school, âCountry Gardens.â He plays straight through without mistakes but very choppily. At the end he shrugs and backs away from the piano, his mouth lifted in a rueful smile.
Mr. Stalling (who still has five daughters at home and a new wife with a bit of her own money) buys the piano. John Leslie, another man from our church, buys the tractor. My dad will pay Uncle Jack for a half-share in the harrow, but he doesnât bid on the tractor â it was out of his reach from the beginning, he says. Nobody buys the Parrot farm, nobody has the money or the credit. A Pentecostal from Burnley buys the goat for $6.50 and loads it into the back of his wagon. As itâs being led to the wagon it looks right at me with its weird eyes and says,
Blah
in its womanâs voice.
I meet the piano-playing boyâs sister a few months later, which must mean I have been chosen out in a special way to know them. I meet her in the winter, when I skate to town. Phillip and I both have skates and so do my Aunt Evaâs children, a legacy from my grandparentsâ big family, from a richer time. I learn to skate with my cousins on the slough behind Aunt Evaâs. Then we start skating on the river, climbing down the bank from Aunt Evaâs place, mostly me and my cousin Gracie. There is so little snow those winters that the river freezes clear, sometimes clear to the sandy bottom, sometimes with golden leaves suspended in the ice, and you can skate over this beautiful patterned carpet all the way to town, although fromAunt Evaâs itâs still a long way because the river winds back and forth like a whip being cracked. No one but me wants to do it.
Iâm amazed the first time I make it as far as town, coming around a bend and seeing tiny figures like the children skating on a pond in our Christmas jigsaw puzzle. On the bank fire burns in a barrel, and people stand around it warming their hands. There are girls skating hand in hand who stare at me, and boys who glide up behind me and pretend to shove me by accident, and sometimes ask me to skate. One of them takes his mitts off and tells me to as well and we clasp naked hands, bits of red fibre from our mittens stuck in the sweat of our palms. When heâs gone a town girl skates up to me. You shouldnât take your mittens off when you skate with a boy, she says kindly, making a pretty little turn to stop. Itâs fast.
Fast, I say.
People will talk about you. Besides, youâre going to freeze your hands. Come on. She holds out her gloved hand to skate with me and I take it.
Her name is Charlotte Bates. She is fourteen. She wears a wine-coloured felt hat and gloves and a scarf in matching wool. Iâm wearing a coat with a strip from a wool blanket sewn around the hem to make it longer. I ask her where sheâs from, knowing from her hat and her confident ways that itâs somewhere else. She says London.
London! I say. My grandparents live in England, and three of my cousins. Lois, Madeleine and George. (I pronounce
Lois
the way we do at home, to rhyme with
choice))
Charlotte looks at me with amusement. No, she says, itâs London,
Ontario,
we come from.
She asks me where I live, and I tell her on a farm, knowing it to be a lesser thing. She asks me what we grow and whether we keep chickens or cattle or pigs (as though there are varieties of farms, as though what livestock we keep is an expression ofour personal interests). She asks if I have brothers and sisters. I have two half-brothers, she says. Stephen and Russell. They live in Toronto.
Half-brothers, I say, thinking of Phillip and intrigued by the concept.
They have a different mother, she says. My father was married before. She says this in a voice that knows it is not quite ordinary. But she turns her face towards me and her calm brown eyes look directly into mine. I see Russell sometimes, she says. He comes down every summer.
Then she starts to hum, and she tucks my arm under
Mr. Stalling (who still has five daughters at home and a new wife with a bit of her own money) buys the piano. John Leslie, another man from our church, buys the tractor. My dad will pay Uncle Jack for a half-share in the harrow, but he doesnât bid on the tractor â it was out of his reach from the beginning, he says. Nobody buys the Parrot farm, nobody has the money or the credit. A Pentecostal from Burnley buys the goat for $6.50 and loads it into the back of his wagon. As itâs being led to the wagon it looks right at me with its weird eyes and says,
Blah
in its womanâs voice.
I meet the piano-playing boyâs sister a few months later, which must mean I have been chosen out in a special way to know them. I meet her in the winter, when I skate to town. Phillip and I both have skates and so do my Aunt Evaâs children, a legacy from my grandparentsâ big family, from a richer time. I learn to skate with my cousins on the slough behind Aunt Evaâs. Then we start skating on the river, climbing down the bank from Aunt Evaâs place, mostly me and my cousin Gracie. There is so little snow those winters that the river freezes clear, sometimes clear to the sandy bottom, sometimes with golden leaves suspended in the ice, and you can skate over this beautiful patterned carpet all the way to town, although fromAunt Evaâs itâs still a long way because the river winds back and forth like a whip being cracked. No one but me wants to do it.
Iâm amazed the first time I make it as far as town, coming around a bend and seeing tiny figures like the children skating on a pond in our Christmas jigsaw puzzle. On the bank fire burns in a barrel, and people stand around it warming their hands. There are girls skating hand in hand who stare at me, and boys who glide up behind me and pretend to shove me by accident, and sometimes ask me to skate. One of them takes his mitts off and tells me to as well and we clasp naked hands, bits of red fibre from our mittens stuck in the sweat of our palms. When heâs gone a town girl skates up to me. You shouldnât take your mittens off when you skate with a boy, she says kindly, making a pretty little turn to stop. Itâs fast.
Fast, I say.
People will talk about you. Besides, youâre going to freeze your hands. Come on. She holds out her gloved hand to skate with me and I take it.
Her name is Charlotte Bates. She is fourteen. She wears a wine-coloured felt hat and gloves and a scarf in matching wool. Iâm wearing a coat with a strip from a wool blanket sewn around the hem to make it longer. I ask her where sheâs from, knowing from her hat and her confident ways that itâs somewhere else. She says London.
London! I say. My grandparents live in England, and three of my cousins. Lois, Madeleine and George. (I pronounce
Lois
the way we do at home, to rhyme with
choice))
Charlotte looks at me with amusement. No, she says, itâs London,
Ontario,
we come from.
She asks me where I live, and I tell her on a farm, knowing it to be a lesser thing. She asks me what we grow and whether we keep chickens or cattle or pigs (as though there are varieties of farms, as though what livestock we keep is an expression ofour personal interests). She asks if I have brothers and sisters. I have two half-brothers, she says. Stephen and Russell. They live in Toronto.
Half-brothers, I say, thinking of Phillip and intrigued by the concept.
They have a different mother, she says. My father was married before. She says this in a voice that knows it is not quite ordinary. But she turns her face towards me and her calm brown eyes look directly into mine. I see Russell sometimes, she says. He comes down every summer.
Then she starts to hum, and she tucks my arm under
Similar Books
