Tuck Everlasting — Chapter 17

17

For the second morning in a row, Winnie Foster woke early. Outside, in the ring of trees around the pond, the birds were celebrating, giving the new day a brass band’s worth of greeting. Winnie freed herself from the twisted quilt and went to a window. Mist lay on the surface of the water, and the light was still pale. It looked unreal, and she felt, herself, unreal, waking where she had, with her hair wild and her dress all crumpled. She rubbed her eyes. Through the dewy weeds below the window, a toad hopped suddenly into view and Winnie peered at it eagerly. But no—of course it wasn’t the same toad. And remembering that other toad—her toad, she thought now, almost fondly—it seemed to her that she had been away from home for weeks. Then she heard a step on the loft stairs and thought, “Jesse!” At once her cheeks flamed.

But it was Miles. He came into the parlor, and when he saw that she was up, he smiled and whispered, “Good! You’re awake. Come on—you can help me catch some fish for breakfast.”

This time, Winnie was careful not to make a noise when she climbed into the rowboat. She made her way to her seat in the stern, and Miles handed her two old cane poles—“Watch out for the hooks!” he warned—and a jar of bait: pork fat cut into little pieces. A big brown night moth fluttered out from under the oar blades propped beside her on the seat, and wobbled off toward nowhere through the fragrant air. And from the bank, something plopped into the water. A frog! Winnie caught just a glimpse of it as it scissored away from shore. The water was so clear that she could see tiny brown fish near the bottom, flicking this way and that.

Miles pushed the rowboat off and sprang in, and soon they were gliding up toward the near end of the pond, where the water came in from the

stream. The locks grated as the oars dipped and swung, but Miles was skillful. He rowed without a single splash. The dripping from the blades, as they lifted, sent rows of overlapping circles spreading silently behind them.

It was very peaceful. “They’ll take me home today,” thought Winnie. She was somehow certain of this, and began to feel quite cheerful. She had been kidnapped, but nothing bad had happened, and now it was almost over.

Now, remembering the visits of the night before, she smiled—and found that she loved them, this most peculiar family. They were her friends, after

all. And hers alone.

“How’d you sleep?” Miles asked her.

“All right,” she said.

“That’s good. I’m glad. Ever been fishing before?”

“No,” she told him.

“You’ll like it. It’s fun.” And he smiled at her.

The mist was lifting now, as the sun poked up above the trees, and the water sparkled. Miles guided the rowboat near a spot where lily pads lay like upturned palms on the surface. “We’ll let her drift some here,” he said.

“There’ll be trout down in those weeds and stems. Here—give me the poles and I’ll bait the hooks for us.”

Winnie sat watching him as he worked. His face was like Jesse’s, and yet not like. It was thinner, without Jesse’s rounded cheeks, and paler, and his hair was almost straight, clipped neatly below the ears. His hands were different, too, the fingers thicker, the skin scrubbed-looking, but black at the knuckles and under the nails. Winnie remembered then that he worked sometimes as a blacksmith, and indeed his shoulders, under his threadbare shirt, were broad and muscled. He looked solid, like an oar, whereas Jesse —well, she decided, Jesse was like water: thin, and quick.

Miles seemed to sense that she was watching him. He looked up from the bait jar and his eyes, returning her gaze, were soft. “Remember I told you I had two children?” he asked. “Well, one of ’em was a girl. I took her fishing, too.” His face clouded then, and he shook his head. “Her name was Anna. Lord, how sweet she was, that child! It’s queer to think she’d be close to eighty now, if she’s even still alive. And my son—he’d be eighty- two.”

Winnie looked at his young, strong face, and after a moment she said, “Why didn’t you take them to the spring and give them some of the special water?”

“Well, of course, we didn’t realize about the spring while we was still on the farm,” said Miles. “Afterwards, I thought about going to find them. I wanted to, heaven knows. But, Winnie, how’d it have been if I had? My wife was nearly forty by then. And the children—well, what was the use?

They’d have been near growed theirselves. They’d have had a pa close to the same age they was. No, it’d all have been so mixed up and peculiar, it just wouldn’t have worked. Then Pa, he was dead-set against it, anyway.

The fewer people know about the spring, he says, the fewer there are to tell about it. Here—here’s your pole. Just ease the hook down in the water.

You’ll know when you get a bite.”

Winnie clutched her pole, sitting sidewise in the stern, and watched the baited hook sink slowly down. A dragonfly, a brilliant blue jewel, darted up and paused over the lily pads, then swung up and away. From the nearest bank, a bullfrog spoke.

“There certainly are a lot of frogs around here,” Winnie observed.

“That’s so,” said Miles. “They’ll keep coming, too, long as the turtles stay away. Snappers, now, they’ll eat a frog soon as look at him.”

Winnie thought about this peril to the frogs, and sighed. “It’d be nice,” she said, “if nothing ever had to die.”

“Well, now, I don’t know,” said Miles. “If you think on it, you come to see there’d be so many creatures, including people, we’d all be squeezed in right up next to each other before long.”

Winnie squinted at her fishing line and tried to picture a teeming world.

“Mmm,” she said, “yes, I guess you’re right.”

Suddenly the cane pole jerked in her hands and bent into an arch, its tip dragged down nearly to the water’s surface. Winnie held on tight to the handle, her eyes wide.

“Hey!” cried Miles. “Look there! You got a bite. Fresh trout for breakfast, Winnie.”

But just as suddenly the pole whipped straight again and the line went slack. “Shucks,” said Miles. “It got away.”

“I’m kind of glad,” Winnie admitted, easing her rigid grip on the butt of the pole. “You fish, Miles. I’m not so sure I want to.”

And so they drifted for a little longer. The sky was blue and hard now, the last of the mist dissolved, and the sun, stepping higher above the trees, was hot on Winnie’s back. The first week of August was reasserting itself after a good night’s sleep. It would be another searing day.

A mosquito appeared and sat down on Winnie’s knee. She slapped at it absently, thinking about what Miles had said. If all the mosquitoes lived forever—and if they kept on having babies!—it would be terrible. The Tucks were right. It was best if no one knew about the spring, including the mosquitoes. She would keep the secret. She looked at Miles, and then she asked him, “What will you do, if you’ve got so much time?”

“Someday,” said Miles, “I’ll find a way to do something important.”

Winnie nodded. That was what she wanted.

“The way I see it,” Miles went on, “it’s no good hiding yourself away, like Pa and lots of other people. And it’s no good just thinking of your own pleasure, either. People got to do something useful if they’re going to take up space in the world.”

“But what will you do?” Winnie persisted.

“I don’t know yet,” said Miles. “I ain’t had no schooling or nothing, and that makes it harder.” Then he set his jaw and added, “I’ll find a way, though. I’ll locate something.”

Winnie nodded. She reached out and ran her fingers across a lily pad that lay on the water beside the boat. It was warm and very dry, like a blotter, but near its center was a single drop of water, round and perfect. She touched the drop and brought her fingertip back wet; but the drop of water, though it rolled a little, remained as round and perfect as before.

And then Miles caught a fish. There it flopped, in the bottom of the boat, its jaw working, its gills fanning rapidly. Winnie drew up her knees and stared at it. It was beautiful, and horrible too, with gleaming, rainbow- colored scales, and an eye like a marble beginning to dim even as she watched it. The hook was caught in its upper lip, and suddenly Winnie wanted to weep. “Put it back, Miles,” she said, her voice dry and harsh.

“Put it back right away.”

Miles started to protest, and then, looking at her face, he picked up the trout and gently worked the barbed hook free. “All right, Winnie,” he said.

He dropped the fish over the edge of the boat. It flipped its tail and disappeared under the lily pads.

“Will it be all right?” asked Winnie, feeling foolish and happy both at once.

“It’ll be all right,” Miles assured her. And then he said, “People got to be meat-eaters sometimes, though. It’s the natural way. And that means killing things.”

“I know,” said Winnie weakly. “But still.”

“Yes,” said Miles. “I know.”