A Clearing in the forest (2 page)

Wilson tried to think what you were supposed to do when someone fainted. Before he could decide, Frances Crawford opened her eyes and began struggling to get up.

“Don't just stand there, boy,” she said. “Give me a hand.”

2

Wilson helped Frances up, amazed at how light she was. It was like holding an abandoned bird's nest in your hand. “Want me to walk you up to your cabin?” Wilson was embarrassed. If she passed out again, he would have to carry her. And she looked so old, brittle and dried up, he was almost afraid she would break into pieces.

But she started toward the cabin with no difficulty. “You bring the rabbit for me, will you, Wilson?” This was awkward, she thought. The old heart was having trouble pushing blood through her clogged arteries—not a good sign.

They walked along silently, following the river. Once Frances stopped and pointed. In the shadow of a log, a big trout lay suspended in water so clear it seemed not to be there at all. The trout's head was pointed upstream. He was waiting for the current to sweep an insect his way. It took Wilson a minute or two to see the fish. He decided there was nothing wrong with the old lady's eyes.

The Crawford cabin stood on a small rise overlooking the stream. To one side of it was a vegetable garden covered with a thick mulch of leaves and straw. A path had been worn into the sandy soil from the front door to a ramshackle landing that extended out over the riverbank. On either side of the landing was a bench fashioned from split logs. On the opposite bank there was a stand of birch, maple and poplar trees. Behind it was an enormous Norway pine.

“Listen to that river, Wilson,” Frances said. “Even in the worst winter it keeps flowing. It's stronger than the ice.”

Wilson was surprised that he had not heard the sound of the river until she mentioned it. He watched her stride up the path, her legs lifting in and out of her loose boots like two pistons. When they reached the cabin, Wilson saw that the front door was partially open; flies and bees were winging in and out like casual partygoers.

“Can't close the door,” she said to him over her shoulder. “Have to take it off its hinges one of these days and plane it.”

Wilson followed her into the cabin. While she dropped into the nearest overstuffed chair, causing a little explosion of dust to erupt from the cushions, he looked around the room. Even the town library didn't have as many books. But what a mess. Plants were everywhere: avocado saplings struggling up from coffee cans, African violets multiplying in styrofoam cups, and long tangles of ivy growing like snarled hair from blue milk of magnesia bottles. Had he asked, Frances would have told Wilson that even at the age of eighty she saw to it that there were still plenty of things that needed her. Furthermore, the green plants served as a leafy barrier between her and the snow drifts that seemed to lean heavier each year against the cabin.

Newspapers and magazines were piled up in corners, dust lay on the tables and fluffy balls of it wafted around the room from the breeze that blew in through the open door. On the floor was a large water stain from a leak in the roof. There were stuffed birds, piles of rocks, an old hornet's nest, small bleached white skulls, barrels of corn and sunflower seeds and rotting apples that smelled like cider. Snowshoes were lying on the dining room table and fishing rods were piled up on the davenport. Tucked under the chairs were old bones the dog had contributed to the decor. Wilson could hear the dog lapping water in the bathroom, probably from the toilet bowl.

Frances heard him, too, and it reminded her that she was thirsty. “You might bring me a glass of cold water, Wilson.”

Wilson looked through the cluttered cupboards in the kitchen for a clean glass and had to settle for rinsing out a dirty one. The kitchen floor felt sticky under his shoes, and the dish towel he used to dry the glass was covered with stains. In a corner a dried-out leathery mouse lay in a trap.

When he handed her the glass and saw how her hand was shaking, he decided he'd better stay a little while. It was not a bad feeling, this looking after someone instead of always being looked after.

“Listen, if you've got some tools, I could fix that door so it would close.” In deference to her age he spoke loudly.

“That would be fine, Wilson, but don't shout at me.” She knew he was making up a ruse in order to stay and see if she were all right, and it pleased her. “Dr. Crawford's old tool box is right there under the table. I could keep the mice down if I could shut the door. I saw a tail sticking out of the toaster this morning.”

Wilson's pounding and scraping cheered her. She had forgotten how pleasant it was to hear a man fix up a house. It was a lovely primeval sound that promised a snug cave with protection from lions and tigers—and mice. Wilson was a good boy. She would have to find some treat for him. From one of the kitchen shelves she took a dusty valentine box and tore off the cellophane. Hard to recall just how long it had been around. A patient might have given it to Tom, who hadn't cared for candy. Unfortunately the chocolates were rather gray, but some hard candies looked quite respectable. She plucked them out and put them in a little dish, first giving the dish a quick swipe with her skirt.

Wilson was putting the tools away when he noticed a large box filled with a number of perplexing things: straw, bits of string and yarn, unraveled sisal rope, dog hair combings and dust balls. It looked like something a witch might use to cast a spell. Before he could stop himself, he asked, “What's that mess?”

“That's my nesting box, Wilson. I'll put it outside in a few days and the birds will use the things in it to build their nests.” She pushed the dish of candy toward him.

Wilson popped a lemon drop into his mouth. The flavor was very faint. He thought how different Mrs. Crawford's cabin was from his own home, where you could look around a room and see everything there was to see in just a few seconds; here, you could look and look. Beyond all the things were the books. He decided it was the kind of home he would have himself one day, if he could avoid marrying someone as tidy as his mother.

When she saw him staring at the books, Frances pulled one from the bottom of a pile, pushing aside the resulting avalanche. “Here's the book on fossils I was telling you about, Wilson.”

Wilson held the book in his hands. The heft of it was intimidating.

“It's not a difficult book, Wilson. If you're interested in geology, you ought to read it.” She was cross with herself. Who said anything about his being interested in geology? He would in all likelihood spend his life fooling around with cars in his dad's yard. She knew herself to be a great meddler. It was one of the reasons she saw little of people. The tendency on her part to give gratuitous advice disgusted her. After all, no one hated to receive advice more than she. She was horrified to hear her voice, presumptuous and carping, “Wilson, I want you to promise me you won't quit school; it's only another month. You might want to go to college someday.”

Wilson was uneasy. No one in his family had ever gone to college. His older sister was the only one to graduate from high school.

Frances saw his hesitancy and said hastily, “Listen, Wilson, forget any advice I give you. I talk too much.”

When he left, she walked down the road with him as far as her mailbox, wanting him to see that she was perfectly all right. The dog trotted ahead of them, sniffing out familiar landmarks. “I'll tell you how I find birds' nests, Wilson,” she said. “You take the same path each day, a trail like this one along the edge of the woods is best. You watch to see where the birds are flushed out as you pass. After you see a bird fly out at the same spot several times, you know just about where to look. Before the nesting season is over, I'll have found twenty or thirty nests just along this trail.”

They came to a robin's nest in a young beech tree. Wilson saw that it was still in the process of being built. Like prudent contractors, the pair of birds had stockpiled strands of straw and strips of birch bark which they would work into their nest. Just before they came to the mailbox, she led him to a small fir tree. He couldn't see anything until she parted some branches and a brown bird shot out. “Song sparrow,” she said. In the nest were two eggs of the palest green, spotted with brown and lavender. Wilson thought he had never seen anything more delicate. Beside them was a large white egg, freckled all over with dark brown spots. It was three times the size of the sparrow's eggs. Mrs. Crawford snatched it out of the nest and gave it to him.

“Cowbirds,” she said distastefully. “Parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of small birds that can't fight them off. When the eggs hatch out, the baby cowbird will be three times the size of the tiny sparrow fledglings and he'll get all of the food. The song sparrow fledglings will starve.”

“Why don't the song sparrows destroy the egg?”

“They can't make the choices we can, Wilson.”

Wilson held the egg in his hand. It was still warm. There was life in it. “How do you know you ought to choose the tree sparrow?”

When Frances walked back to the cabin, alone now, carrying the letters from the mailbox, the song sparrow had returned to its nest. Did it know the egg that would have killed its young had been removed? Probably not. Another example of her interfering. In nature the chain of casualties was long and complex and had a purpose. Wilson had asked the proper question: why the song sparrow? The boy would make a good scientist. With all her journals and notes, she was only an amateur.

Frances opened one of the letters. A local real estate firm had written to her again. They were always trying to get her to part with her land. River frontage was in demand:

This is a premium time for selling your property … buyers in our office every day … future uncertain … under no obligation …

Someday they might get her land and turn it into a development with concrete roads and condominiums. But while she was still alive and kicking, no one was going to touch it.

When she opened the next letter, she saw how little her boast meant:

Dear Mrs. Crawford:

This is the third letter we have sent you regarding our wish to complete a seismological survey of your land to determine whether or not it would be worthwhile to drill for oil on your property.

As you know, since you do not have the mineral rights, it is perfectly legal for us to go ahead with our investigation; however, we prefer to do so with your permission.

I must also bring to your attention complaints by our crew that on a recent preliminary survey, some person or persons let the air out of their tires. The crew has also reported attacks by a vicious dog. We are anxious to do everything we can to foster good relationships in the community, and therefore in the interest of working out some solution which will prove satisfactory to all concerned, our representative, Mr. Clyde Looster, will be in touch with you in the near future …

When she got to the place where the robins were building their nest, she carefully shredded the two letters into long thin strips and hung them on a nearby branch in the event the robins ran out of birch bark.

3

Wilson pulled onto the sandy trail that wound through his front yard. As soon as he turned the motor off, the car became indistinguishable from the fifty or more cars strewn around him. Every once in a while the township supervisor would stop by on the pretext of wanting advice about a problem he was having with his car. After he had made the kind of jokes people make when their hearts aren't in them, he'd say to Wilson's dad, “Ty, it don't make any difference to me, but some folks along the road, and I'm not saying their names, are complaining about all the cars you got scattered around your lawn.”

His dad would thin his lips into two straight lines, like he always did when he got angry, and say to just tell those nosey so-and-so's to mind their own business. “This is a free country and what I do with my yard is up to me and nobody else.”

After some more talk the township supervisor would slink away and not return till the Catchners' neighbors got after him again.

Wilson noticed Lyle Barch had dropped off his motorcycle. Wilson had promised to fix the starter. He didn't much like Lyle, who was the kind of person who always looked right at you after he said something to be sure you thought it was clever or funny—and it seldom was. Wilson didn't like to be bullied into pretending to feel something he did not. Another thing he had against Lyle was the way he ran around with boys who were younger than he was so he could boss them. He'd buy beer for them and they'd race around on their motorcycles like a swarm of angry bees.

He pushed open the screen door and carefully wiped his feet. To make up for the disorder in the front yard, his mom kept the inside of the house immaculate. If you moved so much as an ashtray out of its place, she would call from someplace in the house, “Wilson, what are you up to?”

He found his parents where they were every afternoon before dinner, his mom at the stove and his dad at the kitchen table, newspaper spread out, reading out loud to her back. His dad didn't consider a newspaper properly read until he had made a pronouncement on each story.

“What they need down there in Washington,” he was saying.… He looked at Wilson, “Well, here's the hunter come home. Got yourself a rabbit, eh?”

His mother smiled at him, “You must be a mind reader. I've had a taste lately for a rabbit.”

Wilson thought how young his mother looked compared to Mrs. Crawford. And you never saw his mom in old clothes or even slacks, just neat housedresses that all looked alike. “I had two rabbits but I left one with Mrs. Crawford. I got them in her woods.”

While Wilson's father did not encourage anyone to tell him what to do with his own property, he considered a little unobtrusive poaching on the property of others good sport. “Well, I suppose you got yourself caught and had to hand one over. I've heard the doc's widow is having a hard time making ends meet. That sickness of his went on for a long time and those last years he wasn't able to do much business. You'd think she'd sell that property of hers along the river. She'd get a good price for it and she could move into town. Anyhow, I guess we owe her. Doc never did charge much when he took care of you; not that you were worth much.” His father gave Wilson a friendly wink to show he was fooling.