A Northern Light (7 page)

Jim Loomis leaned over and dangled his spider right in my face. I jumped and swatted at it, which pleased him greatly. "You're going to get it," I mouthed at him, then tried to put my mind back on
Paradise Lost,
but it was hard going.
Somniferous
was my word of the day. It means sleep inducing, and it was a good one to describe that dull and endless poem. Milton meant to give us a glimpse of hell, Miss Wilcox said, and he succeeded. Hell was not the
adamantine chains he
wrote of, though. Nor was it the
ever-burning sulphur,
or the
darkness visible.
Hell was the realization that you are only on line 325 of Book One and there are eleven more books to go.
Torture without end,
all right. There was no place, of course, I would rather have been than in that schoolhouse, and nothing I would rather have done than read, read
anything...
but John Milton was a trial. What on earth did Miss Wilcox see in him? His Satan scared no one and seemed more like the Prince of Fusspots than the Prince of Hell, with all his ranting and carping and endless pontificating.

Fesole, Valdarno, Vallombrosa ...
Where in blazes are those places?
I wondered. Why couldn't Satan have decided to visit the North Woods? Old Forge, maybe, or even Eagle Bay. Why didn't he talk like real people did? With a
cripes
or a
jeezum
thrown in now and again. Why did little towns in Herkimer County never get a mention in anybody's book? Why was it always other places and other lives that mattered?

French Louis Seymour of the West Canada Creek, who knew how to survive all alone in a treacherous wilderness, and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of New York City and Raquette Lake, who was richer than God and traveled in his very own Pullman car, and Emmie Hubbard of the Uncas Road, who painted the most beautiful pictures when she was drunk and burned them in her woodstove when she was sober, were all ten times more interesting to me than Milton's devil or Austen's boy-crazy girls or that twitchy fool of Poe's who couldn't think of any place better to bury a body than under his own damn floor.

"And why do we read Shakespeare and Milton and Donne? Someone other than Miss Gokey, this time. Mr. Bouchard?" Miss Wilcox asked.

Mike Bouchard turned scarlet. "I don't know, ma'am."

"Throw caution to the wind, Mr. Bouchard. Hazard a guess."

"Because we have to, ma'am?"

"No, Mr. Bouchard, because it is a classic. And we must have a good, working acquaintance with the classics if we are to understand the works that follow them and progress in our own literary endeavors. Understanding literature is like building a house, Mr. Bouchard; you don't build the third story first, you start with a foundation..."

Miss Wilcox is from New York City. Up here, you didn't build the third story ever, unless you are rich like the Beckers or own three sawmills like my uncle Vernon.

"...where would Milton have been without Homer, Mr. James Loomis? And where would Mary Shelley have been without Milton, Mr. William Loomis? Why, without Milton, Victor Frankenstein's monster would never have been created..."

At the mere mention of that magic word
Frankenstein,
the Loomis boys straightened up. Jim got so excited, he let go of his new pet spider. It made for the edge of his desk and disappeared, trailing its leash. Miss Wilcox had promised since November that we'd read
Frankenstein
as our last book of the year, as long as everyone—meaning mainly Jim and Will—behaved. She had only to whisper the name
Frankenstein,
and they were suddenly as still and attentive as two altar boys. They loved the idea of stitching dead things together. They talked nonstop of finding frogs and toads to kill, just so they could bring them back to life again.

"...we read the classics to be inspired by the great thoughts of great minds...," Miss Wilcox continued, and then there was a sudden tinkling sound. She had dropped her bracelets again. Abby retrieved them for her. Miss Wilcox often fidgeted as she talked, taking her ring off and putting it back on, snapping chalk in her fingers, or sliding her bracelets off one wrist and onto the other. She was nothing like our old teacher, Miss Parrish. Miss Wilcox had curly auburn hair, and green eyes that I imagined must be the exact shade of an emerald, though I had never seen an emerald. She wore gold jewelry and the most beautiful clothes—tailored waists, fine worsted skirts, and cutaway jackets edged with silk braid. She always looked so odd in our plain schoolroom, with its rusty stove, plank walls, and yellowed map of the world. Like some precious jewel put in a battered old gift box.

After torturing us with a few more pages of
Paradise Lost,
Miss Wilcox finally finished the lesson and dismissed the class. Jim and Will Loomis tore out of the schoolhouse, cuffing Tommy Hubbard on their way, shouting, "Hubbard, Hubbard, nothing in your cupboard!" Mary Higby and I gathered up the half-dozen copies of the book that our class of twelve shared. Abby cleaned the chalkboard, and Lou collected the slates we'd used to do arithmetic earlier in the day.

I stacked the books I'd gathered on her desk and was ready to leave when she said, "Mattie, stay after, will you?" We were all "Mr." and "Miss" during class, but afterward she called us by our first names. I told Weaver and my sisters that I'd catch up. I thought maybe Miss Wilcox had a new book for me to borrow, but she didn't. As soon as the others were gone, she opened her desk, took out an envelope, and held it out to me. It was large and buff colored. It had my name on it. Typed on a label, not handwritten. It had a return address, too, and as soon as I saw what it was, my mouth went as dry as salt.

"Here, Mattie. Take it." I shook my head.

"Come on, you coward!" Miss Wilcox was smiling, but her voice was quavery.

I took it. Miss Wilcox drew an enameled case from her purse, pulled a cigarette from it, and lit it. My aunt Josie had told me and my sisters that Miss Wilcox was fast. Beth thought she meant the way our teacher drove her automobile, but I knew it had more to do with her smoking and having bobbed hair.

I stared at the letter, trying to find the courage I needed to open it. I heard Miss Wilcox's bracelets tinkle again. She was standing by her desk, cupping an elbow in her palm. "Come
on,
Mattie. Open it, for god's sake!" she said.

I took a deep breath and ripped the envelope open. There was a single sheet of paper inside clipped to my battered old composition book. "
Dear Miss Gokey,
" it read. "
It is with great pleasure that I write to inform you of your acceptance to Barnard College...
"

"Mattie?"

"
...furthermore, lam pleased to award you a fill Hayes scholarship sufficient to meet the cost of your first year's tuition, contingent upon the successful completion of your high school degree. This scholarship is renewable each year provided grade average and personal conduct remain above reproach...
"

"Mattie!"

"
...and, although your academic background lacks in certain aspects—notably foreign languages, advanced mathematics, and chemistry—your impressive literary strengths outweigh these deficiencies. Classes begin Monday, September
3.
You will be required to report to orientation Saturday, September 1, and may address all questions regarding accommodations to Miss Jane Brownell in care of the college's Housing Office. With all best wishes, Dean Laura Drake Gill.
"

"Damn it, Mattie! What does it
say
?"

I looked at my teacher, barely able to breathe, much less speak.
It says they want me,
I thought.
Barnard College wants me—Mattie Gokey from the Uncas Road in Eagle Bay. It says that the dean herself likes my stories and doesn't think they are morbid and dispiriting, and that professors, real professors with long black gowns and all sorts of fancy degrees, will teach me. It says I
am
smart, even if I can't make Pleasant mind and didn't salt the pork right. It says I can be something if I choose. Something more than a know-nothing farm girl with shit on her shoes.

"It says I'm accepted," I finally said. "And that I've got a scholarship. A full scholarship. As long as I pass my exams."

Miss Wilcox let out a whoop and hugged me. Good and hard. She took me by my arms and kissed my cheek, and I saw that her eyes were shiny. I didn't know why it meant so much to her that I'd got myself into college, but I was glad that it did.

"I knew you'd do it, Mattie! I knew that Laura Gill would see your talent. Those stories you sent were excellent! Didn't I tell you they were?" She twirled around in a circle, took a deep draw of her cigarette, and blew it all out. "Can you imagine?" she asked, laughing. "You're going to be a college student. You and Weaver both! This fall! In New York City, no less!"

As soon as she said it, as soon as she talked about my dream like that and brought it out in the light and made it real, I saw only the impossibility of it all. I had a pa who would never let me go. I had no money and no prospect of getting any. And I had made a promise—one that would keep me here even if I had all the money in the world.

When he has to, Pa sells some of his calves for veal. The cows cry so when he takes them that I can't be in the barn. I have to run up to the cornfield, my hands over my ears. If you've ever heard a cow cry for her calf, you know how it feels to have something beautiful and new put into your hands, to wonder and smile at it, and then have it snatched away. That's how I felt then, and my feelings must have been on my face, because Miss Wilcox's smile suddenly faded.

"You're working this summer, aren't you?" she said. "At the Glenmore?"

I shook my head. "My pa said no."

"Well, not to worry. My sister Annabelle will give you room and board in exchange for a bit of housekeeping. She has a town house in Murray Hill and she's all alone in it, so there would be plenty of room for you. Between the scholarship and Annabelle, that's tuition, housing, and meals taken care of. For book money and the trolley and clothing and such, you could always get a job. Something part-time. Typing, perhaps. Or ringing up sales in a department store. Plenty of girls manage it."

Girls who know what they're doing,
I thought. Brisk, confident girls in white blouses and twill skirts who could make heads or tails of a typewriter or a cash register. Not girls in old wash dresses and cracked shoes.

"I suppose I could," I said weakly.

"What about your father? Can he help you at all?"

"No, ma'am."

"Mattie ... you've told him, haven't you?"

"No, ma'am, I haven't."

Miss Wilcox nodded, curt and determined. She stubbed out her cigarette on the underside of her desk and put the ashy end in her purse. Miss Wilcox knew how to not get caught doing things she shouldn't. It was an odd quality in a teacher.

"I'll talk to him, Mattie. I'll tell him if you want me to," she said.

I laughed at that—a flat, joyless laugh—then said, "No, ma'am, I don't. Not unless you know how to duck a peavey."

"Afternoon, Mattie!" Mr. Eckler called from the bow of his boat. "Got a new one. Brand-new. Just come in. By a Mrs. Wharton.
House of Mirth,
its called. I tucked it in behind the coffee beans, under
W
You'll see it."

"Thank you, Mr. Eckler!" I said, excited at the prospect of a new book. "Did you read it?"

"Yup. Read it whole."

"What's it about?"

"Can't hardly say. Some flighty city girl who can't decide if she wants to fish or cut bait. Don't know why it's called
House of Mirth.
It ain't funny in the least."

The Fulton Chain Floating Library is only a tiny room, an overeager closet, really, belowdecks in Charlie Eckler's pickle boat. It is nothing like the proper library they have in Old Forge, but it has its own element of surprise. Mr. Eckler uses the room to store his wares, and when he finally gets around to moving a chest of tea or a sack of cornmeal, you never knew what you might find. And once in a while, the main library in Herkimer sends up a new book or two. It's nice to get your hands on a new book before everyone else does. While the pages are still clean and white and the spine hasn't been snapped. While it still smells like words and not Mrs. Higby's violet water or Weaver's mamma's fried chicken or my aunt Josie's liniment.

The boat is a floating grocery store and serves all the camps and hotels along the Fulton Chain. It is the only store—floating or not—for miles. Mr. Eckler starts out at dawn from Old Forge and makes his way up the chain—through First, Second, and Third Lakes, then all the way around Fourth Lake—stopping at the Eagle Bay Hotel on the north shore and Inlet on its east end—then heads back down to Old Forge again. You can never miss the pickle boat. Nothing on water—or land, for that matter—looks quite like it. There are milk cans on top of it, bins full of fruits and vegetables on the deck, and a huge pickle barrel in the back, from which it takes its name. Inside the cabin are sacks of flour, cornmeal, sugar, oats, and salt; a basket of eggs; jars of candy; bottles of honey and maple syrup; tins of cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and saleratus; a box of cigars; a box of venison jerky; and three lead-lined tea chests packed with ice—one for fresh meat, one for fish, and the third for and butter. Everything is neat and tidy and fits snugly into place so it won't get tossed about in rough weather. Mr. Eckler sells a few other items as well, like nails and hammers, needles and thread, postcards and pens hand salve, cough drops, and fly dope.

I stepped onto the boat and went belowdecks.
The House of Mirth
was under
W,
like Mr. Eckler said it would be, only it was wedged in next to
Mrs. Wiggs of the
Cabbage Patch.
Mr. Eckler sometimes gets authors and titles confused. I signed it out in a ledger he kept on top of a molasses barrel, then rooted around behind a crate of eggs, a jar of marbles, and a box of dried dates but found nothing I hadn't already read. I remembered to get the bag of cornmeal we needed. I wished I could buy oatmeal or white flour instead, but cornmeal cost less and went further. I was to get a ten-pound bag. The fifty-pound bag cost more to buy but was cheaper per pound and I'd told Pa so, but he said only rich people can afford to be thrifty.