reddened, expecting their looks. Mrs. Petak went on. "Faith," she said, "has been misjudged by me, without a defense." The class was shocked by the unprecedented admission. They were tense and silent. "Will you forgive me, Faith?" she then asked.

Faith could not say a word. She cupped her face in her hands, and nodded up and down to assure Mrs. Petak of her forgiveness. Her face was wet with tears, and she could not hide them, try as she might. She desperately needed another kleenex, but would never have gotten up to get one, in the circumstances. Miriam knew how soggy and wet she was feeling, and she looked from her to Mrs. Petak in a love for her teacher she had never felt she could have. Mrs. Petak nodded at Miriam, and extended the kleenex box to her who came up, and took out several tissues. She returned to her seat, and passed them quietly to Faith.

"It is heroic to do what is right when all around you are doing what is wrong," Mrs. Petak went on. Now she was, for the first time, the humbled teacher, rather than the penitent. "Faith was heroic in what she did yesterday. What Jack Stebbins did started out as wrong, but he made it right. He came to me and told me the straight story. Though what he did was wrong, I respect him for what he did, in the middle of things. It was Jack who showed me what I needed to do, too. He did wrong, but he made it right. He was guilty. You all did wrong. You were his accomplices. This is your time to make things right. I was the unfair judge, and I must try to make things right. Faith," she paused, "did what was right, from the beginning. She was the accused. Kipling talked about her in a poem called _If_. I'll read that to you at another time, but I want you to remember this, for I always shall." She finished, in humility, but also in a new strength. She looked then at Jack and nodded almost imperceptibly, as she had when she extended the kleenex box to Miriam. Jack stood up to speak.

"It was wrong for me to steal the key," he said, and didn't hedge at the word steal. "But it was worse seeing Faith get in trouble for me. Funny thing, the zero is kind of a relief!" The class laughed in a similar relief of tension, and Mrs. Petak laughed with them, for the first time, too.

"Well, I hope you don't always think so, Jack!" she cautioned then. "I think maybe we need to work together on these examinations a little more. Perhaps we can find out together what the trouble is. A memorized answer key will change your grade, but knowledge will change your life." With that, she had them open to the article on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and read the first paragraph out loud while they followed in their own papers. Before she could begin the second paragraph, Jack Stebbins had his hand raised to ask what the New Deal was, and Tom Johnson interrupted to answer!

Faith rode the bus home with Miriam that Friday after school, with permission to stay the weekend. Moses had an extra voice and two more little hands to caress his crooning head, and make over him with all the fuss and attention which constituted the frosting of his life, for two whole days.
Chapter 13

Merry

****

Miriam had told Mr. and Mrs. Green and Jeff about Jimmy and the lard, after that Weekly Reader lesson in Mr. Heileman's class.

"Did she really eat it?" Jeff had wanted to know.

"Guess she did! Mr. Heileman says so!" she told him.

This opened up the conversation about how things had been for Mr. Green in his growing up years in school.

"One time," he told them, "I drew a cartoon picture of my teacher, and of course I held it up to show all he kids. Even put his name on it! Trouble is, he saw me, too, and asked me for it."

"What did you do, Dad?" Miriam asked.

"Gave it to him, of course! He looked at it, and then handed it back to me. He said, 'You've misspelled my name, Sam,' and that was all. You can bet that's the last cartoon I ever drew of my teacher! Somehow, I respected him a lot more after that than as if he had punished me."

Then Jeff had recalled a time way back in third grade when he'd had a special valentine for each student in the class with a big red sucker attached. Mrs. Green remembered it too. She had helped him tape the suckers on the cards.

"Well, that year, I was going to be smart!" he told them. "The year before we were supposed to take this long list of names home and print everyone's names on the cards individually. I did it, but I still remembered it was too much work!" The Greens smiled with Jeff at the thought of their overburdened second grade scribe. "This year, I didn't have to put any names on except my own. I sure wanted all the credit for those suckers! Everyone had to know they came from me, and it would be easy, because Miss Wilsey had this big post-office pouch hanging on the wall. We each had our own slot with our name tags over it, and all we had to do was put our valentines in each person's slot. So much easier than having to write out all those names. In cursive, too! All the girls still did, of course, right Mir?" Jeff looked at Miriam, automatically including her in the group that always did all the things they were supposed to do, and exactly what the teacher expected. She made a face at him, and he went on.

"Well, I thought I was pretty smart. I took my little bag of valentines up to the pouches and started plopping them in. I'd have the whole business taken care of in less than a minute, so that I could get on with the important stuff, like chicken fights on the playground. We had a big class that year, about thirty-five, I think. Well, I got halfway done before I realized I'd been dropping the valentines in at random, and had no idea which slots I had put them in!"

"Dummy!" Miriam said. "What did you do then?"

"Nothing! I just bluffed my way through the rest of them, trying to think where I'd been before. Some kids got three or four, some got none. But the ones who didn't get any were sore at me, and the ones who got lots thought they were something special. Especially Elsie."

"Who was she?"

"She was this girl that I didn't like at all. Maybe because I avoided her, she liked me or thought she did, and those four valentines everyone knew had come from me really settled it!"

"Well, Jeff, you know you can always attract the girls with red valentine suckers, if you get desperate, right?" Mr. Green concluded.

"Yep! Any old port in a storm," Jeff answered, but Mrs. Green knew he had somebody special already, and without the valentine suckers, either. He had asked her what kind of Christmas present he could get for a sophomore in high school.

"Girl?" Mrs. Green had asked.

"Merry Thomas," he had answered. "She's a really good friend."

Mrs. Green had suggested a book or a scarf, but Jeff thought he'd buy her candy, after thinking about it. Candy was pretty traditional, he thought, and Merry was so shy. He need not decide right away, it was only September.

Miriam knew Merry, and that Jeff liked her in a special way. They didn't date, but he rode on the bus next to her, and carried her books if she had any with her. Mostly she didn't. She and Jeff started talking for the first time on the bus. Miriam rode in the front half of the bus with the elementary school kids, but she saw the high school students every day, and knew when Jeff first began liking Merry Thomas. It was in the beginning of the school year, just two weekends after the mowing accident when he had lost his finger. He'd had to begin school with his hand bandaged, and the remaining knuckle of his finger extended on a steel splint. With it bound that way it wasn't easy to see that he had lost most of it, but the splint would come off soon, and then it would be obvious. Jeff sat in the empty seat next to Merry the first day of the school year, and she had asked him about it. Jeff welcomed the opportunity to talk with Merry. She always seemed so shy, to him, even though he didn't usually have trouble making conversation with most anybody. Merry was quiet, like Miriam, but when she had asked him about his hand, he talked about it the rest of the way to the high school. When they got off the bus, instead of Jeff asking to carry her books, she asked if she could carry his, and he said sure! They walked together to his locker in senior hall, and then he walked with her, helping her find her locker in sophomore hall. After that, he began carrying her books and walking with her every day.

The sophomores went to homeroom each day in the opposite end of the school building from the seniors. The high school was a three-story building of deep red clay brickwork, which looked more like a cathedral than an academic institution. Its tiered brick stairway extended thirty feet on each side of the massive carved oak double doors in the precise middle of the building. At the base of this stairway a tile walk curved outward from the school in a horseshoe shape, and bordered both lengths of the football field which dominated the highway view of the school. A maple tree brigade, the tender sapling sprouts of which had long since been wonderfully conceived and brought forth by the skill and spade of the community fathers some eighty years past, now cast a spidery shadow over the lawn, and fanned the bleachers on either side of the field. The bleachers themselves were set into the landscape as though they had grown up amongst the trees and larkspur and ivy for the purpose of extending hospitality to the Saturday spectators of the Redney team.

The seniors met at the beginning of each day in Room 100, South. The juniors met in 200 South, the sophomores in 200 North, and the freshmen in 100 North. Merry was very glad of this, even though she had to be in the library at 120 South by 8 a.m., when the second bell rang. Instead of homeroom each day, she met with Miss Jones. It was the only time in Miss Jones' busy schedule she could fit Merry in. Miss Jones toured the county and served its schools just as the school nurse did, in helping students with special academic needs. Her specialty was reading and writing, and that was Merry's need.

Merry had missed a whole year of grade school and was already a year older than most sophomores. It didn't matter, though, because no one knew. She didn't want anyone to know. She wore her hair long and it covered the misshaped hollow behind her left ear. It was a perpetual reminder of the childhood earaches which had dominated her nights and so many stretches of time. Her ear either ached or "ran," and when it finally "broke" under the hot wet compresses her mother held to her head, the "running" was welcome, but it always came with a a bad odor which lingered. Her mother would do everything she could to help Merry with this. At home it was easier to take care of, and so she stayed home often. Mostly, though, she stayed home because her ear ached, and made her feel sick all over. She'd been feverish and sick once for a long time, and she remembered how frightened her parents had been when the doctor told them she had to have an operation. Mastoid bone, he'd told them. It had to be scraped.

She had the operation, and it had been very painful after the first two days. She'd slept through most of the first two days after the surgery, but still remembered the dark, quiet hospital room, and her mother and father only being able to be with her during certain hours. The incision had taken a long time to heal, and the bony ridge behind her ear now dipped in a concave hollow. It would never be the same again. Merry had been self-conscious about it even when she was little. But the earaches had stopped, and her ear didn't run any more. She never missed school after that.

She was bright. Math and science came easily to her, but her reading and writing skills had suffered, and the reading loss affected all of her progress. Miss Jones was helping her catch up, and no one even had to know. Merry was grateful for Miss Jones, but she was painfully afraid of others knowing of her inadequacies. She remembered the cruel taunts over the awful odor from her ear, the pain, the leper-like stigma. These were compelling influences in Merry's soul, and Miss Jones had the wisdom not to dismiss her fears as foolishness, in her tutorial discipleship. No one need know, unless Merry wanted them to know. That was up to Merry. Miss Jones' job was to help her academically, and she was confident this would be a great step in Merry's dealing with her own fears. They would meet early, and all Merry's other classes could continue on schedule. They had begun each day of Merry's freshman year reading her English assignment together, and Merry had made wonderful progress.

Other activities drew from the student body that first half hour of each school day so Merry was not the only one who missed homeroom. No special attention had been drawn to her her freshman year, and so it didn't trouble her. But now this year, it did, ever since Jeff Green had started talking with her on the bus. The bus circled the Redney High drive and pulled into the lot behind the school at 7:40 a.m. each school day. Students reported to the homeroom between 7:55 and 8:00 a.m., so they had fifteen minutes to go to their lockers and continue the conversations started on the bus. Jeff walked with Merry to her locker just outside sophomore homeroom, and waited and talked with her until he'd have to run to his own homeroom at the opposite end of the building, and one floor below. He would slide into his seat "under the gun" to the amusement of Mr. Johnson, senior counsellor, who kept whimsical tabs on the alliances and romances which were, as far as he could tell, in perpetual transition.

"Who was it kept you this A. M., Jeff?" he'd laugh. "A damsel in distress? Beth? Susan?" ... anyone but Merry Thomas, because Mr. Johnson was fairly certain she was the real reason for his being late. Jeff would grin, and say nothing. His friends were glad to throw in names of their own, untempered by their own lack of exemption from such teasing.

If Jeff had a problem in arriving to class on time, Merry had a greater one. When Jeff dropped her off at her homeroom door he leaned against the wall talking with her until there was only a minute left for his own journey. Merry kept up a casual front until he would leave, and as soon as he was around the corner, she would run across the hall, down the stairs, and try to make it to the library before the final bell. Jeff had nothing to hide. He only had distance to be covered. Merry ran with the inhibiting fear of being found out, by Jeff.

Miss Jones often wondered at Merry's breathless arrival. However, Merry had the youthful capacity of rapid recuperation, and she suffered no more ill effect than an untamed strand or two of hair, which she smoothed forward, unconsciously, down her shoulders as she too slipped into her seat. The attentions of Jeff Green were worth considerably more than the toll of a little morning rush hour!

Miriam knew Jeff was "sweet on" Merry Thomas before Mrs. Green did, but Mrs. Green was the first to be told. Merry was Jeff's first girl, and Mrs. Green thought of that with a special poignancy when she remembered the loss of his finger so recently. There comes a time in a young man's life, she knew, which can be very lonely - a wistful time when he is too old to comfortably receive the nursing tenderness of a mother so readily sought when he was a child, and before he has a wife or sweetheart to provide that same balm. Jeff told Mrs. Green that Merry had asked about his hand, and felt bad for him. She didn't avert her eyes after the bandages were gone, and no longer sheltered the view and the reaction. She had held his hand and looked carefully at the skin healing over the end of the finger, and told him that it would be sensitive to cold in the winter, and that he'd have to be careful to protect it from bumps.

"She seems to know lots about it. Almost think she'd lost a finger herself," Jeff said. Mrs. Green had replied that that kind of a person would probably make a good nurse, and she appreciated the little friend she had not yet met.

There was a football game on Saturday, and Jeff meant to ask Merry if he could pick her up, and take her. Mr. Green had already offered the use of the car, and Jeff was pretty sure Merry would say "yes." He hadn't taken her anywhere so far, and didn't go to the games himself, usually, because of the farm work. This would be a Saturday to be anticipated! He hadn't wanted to ask her on the bus with everyone else so close, and so he waited. The bus was late, and they all had to hurry, once it arrived. He dropped Merry off at her homeroom and started for his own with his usual good speed. When he rounded the corner, he remembered that he had wanted to ask her, and so he chanced being late, and returned to where he had dropped her off. He looked in the door of 200 North, and didn't see Merry. As he looked around, and as he turned back to the hall, he was just in time to see Merry running down the stairs.

He called, "Merry! Where ya going?" and she looked back, almost panic-stricken, he thought later. She didn't stop at all, and so he ran to catch up with her, but instead of stopping and making excuses or explanation, she darted into the girl's washroom, leaving Jeff stranded outside.

Jeff waited, knowing he would be late anyway. Several minutes later, Merry came out, looking hesitantly about her, and when she saw Jeff, seated against the opposite wall, she stood there and put her head down. Jeff had gotten up and walked over, mystified, yet sure that she had begun to cry.

"What's the matter, Merry?" he urged, with real concern in his voice. He fumbled, and didn't know what to do for her but ask. He reached out and put his arm around her. This only increased her tears, which were mounting. Something really serious must be the matter, he thought. "Can't you tell me?" he asked.

"I didn't want you to see me," she sobbed, "and I feel so sneaky..."

"See you _what_?" he asked, in increasing perplexity. He hadn't had time to suspect anything underhanded!

"My not going to homeroom!" she answered, her voice somewhat more controlled. "I didn't want you to know I have to go to special class every day." She didn't look at him all the while her confession tumbled out. "I thought you would think I was dumb...."

Jeff didn't have a handkerchief, but he offered his shirt sleeve, clumsily. Merry wiped her eyes on it, and looked up, for the first time. The warmth of Jeff's concern brought the flood of relief she had been so thirsty for in the weeks of her charade. They walked over to the wall opposite the girls' washroom, and sat together.

"Merry, how could I ever think you were dumb?" Jeff coaxed. "Look at the boyfriend you picked?" He waited for her, hoping she would smile. She did. In fact, she even laughed a little. "What's it all about, anyway?" he continued.

"I go to Miss Jones in the library every day," Merry began, but Jeff interrupted.

"I knew _that_!" he said.

"You _did_? How did you know that?" Merry asked, genuinely shocked.

"I don't know! I just knew. Never thought anything about it, matter of fact," Jeff told her, still not certain why it was even worth talking about. "Oh, I know," he said in a moment. "The class lists are up in the office, and I saw your name on it, for Miss Jones." Merry looked at him, but didn't say anything, so he went on. "Anything I see your name on I look at, Merry," he told her. "This didn't mean much though, just a list."

"But didn't you think it was funny, my going into homeroom every day?" she asked.

"Nope. I just thought you were going to be with your girl friends or something, before going to the library. You always sort of led the way in, and so I figured that's where you wanted to be dropped off!"

"Oh, Jeff! I _am_ dumb!" Merry recriminated her foolishness with abandon. "All these weeks making you rush to class, just so I could keep this from you! I'm sorry, Jeff. I really am!" Merry was the true penitent, utterly safe in her confession.

"You should have trusted me, Merry," Jeff told her earnestly. "Would you think I was dumb if I had to have a special class in something?" Now he was the senior advisor to the sophomore, the big brother to little sister, and Merry loved it. In each of these roles she sensed friendship, which weathers better than romance, over the long haul of a school year.

"No, Jeff. I couldn't ever think you were dumb," she answered contritely.

"Well, that's good, because I may have to go to summer school before they'll let me have my diploma," he told her.

"How come, Jeff?"

"Well, I've got the senior record for tardies, and if Mr. Johnson decides to count them, I'm in trouble!" he told her. "And if I have to go to make them up in detention, you're goin' with me to every one of them!"

Merry knew, by his look and his tone, that he was not in trouble with Mr. Johnson, or in danger of not graduating, or the least bit angry with her for not trusting him or for causing him to be late. She would also, at that point, have gone with him anywhere, to the ends of the hall, to the ends of the earth, even to a summer school of detentions.

In the days that followed, Merry confided in Jeff and told of the things in her childhood which had caused her pain as well as those things which made them smile together as they brought together their short histories of valentine parties and birthdays and family vacations and expectations - the sorts of conversation of comparison and contrast which weave two people together as friends or as sweethearts, and in the best of all possible worlds, both of these, in their season. It was not too many days from then, in fact, even before the Redney game on Saturday, that Merry pulled her hair back from her shoulders into a ponytail, and let Jeff see what was once a blemish, but in the pavilion of his friendship had become only a faded scar.
Chapter 14

Christmas

****

Lee Whitcomb had spent ninety days in the Redney jail, and was now out on probation for the next six months. His fortnight had been spent in blue printing cunning reprisal for all his persecutors, and now he was as free, at least, as the boundaries of Redney County allowed. If the probation terms had allowed a wider geography, his pickup truck would not. Though it provided him with transportation, it punctuated his comings and goings with a signal clickety-click noise which identified him to everyone within a radius for two blocks, and was a constant source of irritation to himself.

When Lee had worked at Olney's garage, Mr. Olney had diagnosed Lee's problem with his truck. He had told Lee it was a collapsed lifter. This, he told him, attached to the push rod, which in turn attached to the rocker arm, "Acts like a see-saw," Mr. Olney said. "The push rod pushes up on one side, and as the other side goes down, it opens the valve. You can check your oil and keep the pressure up, or you can get it fixed. I'll show you how to do it, and you can do it yourself!" It was a generous offer, and one of the things Lee had intended to get taken care of, but things had gone against him, as usual. As the car rattle intensified, so did his anger against Mr. Olney. It was Mr. Olney's fault he'd spent those ninety days in jail. Fault of a bunch of others, too. Jeff Green and that big black mongrel of his, Hank Zender, Mr. Wilson. Lee kept a mental dossier and added small observances from his stool at the lunch counter of the corner cafe where he spent his mornings over a cup of coffee, reading the local want ads. Mr. Olney had come in one morning and had seen him there. He walked over and said good morning, and had even offered to look at his truck some time. Lee had returned his good morning, curt and sullen. He grudgingly found it to his best interest to respond. He might need a speaking relationship with Mr. Olney until his time would come, and it didn't cost him much to be civil. But all the while he seethed at the hypocrisy of Mr. Olney.

"Put you in jail one day, and offer you his hand the next," he snarled to himself. "Fat chance I'd take my truck to him!" That was, of course, unless he really needed to, to get around. It rattled, but it ran, and Lee was acclimated to the inequitable distributions of life. He spent his thoughts in planning how to equalize things, as best he could. He noted that Jeff Green came into town often with a little sister who was usually with that dog, in the back of a truck. The more he watched them, the more fool he felt himself, because the dog was obviously gentle as a kitten. He watched his chief rival, Hank Zender, and had a special malevolence for him, because he had taken his place at Olney's garage. He saw Hank come in to town with his dog, Nero. Nero would have been worth hiding from, in a tool shed. Lee was smart enough to keep a healthy distance from that one. Lee Whitcomb kept within the limits of his probation, rattled his way to the corner cafe, drank his coffee, read his paper, and picked up occasional odd jobs, and surveyed the town, waiting for his opportunity. He was a patient man.

The first snows of December whitened the Redney curbs and thresholds of the hardware store, the shops, and the cafe. Storekeepers swept the light dustings over the curbs into the street, and stood leaning on their brooms, welcoming the first signs of the Christmas season. The radio stations played medleys of Christmas carols almost exclusively, and there was a large poster advertising the Nutcracker Suite performance at the Paramount Theater, during Christmas week. City employees stood on the tops of city vehicles wrapping strings of lights and tinsel around telephone poles and street signs. The firetruck with its hook and ladder was used to reach the spire on City Hall where a star was hung, and across the street on the lawn of the courthouse, men moved the figures of the familiar nativity scene into their places between the flat marble cornerstone of the courthouse and the blue spruce which towered above it magnificently.

Martha Johnson looked over the bolts of flannel in the dry goods store, and chose three yards of soft red plaid to make Ted a shirt. She had made him one like that the first Christmas they began dating. He had been so impressed, because his arms were never comfortably covered whenever he had a shirt which fit him properly everywhere else, and Martha had seemed to know this, to his amazement. The shirt she made him had fit so well, and he had loved it. As she purchased her material, she wondered if the old pattern would still fit him. She kept all of her old patterns, though she hadn't had time to sew for years. She would find the time to make this shirt, and already she was enjoying the fun of thinking how she would do it without Ted seeing her.

Ted had his own shopping to do. He had been thinking ahead, for quite a while, and knew just what it was he wanted. Bob Olson had told him about a litter of hound pups born in October some time, and Ted had gone over to see them. He'd picked two of them out, one for Tom, one for Greg, and hoped that Greg wasn't too old to get the same appreciation from a dog of his own he'd once had. He was pretty sure he wasn't. Picking out the pups gave Ted a satisfying feeling, and made him wish Christmas would hurry up and come! Now, he needed his gift for Martha.

At the fair in Redney Martha had seemed like a girl again. Ted couldn't help thinking this when he heard her laughing with Jane Green over the quilts and the jam and the candle making. They had tried on hats together, and asked the men to take them on rides, and every time they passed a stand, they had wanted to stop for a lemonade or a hot dog or for cotton candy, and they'd even coaxed the men into ringing the bell, and shooting at the rows of rubber ducks. He couldn't get over Martha and Jane sticking their heads through those holes in the picture gallery and having their pictures taken, and he'd laughed like he was a boy again to hear them scream at the game where a real mouse was let out of a long tube onto a table. He'd placed money on a pocket in the table at the caller's insistence, and then the caller let go over that mouse, and he thought Martha would faint! Ted couldn't remember a time when they'd laughed so much.

There was a jewelry booth there, and Martha had picked up a small cameo locket and held it, almost wistfully, he thought. Ted had watched her put it back, and the more he thought of it, the more he thought how pretty it would be on Martha, and what a good reminder it would be of that day. He had wanted to buy it and put it aside for Christmas, but didn't want Martha to see him. When he was figuring out how he could make an excuse to walk back without Sam and Jane and Martha, Mr. Olney had found them and told them about Jeff's accident. He hadn't forgotten the locket now, as he walked into the only jewelry shop in Redney. The locket wasn't in the window display with the diamond engagement rings, so Ted Johnson walked in and asked about it.

"Oh, I know the one you mean, Mr. Johnson," Mr. Hollis told him. He went into the back and came out with a long flat box which looked like brown velvet. Inside was the cameo locket alongside other kinds of necklaces.

"I'll take that one," he pointed, without even asking the price.

"Certainly, Mr. Johnson! Would you like for it to be engraved with something?"

"Didn't think about it," he paused. "That'd be real good. Would it take long?" Ted was anxious to have the gift in his possession, and did not like the idea of going home without it, even though there were still three weeks until Christmas.

"I can have it done for you in an hour!" Mr. Hollis answered. "What would you like on it?"

"To Martha from Ted, I guess," he said, and then thoughtfully, he changed the wording. "Make that 'To Martha with love from Ted.'"

"Well, I don't think all that will fit. Would 'Martha, Love Ted' do?"

"That would be fine," Ted answered, satisfied. "I'll be back in an hour, then."

Ted left, pleased with the memory of the fun in August, and the anticipation of the giving, ahead. A Salvation Army bell-ringer sang out the good news of Christmas as he passed him on the corner, and began to cross the street to the hardware store. Midway across Ted stopped and turned back. He opened his wallet and took out a bill, dropping it into the metal slot of the bell-ringer's bucket. On the way back to the hardware store, he found himself humming a Christmas Carol. The words, which had been stored for nearly a score of years, whispered their way into his heart as softly as the gentle snowflakes which were still sprinkling the Redney shoppers with Christmas.

Mrs. Chaney picked long branches of holly and pine to decorate the mantle over the fireplace. Along the fence where the pumpkin and corn stalks had been through the autumn season Mr. Chaney had planted a row of small white pines which he would replant on the back of the property between the yard and the cornfield in another year. Now they made a border of Christmas, replacing the charm of the Thanksgiving scene. Mrs. Chaney had strung twinkle lights on each of the little trees, and on the fence behind was the wooden star Joshua had cut and stained in junior high industrial arts class. Mrs. Chaney and Sarah had made the small figures of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus in a plaster casting set they had ordered from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Mrs. Chaney placed the figures carefully in front of the holly branches, making space for the little lambs and the shepherds, with the three wise men a ways off to one side. She hung a star which had a Christmas tree light as its center over the scene. She twined the cord carefully behind the holly branches, and then leaned over to plug it in, satisfied. She would bake cookies with Miriam and her little friend Faith that week. It was a Christmas preparation that should be filled with little girl voices, to Mrs. Chaney's way of thinking. Her pantry was ready for them, with its bittersweet chocolate squares and walnuts, and chocolate stars for the peanut butter surprises, the molasses and spices for the gingerbread men, the coconut and brown sugar for the penuche fudge, and the pecans for Mr. Chaney's favorite, Pecan Crunches. they would fill peanut butter jars with a variety of Christmas cookies, along with round pie tins of homemade fudge, beaten smooth and creamy, and poured just before "setting up" in the pan, and deliver them to those in town who did them service and befriended them in their community fellowship. It would be fun, Mrs. Chaney thought, to make the trip with Miriam and Faith. Young hearts and young hands certainly made the season come alive!

Mr. and Mrs. Green had a surprise for Jeff they just had to let Miriam in on. It was the biggest gift they had ever planned, and having Miriam in on their surprise just multiplied their excitement. They had bought Jeff a truck! It was an old one, but Mr. Olney had repaired it, and the owner had let it sit, for weeks. When he finally came in to claim it, he couldn't pay the bill, even though Mr. Olney had said he could just pay a little each week. So instead, Mr. Olney had offered to pay him what he thought it was worth, and to deduct the bill, and the man settled. Mr. Olney had offered it then to the Greens.

"What do you think, Jane?" Mr. Green had said.

She saw and heard his excitement, and said the only thing possible. "Oh, Sam! Let's do it! Won't Jeff be thrilled?"

They had told Mr. Olney not to say anything, and could they leave it there until Christmas? He said they could, and so on weekends, Mr. Green would go in, and clean it and polish it, anticipating the day when they would give it to Jeff.

"I'm going to tie a big red ribbon on it!" Miriam told her mother. Mrs. Green thought this was a wonderful idea.

"But we can't put it under the tree this year," she laughed. "We can put it right outside the window by the tree, though, if the ground's hard enough."

"Then we'll get Jeff to look out the window! We'll pretend we heard something!" Miriam's excitement was almost more than she could hold in. She hoped she wouldn't do anything to let the surprise slip out. She hugged Moses and told him he would be getting something special under the tree, too. He didn't seem worried, or left out.

Jeff bought Merry a huge box of chocolates, and asked Mrs. Green to wrap it for him. He also bought her small pearl earrings, with a dainty circle of gold filigree. He had never seen her wear earrings, but these were so pretty he liked to picture her in them. The little box in which they were nested was lined with a small square of red velvet which seemed to sing out the precious time of love-purchases.

Faith's excitement in the season was the most she could ever remember. She had been given a gift of twenty-five dollars, an unparalleled treasure, from her Uncle Benjamin. Faith knew that he looked so very much like her father had, and at the funeral he had put his arms around her and her mother, and couldn't say anything at all. Every birthday and Christmas he would send a little card, but this was the first time he had sent a gift, and it was such a magnificent one! He had even written a little note saying he was glad he could do something for his brother's little girl this year, and for each of them to have a Merry Christmas. He had sent his love, along with the gift, and Mrs. Vitale had hugged the little note, and asked Faith what she would like to do with such a wonderful sum.

"Mother, can I do anything I want with it?" Faith asked her, a little hesitantly.

"Of course!" Mrs. Vitale answered. "Would you like to save it, and think about it for a while, or do you have something already in mind?"

"I have something in mind, but I do want to think about it a while," Faith answered her, and Mrs. Vitale was content. She knew her little girl's quiet, thoughtful ways, and it pleased her now for Faith to have such a Christmas gift to contemplate. Faith did not tell her that what she wanted most of all to do was to buy a beautiful new dress for her mother, and a silver friendship bracelet for Miriam, the kind so many of her friends at school exchanged with one another. Faith could never have afforded one, until now. She would have it engraved, and show Miriam by the gift how special she was to her. Maybe, if there was something left over, she could buy one of those beautiful poinsettia plants for Mrs. Green, who always made her feel so welcome, and perhaps a pretty red collar for Moses, too. The twenty-five dollars multiplied into endless possibilities, and sweetened Faith's waking dreams as well as her sleep.

As the first week in December came to a close and Christmas preparations marked a steady incline, the Redney County inhabitants devised bountiful ways of giving of themselves. Merry appliqued a scarf for Jeff, and Martha worked busily and secretively on Ted's shirt. Lee Whitcomb's Christmas spirit also intensified. Jeff and Mr. Green, Hank Zender and Joshua Chaney all listened each night to the evening news and its report on the war situation in Europe. Britain was holding its own in the war with Germany, but France had surrendered well past a year ago. There was talk of the United States going to war against the Axis powers. Lee Whitcomb had no time for such thoughts. He had other things on his mind. Like the other Redney inhabitants, he too continued to plan for his opportunity to give of himself. And when the opportunity came, he was ready.
Chapter 15

The Quarry

****

Miriam always remembered the day Pearl Harbor was attacked as a day of personal tension and fear, as well as one in which her family and her town and her nation were sobered and single-minded, drawn so intently to their radios on that first evening and on the long procession of days which followed. When she went to sleep that night, her dreams had terrified her. She woke up, tremendously relieved to be awake. But she was unable to shake entirely loose from the awful fantasy which had loosed upon her, in which ships were in flames and sinking, and the young men on them all looked like Jeff. She had patted her pillow as an invitation to Moses to crawl from the foot of her bed up beside her, and she lay there, petting his silky ears, and drawing comfort from his unconcern over worldly affairs.

They had sat that evening around the radio, drinking in the news, and her father had shushed her when she had asked a question. She knew that bombs had fallen on the Pacific Fleet, and that battleships had been destroyed. She knew that Americans had been killed, and she heard Jeff talk about enlisting. Her mother had been frightened too, and Mr. Green had said to hold on, there were only a few months until graduation. She sensed that her parents had already talked this over, and knew what Jeff might be thinking. Miriam didn't even want to hear them talk about it, and so she had gone into the bedroom with Moses, and gotten ready for bed. She had turned out the light even though it was early, and in a little while she knew her mother had looked in on her, but she hadn't said good night or anything. She just closed the door quietly. Miriam lay there and couldn't sleep. Not Jeff, she thought. She couldn't stand the idea of him being gone. She feared for Jeff, and she feared for herself, too. She didn't want home to be different. She closed her eyes and tried to close her mind and keep remote all the ominous things which were happening so very far away and yet were so malevolently intruding upon the security of her world.

The next day, and in the days to follow, the news continued to be the focal point of everyone's attention. Jeff came home from the Chaneys and told them at dinner that Joshua would be enlisting before the year was out. The Chaneys knew he would want to. He would probably go to Officer's school. Hank Zender came over and he and Jeff sat on the back step talking and planning what they would do after graduation, or even if they should wait at all.

Even so, Christmas preparations continued to multiply at an intensified pace, paralleling the pulse of the town. Sons and uncles and fathers and brothers and sweethearts seemed suddenly infinitely more precious, and gifts were purchased and wrapped with the lonely and very real consideration that this might be the very last opportunity of giving.

Jeff drove Miriam in to town in the Johnson's truck, intending to fill it with gas, and to drop off a package for them at the post office. Mrs. Green had a list of things for him to buy, and there was a cleaning order to be picked up. Moses rode in the back of the truck, but Miriam rode inside with Jeff because of the wintry bite in the air.

Faith was to meet Miriam at Ollswangs Department store, where Faith had material picked out to make a dress for her mother. She wanted Miriam to see it before she bought it. When Miriam had brought Faith to meet Mrs. Chaney, it was like she knew it would be. Mrs. Chaney had been so natural and so loving toward Faith. Miriam had told Faith about Sarah, and about how you could talk to Mrs. Chaney, and right away Faith had a tenderness toward Mrs. Chaney before she even met her, not because Miriam said she was easy to talk to, but because she knew Mrs. Chaney had lost a loved one, and that she too had a need. Faith had really wanted to meet her.

They didn't just sit down and talk, the way adults do. First thing, Mrs. Chaney had something for them to do. She was cracking walnuts, and asked if they would like to help, and of course they would, and they did. She showed them how to crack the walnuts carefully because each walnut half was to be a tiny manger. Mrs. Chaney used an ice pick to carefully punch two holes in each walnut half, in the middle of each side, and near the edge. She threaded a piece of yarn through each of the holes, knotting the ends carefully, in such a way that the walnut shell could be hung from the branch of a Christmas tree by the piece of yarn. Then Mrs. Chaney showed them how to make the baby Jesus to fit inside each miniature manger. She took, of all things, Faith marveled, a marble! Then she took a tiny square of white flannel, and put the marble in the center, gathering the flannel about it, and tying it with white thread that didn't even show against the white flannel. She then drew little eyes and a nose and mouth on the flannel over the smooth marble gathered under its folds. She crimped a few pieces of straw into the walnut half, and tucked the "baby Jesus" into His shell-shaped manger.

"I need fifty of these!" she told the girls. "One for each of the children in the primary department of Sunday School. You'd be such a blessing to me, if you'd like to help!"

"Oh, we'd love to!" Miriam spoke for both of them, and she and Faith sat at the kitchen table, cracking walnuts ever so carefully. When one would crack in the middle, and not along the seam, Mrs. Chaney had them put the broken pieces in a separate dish.

"I use those for putting in the dirt around the house plants," she told them, making them feel good even about their "mistakes."

They cracked, and wrapped, and drew faces, and ate the delicious tidbits of walnut meat, garnered in manger corners, sharing and talking and giving, as the tiny reminders of the most precious of all gifts were being prepared to delight fifty young minds and hearts. Each manger-shell would adorn a child's own Christmas tree, or he would play out the Christmas story with the small marble child, within. It was a united labor of love, and a time for easy conversation.

Faith told Mrs. Chaney that she had some money for a special dress for her mother, and she asked if Mrs. Chaney would help her pick one out. She didn't tell Miriam that the money had been a special gift from her uncle, and she treasured up the surprise she was planning for Miriam, without breathing a word.

Mrs. Chaney said to her, "Faith, how would you like it if you gave your mother a very special dress that you yourself made?"

"Oh, but Mrs. Chaney, I don't even know how to sew!" Faith answered.

"We take home ec in school next year, Mrs. Chaney," Miriam offered. "We'll learn to sew then, but we begin on an apron, not a whole dress!"

"I suspected you hadn't begun yet," Mrs. Chaney assured them, "but I can teach you and help you, and together we could come with somethin' really special! That is, if you'd like to?" Mrs. Chaney knew the price of a new dress at the department stores, and she sensed that Faith might need some help.

"Oh, Mrs. Chaney, if you'd help, I think my mother would like that better than anything I might buy," Faith said. "How much material would I need?"

"How big is your mother, Faith?" Mrs. Chaney asked.

"She's about as big as you," Faith answered, "but not quite as tall."

"Then that should make our job easy, especially as we want this to be a surprise! Tell you what, Faith, think you can get an old dress or even a skirt that your mother might not miss, if you'd sneak it out of the house for about two weeks? We could go by that, for sure."

"I know just the one! It's really old, but Mother wears it in the summer. She won't even know it's gone!"

"Do you have an idea of what you want this dress to look like?" Mrs. Chaney asked.

Faith reached in her pocket, and took out a piece of paper, shyly. "This is a picture I drew of one," she said, offering the drawing to Mrs. Chaney.

Mrs. Chaney unfolded the paper, and a lump came to her throat, as she looked at the drawing Faith had made. The picture was beautiful. The dress had sleeves softly gathered at the shoulder, tapering down smoothly to the wrists. The bodice was trimmed with what looked like lace, and the skirt fell in soft folds, midway between the knee and the ankle. The dress was lovely enough for a princess, but what caused the lump to come was the face of the woman wearing the dress. There was a tenderness and compassion and depth, undeniable in the simple pencil strokes before her.

"Why Faith, this is just beautiful," she whispered. "Is this your mother?"

Miriam looked over her shoulder at the drawing and said, "That's Mrs. Vitale, Mrs. Chaney! Faith, I never knew you could draw like that!" She looked at her very dear friend with glad amazement.

Faith said quietly, "I tried to draw how pretty she is. My mother is pretty even when she's sad, but she is prettiest of all when she laughs. That's the kind of dress I'd like her to have, but I didn't know if I could find one like that. Mrs. Chaney, do you really think we could make one something like that?"

"Faith, between you and me and Miriam and the Lord, we can make one just exactly like that!" she replied. "Why don't you two shop for the material this Saturday, and bring it on by, quick as you can, and we'll get started!"

The fun of the surprise and the project was multiplying Christmas joy, giving the three conspirators a heightened awareness of every color and odor and sound of the season. Mrs. Chaney told Mr. Chaney about the picture.

"If you could put love in a picture frame, and put it under the Christmas tree, then I'd say Faith already has her gift, without us sewing a stitch!" she told him.

"Well," he smiled at her, dangling on his index finger one of the many walnut baskets which had invaded the kitchen table, "if Love can be wrapped up in swaddling clothes, I guess it can be put in a picture frame, too."

Faith had told Miriam she had already seen the material she loved, but did not want to buy it without Miriam seeing it too. Miriam told Moses to stay in the back of the truck, while she went in to the department store. "Stay here, boy, and I'll be right out," she said. Moses understood her direction, and was always a little subdued when he heard the words, "Stay, boy!" They usually stayed with him the duration of a trip into the grocery store or wherever else it might be that Miriam went in, but sometimes Moses would "stay" instead of where Miriam left him, in the entranceway of the store into which she had gone. Once she had told him to "stay," but had forgotten him for a time, going in the front door and leaving by the back door. She had come back an hour later, fretful, and unforgiving of herself that she had forgotten him. She had found him, waiting patiently at the front door. "Oh, Mosey," she had apologized profusely, "I'm sorry I forgot you! You never, never forget me, do you?" And he never did. Neither did he hold a grudge, even for a moment. Moses had implicit trust in Miriam and in her care for him, and if she were faulty, he never charged her. Her only recrimination came from his forlorn look, and her own conscience. Now, as she told him to wait, he sat down upon his haunches, but he perked his ears to the town-sounds. The weather was invigorating, and though his travels were temporarily curtailed, his senses were not. He would investigate the air while he waited.

Lee Whitcomb watched Jeff and Miriam leave the truck. Jeff walked far down the street, and into the hardware store. Miriam went into the store where the truck was parked. Lee, too, was invigorated by the cold winter air. He had festered and planned long enough. It was time for action. He took out his pocket change, and went into the A & P grocery store beside the cafe. He bought a pound of hamburger, and counted out the change as the clerk placed his meat into a small brown paper sack. He walked quickly to the truck where Moses waited, looking about him as he walked. There was no one in sight. Moses waved his tail in greeting, as Lee approached.

"C'mon, boy, I've got something real special for you," Lee coaxed.

He held the brown paper sack under Moses' nose, and Moses sniffed, and was well-pleased. He looked expectantly at Lee. He had met this man somewhere before! Moses stood now hoping that this treasure in the bag was to be shared with him. It was. Lee drew the bag away, but coaxed all the more, and moved away from the truck.

"C'mon, boy! C'mon, I won't hurt you," he lied. And Moses followed. He knew where Miriam was, and he knew no better than to follow that which seemed good and right, and utterly delicious. Tempted by the persuasive cajoling of this familiar voice, Moses followed him across the street, and when Lee opened the door of the cab of his truck and opened the brown bag, tearing the paper from the hamburger, and offering it to Moses, Moses jumped in.

Lee took the time to feed half of the hamburger to Moses, who was very appreciative. He held the other half in reserve, closing the door carefully. Then he got in on the other side, and started up the engine. It rattled its usual complaint. Lee cursed, but mildly. He did not want to frighten Moses, and also, he was feeling successful about having possession of his victim. The rattle continued as he backed his truck out of its parking place, but in the Christmas music being played in each of the local shops, and in the conversation between buyer and seller, neighbor and friend, no one distinguished the rattle from any other noise.

Lee headed for the highway, toward the old stone quarry three miles north of Redney. The quarry was one hundred feet deep and more than triple that in width. It had provided the crushed stone for construction in and around Redney for thirty years before new excavation had begun in Lyons, still farther north. The quarry had been shut down for three years to all but the boys who tested the caution of their elders and the legal restrictions manifested in the "No Swimming" signs posted on the gate of the six-foot fence encircling the quarry area. On hot summer nights they climbed easily over the fence and dove into the cool waters from the underground springs, supplemented by the seasonal rains, boasting their virility and their immortality, or simply enjoying the contrast of the snap-cold of the clean waters to the bugged mugginess of the summer heat. They continued, even when the Redney sheriff patrolled. They would patrol his movements until the all-clear signal would be given and the boys hiding in the bushes outside the fence were free to scale the wall and undress and swim. They continued until the summer when Ben Williams disappeared under the waters and drowned, without a whisper.

The quarry had been pumped dry after that, and had to be pumped periodically, in the summer. In the fall and winter it was no temptation to anyone and so it was forgotten. But Lee Whitcomb remembered. With Moses beside him eating small portions of hamburger offered, he rattled his way to the quarry now. He pulled up to the gate and got out, inviting Moses to follow, with one more chunk of the hamburger. He forced the padlock, badly rusted, with his pliers and a screwdriver, and it fell to the ground where he left it. He went in, and Moses followed.

Moses had trusted Lee thus far. His wheedling words were accompanied with the fragrance of the hamburger, and the ride was an interesting way to spend his waiting time. Now, however, Lee's tone completely changed. He had accomplished his purpose. This animal was nothing to him. Moses only represented a way, however remote, to revenge himself on one of Lee's persecutors. Jeff Green and Hank Zender had helped Mr. Wilson in his arrest. Miriam belonged to Jeff, and so did this dog. This stupid dog. This stupid dog had made a fool of him. Lee's anger crescendoed in a new level of fury. His waiting had been balanced and semi-rational, but his time had come, and there was no longer need for control. He was quicker and bigger than Moses, and he seized him, wrapping him wholly in a huge blanket of burlap to protect himself from the jaws of the healthy young dog. Moses had not the least opportunity to assess the climate change of Lee's emotion or the level of his treachery. Lee gathered the burlap in one hand, tipping Moses totally upside down, knotting the corners together quickly, cursing all the while the perplexed, panicked animal inside. He dragged his sack quickly to the edge of the quarry and pushed it into the freezing cold waters twenty feet below the perpendicular limestone sides of the pit. He had not even a cruel taunt for his victim. His thoughts were only toward Jeff and that little sister of his, and of his own triumph in the sort of justice which he, as its creator, could understand.

Miriam told Faith the material she had chosen was so pretty her mother could wear it to the fanciest party she could ever imagine. That was all Faith needed, and so she purchased the yard goods and, thoughtfully, got two spools of thread to match. Secretly she was so thrilled, because she still had fifteen dollars left for the special gift for Miriam. She didn't know if the friendship bracelet would cost five dollars or fifteen or fifty, but she had seen it in the jewelry store window, and it was made of sterling silver! She treasured up the rest of her own gift, folding the five dollar bill carefully inside the ten dollar bill, and tucking it into the bottom of her purse, waiting until she could shop without Miriam being around. She was going to ride with Miriam to the Chaney's now, and the work on the dress would begin. Both girls were excited.

When they got to the truck, Miriam didn't see Moses, so she pulled herself up to look in the truck bed. "Moses isn't here, Faith," she told her friend as she looked about the street.

She wasn't worried yet. Moses may have gone to the doorway of the store to wait. Faith looked too, and together they walked back to the store, but found no Moses.

"Do you suppose he might have followed Jeff?" Faith asked.

"I'll bet that's what he did!" Miriam took heart in her beginning concern, and the two girls walked to the hardware store. They found no signs of Jeff or of Moses, and so they went on to the cleaners, where they found Jeff.

"No, I haven't seen him anywhere," he disappointed them. But now they had Jeff to help them look too. They spent the rest of the morning asking each store manager about Moses, and received everyone's assurance that they would sure keep a sharp look out, and would let them know the minute that dog showed up. They were not to worry! Dogs were like that, and he was certain to show up. Worse came to worse, one of them encouraged, he'd go home, smart dog like that! Miriam felt dismal, wishing Moses truly were a little bit smarter. She didn't have the confidence that he _did_ know the way home. She remembered, though, that he had followed the bus at least as far as Chaney's! Maybe he would come there?  
Every store in town had been notified. The sheriff had been notified. Mr. Olney was notified. All were attentive and concerned, because of their high regard for the Green family, and especial tenderness toward Miriam, who had helped Mrs. Chaney deliver her handmade remembrances, in the past. Moses would not wander lost through the streets of Redney for long, that was certain. Jeff dropped the girls off at Chaney's, adding his own assurance that if Moses were home, he would drive right back and tell them. They went in to Mrs. Chaney more downhearted than she had ever seen them. Faith's concern was for her friend, most of all, and Miriam could not suppress her anxiety for Moses. At Mrs. Chaney's solicitousness, she broke down and cried, and then received the solid assurances from the stability of this woman that everything was going to come out all right as though it were already so. Together then, they looked at the material which Faith had purchased, and admired its loveliness.

"This is going to be a genuine pleasure to work with," she told them. "Faith, you lay the pattern pieces out on the kitchen table there. I finally got it cleared up! Miriam, you bring the ironing board over close, and plug in the iron. Turn it to medium heat. When you sew, best have your iron just as ready as your sewing machine, only never let it get too hot! You can always wait a minute, and that way you don't have to fear scorching your goods."

Mrs. Chaney talked and instructed, letting the girls do all of the actual work themselves. The busyness was a remarkable therapy to fear, and before the afternoon was over, they had the dress cut out and the bodice basted. Mr. Chaney offered to drive both girls home, though they lived in opposite directions from the Chaney's. He loved the sound of their young voices just as he loved the wonderful spicy aroma filling his wife's kitchen, even though it messed up his place at the kitchen table so that a man couldn't even find a spot to lay out his paper. He would take Miriam home first, because he knew she had hoped there would be news of Moses there.

He dropped Miriam off, but waited a minute for her to run in and see if there was news. He could tell by the look on her face as she came back to the car that there was not.

"It'll be ok, you just wait and see," he told her, reaching out to pat her shoulder.

"Thank you, Mr. Chaney, for driving me home. We'll come by and let you know when we know about Moses," she told him. He could tell she was near tears again, and so he told her to run in before she caught her death of cold. He and Faith waved good-bye as they backed out of her driveway.

On the way to her house, Faith asked Mr. Chaney, "Do you know what might have happened to Moses? Do you think he got lost?"

"Don't think so. That dog wouldn't wander far from Miriam on his own hook," he answered.

"Then do you think somebody took him?"

"He's a handsome dog, but he's not the kind of a dog that people would steal, I don't think!" Mr. Chaney smiled at the idea, in spite of the seriousness of the situation. "He doesn't win any blue ribbons or sport any kind of papers that I know of!"

"I think he's beautiful!" Faith spoke, defending her friend's beloved pet, more than anything.

"Sure! So do I, Faith," Mr. Chaney reassured her. "Just that people don't steal animals just because they look nice. It's usually because they're of some value to them 'cause of their pedigree or skill in some function. Like a good hunting dog. Or a sheepdog, some parts of the country."

Faith understood. "But if he didn't get lost, and if no one would want to steal him, then what could have happened to him?" She still wanted direction, hoping that by figuring it out she could solve the problem and find Moses for Miriam.

"I've been thinking, too. Wish I had the answer. I can think of lots of things I don't want to. Maybe someone ran him over, and didn't want to say. Did you girls go to Doc Friedland to ask?"

"No! Mr. Chaney, do you think we could go in and ask?" Faith was excited with a new hope.

"Sure thing, it's right on the way."

They went in to Doc Friedland's together, but he had heard nothing of Moses. The veterinarian too was alerted then, and Mr. Chaney took Faith home.

As she thanked him for the ride, she asked, "Mr. Chaney, how could a person go about offering a reward for a lost dog?"

Mr. Chaney was surprised at her question. He thought a minute and then answered. "In a small community like ours, you'd just walk in to the local newspaper office and ask to take out an ad in the paper. Doesn't cost much, and they'd run your ad as long as you want. Then you could make signs and put them up in the post office, and the stores where you get the most traffic about town, like the grocery stores, and the cafe where everyone goes in real often." He considered a minute, and then said, "I think that'd be a mighty fine idea, Faith. How about you and me doing this together?" He thought she might not have known that the ad would cost, and he knew reward money would be hard for her to come by. Perhaps, he thought, he could be her silent partner, and more specifically, if he could handle it delicately, her financial one.

"Mr. Chaney, you've been taking me all over all day, and even driving me home when it's out of your way, and now you want to help me, by being my partner, too. You are..." Faith paused, not knowing how to say how grateful she was. Yet, she was still needy. She took him at his word, in her next request. "Would you help me by taking me to the newspaper office before taking me home, if it's not too late? I have some money saved up."

Faith knew the generosity of the Chaneys, and sensed also that he might be quick to provide financial help at this time. But she wanted to do this for Miriam, herself. She did not want to seem ungrateful, and so she told him of her fifteen dollars and of how she had come by it, and of the sterling silver friendship bracelet, and of the dress for her mother, and of the sea of possibilities which had been swimming before her when she had planned her Christmas.

"But Mr. Chaney, if I could help Miriam get Moses back with the money, it would mean more to her than a friendship bracelet," she finished.

Mr. Chaney found little use for words. He was touched deep down, at that level which separates sentiment from genuine emotion, which manipulates the heart. "Let's go," he said, knowing this kind of friendship would outlast a bracelet, even one of sterling.

Moses was terrified as he plunged into the icy waters, so totally unprepared to help himself. He did not even hear the rattle of the truck as it drove away. He went down under, kicking wildly against both the imprisoning burlap and the freezing cold steel of the water. He hit with an awful impact, but the burlap gave him a few seconds protection from its full effect. Soon, however, the icy water soaked through. His body in the heavy sack plummeted to the bottom of the quarry. The violence of all that was happening to him was new, and terrible, and now the bitter, bitter cold of the water increased his terror, and stunned him. He ceased his kicking, and let the torrent of water suffocate his lungs, and draw his body's heat into its icy vortex.

Treachery and cruelty triumphed, for the length of that downward plunge. Moses had not known such, before. His innocence humbled those who loved him, and charmed the good folks, who witnessed his guileless nature. It was not rage, or retaliation, but only instinct which gave him, suddenly, the renewed surge of strength and will to thrash wildly against the burlap sack covering his body and binding his feet. His well-muscled young legs kicked again and again, and with a last thrust of power, he was free from the sloppily tied sack. He pushed upward, lifted by his effort and by the waters. He surfaced, choking and gasping for air, and began to swim for his very life.

A swim, even the diameter of the quarry, had not been too much for Moses. He had waded the creek until it widened into the Fox River many times, and had then crossed the river, his smooth, near-silent dog paddle climbing the mud bank easily. But that had been in the warm summer waters, and the bank's slope and soft mud, randomly carpeted with marsh grasses and a tangle of exposed tree roots, had always granted him easy purchase. Now his energies had been much depleted in his struggle under the burlap. His lungs fought to take in the chill air, and his body labored to warm it, for its use. There was no soft mud bank anticipating his arrival.

The sides of the quarry were not only steep. They allowed nothing but a sheer descent, but just two feet above the surface level of the water, and across from the entrance gate to the quarry a small ledge of marble-like rock descending the depth of the quarry had been left when the channeling machine had chiseled its way into he solid rock bed on that side. In the summer rains, and before the quarry had been pumped regularly, this rock ledge had been covered with another ten feet of water. Now it was exposed, and with uncanny instinct, Moses made his way to this ledge. Exhausted, he raised his body up to this ledge, too narrow, even, to allow him to shake off the waters which drenched his thick, rain-repellent coat. He had not the strength to shake even if there had been room. He lay there exhausted, half-frozen, and waited for Miriam.

Faith's ad was in the morning paper: "Fifteen dollar reward for medium-sized black dog with brown spot over each eye. Answers to the name of Moses. Please call 857-3581." Lee Whitcomb drank his coffee from his seat in the corner cafe, and memorized the telephone number. "Moses, hmmm," he thought. "Stupid name for a dog."

Lee's anger had been spent, when he delivered Moses to the waters. Mollified, he had time to meditate and to plan, once again. Fifteen dollars. Now that would be sweet irony. How perfect, to collect the reward on top of all this! He would have to move quickly, while there was still time - before someone else would have the same idea. He went to the pay phone in the entrance of the cafe, and dialed the number.

A woman answered. "This is Mrs. Vitale speaking. Can I help you?"

This must be Jeff's mother, Lee thought.

"Yeah," he replied in a muffled voice. "It's about the ad in the paper..."

"Ad in the paper? I don't understand." Mrs. Vitale said.

"Maybe it's your kid's ad," Lee was disgusted with the ignorance of the woman. "There was an ad said to call this number about a dog named Moses." His exasperation was obvious.

"Oh!" Mrs. Vitale responded, oblivious to his assessment of her. "Let me get my little girl! She knows about that dog!"

Mrs. Vitale called Faith to the phone, and Faith could not suppress the excitement she felt.

"Yes? I put the ad in the paper! Do you know where Moses is?"

"Yep. How do I get the reward money, first?" Lee challenged.

Faith's excitement hid the meanness of her caller's demand.

"Where do you want me to bring it?" she asked, breathless.

"Bring it to the alley behind Miller's Cafe," he answered.

Had she been an adult, she might have recognized the sordid note this rendezvous seemed to be taking, but she was just a child. He did have the cunning not to say, "Come alone," though he wanted to do just that. Lee was not bright, but he was clever. He parked his truck in that alley, and he knew that if the little girl came alone he could complete the arrangement, and that if she came with someone, he would just order another cup of coffee, and forget the fifteen dollars.

Faith asked Mrs. Vitale if she would drive her to town and pick her up later. It was part of a Christmas surprise for Miriam, she said. Of course Mrs. Vitale would. What was this about Moses? He was lost, but now he was found? She was so glad for Miriam! When should Mrs. Vitale pick her up? Arrangements were made, and Mrs. Vitale drove Faith into town, and dropped her off at the corner by Miller's Cafe, bundled against the cold weather, and excited.

Faith walked back the few yards to the alley, questioning herself about whether or not she had gotten the instructions right. Inside the cafe, Lee paid for his cup of coffee, passing Mr. Olney as he went to the coat rack for his jacket. He did not see Mr. Olney, and so did not oblige himself to spend a muttered greeting. He was pleased with himself and with the day, because the girl had come alone.

Out of sight of the cafe patrons, Lee approached Faith. "Are you the man who called?" she asked shyly, but eagerly.

"About the dog? Yep. Got that fifteen bucks?"

Faith opened her purse, and took out the five and the ten dollar bill which she had carefully folded together, and tucked away, for Miriam.

"Here it is, sir," she answered, offering the money. "Where is Moses?" so certain she was that now he would surely be presented, intact, practically ribboned, for Christmas.

Lee Whitcomb had the restraint not to lunge for the money, but he pocketed it quickly as he pointed toward the end of the alley.

"He's behind that little trap door down there," he lied, "scared to come out. Doesn't like me, I guess. Tried to bite me when I found him there. You just give me a minute to get out of here, then you go down and let him out." Lee was proud of his invention, as well as with his success.

Faith nodded. She did not like him, but she believed him. She waited impatiently for him to go. The idea of Moses trying to bite him was so foolish, that this cast her first doubt on the man's credibility. When he had rounded the corner, she ran down to the storm door which led to the basement of one of the stores which fronted on the street opposite the alley. By the time she got there, Lee was starting up his truck, and rattling his way down the highway.

Mr. Olney had walked up to the cash register to pay his nickel for his cup of coffee. As he was putting on his coat, he saw Lee Whitcomb turning away from the alley behind the cafe. Keeping an eye on Lee Whitcomb was no longer any business of his, but when Lee's business involved his being in the alley behind the cafe, it caused him to wonder. He turned toward the alley himself, and when he got to the corner and looked, he saw a child, opening a storm door, and calling out a name. She sounded distressed.

Mr. Olney walked down, and said, "What's the trouble, little girl?"

"I came to get Moses," she cried, by now starting to doubt his ever being there. "A man said he was in here!"

"Moses? You mean Miriam Green's dog?" Mr. Olney asked. "What would he be doing in here?" Mr. Olney walked into the crawl space, and looked around. "There's nothing in here, that's for sure. Who told you he was here?"

Faith choked back big sobs, and Mr. Olney alternated between tenderness toward this little would-be rescuer, and anger. He was absolutely sure that Lee Whitcomb was involved, and the still-audible rattle of his departing vehicle punctuated Mr. Olney's anger.

"You come on with me, do ya hear?" he said to Faith. "We're going to get us some help!" And, taking Faith's hand, he helped her into his own truck, and drove with her to the sheriff's office. On the way she told him the whole story of the fifteen dollars and the missing Moses, and her hopes of a special Christmas surprise for Miriam. In his own words, he related this to the sheriff.

"He ought to be easy to find," the sheriff said. "You drop Faith off at home, and we'll bring him in, and ask him a few questions."

"My mother's going to pick me up pretty soon, right at Miller's Cafe," Faith said. She had taken relief from the help all about her, and though less naive, her confidence was now grounded in men who spoke the truth, and did not make empty promises.

Mr. Olney waited with Faith at the cafe for Mrs. Vitale to pick her up. "I'll let you know what happens," he promised her. "If Mr. Whitcomb knows of Moses' real whereabouts, we'll find out." There was an ominous note to his voice, and no respect at all in the "Mr." Faith thanked him. Something about Mr. Olney brought a rightness to life.

Lee Whitcomb exchanged knowledge of Moses' whereabouts for nothing more than the loosening of the grip upon his left upper arm by Sheriff Daniels, and of his right upper arm by Mr. Olney. He declaimed any and all involvement about how Moses had gotten where he was. Lee was detained while they drove to the quarry together, to test Lee's information.

They looked about the quarry and said nothing for a few minutes, but Sheriff Daniels was blessed with far-sightedness. He thought he detected something on the other side of the quarry, about fifteen or twenty feet down. They ran around the edge, and looking down, saw the prostrate dog. They were not confident that he was breathing, but the very fact that he lay there, maintaining his place, gave them some confidence. Sheriff Daniels ran back to his squad car, and brought back a stout rope. They made a loop, and fastened it around the fence post behind the quarry.

"You know, we can't lasso him like a steer," Mr. Olney said.

"Why not? That's what I figured," Daniels replied.

"Well, for one thing, if he slips back in, we'd probably lose him. If he makes it, it'll be a wonder, in all this cold. He won't be able to take another dip in _that_ water. Thing we got to do is go down there, and get this rope around him. Think you can pull me up, once I git there?"

"If one of us has to go, then it's gonna be me," Sheriff Daniels said. "I'm a lot younger than you, and probably a better swimmer too!"

"Lot younger, huh!" Sheriff Daniels was in his early thirties, and Mr. Olney had been considering retirement for about five years now. "Bet not by more than ten years or so!" Mr. Olney countered. "Well, maybe so, but I think you got a better chance of getting me back up than I have of getting you back up!" And with that it was settled.

Sheriff Daniels slowly lowered Mr. Olney over the side of the quarry, the twenty feet which seemed a mile to the older man, down to Moses. Moses stirred, and looked at his rescuer. His tail tapped an exhausted but ever-friendly greeting, and he closed his eyes while Mr. Olney fixed the rope about him. He had to take off his gloves, and his fingers were stinging with the cold.

"There you go, young feller," he encouraged. "Up with him, Daniels!"

And Sheriff Daniels lifted Moses from the quarry ledge which had been his place of refuge for so many desperate hours. Then Daniels lowered the rope once again, and waited for Mr. Olney to fix it about his own waist. In an awkward climb, he was hoisted over the quarry edge, shivering and exhausted. The men helped Moses into the still running squad car, and they absorbed the blast of hot air from the car's heater in grateful welcome. Some Christmas present he would be, Mr. Olney thought as he towel-rubbed the chilled body of the dog at his feet. He knew of two little girls who were going to be very, very happy, and he felt satisfied to have had a hand in their happiness. He thought of the friendship bracelet. Sterling, was it? Well, this was more like gold. Pure gold.

Moses recuperated and thrived, watered by the glad tears of Miriam, and the joyful participation of all her loved ones. She and Faith hugged, and had no voices for words until quite a while after his return. When Miriam heard about Faith's reward, and of Mr. Chaney, and Mr. Olney, and Sheriff Daniels, and the chase of Lee Whitcomb, and the descent down the quarry wall, she didn't know where to begin. Gratitude could not, and should not be contained. She went to each of her befrienders, sharing Christmas love and gratitude in the only ways she knew how. She hugged Mr. Chaney, while Mrs. Chaney stood watching, and filling up with tears, laughing and crying at the attempt of the little girl so dear to them both to express the inexpressible. Next she stood at the door of Mr. Olney's garage, and looked so pathetic that he made it easy for her, engulfing her with easy words.

"Why Miriam," he said, "scaling that wall wasn't nuthin'! Me'n Sheriff Daniels go down there real often for a swim, every December!" He laughed so hard she had to laugh too, but in the end it was Miriam who had the last word.

"I love you, Mr. Olney," she whispered, and he stood there speechless, patting her small mittened hand.

Christmas came, and Mrs. Vitale was as speechless as Mr. Olney, when she opened the beautifully wrapped box with her dress in it.

"We made it ourselves, Mom!" Faith told her, unfolding the secrets stored up in the days spent at Chaney's.

Mrs. Vitale's face was more beautiful than Faith's picture of her, when she read the note from Mrs. Chaney, tucked inside the box. It read: _Thank you so very much for loaning me your precious little girl these days which might have been so lonely for me and my husband. She has filled our home with the good things which she has received in your love and nurturing. She loves you very much, and has made us come to know you too. She made this dress herself, with just a little instruction from me. Love, and Merry Christmas! The Chaneys._

Jeff could not believe his truck! The Greens' joy was multiplied over and over again, in his exuberant unbelief, and gratitude. Ted Johnson wore his new flannel shirt proudly, boasting of Martha's skills to everyone who visited, and Martha treasured the inscription on the back of her locket, more than the locket itself. Faith and Miriam exchanged identical friendship bracelets, to their wonder and merriment, all the rest of their days. Jeff ate most of the chocolates he bought for Merry, and told her she looked beautiful in the pearl earrings. Merry's scarf, appliqued for him, was worn to dinner that evening. The shop keepers in town ate squares of Mrs. Chaney's fudge while waiting on customers, and the post office workers thought they were better than ever this year. Greg and Tom Johnson held their pups and romped with them until Mrs. Johnson had to tell them to take them both outside, and use their energies up there. They would knock over the tree in a minute, she scolded, but her voice was soft, and she scooped the pups up herself, and rubbed her cheek against their downy fur while her boys put on their coats to run out their pleasure in the delicious December bite of Christmas.

"What're ya gonna name yours, Greg?" Tom asked.

"Thinkin' about 'Holly,'" Greg answered. "Ma put a sprig in her ribbon, but she's eaten it up already!" He laughed. "How 'bout yours, Tom?"

"Guess I'll think about it a while," Tom answered. A name should be just right, like 'Holly.' It 'fit,' he thought, the way 'Moses' fit, for Miriam's dog. Tom had lots of patience, he told his pup, who listened very carefully, and answered by running off with Tom's glove captured in his provocative little teeth.

Moses lay on the braid rug, soaking up the heat from the fireplace looking poetically content and Christmassy. He had received a beautiful new red collar from Faith, and Miriam had crocheted him a blanket, all of his own. Mrs. Green had purchased him a large bone from the butcher, but Jeff and Mr. Green had neglected him in their Christmas shopping. Moses took no offense, whatsoever.

The beauty of Christmas was all about, and within, enveloping each recipient of God's grace with a special fortification against the portent and demands of a world at war which would soon have need of them. And the special buffeting provided by the Christmas deluge of giving love was more than a temporary harbor. Such love followed the boys to the recruiting offices, and the men into battle. It abided with those who stayed home, waiting and praying and working. It went beyond the grave for some, and lifted and sustained the many who were left to weep, and go on with other Christmas preparations, in faith that there would be again a time of laughter, in hope that the war would soon be over. But the greatest of these all, through every exaction of war and sorrow and time, and neighborliness and treachery and friendship and love, identically gift-boxed under the trees of two little girls, or descending a rope over a quarry ledge to rescue a near-frozen dog: the Redney Christmas, that year, was bathed in that kind of love, and passersby stopped at the courthouse lawn to look at the figures of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. They were merry, or sober and thoughtful. Somehow or other, those figures so fitting, seemed to express all that they wanted to impart in their tumbled out expressions of love for one another, and concern for the future. For just as war shadowed their future, a cross shadowed the figures on the lawn. Yet Christmas kept. Christmas kept.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gwen Walker: beloved wife, mother of six, grandmother to 26 grandchildren, dog-lover, writer, friend, believer.

She resides in Heaven with her Lord Jesus Christ, and is missed by all who loved her.

She never got the chance to see her book published.
