A Mother in Mannville
Marjorie
Rawlings
The orphanage is high in the Carolina
mountains. Sometimes in winter the snowdrifts are so deep that the institution
is cut off from the village below, from all the world. Fog hides the mountain
peaks, the snow swirls down the valleys, and a wind blows so bitterly that the
orphanage boys who take the milk twice daily to the baby cottage reach the door
with fingers stiff in an agony of numbness.
"Or when we carry trays from the
cookhouse for the ones that are sick," Jerry said, "we get our faces
frostbit, because we can't put our hands over them. I have gloves," he
added. "Some of the boys don't have any."
He liked the late spring, he said. The
rhododendron was in bloom, a carpet of color, across the mountainsides, soft as
the May winds that stirred the hemlocks. He called it laurel.
"It's pretty when the laurel
blooms," he said. "Some of it's pink and some of it's white."
I was there in the autumn. I wanted quiet,
isolation, to do some troublesome writing. I wanted mountain air to blow out
the malaria from too long a time in the subtropics. I was homesick, too, for
the flaming of maples in October, and for corn shocks and pumpkins and black-walnut
trees and the lift of hills. I found them all, living in a cabin that belonged
to the orphanage, half a mile beyond the orphanage farm. When I took the cabin,
I asked for a boy or man to come and chop wood for the fireplace. The first few
days were warm, I found what wood I needed about the cabin, no one came, and I
forgot the order.
I looked up from my typewriter one late
afternoon, a little startled. A boy stood at the door, and my pointer dog, my
companion, was at his side and had not barked to warn me. The boy was probably twelve
years old, but undersized. He wore overalls and a torn shirt, and was
barefooted.
He said, "I can chop some wood
today."
I said, "But I have a boy coming from
the orphanage."
"I'm the boy."
"You? But you're small."
"Size don't matter, chopping
wood," he said. "Some of the big boys don't chop good. I've been
chopping wood at the orphanage a long time."
I visualized mangled and inadequate
branches for my fires. I was well into my work and not inclined to
conversation. I was a little blunt.
"Very well. There's the ax. Go ahead
and see what you can do."
I went back to work, closing the door. At
first the sound of the boy dragging brush annoyed me. Then he began to chop.
The blows were rhythmic and steady, and shortly I had forgotten him, the sound no
more of an interruption than a consistent rain. I suppose an hour and a half
passed, for when I stopped and stretched, and heard the boy's steps on the
cabin stoop, the sun was dropping behind the farthest mountain, and the valleys
were purple with something deeper than the asters.
The boy said, "I have to go to supper
now. I can come again tomorrow evening."
I said. "I'll pay you now for what
you've done," thinking should probably have to insist on an older boy.
"Ten cents an hour?"
"Anything is all right."
We went together back of the cabin. An
astonishing amount of solid wood had been cut. There were cherry logs and heavy
roots of rhododendron, and blocks from the waste pine and oak left from the building
of the cabin.
"But. you've done as much as a
man," I said, "This is a splendid pile."
I looked at him, actually, for the first
time. His hair was the color of the corn shocks and his eyes, very direct, were
like the mountain sky when rain is pending--gray, with a shadowing of that
miraculous blue. As I spoke, a light came over him, as though the setting sun
had touched him with the same suffused glory with which it touched the mountains.
I gave him a quarter.
"You may come tomorrow," I said,
"and thank you very much."
He looked at me, and at the coin, and
seemed to want to speak, but could riot, and turned away.
"I'll split kindling tomorrow,"
he said over his thin ragged shoulder. "You'll need kindling and medium
wood and logs and backlogs."
At daylight I was half wakened by the sound
of chopping. Again it was so even in texture that I went back to sleep. When I
left my bed in the cool morning, the boy had come and gone. and a stack of
kindling was neat against the cabin wall. He came again after school in the afternoon
and worked until time to return to the orphanage. His name was Jerry; he was
twelve years old, and he had been at the orphanage since he was four. I could
picture him at four, with the same grave gray-blue eyes and the same--independence?
No, the word that comes to me is "integrity."
The
word means something very special to me, and the quality for which I use it is
a rare one. My father had it--there is another of whom I am almost sure--but
almost no man of my acquaintance possesses it with the clarity, the purity, the
simplicity of a mountain stream. But the boy Jerry had it. It .is bedded on
courage, but it is more than brave. It is honest, but it is more than honesty.
The ax handle broke one day. Jerry said the woodshop at the orphanage would repair
it. I brought, money to pay for the job and he refused it.
''I'II pay for it,” he said.” I broke it. I
brought the ax down careless”
"But no one hits accurately every
time,” I told him. “The fault was in the wood of the handle. I’ll see man from
whom I bought it.”
It. was only then that he would take the
money. He was standing back of his own carelessness. He was a free-will agent
and he chose to do careful work, and if he failed, he took the responsibility
without subterfuge.
And he did for me the unnecessary thing,
the gracious thing that we find done only by the great of heart. Things no
training can teach for they are done. on the instant, with no predicated
experience. He found a cubbyhole beside the fireplace that I had not noticed.
There, of his own accord, he put kindling and "medium" wood, so that
I might always have dry fire material ready in case of sudden wet weather. A
stone was loose in the rough walk to the cabin. He dug a deeper hole and
steadied it, although he came, himself, by a short cut over the bank. I found
that when I tried to return his thoughtfulness with such things as candy and
apples, he was wordless. "Thank you" was, perhaps, an expression for
which he had had no use, for his courtesy was instinctive. He only looked at
the gift and at me, and a curtain lifted, so that I saw deep into the clear
well of his eyes, and gratitude was there, and affection, soft over the firm
granite of his character.
He made simple excuses to come and sit with
me. I could no more have turned him away than if he had been physically hungry.
I suggested once that the best time for us to visit was just before supper, when
I left off my writing. After that, he waited always until my typewriter had
been some time quiet. One day I worked until nearly dark. I went outside the
cabin, having forgotten him. I saw him going up over the hill in the twilight
toward the orphanage. When I sat down on my stoop, a place was warm from Us
body where he had been sitting.
He became intimate, of course, with my
pointer, Pat. There is a strange communion between a boy and a dog. Perhaps
they possess the same singleness of spirit, the same kind of wisdom, it is
difficult to explain, but it exists. When I went across the state for a
weekend, I left the dog in Jerry's charge. I gave him the dog-whistle and the
key to the cabin, and left sufficient food. He was to come two or three times a
day and let out the dog and feed and exercise him. I should return Sunday
night, and Jerry would take out the dog for the last time Sunday afternoon and
then leave the key under an agreed hiding place.
My return was belated and fog filled the
mountain passes so treacherously that I dared not drive at night. The fog held
the next morning, and it was Monday noon before I reached the cabin. The dog
had been fed and cared for that morning. Jerry came early in the afternoon,
anxious.
"The superintendent said nobody would
drive in the fog," he said. "I came just before bedtime last night
and you hadn't come. So I brought Pat some of my breakfast this morning. I
wouldn't have let anything happen to him,"
"I was sure of that. I didn't
worry."
"When I heard about the fog, I thought
you'd know."
He was needed for work at the orphanage and
he had to return at once. I gave him a dollar in payment, and he looked at it
and went away. But that night he came in the darkness and knocked at the door.
'"Come in, Jerry," I said,
"if you're allowed to be away this late."
"I told maybe a story," he said.
"I told them I thought you would want to see me."
"That's true," I assured him,
and I saw his relief. "I want to hear about how you managed with the
dog."
He sat by the fire with me, with no other
light, and told me of their two days together. The dog lay close to him, and
found a comfort there that I did not have for him. And it seemed to me that
being with my dog and caring for him had brought the boy and me, too, together,
so that he felt that he belonged to me as well as to the animal.
"He stayed right with me," he
told me, "except when he ran in the laurel. He likes the laurel. I took
him up over the hill and we both ran fast. There was a place where the grass
was high and I lay down in it and hid. I could hear Pat hunting for me. He
found my trail and he barked. When he found me, he acted crazy, and he ran
around and around me, in circles."
We watched the flames.
"That's an apple log,” he said. “It
burns the prettiest of any wood”
We were very close.
He was suddenly impelled to speak of things
he had not spoken of before, nor had I cared to ask him.
"You look a little bit like my
mother," he said. "Especially in the dark, by the fire."
"But you were only four, Jerry, when
you came here. You have remembered how she looked, all these years?"
"My mother lives in Mannville,"
he said.
For a moment, finding that he had a mother
shocked me as greatly as anything in my life has ever done, and I did not know why
it disturbed me. Then I understood my distress. I was filled with a passionate
resentment that any woman should go away and leave her son. A fresh anger added
itself. A son like this one—The orphanage was a wholesome place, the executives
were kind, good people, the food was more than adequate, the boys were healthy,
a ragged shirt was no hardship, nor the doing of clean labor. Granted, perhaps,
that the boy felt no lack, what blood fed the bowels of a woman who did not
yearn over this child's lean body that had come in parturition out of her own?
At four he would have looked the same as now. Nothing, I thought, nothing in
life could change those eyes. His quality must be apparent to an idiot, a fool.
I burned with questions I could not ask. In any case, I was afraid, there would
be pain.
"Have you seen her, Jerry-- lately?"
"I see her every summer. She sends for
me."
I wanted to cry out, "Why are you not
with her? How can she let you go away again?"
He said, "She comes up here from
Mannville whenever she can. She doesn't have a job now."
His face shone in the firelight.
"She wanted to give me a puppy, but
they can't let any one boy keep a puppy. You remember the suit I had on last
Sunday?" He was plainly proud. "She sent me that for Christmas. The
Christmas before that"--he drew a long breath, savoring the memory--"she
sent me a pair of skates."
"Roller skates?"
My mind was busy, making pictures of her,
trying to understand her. She had not, then, entirely deserted or forgotten
him. But why, then-- 1 thought, "I must not condemn her without
knowing."
"Roller skates. I let the other boys
use them. They're always borrowing them. But they're careful of them."
What circumstance other than poverty--
"I'm going to take the dollar you gave
me for taking care of Pat," he said, "and buy her a pair of
gloves."
I could only say, "That will be nice.
Do you know her size?"
"I think it's 8/.," he said.
He looked at my hands.
"Do you wear 8'/?" he asked,
"No. I wear a smaller size, a 6."
"Oh! Then I guess her hands are bigger
than-yours."
I hated her. Poverty or no, there was other
food than bread, and the soul could starve as quickly as the body. He was
taking his dollar to buy gloves for her big stupid hands, and she lived away
from him. in Mannville, and contented herself with sending him skates.
"She likes white gloves," he
said. "Do you think I can get them for a dollar?"
"I think so," I said.
I decided that I should not leave the
mountains without seeing her and knowing for myself why she had done this
thing.
The human mind scatters its interests as
though made of thistle-down and every wind stirs and moves it. I finished my
work. It did not please me, and I gave my thoughts to another field. I should
need some Mexican material.
I made arrangements to close my Florida
place. Mexico immediately, and doing the writing there, if conditions were
favorable. Then, Alaska with my brother. After that, heaven knew what or where.
1 did not take time to go to Mannville to
see Jerry's mother, nor even to talk with the orphanage officials about her. I
was a trifle abstracted about the boy, because of my work and plans. And after
my first fury at her-- we did not speak of her again--his having a mother, any
sort at all, not far away, in Mannville, relieved me of the ache I had had
about him. He did not question the anomalous relation. He was not lonely. It
was none of my concern.
He came every day and cut my wood and did
small helpful favors and stayed to talk. The days had become cold, and often I
let him come inside the cabin. He would lie on the floor in front of the fire, with
one arm across the pointer, and they would both doze and wait quietly for me.
Other days they ran with a common ecstasy through the laurel, and since the
asters were now gone, he brought me back vermilion maple leaves, and chestnut
boughs dripping with imperial yellow. I was ready to go.
I said to him, "You have been my good
friend, Jerry. I shall often think of you and miss you. Pat will miss you too.
I am leaving tomorrow."
He did not answer. When he went away, I
remember that a new moon hung over the mountains, and I watched him go in
silence up the hill. I expected him the next day, but he did not come. The
details of packing my personal belongings, loading my car, arranging the bed over
the seat, where the dog would ride, occupied me until late in the day. I closed
the cabin and started the car, noticing that the sun was in the west and I
should do well to be out of the mountains by nightfall. I stopped by the
orphanage and left the cabin key and money for my light bill with Miss dark.
"And will you call Jerry for me to say
good-by to him?"
"I don't know where he is," she
said. "I'm afraid he's not well. He didn't eat his dinner this noon. One
of the other boys saw him going over the hill into the laurel. He was supposed
to fire the boiler this afternoon. It's not like him; he's unusually
reliable."
I was almost relieved, for I knew I should
never see him again, and it would be easier not to say good-by to him.
I said, "I wanted to talk with you
about his mother-- why he's here-- but I'm in more of a hurry than I expected
to be. It's out of the question for me to see her now too. But here's some
money I'd like to leave with you to buy things for him at Christmas and on his
birthday. It will be better than for me to try to send him things. I could so
easily duplicate-- skates, for instance."
She blinked her honest spinster's eyes.
孤兒院位於卡羅來納山脈的高處。有時在冬天，雪堆很深，以至於該機構與下面的村莊、與世界各地隔絕了。霧氣遮住了山峰，雪花沿著山谷飛舞，狂風凜冽，每天送兩次牛奶到嬰兒小屋的孤兒院男孩們在到達門口時，手指都僵硬了，痛苦得麻木了。
「或者，當我們從廚房為病人端托盤時，」傑瑞說，「我們的臉會被凍傷，因為我們不能把手放在上面。
我有手套，」他補充道。 “有些男孩沒有。”
他說，他喜歡暮春。 杜鵑花盛開，漫山遍野，五月的風吹動著鐵杉，溫柔如地毯。 他稱之為月桂樹。
「月桂花開的時候很漂亮，」他說，「有些是粉紅色，有些是白色。」
秋天的時候我在那裡。我想要安靜、孤立，去做一些麻煩的寫作。我想要山間的空氣吹走在亞熱帶生活太久的瘧疾。我也想家，想念十月火紅的楓樹、想念玉米、南瓜、黑胡桃樹和隆起的山丘。我找到了他們所有人，他們住在孤兒院的一間小屋裡，距離孤兒院農場半英里。
當我入住小屋時，我請一個男孩或男人來為壁爐砍柴。最初幾天天氣溫暖，我找到了小屋所需的木材，但沒有人來，我忘了訂單。
有一天下午晚些時候，我從打字機上抬起頭，有點驚訝。一個男孩站在門口，我的同伴一隻示警狗就在他身邊，沒有用吠叫來警告我。
這個男孩大概十二歲，但個子不高。 他穿著工作服和一件破襯衫，赤著腳。
他說：“今天我可以幫妳劈柴。」
我說：「我已經從孤兒院那邊要了人。」
「你要的人就是我。」
「個子大小跟砍柴無關，」他說。「有些大男孩不會砍柴，在孤兒院都是我在砍，我砍柴已經砍了很久了。」
我想像著殘破不堪的樹枝無法用來生火。我正專注於工作，不太願意交談。我有點直言不諱。
「好吧，就用這把斧頭，來，看看你能做什麼。」
我說完就回去工作，關上門。開始的時候，聽到小男孩用耙子拖地的聲音令我很惱火。 接他開始砍柴。敲擊聲穩定而有節奏，我很快就忘記了他，那聲音就像一場連綿不斷的雨不再打擾我了，差不多一個半小時過去了，當我停下來伸了個懶腰，聽到男孩在小屋裡的腳步聲時，太陽已經落到了最遠的山後面，山谷呈現出比紫苑更深的紫色。
小男孩說：「我現在要回去吃晚餐。 明天傍晚我會再來。
我說：「你辛苦勞了，現在我就付給你錢，一小時十分錢怎麼樣？」我不能再把他看成小不點了。
「多少都可以。」
我們一起走回小屋後面，看到他砍好的柴，數量驚人。那些柴可是些櫻桃木和杜鵑花的粗根，還有蓋小屋沒用留下的松木和橡木塊，都堅硬得很，很難劈。
事實上，我第一次看著他。他的頭髮是玉米穗的顏色，他的眼睛直視，就像即將下雨時的山間天空一樣灰色，帶著神奇的藍色陰影。 當我說話的時候，一道光芒照在他身上，彷彿夕陽照耀著他，就像照在山上一樣燦爛。我給了他一個二十五分錢的硬幣。
「你明天可以來，”我說，“非常感謝你。」
他看看我，又看看那枚硬幣，他想說話卻說不出來，然後轉身走了。
「明天我會再來，劈些引火用的柴，」他轉過頭來，頭越過他瘦削的肩膀對我說，「你需要引火柴、粗一點柴和原木，還要屯積一些柴備用。」
天亮的時候，我被劈柴的聲音吵醒了，不過劈柴的聲音平平的，不再驚動我，因此我又睡著了。 當我在涼爽的早晨離開床舖的時候，小男孩來了又走了，一疊引火物整齊地靠在小屋的牆上。下午放學後他又來了，一直工作到返回孤兒院的時候。 他的名字叫傑瑞； 他今年十二歲，從四歲起就住在孤兒院。 我可以想像他四歲時的樣子，有著同樣嚴肅的灰藍色眼睛和同樣的獨立？ 不，我想到的字是「誠信」。
這個詞對我來說，意味著非常特別的東西，我很少用它。我父親具有這樣的品格——我相信別人也有——只是我認識的人沒有一個人能像山間溪流那樣清澈、純淨、單純，而這小男孩傑瑞卻有，它是以勇氣為基礎，不僅勇敢而已，還有誠實。有一天，斧柄壞了。傑瑞說孤兒院的木工場會修理它。我要給錢以便支付費用，但他拒絕了。
「我自己付，是我不小心把它壞的，」他說。
我告訴他：「沒有人能夠每次都劈得很準，問題是出在釜頭的把柄。我去找賣給我的那個人理論。」
只有到了那時他才肯拿錢，而他卻因為自己的粗心而退縮了。他是一個有自由意志的人，他選擇認真工作，如果失敗了，他會毫不掩飾地承擔責任。
他為我做了一件不是他份內的事，一件慈悲的事，只有偉大的心靈才能做到這一點。這些事是任何訓練都無法教導出來的，它是即時完成的，沒有任何預設的經驗。他在壁爐旁邊發現了一個我沒有注意到的小房間，沒有經過我指示，自動地，在那裡存了一些引火柴和粗一點的柴，這樣我就可以隨時準備好乾柴，以防突然天氣變得潮濕。通往小屋的道路崎嶇不平，有一塊石頭鬆動了。他挖了一個更深的洞把它固定住，儘管他自己是抄近道越過河岸來的，不走這條路。我發現當我試圖用糖果、蘋果之類的東西來回報他的體貼時，他卻一言不發。連「謝謝」也沒說，也許他不習慣用這樣的話語表達他的謝意，他的禮貌是本能的，他只看了看禮物，看著我，幕布掀開來，我看到他清澈的眼睛深處，感激之情在他堅硬的花崗岩性格上顯得柔和了些。
他找了個簡單的藉口來和我坐在一起。如果他真的餓了，我就不會拒絕他。我曾經建議他說，我們見面的時間最好是晚餐之前，那時候我停止寫作。此後，他總是等到我的打字機安靜了一段時間。有一天我工作到天快黑了。我走出小屋，忘記了他。我看見他在暮色中翻過山坡，朝著孤兒院走去。當我坐在門廊上時，我發現他坐過的地方有一處還有餘溫。
當然，他和我的狗帕特變得很親密。 男孩和狗之間有一種奇怪的交流。 也許他們擁有同樣的純一精神，同樣的智慧。 這很難解釋，但確實存在。 當我週末穿越州時，我把狗交給傑瑞照顧。 我給了他狗哨和小屋鑰匙，並留下了足夠的食物。 他每天要來兩三次，把狗放出來，給它餵食，讓它鍛鍊身體。 我應該在週日晚上回來，傑瑞會在周日下午最後一次帶狗出去，然後把鑰匙放在約定的藏放處。
我回來得很晚，山上的道路佈滿了大霧，我不敢在晚上開車。隔天早上，大霧依然很濃，我到達小屋的時已經是周一中午了。那天早上，這隻狗已經被餵食過，照顧得很好。下午傑瑞很早就來了，他很著急。
他說：「院長說沒有人會在大霧中開車的，所以昨晚睡前我就來過，看妳還沒有回來，今天早上我買了一些早餐給帕特吃， 我不會讓牠餓肚子。」
「雖然院長這樣說，但我並不擔心。」
「當我聽說有大霧，我想你也會知道。
孤兒院需要他工作，他必須立即返回。 我給了他一塊錢，他看了一眼就走了。那天晚上，他卻在黑暗中來敲門。
「進來，傑瑞，」我說，「這麼晚了，院方還允許你離開！」
「我編了一個故事，告訴他們說，妳想見我，」他說。
「是的，我的確想聽聽你怎麼對待那隻狗。」我說，看到他鬆了一口氣。」
他和我一起坐在爐旁邊，沒有其他燈光，只有柴燃燒的發出來的光輝，他向我講述了他跟狗在一起兩天的生活。那隻狗躺在他身邊，並在那裡找到了我所沒有的安慰。
在我看來，和我的狗在一起，並且照顧了他，也讓我小男孩在一起，他覺得他既屬於我，也屬於這隻動物。
「牠跟我在一起的時候，」小男孩告訴我，「牠喜歡叢裡跑。 我帶牠上山，跑很快。 有一個地方草很高，我就躺在裡面躲了起來。我能聽到牠在找我。 他找到了我的聖杯，然後大叫起來。 當他找到我的時候，顯得很瘋狂，繞著我團團轉。
「那根柴是蘋果樹幹，」他說，「比別的樹幹燒得更旺。」
我們坐得很近。
他突然忍不住講了一些他以前沒說過的事情，這些事其實我懶得問他。
「妳看起來有點像我媽媽，」他說。「尤其是在黑暗中，在火邊，更像。」
我母親住在曼維爾，」他說。
我母親住在曼維爾，」他說。
我聽到他母親還在的那一瞬間，非常震驚，我一生中從未有過的震驚，不知道為什麼，我會這樣，後來我才明白。向來我痛恨女人拋棄親生的孩子，像傑瑞這樣的孩子，雖然孤兒院是一個好地方，管理人員很善良，人也很好，食物綽綽有餘，收容的孩子都很健康，穿的襯衫破爛一點，分配的工作並不辛苦，。或許，這些孩不會感到匱乏，就算這樣，一個女人怎麼硬得起心，捨得把自己瘦弱的孩子丟給別人撫養呢？傑瑞四歲的時候，看起來應該跟現在一樣，那雙眼睛，任何事都改變不了它，這一點令我心裡充滿了無法說出來的痛。
…「傑瑞，你最近見過她嗎？」
「我每年夏天都會見到她。 她派人來找我。」
我差一點叫出來：「你為什麼不跟她在一起？ 她怎麼能再放你走呢？
他說：「只要有機會，她就會從曼維爾來到這裡。 她現在沒有工作。」
他的臉在火光下閃閃發亮。
「她送我一隻小狗，可是這裡不能養小狗。你還記得上週日我穿的那套衣服嗎？」他得意地說。 「是聖誕節她送給我的，我說的是上上個聖誕節，」——他深深地吸了一口氣，回味著這段記憶又說，我媽也送給我一雙溜冰鞋。」
「溜冰鞋？」
我忙著在腦子裡勾勒出他母親的模樣，以便理解她。 看來，她並沒有完全忘記他拋棄他，「我不能在不知情的情況下譴責她。」
「我把溜冰鞋借給其他男孩用。 他們都小心用它。」
我覺得，這些孩子除了貧窮之外，人情義理還在。
「我用你給我照顧帕特的錢，買了一雙手套，想送給她，」他說。
「那太好了。你知道她的尺寸嗎？」我只能這樣說。
「我猜是 8號半，」他說。
他看著我的手。
「你戴是8號半嗎？」他問。
「不。 我戴的是小一點，6 號。」
「哦！ 那我猜她的手比你大。」
不管貧窮與否，除了麵包之外還有其他食物，靈魂也可能像身體一樣很快就餓了。 這個孩子拿著自己的錢為他母親那隻笨拙的大手買手套，而她卻住在離他很遠的曼維爾，只送了他一雙溜冰鞋就自以為施了什麼大恩， 我實在很不以為然。
「她喜歡白手套，你認為我用一塊錢可以買到嗎？”他說：
「我想可以吧，」我說。
我想了解他母親為什麼把他丟在這個山區？ 在我在我還未見到她之前，決定不離開。
人類的心靈就像薊花絨毛一樣，每陣風都會吹動，它的花絮四處發散。我完成了我的工作，這件事另讓我很不舒服，只好把注意力轉移到了另一個領域。我需要一些墨西哥材料。
我已經安排關閉我在佛羅裡達的住所。如果條件允許的話，我會立即前往墨西哥，在那裡寫作。然後跟我哥哥一起去阿拉斯加。以後還會去哪裡，懷會發生了什麼事，只有天曉得！
我沒有花時間去曼維爾探望傑瑞的母親，也沒有去孤兒院跟官員談論他母親的情況。由於我的工作和計劃，我對這個男孩有點心不在焉。在我第一次對她發怒之後——我們再也沒有提起過她——他在不遠的曼維爾有一位母親，不管她是什麼母親，都減輕了我對他一直以來的痛苦。他沒有質疑這種異常關係。他並不可愛。這可不關我的事。
他每天都會來幫我砍柴，還幫了我做些些小忙，留下來聊天。天氣變冷了，我讓他進到屋子裡來。他就躺在壁爐前的地板上，一隻手放在教鞭上，和狗打瞌睡，靜靜地，等我工作停下來。其他日子，他和狗一起在月桂樹下狂喜地奔跑，由於紫苑花已經凋零了，他便帶回了朱紅色的楓葉和滴著帝王黃的栗樹枝給我。我已經準備好出發了。
我對他說：」傑瑞，你一直是我的好朋友。我會經常想起你，想念你。帕特也會。我明天就要走。」
我對他說：「傑瑞，你一直是我的好朋友。我會經常想起你，我會想念你的。帕特也會。我明天就要走了。」
他沒有回答。當他離開時，我記得一輪新月懸掛在山上，我默默地看著他走上山坡。我期待他第二天出現。但他沒有來。打包個人物品、裝車、佈置座位上的床以及狗坐的地方等細節讓我忙到很晚。我關上車廂，發動了汽車，發現太陽已經西斜，夜幕降臨之前我應該可以走出山區。我在孤兒院停了下來，把小屋鑰匙和電費留給了克拉克小姐。
「你能幫我打電話給傑瑞，跟他道別嗎？」
「我不知道他在哪裡，」她說，「恐怕他身體不太好。今天中午他沒吃晚飯。另一個男孩看到他翻山越嶺，跑到月桂樹叢裡去了。他今天下午應該去燒鍋爐，沒去。這不像他平時的樣子；他平時特別可靠。」
我鬆了一口氣，知道我不會再見到他了，不說再見，反而覺得輕鬆些。
我說：「我想跟你談談他母親的事——為什麼會把他留在這裡——但我比我預想的還要匆忙。我現在也不可能見到她了。但我想把一些錢留給你，聖誕節和生日時買東西給他。這樣比我自己寄東西給他要好些。我本來想送他溜冰鞋。」
她眨著老處女那種誠實的的眼睛。
「在這裡溜冰鞋沒有多大用處，」她說。
她這樣回答，她愚笨的回答令我惱火。
我說：「我的意思是說，如果我不知道他媽媽早就送給他溜冰鞋，我可能會選擇溜冰鞋，不過他有了，我不想給他同樣的東西。」
她盯著我。
「我不明白他在說什麼，」她說。「他哪裡有母親，他也沒有溜冰鞋。」
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