A Star for Mrs. Blake Read Online Free
birdsong.
“Lost at sea, November 3, 1845.” “Drowned in Havana, June 15, 1893.”
Many of the inscriptions were too worn to be read.
As if a veil had been lifted, Cora began to accept the possibility that Sammy might not be buried here. It was not his place. He was a young man just making his way. He was part of the future, not some distant past. Behind that veil was a parade of patriotic ideals, each more rousing than the next, a drumbeat of Americanism that finally solidified the image in her mind:
He deserved to be in the field of honor in France. He made the world safe for democracy and he should be part of that future—the future of a peaceful world. He was truly an American hero, loyal to his friends, never hesitating to fight for what was right—Good Lord, he’d always been like that, even when he was nine years old
.
It must have been around eight o’clock at night. Cora had been at her sewing table in the parlor of the farmhouse and looked up to see a double pair of headlights. They had no phone service and no electricity, only a generator that ran on kerosene. It was pitch-black out there, deep country dark, the nearest neighbor a quarter mile away. Seeing those headlights made her heart beat like mad. There were only two cars on the island; one belonged to the doctor and the other to the sheriff. Both were on their way to her door.
Sammy had been warned about saltwater ice. The danger of it was drilled into every local child. If you fell through the ice on the Lily Pond, you had a reasonable chance of staying put, but when the harbor froze, even if it was two feet thick, there would still be strongocean currents raging underneath. You’d get dragged under and swept all the way to China.
An Irish family with five rough boys had moved next door to the yellow stonecutter’s cottage where Avis lived. She was up in Ellsworth, leaving the door unlocked as she always did in case someone needed to come in from the cold, and, in fact, Sammy had stopped by. The newcomers were from Boston and therefore smarter than Sammy and his friends and with more tricks, too. That day it had been fifteen below. The harbor had congealed into a solid glacier all the way out to Isle au Haut. The temptation to walk across from end to end was like a free bowl of jelly beans. The boys from Boston challenged the locals to a race. No sleds, no skates. Boots only. Nine went out, seven returned—slipping and falling, snot running down their bright red faces, screaming for help. One of the outsiders, a ten-year-old named Patrick, stumbled into a hole halfway across and was stuck with his butt in freezing water and his feet up on the ice, arms flailing, unable to move. The other was lying on his belly, on liquefying frost a couple of feet away, trying to reach him with a flung-out scarf. That was Sammy.
The cars stopped by the side door of the farmhouse and the headlights cut out. Sheriff Lundt and Doc Newcomb trooped him inside like a prisoner, wrapped in a blanket, tiny ice particles in his hair and shaking with cold. Cora slid halfway across the floor on her knees to get him safely inside her arms, and Sammy held on. His poor ear was like a block of ice against her cheek and his lips were thin and blue.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
She soothed him—“Don’t worry, as long as you’re safe”—and ran for another blanket, then propped him up at the kitchen table while she got the kettle on and hot water bottles going.
She poured the men big shots of whiskey. Both were riled in the way that comes from a near disaster. They said Sammy deserved a whipping, like the other kids who were being punished by
their
parents, for even stepping foot on saltwater ice. A double whipping, because when they shouted at him to get the hell out of there he refused to budge, stubbornly attempting to reach the boy with the hopelessly wet scarf. They’d had to make a human chain from shore and rescue
two
boys, as by that time Sammy could barely stand
“Lost at sea, November 3, 1845.” “Drowned in Havana, June 15, 1893.”
Many of the inscriptions were too worn to be read.
As if a veil had been lifted, Cora began to accept the possibility that Sammy might not be buried here. It was not his place. He was a young man just making his way. He was part of the future, not some distant past. Behind that veil was a parade of patriotic ideals, each more rousing than the next, a drumbeat of Americanism that finally solidified the image in her mind:
He deserved to be in the field of honor in France. He made the world safe for democracy and he should be part of that future—the future of a peaceful world. He was truly an American hero, loyal to his friends, never hesitating to fight for what was right—Good Lord, he’d always been like that, even when he was nine years old
.
It must have been around eight o’clock at night. Cora had been at her sewing table in the parlor of the farmhouse and looked up to see a double pair of headlights. They had no phone service and no electricity, only a generator that ran on kerosene. It was pitch-black out there, deep country dark, the nearest neighbor a quarter mile away. Seeing those headlights made her heart beat like mad. There were only two cars on the island; one belonged to the doctor and the other to the sheriff. Both were on their way to her door.
Sammy had been warned about saltwater ice. The danger of it was drilled into every local child. If you fell through the ice on the Lily Pond, you had a reasonable chance of staying put, but when the harbor froze, even if it was two feet thick, there would still be strongocean currents raging underneath. You’d get dragged under and swept all the way to China.
An Irish family with five rough boys had moved next door to the yellow stonecutter’s cottage where Avis lived. She was up in Ellsworth, leaving the door unlocked as she always did in case someone needed to come in from the cold, and, in fact, Sammy had stopped by. The newcomers were from Boston and therefore smarter than Sammy and his friends and with more tricks, too. That day it had been fifteen below. The harbor had congealed into a solid glacier all the way out to Isle au Haut. The temptation to walk across from end to end was like a free bowl of jelly beans. The boys from Boston challenged the locals to a race. No sleds, no skates. Boots only. Nine went out, seven returned—slipping and falling, snot running down their bright red faces, screaming for help. One of the outsiders, a ten-year-old named Patrick, stumbled into a hole halfway across and was stuck with his butt in freezing water and his feet up on the ice, arms flailing, unable to move. The other was lying on his belly, on liquefying frost a couple of feet away, trying to reach him with a flung-out scarf. That was Sammy.
The cars stopped by the side door of the farmhouse and the headlights cut out. Sheriff Lundt and Doc Newcomb trooped him inside like a prisoner, wrapped in a blanket, tiny ice particles in his hair and shaking with cold. Cora slid halfway across the floor on her knees to get him safely inside her arms, and Sammy held on. His poor ear was like a block of ice against her cheek and his lips were thin and blue.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
She soothed him—“Don’t worry, as long as you’re safe”—and ran for another blanket, then propped him up at the kitchen table while she got the kettle on and hot water bottles going.
She poured the men big shots of whiskey. Both were riled in the way that comes from a near disaster. They said Sammy deserved a whipping, like the other kids who were being punished by
their
parents, for even stepping foot on saltwater ice. A double whipping, because when they shouted at him to get the hell out of there he refused to budge, stubbornly attempting to reach the boy with the hopelessly wet scarf. They’d had to make a human chain from shore and rescue
two
boys, as by that time Sammy could barely stand
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