The air was crisp. The sun had not
yet touched the eaves of the church to the east. The great
mountains were still dark. The songs of the tree frogs and crickets were long
quiet. The mockingbird was still.
Jacob called his son to awaken.
Simon’s eyes
were shut even as he dressed and he drank his coffee while
helping to gather the fruit and vegetables from the orchard and gardens and
prepared the cart.
Simon and Jacob pushed the cart
through the streets and alleys of the village to the market. The cart
overflowed and Simon noticed the beads of sweat collect on his father’s brow
and arms as they guided the wagon up the hills.
Simon began to skip about the cart
as he cupped his hand to his cheek and began singing out in a load voice.
“Straw-ber-ries! A-vo-ga-tos! Round
mel-ons! Plan-tee-nos!”
“Shhh,” his father motioned him back
and whispered, “The people are sleeping and don’t want such a noise.”
Simon shrank back to his
father’s side and gripped the cart’s handles. “But father,” Simon protested, “I
was only trying to make the cart less heavy.”
“The marketplace is where we sell
our goods, my son,” Jacob said, “not the
streets. I say the
fruit is heavy to me only on the way
home.” He grabbed a shock of the boy’s hair and shook it as he laughed.
Jacob let go of the cart and stopped
while Simon leaned forward, stretched and strained to push the cart up the hill.
“See, you make it a feather,” Jacob said. Simon heard the metal rim of the
wheels begin to skip and clack upon the cobbles.
When they reached the square, they
separated. Jacob stopped, placed his hand to the hollow of his back and
straightened himself. He saluted and called out the names of the other vendors
as they, too, prepared for the day. Simon by this time had raced around the
corner and joined the other boys as they played.
Jacob stood tall and called out at
intervals: “Straw—ber—ries! A—vo—ga—toes! Round mel—ons! Plan—ti—noz.” His song
vied with the others as their music filled the air.
The sound of the evening bell brought
Simon back. It was a good day and Jacob gave Simon the cart to weigh as they
marched home through the narrow streets.
It had been many years since Lean
had stayed at home and tended the garden and prepared their small supper for
their return. The aromas would greet them as they crossed the porch. Now, they had become experts at inventing
their own meal each night with whatever remained and a fillet of fish or squid,
which Simon had beguiled from one of the other vendors.
It was Simon who offered assistance
to all. The merchants would give him a small piece of leftover food as payment
for his help.
“Did you work hard for this reward?”
Jacob asked sternly. “Oh, yes father.” Simon held out his rough hands to show
the callouses. “They look like yours.”
“Then you better wash them now,” his
father rebutted.
At the end of their meal, Simon
would place himself before his father’s rocker and watch him as he lit his pipe
and puff great streams of smoke out from his lips and nostrils.
“Father,” Simon looked as his toes
wriggling out from his sandals, “why do the butterflies sit on the tops of
flowers?” Jacob could only stare out beyond the great mountains. “Are they
resting? Where do butterflies come from?”
Jacob knew these were not the usual
questions Simon would ask at the end of the day. Mostly, it was of the new
faces from the market, who they were and where they might be from. Simon was no
longer content, either, to hear tales of far away lands and stories of the seas
and of the great mountains.
“Butterflies, my son,” Jacob
insisted, “are angels wearing all their finery from the rainbows. They do not sit,
but dance for the flowers and in thanksgiving; they open and allow them to
drink their honey. “ Simon looked very convinced but Jacob was concerned. There
were so may more questions, so many more whys and hows, and wheres. Another
instance urged Jacob to take Father Ignatius’ advice and prepare for the boy’s
schooling.
When Jacob finished his pipe, he and
his son went inside to bed and they slept very close together until morning.
The moon crept into their room and the great mountains to the east grew dark
and looked very far away. The air became cool and crisp, the sounds of the tree
frogs and the crickets and the mockingbirds made them sleep, and they dreamt of
Lean, and far away places.
Within a week, the boy was with
Father Ignatius on the road to the city. Jacob had been saving his coins for
many years. Seven hundred, he told himself, was not much money, but Father Ignatius
assured Jacob it would see Simon a long way.
It was many years after the boy left,
and the old man dropped his cart at the side of the house. He pulled himself up
unto the porch and through the doorway every evening and fired his wood to fry
the plantains. The fish and the squid were fewer now. The others would come at
the day’s end and give Jacob a piece of meat or vegetables, what ever was left
over. “This is for Simon,” they would say. “Will he be returning soon?”
Jacob would sit in his chair by the
fire and rock at the open door, smoke his pipe, and whisper at the peaks
growing darker in the distance. They crowded around him, listening. He would
mutter stories that he had told Simon and the mountains would bow in
acknowledgement until Jacob closed his eyes.
The days were becoming shorter and
Jacob sold whatever stray wood he could find around the orchard to the people
in town. The snow on the peaks looked icy and hard and held the precious water
until spring that was far away.
Until then, the old man would die
many times. He would pull himself from his bed every morning and gather the
wood. His eyes became deep and small and rested back in his cheeks like raisins.
He burned oil on stones piled on the floor to warm his hands and feet. His pipe
needed to be lit many more times. The many doors and faces of the day were on
the floor with the stones. He sat muttering to Simon who sat before him, and he
talked to Lean who sat deep within his waistcoat pocket. The great mountains to
the east leaned closer.
The last snow had fallen and the
garden was covered with a warm, white quilt. The weight of the snow made the
branches of the trees touch the ground.
The mountains were soon to give up their precious water and the
strawberry vines would soon peek from beneath the briar. Some had become so
bold as to climb the side of Jacobs house.
The old man did not see the sun rise
over the eaves of Father Ignatius’ church, nor did he see the chimneys’ outline
as the day grew late. In the early morning of the spring, the old man called
out a name, Lean! and the mountains looked up. They saw Jacob’s chin lower to
his chest and they saw his pipe fall to the floor.
The sun crept onto the porch and warmly
wrapped Jacob and cast his shadow over the floorboards. The tree frogs sang him
songs and so did the crickets, and so did the mockingbird. The mountains lowered
their heads and Jacob could not hear them weeping. Some of the bricks of the
crooked chimneys of the houses of the villagers fell to the ground.
The sun fell behind the mountains.
The moon was yet to be full and high. The front porch now held three more
shadows. Simon now stood with his wife and his new son. He was about to speak
to his father when he noticed how very still his father sat, not getting up and
greeting them. He knelt down to pick up the old man’s pipe. Tears dropped on
the floorboards.
“This is my wife, Rachael, father, and
this is my new son. We call him Jacob. He has been with us only a short time,
but he is our joy. He is already courting us with his charms. He has your voice,
father, and he can sing. Oh, father, can he sing! We are very happy. We are
very lucky. Thank you, father.”
Simon and Rachael placed Jacob in
the ground near the center of the orchard next to Lean. Their supper was meager,
but warm, and Simon held young Jacob in his arms and whispered stories of his
father, of the flowers, and the butterflies. Simon smoked his father’s pipe and
watched with Rachael as the moon clambered in the window and smoothed their
bedcovers. They listened to the songs of the tree frogs, and the crickets, and
the mockingbird. When they slept, they held each other close. The mountains
offered them up their dreams.
When the sun rose high above the
eaves of the church in the east and peeked through the smoke from the chimneys,
Simon had already greased the cart’s wheels and filled it. He waved back to
Rachael with Jacob in her arms and he pumped the wagon up through the streets
and alleys of the village to the square to sell his fruit. He sang his song
along with the other vendors, and at the end of the day, they gave him the leftover
small fishes and squid for his family.
General comments
This is charming folk story and I like very
much that it shows a life cycle. We get a strong sense of place as the writer
uses their senses and also the weather to indicate time and season.
There are a few
instances of awkward expression but on the whole the writing improves as we get
more into the story.
Please see my more
detailed comment in the notes.
