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Feb. 2nd, 2008 01:44 amSol’s got a full load of chickens in the back of his wagon. They’ve been making a ruckus all the way back from town, and all he wants is to dump them off in the barn, collapse into the kitchen, and have some coffee. Or maybe a slug of whiskey, come to that.
He doesn’t have any wish to stop and talk to the vagabond kid who’s hanging around the gate of his place, and when the kid steps in front of the wagon like a daredevil idiot he pulls the ox to a hasty stop, accompanied by the squawks of jolted chickens, and raises the hand with the whip in it. Before he can say anything, though, the kid pulls off his hat – not so young as Sol thought at first, he sees now; sixteen, maybe, though underfed – and says, after a cough like he's out of breath, “Ah – you’re Solbert Mathes? Kath’s son?”
“That’s me,” says Sol, dropping his hand, puzzlement mixing in with his irritation. “You want me for something?”
“Yes,” the boy says, and then corrects himself. “Your ma, really, but I don’t want to give her a shock. I’ve got a message for her.”
“Ah,” says Sol. The boy’s making him uncomfortable, he couldn’t say why; he’s an ordinary-enough looking kid, dirt on his nose, no shoes on his feet, scratching the back of his curly head. He speaks almost like someone from the parts, too. Still. “And why should I bring a stranger in to see my ma, knowing nothing about him but he hasn’t the sense to stay out of the way of a wagon?”
“Look,” says the boy, looking up into Sol’s face with earnest innocence and something else he can’t quite tell, “I’ll wait here, all right? I’m not expecting to be paid, don’t think that. You just go in and tell your ma that I’m here on my uncle’s dying request, and that he’s sorry about the barn, still, and see if she says to show me in.”
At which point Sol begins to have an idea what the boy might be about, and what it is about him that’s putting him so on edge, but he’s very much hoping that he’s wrong.
“I’ll tell her, once I’ve got these away; work’s got to happen,” he says – what else can he do? – and continues along his way, chickens and all. The boy politely pulls open the gate for him. Sol wishes he wouldn’t have.
Forty minutes later or so he’s walking back to the gate, and he sees the kid, still leaning against a post, wide-brimmed hat shading his ordinary face, looking perfectly at his ease.
“All right, you come,” Sol says, with a jerk of his head. The boy nods and scrambles up to walks beside him, snatching sidelong glances over at Sol as they go from under his hat. Sol’s not much taller than the boy himself, but he’s got shoes on his feet and the first few respectable lines on his face and a ring in his right ear signaling his troth to Marrin (just plighted a few weeks back) and he’s never been more aware of all these things than just now, at this moment.
“Your girl,” says the boy, after a while. “What’s her name?”
“None of your business,” Sol says – snaps, rather – which the boy accepts meekly enough.
“Sorry.” After a short pause, he adds, “My eldest brother would have got plighted a few years back, if the girl hadn’t run off with a peddler – but she sends him a free can of tooth powder every few months from guilt, so he hasn’t come too badly out of the whole thing.”
Sol has the feeling he’s expected to grin at this. He grunts instead, repressively. The boy seems to take the hint, because he stays silent all the rest of the way to the house.
There Sol points the boy to the room where his ma stays most days, working on the writings she sends in to the local paper. And then Sol goes with as best a combination of haste and quiet as he can up to the attic, where sound carries perfectly clear from that particular room, and puts his ear to the floor to listen.
He hears his mother say, rather shakily, “That nose must run in the family.”
“It all does,” says the boy, sounding very apologetic. “I’m named for him, too. That’s why the family sent me instead of someone older – we were awfully close, my uncle and me. They thought I’d know best what to say.”
“And if I’d been senile,” says his ma Kath, rather acerbically, “I reckon they figured I’d smile and cry, ‘It’s my Jamie come back to me!’ and die with a smile on my face,” and Sol grits his teeth.
“They might have thought that,” says the boy – his name must be James, then – and he sounds amused, in a fond sort of way. “I wouldn’t have. I heard my uncle talk about you, you see.”
“Oh? He talked, did he?” Sol’s ma sounds pleased and displeased, both at once.
“Regrets, mostly,” says the boy frankly. “He wanted to come back to see you earlier, but – well, you know how it is. Affairs wouldn’t let him get away, and all of a sudden he ran out of time. And of course he never knew about –”
He hesitates; there’s an odd quality in his voice, as he goes on, “Well, my cousin, I suppose he’d be.”
“I suppose he would,” Kath Mathes agrees after a moment filled with the sound of needles clacking together, and then falls quiet again.
The boy James seems to feel a need to fill up the silence. “It was a shock, I’ll tell you, to be greeted with half my face coming up the walk. I’ve don’t have any other cousins, you see.”
Sol spares a moment to wonder about the existence of the brother with the free tooth powder.
His ma has her own, dry answer to that: “Not that you know of, boy.”
“Not that I know of,” James agrees, readily enough. “But you shouldn’t think – that’s part of what he wanted to tell you, you see. He always did remember you. And he was always sorry he couldn’t –”
His ma interrupts before he can finish. “Have you got an aunt? And don’t say ‘several’, or play coy; you know what I mean.”
There’s silence for a while before the boy says, “Sort of. Not really. It’s hard to explain.”
His ma clearly takes that to mean ‘yes’. “Are you going to tell her about Sol?”
“Someday, maybe,” says the boy James, after thinking about this some more, and he sounds rather uncomfortable. “Not now when it’s all so – it would be awfully sudden to tell her right now, so soon after everything.” He stops, and then: “Are you going to tell Sol? I think he must know a bit; he was giving me awfully funny looks. But of course I don’t expect you to turn around and welcome me into the family as Cousin James. I’ll be gone along home as soon as I’m out of here.”
There’s another one of those pauses, and then his ma says, in her firm voice, “You probably want to get along with that, then.”
“But –” protests the boy, almost immediately, and his ma says, “Yes, I know, your message, Jamie Ham’s dying wish – it’s real touching, and I appreciate the sentiment, and you should get home to your own ma, now. You can’t be more than – what, fifteen?”
“Fifteen? That’s just unjust. Grant me eighteen, at least,” protests the boy, comically plaintive, which leads to a frozen silence.
“- sorry. Sorry,” comes the boy James’ voice, and he Sol mentally grants him that he does sound really genuinely apologetic, almost frantically so. “I told you, we were always close, and I picked up a lot of his – I suppose he would have been around fifteen or sixteen when he was here, wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know,” says Sol’s ma, coldly; which seems to be a dismissal, because a short time after he hears the door to the room open and close. Sol comes down from the attic, and sees the boy standing in the hallway, looking a little lost.
He offers up a half-rueful smile when he sees Sol. “I reckon that’s all, folks,” he says, somewhat cryptically, and picks up his hat from the stand. “Sorry to bother you, Goodman Mathes. Thanks for letting me in.”
He glances back, once, as he lets himself out the door, and Sol never sees his cousin James again – though the next day, in the tavern with Marrin, two or three people come by to tell him that they’d happened to be talking about him yesterday with a vagabond boy who happened to be standing the pints, and seemed interested by the talk.
And the day after that, when he goes by the fence, there’s an envelope leaning where the boy James had leaned. When he opens it up, he sees a letter of marque for the closest bank, and a note that says Uncle Jamie said I wasn’t to give it to her myself or she’d never accept it, and to make sure I was well on my way before you found it. Well, I am, so you’ll have to keep it. Nice to meet you, Cousin Sol; your da’s really missed out not knowing you. Tell your kids, when you have them, to keep an eye out for family.
Sol resists a strong urge to tear the letter of marque into pieces, and the letter along with it.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t have any wish to stop and talk to the vagabond kid who’s hanging around the gate of his place, and when the kid steps in front of the wagon like a daredevil idiot he pulls the ox to a hasty stop, accompanied by the squawks of jolted chickens, and raises the hand with the whip in it. Before he can say anything, though, the kid pulls off his hat – not so young as Sol thought at first, he sees now; sixteen, maybe, though underfed – and says, after a cough like he's out of breath, “Ah – you’re Solbert Mathes? Kath’s son?”
“That’s me,” says Sol, dropping his hand, puzzlement mixing in with his irritation. “You want me for something?”
“Yes,” the boy says, and then corrects himself. “Your ma, really, but I don’t want to give her a shock. I’ve got a message for her.”
“Ah,” says Sol. The boy’s making him uncomfortable, he couldn’t say why; he’s an ordinary-enough looking kid, dirt on his nose, no shoes on his feet, scratching the back of his curly head. He speaks almost like someone from the parts, too. Still. “And why should I bring a stranger in to see my ma, knowing nothing about him but he hasn’t the sense to stay out of the way of a wagon?”
“Look,” says the boy, looking up into Sol’s face with earnest innocence and something else he can’t quite tell, “I’ll wait here, all right? I’m not expecting to be paid, don’t think that. You just go in and tell your ma that I’m here on my uncle’s dying request, and that he’s sorry about the barn, still, and see if she says to show me in.”
At which point Sol begins to have an idea what the boy might be about, and what it is about him that’s putting him so on edge, but he’s very much hoping that he’s wrong.
“I’ll tell her, once I’ve got these away; work’s got to happen,” he says – what else can he do? – and continues along his way, chickens and all. The boy politely pulls open the gate for him. Sol wishes he wouldn’t have.
Forty minutes later or so he’s walking back to the gate, and he sees the kid, still leaning against a post, wide-brimmed hat shading his ordinary face, looking perfectly at his ease.
“All right, you come,” Sol says, with a jerk of his head. The boy nods and scrambles up to walks beside him, snatching sidelong glances over at Sol as they go from under his hat. Sol’s not much taller than the boy himself, but he’s got shoes on his feet and the first few respectable lines on his face and a ring in his right ear signaling his troth to Marrin (just plighted a few weeks back) and he’s never been more aware of all these things than just now, at this moment.
“Your girl,” says the boy, after a while. “What’s her name?”
“None of your business,” Sol says – snaps, rather – which the boy accepts meekly enough.
“Sorry.” After a short pause, he adds, “My eldest brother would have got plighted a few years back, if the girl hadn’t run off with a peddler – but she sends him a free can of tooth powder every few months from guilt, so he hasn’t come too badly out of the whole thing.”
Sol has the feeling he’s expected to grin at this. He grunts instead, repressively. The boy seems to take the hint, because he stays silent all the rest of the way to the house.
There Sol points the boy to the room where his ma stays most days, working on the writings she sends in to the local paper. And then Sol goes with as best a combination of haste and quiet as he can up to the attic, where sound carries perfectly clear from that particular room, and puts his ear to the floor to listen.
He hears his mother say, rather shakily, “That nose must run in the family.”
“It all does,” says the boy, sounding very apologetic. “I’m named for him, too. That’s why the family sent me instead of someone older – we were awfully close, my uncle and me. They thought I’d know best what to say.”
“And if I’d been senile,” says his ma Kath, rather acerbically, “I reckon they figured I’d smile and cry, ‘It’s my Jamie come back to me!’ and die with a smile on my face,” and Sol grits his teeth.
“They might have thought that,” says the boy – his name must be James, then – and he sounds amused, in a fond sort of way. “I wouldn’t have. I heard my uncle talk about you, you see.”
“Oh? He talked, did he?” Sol’s ma sounds pleased and displeased, both at once.
“Regrets, mostly,” says the boy frankly. “He wanted to come back to see you earlier, but – well, you know how it is. Affairs wouldn’t let him get away, and all of a sudden he ran out of time. And of course he never knew about –”
He hesitates; there’s an odd quality in his voice, as he goes on, “Well, my cousin, I suppose he’d be.”
“I suppose he would,” Kath Mathes agrees after a moment filled with the sound of needles clacking together, and then falls quiet again.
The boy James seems to feel a need to fill up the silence. “It was a shock, I’ll tell you, to be greeted with half my face coming up the walk. I’ve don’t have any other cousins, you see.”
Sol spares a moment to wonder about the existence of the brother with the free tooth powder.
His ma has her own, dry answer to that: “Not that you know of, boy.”
“Not that I know of,” James agrees, readily enough. “But you shouldn’t think – that’s part of what he wanted to tell you, you see. He always did remember you. And he was always sorry he couldn’t –”
His ma interrupts before he can finish. “Have you got an aunt? And don’t say ‘several’, or play coy; you know what I mean.”
There’s silence for a while before the boy says, “Sort of. Not really. It’s hard to explain.”
His ma clearly takes that to mean ‘yes’. “Are you going to tell her about Sol?”
“Someday, maybe,” says the boy James, after thinking about this some more, and he sounds rather uncomfortable. “Not now when it’s all so – it would be awfully sudden to tell her right now, so soon after everything.” He stops, and then: “Are you going to tell Sol? I think he must know a bit; he was giving me awfully funny looks. But of course I don’t expect you to turn around and welcome me into the family as Cousin James. I’ll be gone along home as soon as I’m out of here.”
There’s another one of those pauses, and then his ma says, in her firm voice, “You probably want to get along with that, then.”
“But –” protests the boy, almost immediately, and his ma says, “Yes, I know, your message, Jamie Ham’s dying wish – it’s real touching, and I appreciate the sentiment, and you should get home to your own ma, now. You can’t be more than – what, fifteen?”
“Fifteen? That’s just unjust. Grant me eighteen, at least,” protests the boy, comically plaintive, which leads to a frozen silence.
“- sorry. Sorry,” comes the boy James’ voice, and he Sol mentally grants him that he does sound really genuinely apologetic, almost frantically so. “I told you, we were always close, and I picked up a lot of his – I suppose he would have been around fifteen or sixteen when he was here, wasn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know,” says Sol’s ma, coldly; which seems to be a dismissal, because a short time after he hears the door to the room open and close. Sol comes down from the attic, and sees the boy standing in the hallway, looking a little lost.
He offers up a half-rueful smile when he sees Sol. “I reckon that’s all, folks,” he says, somewhat cryptically, and picks up his hat from the stand. “Sorry to bother you, Goodman Mathes. Thanks for letting me in.”
He glances back, once, as he lets himself out the door, and Sol never sees his cousin James again – though the next day, in the tavern with Marrin, two or three people come by to tell him that they’d happened to be talking about him yesterday with a vagabond boy who happened to be standing the pints, and seemed interested by the talk.
And the day after that, when he goes by the fence, there’s an envelope leaning where the boy James had leaned. When he opens it up, he sees a letter of marque for the closest bank, and a note that says Uncle Jamie said I wasn’t to give it to her myself or she’d never accept it, and to make sure I was well on my way before you found it. Well, I am, so you’ll have to keep it. Nice to meet you, Cousin Sol; your da’s really missed out not knowing you. Tell your kids, when you have them, to keep an eye out for family.
Sol resists a strong urge to tear the letter of marque into pieces, and the letter along with it.
But he doesn’t.
