The Gift

Author's note: this is an experimental piece using a unique "voice" driven narration that becomes an essential part of characterization. The dialect in this story hails from Northern Arkansas and was heard commonly between the 1850's through the 1940's. If spoken out loud, it is a lyrical voice, almost poetic, that sounds similar to the one found in True Grit.

The Gift

          After dinner before the lights go out, the rest of the day belongs to me. The shrill of the barrel organ from the circus struggles hard through my high-above window -- its tents set up in the nearby field. Today, the show opened with Mansfield folks traipsing the menagerie to the big top, taking thoughts off years of Depression black. People need a spot of color.

          Me? I sit on the edge of my bunk, clutching its mattress corners tight and staring long, as is my habit, at the poster on my wall. It captures the spitting image of a scene from my boyhood. In real life, the lone oak on the hill overlooks our drab barn board cabin, the garden and stock shed pushed to one side.

          In the picture on my wall, the sun tunnels through blue-high haze and lights a right handsome spreading tree. Its branches reach up and out, one half turning out a twin of the other. In the slanted, afternoon beams, its leaves show up brighter than they ought.

          I ordered this catalog poster almost two years back, and my routine this time of day never varies – gazing and remembering.


          “Danny! Danny! Race me to the tree!” Almost every fair day, Lucinda waited for me where our land met the rutted road. She then threw down a challenge and began churning her short legs swift. I suppose she hoped to gain an advantage from my six mile walk to and from school. She stood no chance. Her six years to my eleven made it so.

          After touching the solitary oak, second to me, she would throw herself to the musty earth, panting for breath with her blue eyes wide and rusty hair spread out like a fan. Then, I would lay beside her, watching meadowlarks flutter about branches above and gray squirrels haul acorns in their teeth to nooks of concealment.

          “See, Lucy.” I pointed at a busy rodent. “You can see that one is hoarding away winter nuts.”

          “Yes, I see. But where does he hide them?”

          I scanned the web of branches. “There.” I pointed to a hole where a branch sprung from the trunk. The tree provided ample room for hiding.

          “Dan!” Our father’s angered call split the air like an ax. “Git your sorry butt down here fast! You got the livestock.” I rose up and shuffled away to chores. He almost always acted with ill-temper.

          Some Saturdays when our father rode off on our plow horse to affairs in town, Mom tried to make his absence special. She would make deviled eggs, slice home baked bread, pack cold sliced meats, put in homemade mustard and mayonnaise, and canned, dill garden pickles for Lucy and me. One time she mixed lemonade in a jar squeezed from store bought lemons.

          We helped her lug the loaded-down basket to the tree, where she spread a blue and white checkered tablecloth. Removing treasures from the carrier, we feasted like kings in the circle of shade cast by our leaf-covered parasol. Then, the sun lowering, we would hustle and hide the remains inside the root cellar so our father would not know. He did not take kindly to extravagance.

          “Shush! Not a word,” Mom pleaded, and we would pretend to button our lips together like the fly on a pair of trousers.

          When I turned thirteen, my dad beat me with the broom handle. He had just returned from a hot day’s work in our landlord’s fields. His sweaty, frowny face and dirty brow signaled anything could set him off. When the bucket of water I carried spilled over the front porch, he blew up like a firecracker. His sunk-inside eyes fired up, and blows rained down on me, stinging like flails of a threshing machine.

          He sent me limping to bed in the loft without dinner. Curled in a ball, I smarted with welts and bruises. I simmered, too, at the injustice, and when the darkness made it safe, I escaped with bread, meat, and a jar of spring water -- a thief in the night.

          I drew myself high up in the tree, the leaves and branches draping me from searching eyes. In a three-branch crotch, I built a nest with a scratchy, borrowed horse blanket. I had trouble sleeping -- so sore. Scrunching this way and that, I tried to improve my situation. Nothing worked.

          But, if you are stubborn, you can put up with anything for a time. For two nights the tree hid me.

          My mother called “Danny! Danny!” now and again on the first day. Lucy said, “I thought you had lit out north for Missouri. I near cried my eyes dry.” My father’s silence said "to hell with you".

          By the second morning, I had devoured all of my food and sipped the last swallow of water. A squirrel dropped an acorn, a gift, on my blanket which I took as a sign from the Almighty. I needed to return home or begin a diet of nuts. I sneaked back to the house like a whipped dog, tail dragging low, and tried to keep out of sight the next couple days. My father chose to ignore me.

          The day of final reckoning arrived when I turned fifteen. By that time I had sprouted up a few inches and beefed out more. The yearling colt had got away through an open gate in the corral – although I had not left it so. My father laid blame on me.

          “You good for nothin’. How many times do I hafta tell ya to shut the damn gate?”

          “I did not leave it open.”

          “Do ya think that ignorant animal could open it by hisself?”

          I thought the colt not ignorant. I thought it possible he could lift the post catch with his muzzle, but I said nothing. I did not want to provoke.

          “I asked ya a question, boy. As your provider, I'm due an accountin'.”

          I stood still – not in fear, but in shame at his ignorance. I had near completed the ninth grade.

          When he picked up a cottonwood branch and brought it down, I caught it in midair, wrenched it free, and threw it over the fence. I could feel the old man’s eyes burning my back as I strode toward the house, but no more did he dare bother me. I grabbed my cap and heavy coat, shoved what I could in my pillowcase, and marched toward the open road. He was my provider no longer.

          “I love you, Danny!” Lucy’s call rang sad as I walked away. I twisted round to see a waving, wild girl. Mom just stood there, head tipped down, hands rolled up in her apron, dabbing her eyes.

          I roamed place to place, working farm jobs, the only honest labor I knew. They never paid much, but I did not care. Trying to keep alive was my goal. The idea of earning money to take Lucy away from dirt poor neglect sneaked in my mind later.

          On a big farm in downstate Ohio, I got put on the payroll milking cows and taking care of stock for a dollar a day. I kept to myself.

          Ned Claggert was the lead man. I do not think a meaner S.O.B. walked the face of this earth. He called men names, made some do the same work twice, and docked pay if the job was not to his liking. Then, to rub salt in wounds, he cheated at poker to rob poor men of pay. I did not play cards.

          One night, a fellow called him out. “You're a dirty cheater,” he yelled. Claggert picked up a two by four to beat the man. Cowards choose clubs over fists.

          Before he could swing, I seized it firm, curled his arm back, and gave a strong shove. It was my misfortune, and his, that his head hit the iron stove and he dropped dead. He made a worthless heap on the floor.


          That is why I sit here on my bunk in the Ohio State Prison -- cell 20, end of Cell Block B. The jury convicted me of murder, my sentence thirty years. I do not think they were acquainted with Ned Claggert.

          Dark creeps in quick this early evening. Amidst the thunder-grumbles of an incoming storm, the far away notes of the big top band sound squeezed. Folks must be leaving . . . heading home to hearth, supper, and loved ones. I envy them.

          In a lightning flash, the lone oak in the poster is set alight like a beacon in a tempest. Then again and again. It signals me, I swear. I have made do in this cell for three years. Though Claggert deserved punishment, it was not up to me to dispense it. He is dead and I am in jail – crime and punishment. I pray each day for forgiveness . . . , but I want to return home. To Lucy and Mom. To hell with my father.

          “Stand up! Stand up! Stand away from the bars!”

          Cell check. They always begin with me – the last shall be first.

          A key turns in the control room and my door, like magic, clangs open.

          “Well, Danny Lad, how we doin’ this noisy evenin’?” says Kelly, the head screw.

          “Fine, sir.” I keep my answers short. The guards do not care about you anyway.

          He steps by me, lifts up my mattress, and clatters my rock collection off the wall shelf with the back of his hand, along with two grainy photos of Mom and Lucy.

          Then, he stops, looks, and shakes his head. “Ain’t you the odd ball, Danny Boy. Why don’t you got a swimsuit gal on your wall like the rest? What’s so special ‘bout a goddamned tree on a hill anyhow?”

          “I guess it reminds me of home, sir.”

          “Aye, you’re a strange lad,” he says and then coughs and grabs at his throat. “Can’t breathe!” With his eyes bugging out, he wheezes again and again and falls at my feet.

          Out of fear, I yell. “Help! Help! Kelly is passed out!”

          The second guard comes running. “I know’d somethin’ like this’d happen. I told ‘im to see a doctor, but no – too stubborn. Boy, you grab his feet and we’ll take 'im to the infirm’ry.”

          I do as I am told. We carry him down the stairs and through the cell block doors outside. The infirmary is next to the main gate. Once inside, we ease him onto a bed. The guard takes off Kelly’s coat and hands it to me. Without thinking, I take it. Folks gather round in a bunch and leave me to myself, holding the uniform coat.

          The open door grabs my attention . . . and then the coat. I take it as a sign from God. A gift.

          The coat fits and I lift up the collar. I stride out the door and nod at the distracted guard as I pass through the gate. People crush by, hands on hats in the tearing wind. I straighten the collar again and mix with the circus crowd. The ticket taker pays no mind. Uniforms act like keys.

          Through the maze of tents, I find the circus rail cars parked on a siding. The north-south track lies just beyond.

          Then, I gallop down the tracks, pumping my legs like piston rods on a locomotive. Lucy, I am coming.

          I run and run. At first it feels good and then I get weary. I run till I can no more lift my lead-weight legs. As I heave for air and grab at my knees, a stray thought flicks into my head. The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.

          Though breathless, I laugh. I cannot stop laughing.


1955 words