A Shiloh Christmas Read online

  The faucets in our house are hooked to an electric pump that brings water up from a well. Dad won’t let us use the hand pump anymore till the drought’s over—wastes too much when the water comes splashing out.

  Two days before school begins, Judd Travers stops by in his pickup.

  Shiloh can tell the sound of his truck before any of us even know it’s coming. He’ll be there in the shade, tongue hanging out, waiting for a breeze, and all at once his jaws snap shut and his ears lift up. His whole body tenses, eyes fixed on the lane, and it’ll be five, six seconds before we hear anything. Another five before we see the front end of Judd’s pickup making the turn this side the lilac bushes.

  Ma’s just finished a wash in the machine on our back porch. In good weather she likes to dry the clothes outside to save on our electric bill.

  “Give me every piece of worn clothing you two are even thinking about wearing to school the first couple weeks,” she tells Dara Lynn and me, “’cause I can’t speak for how much water is left in the well after today.”

  I give her a pair of jeans and a couple T-shirts, and she’s on me right away about socks and underwear, so I have to go back and look in the corner of the closet where I keep my stuff. I come out with a handful of those. Dara Lynn, of course, has a bushel basket full, and when Ma gives a little cry, Dara Lynn says, “Well, I’m thinking about wearing all of it.”

  But finally the clothes are washed, and I help Ma hang them on the line. It’s Dara Lynn’s job to hand them to us a piece at a time. I’d just clamped a clothespin onto a shirt when Judd Travers pulls up in the clearing.

  “Hi, Judd!” Ma calls, as he opens the door and sets one leg out on the ground. “How you doing?”

  “Makin’ out okay,” he says, dragging his bad leg out after the good one. “How you?”

  “Doing fine.”

  Shiloh’s on his feet now, but he don’t start toward the house. Just standing there watching, his tail as still as a fence post.

  Judd’s got small eyes, close together on his face, and a mouth that don’t seem to open as wide as it should, like the words are coming out the corners when he talks.

  He makes his way around the sheet Ma’s hung on the line and comes over where Dara Lynn’s waiting with a sock in her hand, ready for Ma to take it. “On my way down to the store,” he says. “Hear Wallace is stocking up on gallon jugs of water, and wondered if you could use some.”

  “Folks are putting in a supply already?” asks Ma, resting one hand on her hip, the other on the clothesline, and Dara Lynn, squatting there on the ground, sinks down into the grass and sits cross-legged. “Sure hope it don’t come to that.”

  “Me either,” says Judd, “and the price’ll go up if it does. I got no well, so got no choice. But thought I’d stop by in case you wanted me to get you some.”

  “I appreciate it,” says Ma. “But so far the well’s putting out. We’re careful, though.” She motions toward the clothes basket. “Have to think of all the different ways I can use the wash water before I throw it out. Wish we could have saved our corn.”

  Judd nods. “My tomatoes are all dried up.” He looks over at Becky, who’s hanging on the tire swing, waiting for me to come over, give her a push. “You like tomato sandwiches, little gal?”

  Becky only wrinkles up her nose, and he laughs.

  “But thanks for stopping by to ask,” Ma says. “We’re going to hear the new preacher again tomorrow. You heard him yet?”

  Judd looks down at the ground and spits sideways. “Ain’t much for preachin’,” he says.

  “Well, you ever get the idea to go, you’re welcome to sit with us.”

  Judd gives a halfway nod and turns toward his truck again.

  “You want me to bike over and help unload the jugs when you get back?” I ask.

  “Think I can handle that okay, Marty. But if you find time to come by, chase my dogs around a little, they’d like that,” Judd says.

  “I will,” I say. I know Shiloh won’t be coming with me, though. Judd starts back to his pickup and sees Shiloh standing off under the tree, just watching. For a minute he pauses, like maybe he’ll go over and stroke his head, but then he heads for the truck and drives off down the lane.

  Here’s the thing: If you’re a stranger, and you stop, pat Shiloh on the head, talk to him in a kind voice, Shiloh’s tail will start wagging the next time he sees you, he’s your friend. He remembers. But if you treat him mean, if all he knows from you is a kick in the ribs, a chain holding him to a tree, suppertime comes and you forget to feed him, he remembers that too. And no matter how Judd tries—even saved Shiloh’s life once—I can never get Shiloh to cross that bridge over Middle Island Creek and go visit the man who used to own him. Wonder if he ever will.

  With school starting on Monday, I decide to go hear the preacher. Ma believes in going to church every Sunday, while Dad’s the one who reads the Bible to himself. Says he and God have some pretty good arguments while he’s out working the garden or driving his mail route.

  Saturday night Ma lays out a clean shirt for me and washes Dara Lynn’s hair. My sister hates to have her hair washed, even for church. We’re supposed to be saving water, not using it, she says, and when that don’t work, she bellows, “If God wanted me to wash my hair, he’d have sent some rain.” Ma’s got her head all soaped up under the kitchen faucet, and Dara Lynn’s holding a towel over her face, screeching that there’s soap in her eyes.

  “Dara Lynn, if a little soap in your eye is your only misery, you got a fine life ahead of you,” Ma says. “Now hold still.”

  Sunday’s a steamy day for dressing up—hotter than it was the day before—but Dad’s already outside, working on the new addition. I got to put on a fresh shirt and a tie.

  Ties are on my why list. Wonder what kind of man it was who hated himself enough to design a noose around his neck. David Howard says you wear a tie just to hide the buttons on your shirt. Seems to me if that’s the case, you want something pretty, you could just put bright blue buttons on every shirt so that a blue tie wasn’t necessary.

  At church, the parking lot’s packed! Don’t hold more’n twenty cars, and there’s some parked along the road, too. But we file inside the little white building— CHURCH OF THE EVERLASTING LIFE, it says over the door—and find a space for the four of us in one of the pews. Not many there Becky’s age, but she wanted to come anyway. Likes putting on her Sunday dress and socks.

  I see the preacher—Pastor Dawes is his name—up on the platform. He’s a tall man with deep creases on either side the mouth. Wears those glasses without any rims, and his hair is thin over the top of his head. Has on a brown suit and brown tie, and I suppose brown socks and shoes too, but I can’t see those. He sits solemn-like as Mrs. Maxwell plays the piano, and more folks come in to find seats.

  What I like most about church is the singing. We got a deacon, Brother Hatch, forty pounds more going sideways than the preacher, and he’s the one leading the singing. Got the voice to do it too—as deep as a well—and he even smiles as he sings.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he says, “turn to page one hundred thirty-eight and sing it like you mean it!” One thirty-eight is my favorite hymn—got a rhythm that almost needs some clapping: “A Little Talk with Jesus” is what it’s called.

  Mrs. Maxwell plays a few notes, Brother Hatch leads off, and we all come in at the right places:

  “Let us . . . ,” he sings.

  And the rest of us sing out:

  “Have a little talk with Jesus . . .”

  Brother Hatch sings:

  “And we’ll . . .”

  “Tell him all about our troubles . . .”

  “He will . . .”

  “Hear our faintest cry . . .”

  “And he will . . .”

  “Answer by and by,” we warble.

  There’s six or seven verses like this, and Becky swings her legs back and forth while we sing. Mrs. Maxwell slows it at the end, so we’re all of us sing
ing together, and our voices go up and down on that last note: “A . . . little . . . talk . . . with . . . Jesus . . . makes . . . it . . . riiiiigghht.”

  “That’s just what I like to hear, brothers and sisters,” Brother Hatch says, his cheeks pink from the effort of directing us. “Isn’t that just the finest song?”

  Everyone else seems to think so too, and I hear a few “Hallelujahs,” but no telling what Pastor Dawes thinks, because those creases around his mouth sure ain’t from smiling.

  Becky sits all serious during Scripture reading, and then Pastor Dawes begins the sermon. I figure he’s going to be loud, but he starts out soft and gentle as a breeze, and breezes are part of what he wants to preach about.

  “Friends,” he says, “I want to talk to you today about signs. Not stop signs. Not store signs. But signs that just might be God’s way of talking to us. ‘Why doesn’t God talk to us the way he talked to folks back in the Old Testament?’ people ask me sometimes. And my answer is that maybe he does, and we’re just not listening.”

  So far Becky’s paying attention. So’s Dara Lynn, though she’s got her fingers spread out on her knees, admiring the pink and purple polish on her nails.

  “If you know your Bible stories,” he continues, and this time his eyes seek out the children in every row, “you know how God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could cross out of Egypt, and he closed it again on the Egyptians’ chariots and men. You know how he sent the flood to cover the whole earth, all except Noah and his ark, to show how disappointed he was with his people. He made a bush to burn, a volcano to erupt, a whirlwind to take his beloved prophet Elijah to heaven, and the earth to open up and swallow those who had displeased him.”

  Then he reads part of a chapter from Deuteronomy about how if you obey God, he’ll send rain for your corn and grass for your cattle, but if you don’t, he’ll “‘Shut up the heavens . . . and you’ll perish quickly off the good land the Lord gives you. . . .’”

  I don’t know how much of that Bible reading Becky understands, but she still hasn’t reached for Ma’s pocketbook, where Ma keeps some little slide puzzles, the kind you push squares around to make a picture. Dara Lynn sits like a statue beside me. The rest of the sermon is on the drought, and how come God sent it.

  Finally Brother Hatch leads us in “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and we’re in the car again.

  The sun is even hotter going home than it was coming. The girls buckle up in the backseat, and I turn down the sun visor on my side. Wish we had air-conditioning in our car like the Howards do.

  Mom’s a mile or two down the road when Becky says, “I don’t like him.”

  “Pastor Dawes?” asks Ma.

  “God,” says Becky.

  There’s a gasp from Dara Lynn, and I turn halfway round in my seat. I never heard nobody in our family say that. Becky’s lips are like a line in a cement sidewalk, and she’s staring straight ahead.

  “Why’s that, sweetheart?” asks Ma, but I can guess.

  “He does bad things,” says Becky.

  “Only if you’re bad. Really bad,” says Dara Lynn, the expert. “What I don’t get is, if God knows everything, don’t he already know we need rain? Why do we have to keep telling him?”

  I’ll say this for Dara Lynn, she’s not afraid to ask questions.

  “Maybe he forgets,” says Becky.

  I don’t even try to get into that conversation, but Dara Lynn has a point.

  “I think it’s to remind us that we shouldn’t take him for granted,” says Ma. “Doesn’t want us to go day after day just thinking the earth is always going to stay beautiful, and we don’t have to take care of it.”

  “I take care of it!” says Becky. “I water my tomato plant!” And then, in a smaller voice, “Will the earth ever open up and swallow me?”

  “No, Becky,” I tell her, even though I don’t know more’n anyone else. The thing is, I just can’t believe in a God who would do that, so I guess Pastor Dawes’ll be after me next.

  Wonder if my friends ever think about stuff like this. I asked David Howard once what did he think happened to us after we die, and he said he hopes we get reborn as somebody else. I say, “Who do you want to be reborn as?” And he says, “Methuselah, ’cause then I’d get to live nine hundred sixty-nine years more.”

  three

  ‘BOUT THE TIME THE FIRST trees turn color, you’ll hear school buses grinding up the hills and along the back roads of Tyler County. Up until this year, me and Dara Lynn rode the same bus. But now that middle grades have classes at Tyler Consolidated High and I’m going into seventh, I got to be out at the bus stop at 6:55 in the morning. Dara Lynn gets a half hour more sleep.

  The bus comes, I give Shiloh one last hug, and the doors swing open. First thing I see when I climb aboard is feet. Feet with shoes on ’em big as rowboats. And when I’m staring down that aisle at the knees and arms and shoulders to go with ’em, I figure that any one of those high school boys could pick me up in one hand and have me for lunch. Even the girls are big.

  Driver must know what I’m thinking, ’cause he smiles at me and says, “Go on back. They don’t bite.”

  Fact is, they’re so busy talking and hooting and laughing at their own jokes they hardly pay me any mind at all. There’s a few more of us middle schoolers scattered here and there, but I find an empty seat to save for David Howard, and the bus moves on.

  Looking at all the different houses we pass, I’m thinking that our little two-bedroom house is about as small as they come, even though my dad gets a decent salary. But nobody could guess the number of years he paid for Grandma Preston’s nursing care before she died, and he don’t go around telling about the money he lent Ma’s brother when Uncle Bill’s house got washed away in a flood—no insurance, neither—money we’ll never see again and he knows it.

  But once we get that new addition, our house’ll be that much bigger—a right nice-looking house.

  Bus is heading down the winding road toward Little and stops to pick up a girl I’ve never seen before. She’s by herself, and the driver reminds her she’s left her sweater on the bench. She goes back down the steps to get it, her cheeks bright as holly berries from embarrassment.

  I’m going to have to tell her this seat’s saved, but she don’t even look my way when she passes. I even had a smile ready, but she don’t want it. Okay by me.

  Bus stops for David Howard and some other kids in Friendly. “Heeeerrrre’s Da-vid!” he says, spreading his arms wide as he gets on the bus, and even the high school boys laugh. He slides onto the seat beside me. “How’d I do?” he says.

  I make a buzzer sound like he’s bounced off the show, and he elbows me in the side.

  “Man, all I wanted to do this morning was sleep,” he says.

  “Me too,” I tell him. “And Dara Lynn’s cat was crawling around all over me before Dad even comes to wake me up. I’m going to be so glad when I have a room of my own.”

  “You said it. I’ll be your first sleepover, and we will party!” says David.

  Partying with David Howard at my place means exploring the fields outside after dark. That’s what he likes to do, ’cause he don’t have all the land down here in Friendly like we’ve got up in Shiloh. (I like to think we named our community after my dog, not the other way around.)

  “You know, we have to find the middle school entrance when we get to Tyler,” I say. “I think the high school has its own wing. Their own hallways and everything. Even their own gym.”

  “Well, I hope I never get mixed up and wander into it. I don’t want to be overhauled by any of these guys,” David says, speaking for both of us.

  Bus makes the turn, and we’re riding along the Ohio River toward Sistersville. I’ve seen some of those houses in Sistersville, passed down from great-granddaddies. Three stories, some of ’em, with those little towers on top.

  When the bus pulls up to Tyler Consolidated, the high school kids troop off to the new wing, and the principal’s th
ere to welcome new middle school students and tell us where to go.

  David and I have different homerooms, and don’t see each other again till English. We’re both of us in that class, with a new teacher, Mr. Kelly.

  So far, my teachers have all been nice, but this man walks in wearing a dark-purple shirt with a black tie. I’m thinking, Who gives this guy fashion advice, a funeral director? He don’t even look at the class—just opens a black notebook and starts talking.

  “My name is James Kelly, and you will address me as Mr. Kelly. I do not accept excuses for assignments turned in late; I do not tolerate talking in class; no gum, no food of any kind; and if you are absent more than twice, it will cost you points off your grade. Any questions?”

  And then, don’t even give us time to raise our hands if we dared, he adds, “And those rules apply to boys only.”

  There’s a gasp like we’re all suckin’ air out of the same big straw. Can’t believe this. And once again, without any time for us to protest, he says, “My mistake. Girls only.”

  This time the girls turn and stare at each other, and then Mr. Kelly starts to smile. “You didn’t believe all that, did you?” he says.

  And finally we all grin and say, naw, we knew him to be joking, though we didn’t, and I decide right then I’m going to like the guy in the purple shirt.

  He tells us that this is his first day of teaching at Tyler Consolidated, and he wants us to know that not only did he come in the wrong entrance himself, but he was looking for the teachers’ lounge and walked into biology by mistake. “Nobody there but a frog,” he says, and we laugh out loud this time.

  Mr. Kelly goes on to say that we’re going to be studying nonfiction for the first half of seventh grade, and we’ll start with biographies, then move on to autobiographies. One of our assignments—won’t be due till the end of the semester—is to write two five-hundred-word essays. First one will be about an important person in our own lives. Second will be a biography of a classmate, and we’ll draw names to see who it will be. Maybe we don’t think we’ve lived long enough to have anything to say, but he’s going to show us that we know ourselves better than we thought.