A Northern Light(9)

"The Count of Monte Cristo's a good book already, isn't it, Mattie? And we're only on the second chapter," Weaver said.

"It sure is," I replied, bending down by a big clutch of fiddleheads.

"You writing any more stories yourself?" Minnie asked me.

"I've no time. No paper, either. I used up every page in my composition book. But I'm reading a lot. And learning my word of the day."

"You ought to use your words, not collect them. You ought to write with them. That's what they're for," Weaver said.

"I told you I can't. Don't you listen? And anyway, there's nothing to write about in Eagle Bay. Maybe in Paris, where Mr. Dumas lives—"

"Doo-mah."

"What?"

"Doo-mah, not Dumb-ass. Aren't you half French?"

"...where Mr. Doo-mahhhh lives, where they have kings and musketeers, but not here," I said, sounding testier than I wanted to. "Here there's just sugaring and milking and cooking and picking fiddleheads, and who'd want to read about any of that?"

"You don't have to snap, you snapping turtle," Minnie said.

"I'm not snapping," I snapped.

"The stories Miss Wilcox sent to New York weren't about kings or musketeers," Weaver said. "That one about the hermit Alvah Dunning and his Christmas all by himself, that was the best story I ever read."

"And old Sam Dunnigan wrapping up his poor dead niece and keeping her in the icehouse all winter till she could be buried," Minnie added.

"And Otis Arnold shooting a man and then drowning himself in Nick's Lake before the sheriff could take him from the woods," Weaver said.

I shrugged, poking in the leaves.

"What about the Glenmore?" Minnie asked.

"I'm not going."

"What about New York? You hear anything?" Weaver asked.

"No."

"Miss Wilcox get anything in the mail?" he pressed.

"No."

Weaver poked around some, too, then said, "That letter will come, Matt. I know it will. And in the meantime you can still write, you know. Nothing can stop you from writing if you really want to."

"It's all right for you, Weaver," I shot back angrily. "Your mamma lets you alone. What if you had three sisters to look after and a father and a big damn farm that's nothing but endless damn work? What about that? You think you'd be writing stories then?" I felt my throat tightening and swallowed a few times to get the lump out. I don't cry much. Pa's got a quick backhand and little patience for sulks or tears.

Weaver's eyes locked on mine. "It's not work that stops you, is it, Matt? Or time? You've always had plenty of one and none of the other. It's that promise. She shouldn't have made you do it. She had no right."

Minnie knows when to quit, but Weaver doesn't. He was like a horsefly buzzing around and around, looking for an opening, a tender spot, then biting so hard it hurt.

"She was dying. You would've done the same for your mother," I said, looking at the ground. I could feel my eyes tearing and I didn't want him to see.

"God took her life and she took yours."

"You shut up, Weaver! You don't know anything about it!" I shouted, the tears spilling.

"You sure have a big mouth, Weaver Smith," Minnie scolded. "Look what you did. You should say you're sorry."

"I'm not sorry. It's true."

"Lots of things are true. Doesn't mean you can go round saying them," Minnie said.

There was a silence between us then, with nothing to break it for quite some time but the plink plink plink of fiddleheads dropping in our pails.

A few months back, Weaver did something—something he says he did for me, but I say he did to me. He took my composition book—which I had tossed across the train tracks and into the woods—and he gave it to Miss Wilcox.

This composition book was where I wrote my stories and poems. I'd only shown them to three people: my mamma, Minnie, and Weaver. Mamma said they made her cry, and Minnie said they were awfully good. Weaver said they were better than good and told me I should show them to Miss Parrish, our teacher before Miss Wilcox came. He said she would know what to do with them. Maybe send them to a magazine.

I didn't want to, but he kept badgering, so I finally did. I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children.

"Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the trees and the lakes and the mountains. At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words."

I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift its face to the drenching spring rains. And the silver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest of days.