The Fires of Spring (8 page)

“Day
wid
!” came a strident voice. “Komm
here
!” He shuffled disconsolately on, ignoring his aunt.

“Day
wid
!” came a new command. “I said, ‘Komm
here
!’ ” The boy looked up as if he had never before seen his aunt and with studied care walked right through the bed of tulips.

“Och!” his aunt cried. She leaped from her chair and dashed across the lawn, catching her nephew by the hair. “
When
I say stop, you
stop
!” She gave him a stiff blow across the face. He stumbled back into the tulips. This infuriated her.

“
Church
, is it?
Party
, is it?” she cried with an angry, hopeless ache in her voice. “And who gave you new
shoes
, yet?” She struck at him again, for she saw in the brightly dressed boy a symbol of those plans which she feared could never come to fulfillment.

“A new
suit
, too?” she bellowed, and reaching out with her bony hands, she ripped the coat down the front. She tore at the shirt. Still unappeased, she slapped David violently, and his nose began to bleed.

Crazy Luther, seeing this, could stand the scene no longer and grabbed Miss Reba by the waist. “He’s
crazy
!” Aunt Reba screamed in fright, but mad Luther gripped her furiously.

“Luther!” David shouted. “Put her down!” Impersonally, Luther dropped the frantic woman and went to David.

“Look what she done to that suit!” the mad Dutchman mumbled.

“I don’t want it,” David cried, and even though Luther tried to stop him, the boy ripped away the remainder of his coat and threw it among the crushed flowers. When he was gone, Luther salvaged the garment and sneaked it over to Mrs. Krusen.

“Don’t let the old witch see it!” Luther cautioned.

“If she says a word,” Mrs. Krusen threatened, “I’ll stab her eyes out with a needle.”

In three days the coat was back, almost as good as new. David never asked how it got there, for he had no desire to wear it. It was a bloody thing, bought with Old Daniel’s pennies, and David despised it. In his old poorhouse clothes he had walked with kings, fought at Troy, wandered across Arabia, lived in a mill with Rembrandt, and made a dozen friends. It was the new coat that put him in a poorhouse.

David was convinced that he would have to fight Harry Moomaugh. Harry had said things about him, and that was that. But next day, when he looked at Harry in school, his ardor was considerably diminished. Harry was a big boy. He was two inches taller than David and at least fifteen pounds heavier.

Nevertheless, David was determined to avenge his honor, and all week he picked on Harry, but Moomaugh, never having lost a fight, had no inner compulsion to hit anyone, so he laughed at David’s arrogance.

On Sunday David was in a surly mood. Even the minister’s words made him angry: “As I look at you people I have come to call my friends, I see that the finest of you all has gone. I knew Daniel Brisbane as well as one man can know another. He was noble, good in all ways, kind to everyone, jealous of no one, a true servant of the Lord. He was a great comfort to me when I started preaching in Doylestown. When my faith grew weary, I refreshed it at the soul and smile of Daniel Brisbane. He never complained. He spent his worldly goods helping others and refused to call upon them for repayment. He taught the teachers and he ministered to the ministers. He lived with the Lord, and when he died he returned to the Lord. He called on no man for aid. His call was upon God, and God replied by giving him that sweetness of life which is denied so many.”

At first David wanted to cry as he remembered Old Daniel, but instead he took refuge by laughing at the minister. “A lot he knows!” the boy grunted to himself. “Called upon the Lord, did he? Well, I was there when he died. And he called on Sam Somebody. And when he died he cursed something awful.” David dropped his head and glared at the minister.

But late that night he considered what the man had said. Had he, this minister, come to the poorhouse for help? That was incredible. To David it had always been the other way around. Mrs. Moomaugh brought things to the poorhouse. So did the other women, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. When the inmates became sick, the nurse phoned their names in to town, and people brought them flowers and baked custard. Suddenly he hated charity: the smirk on women’s faces when they brought things, the smell of another boy’s clothes, and Marcia Paxson. Caught in the bursting realizations of life, he became the impotent slave of his resentment. “I’ll smash Harry Moomaugh in the nose!” he groaned.

Like every trouble-seeker, David got his chance. He was playing Hold-the-Fort on the school cinder pile, and he gave Harry a tremendous shove, so that the boy spread-eagled across the cinders and cut himself. “You pushed me!” Harry cried.

“What are you gonna do about it?” David demanded.

Like a doctor about to perform an operation, Harry took off his jacket and rubbed his hands. David wasn’t quite sure what happened next. There was a flailing of arms, a smashing of fists, and he went down. He sucked in his breath and thought: “He can hit harder than Aunt Reba.” Then he struggled to his feet and tried to land a blow on his swift adversary. But again the windmill arms mowed him down.

He would have been badly beaten had not those students who enjoy a brawl started screaming, “Fight, fight!” The provocative words reached the principal’s office and he rushed onto the playground and stopped the struggle in time to save David.

It was the custom in Doylestown for the principal to administer frequent thrashings when his young charges got out of hand. This seemed an appropriate occasion, and he took the two boys into Grade Five and made them bend publicly over the waiting chair. Before he started he asked Harry, “What was this fight about?” Harry, not knowing, remained silent. When David’s turn came the principal said, “You look bad enough already. What was the fight about?” If Harry could keep his mouth shut, so could David. He mustered up enough strength for a schoolboy snarl, and the principal hammered him twenty times.

When David got back to his seat, he had had enough. He sat very quietly, and when school was over he was glad to hurry home. But Harry Moomaugh stopped him. “What was the fight about, Dave?” Harry asked.

“You said things about me,” David replied.

“Like what?”

“Like you told Marcia Paxson I had to wear your old clothes.”

Harry looked away and bit his lip. That isn’t what he had said, not at all, but he knew there was no use to argue. “Dave,” he said, “on Saturday I’m giving a party. I want you to come.” Proudly, David shook his head no. Then Harry cut all the ground away from his stubbornness. He said, “We’re going over to the canal.”

David swallowed and thought: “The canal!” In surrender
he said, “Sure,” but then he added defiantly. “I’m gonna wear my old clothes!”

Harry grinned at his friend. “I don’t care what you wear, Dave. If you want to, you can come naked.”

When Harry’s party was over, David lay in bed and thought: “I’ll bet that’s the best day I ever lived.” It had started inauspiciously when he dressed in his very best clothes and tried to sneak out to the highway. Aunt Reba caught him.

“
Where
are you going
to
?” she demanded.

“To a party.”

“
Over
to Solebury
again
?” she whined.

“To Harry Moomaugh’s.”

His aunt paused a moment in sullen despair at seeing her nephew slipping out of her grasp. If he went on this way he would be no use to her when he did reach fourteen. “
Where
did you get the money for the
suit
?” she whined.

There was a very tense moment. David had learned that if he started things, he must bear the consequences, and yet he felt a surge of power within himself. He said with great precision, “Daniel gave me the money. He said you had lots of money but wouldn’t give me any.”

“
Day
wid!” his aunt bellowed in hurt rage. She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into her barren room. Standing high above him, she slapped him across the face. David gasped. He had been beaten too much that week. He pulled away and would have left the room, but his aunt was determined to have a final understanding. She struck the boy again and he cried, “Aunt Reba! Don’t you hit me!”

“
Talk
ing back it
is
!” she stormed.

Now David was committed to a showdown. He stuck his small face up at her and taunted: “Not only that, but Daniel said you were a dried-up old witch. And you are!”

His aunt, with rage long repressed for a scene like this, struck her nephew forcefully in the face with her fist. Immediately David could feel his eye begin to swell shut. “And Daniel said why don’t you marry somebody? It would do you good!”

His withered aunt could stand no more. Swiftly she clapped her hand over David’s mouth and dragged him to a corner. With her body pressed close to his she bent her face forward until her breath was against his face. “
When
there was no one in the
world
,” she wailed, “I took
care
of you. Eight
years
I been
here
in the
poor
hass, taking
care
of you. Your mother was no
good
. Your father was
worse
. You think I
like
it here in the
poor
hass? No! Every
penny
I got for eight
years
I saved to get us aht of
here. Look!
” her voice was hollow from some epic despair. Rummaging through her papers, she produced a thin book, which she thrust into David’s face.

“For eight
years
, Daywid!” she pleaded, “every
penny!
For me no
dresses
. For you no
clothes
. These
other
ones like the poor
hass
, but not me. Look
here!
” she cried hoarsely. Opening the book, she showed him the figures: “Reba Stücke has paid to Crouthamel and Company $2,763.28.” The effort of that scrimping overcame her in retrospect and she sat down. Her voice was agitated and eager like a young girl’s.

“Pretty soon
you
get a chob,
too
. We’ll
save
every penny,
Day
wid. When
you’re
fourteen you don’t have to go to
school
no more …”

“I’m going to high school,” David said.

“No!” his aunt screamed. “
Chust
like your
father
. Books! What did it get
him?
Don’t go to
Sole
bury no
more!
When you’ll be four
teen
you’ll get a nice, steady
chob
in Sellerswille pants
factory
 …”

“Daniel said I should go to college,” David persisted in his first great battle.

“
Col
lege is it
now?
” his aunt screamed. Beside herself with the disappointment she had feared, she threw her scrawny fury at him. But when she jumped at him, David saw a ruler on the table. He dodged his aunt and dove for the weapon.

“
Oh
, so it’s the
rul
er?” his aunt screamed. She tried to forestall him, but too late. David clutched the heavy ruler and ran around the other side of the table.

“Don’t come over here,” he threatened.

“Day
wid
!” his aunt shouted, rushing at him.

He swung the ruler with all his might. It caught his aunt a glancing blow on the shoulder and bounced off against her head. Breathing hoarsely, she made another lunge at the boy. Once more the ruler struck her. She winced and doubled up. David, seeing that she could not hurt him now, threw the ruler onto the floor beside the book with her penurious accounts. When he opened the door, he found that all the poorhouse women had been listening.

“Run away!” Mrs. Krusen urged, wiping his blackened eye with spit.

“He
hit
me!” Aunt Reba cried. “Oh, he
hit
me!”

Mrs. Krusen blocked the door and said consolingly, “He’s a bad boy, Miss Reba.”

“Call the guard!” Reba demanded.

“I don’t see how you stand him,” Mrs. Krusen lamented, holding the beaten woman firmly by the shoulders.

The second momentous event happened at Harry Moomaugh’s party. Of course, everyone teased David about his eye. Harry said, “What’s the other fellow look like?” David recalled his aunt doubled up with pain and replied, “Not so good.”

Marcia Paxson stood apart and studied David’s eye. “It looks awful,” she said. “Did thy aunt do it?”

David thought: “Like a Quaker. She asks whatever’s in her mind.” David knew that all the kids in Grade Five understood about the thrashings he got from his aunt, but what they didn’t understand was that he was never going to take another one. Never. Suddenly he felt like sharing his secret with Marcia. “Yes,” he admitted. “She did it. But she’ll never do it again.”

“Can I feel it?” Marcia asked. He stood very still while she probed it with her finger. “We’ll put some beefsteak on it,” she said.

“Why?” David asked.

“It takes away the blackness. My aunt does that for her husband. He drinks a lot.”

So, with his chunk of beefsteak, David climbed into the truck and set off to see, for the first time in his life, the canal and the barges. He could sense, by the feel of the air, when they had come close to the placid Delaware. At the top of the hill in New Hope, Harry’s uncle stopped the truck to have his little joke. Like most Pennsylvania villages, New Hope had a Civil War cannon, but the iron balls that actually fitted the cannon were unimpressive, so someone had donated a pyramid of immense ammunition. “Now you tell me how they got those balls into that cannon!” David listened to the foolish answers and wondered: “Why don’t he drive on down the hill?”

And then, below him, stretched the canal. It was clean and grassy along the banks. People had built fine homes there, and there were more flowers than David could see with his good left eye. The canal itself was brown with rippling water, and the towpath was sandy invitation to wander among the trees that shaded it. There was a red bridge and beneath it the canal crept in silent beauty.