A Table of Green Fields, Guy Davenport [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

spoke as I'd never heard anyone speak before. He said that I needed fattening up. Something Matilda would say. He had had marvellous talks with Grandmama and was reading Swedenborg. He had combed and exercised the horses. What light. What air.

He picked me up by the armpits and put me over his shoulder like a sack. He took me down into the stable and set me on old Meg the carriage mare. He had harnessed her without a bit or reins. There was no saddle. No one had ever ridden Meg.

But there she was. Florent led her out by the bridle. I explained from my unsteady perch on her flat old back that you don't ride Meg. I saw Matilda and Thesmond watching from the door. Florent waved to them. Meg walked easily. She nudged Florent's hair. He kissed her on the nose and called her a good old girl. I laughed.

I saw Matilda poke Thesmond in the ribs. I waved to them. We went down the meadow path. It was a new world which I kept wondering if I had ever seen. After a while Florent took his hand from the bridle so that Meg followed on her own. We wandered over the pasture. The daisies were deep and thick islands in billows of clover. Meg stopped to munch. I watched Florent's wide shoulders. He had rolled his shirt sleeves above the elbow. Papa would never do that. Or Stilt. His trousers were grey and tight like a soldier's. They tucked in an orderly way into plain scuffed rawhide hunter's boots.

We did not go near the river or the knolls.

There was milk and raisin bran cakes for us in the kitchen. Matilda and Florent seemed to be old friends. Even Thesmond had a pleasant and familiar voice for him. Afterwards we went up and sat with Grandmama. She was having herb tea and reading Scripture. She leaned forward for me to hug her and gave me a sip of the tea and asked Florent whatever shittim wood might be. He replied that doubtless it was the acacia. The wood of which is hard and durable. She cackled with glee.

Ah! Jens.

She bobbed her head at me. All the ribbons shook on her cap. Would Stilt have given us so direct an answer? She instructed me to notice that Florent had bon ton.

I was ordered to bed for a nap. Florent saw me into my gown and into bed. He gave me a tap on the butt before he left. I slept easy and cool. I was not afraid to go to sleep.

Next morning we both rode Meg bareback to the sea. Florent guided her with his knees and gee and haw. He clucked at her and talked to her. Meg seemed happily bewildered by it all. She strayed to munch red berries with our indulgence and gave important switches with her tail.

We undressed on the rocks back of the beach. I liked it that he took it for granted that we would be naked as the soldiers were when they bivouacked here. I feigned indifference to his body for though he was not yet a man and therefore no longer interested in peters he was also no longer a boy. He was a naked Mohawk. He was not upholstered with flesh like the statues in the Latin book with their thick waists and bullish shoulders and womanish butts. He was trim and lean and brown. You could see my ribs.

He lifted me onto Meg and walked us in the waves. He left us to swim out beyond the breakers. I remembered the soldiers. He spooked Meg when he thrashed back and comforted her by rubbing his cheek against her muzzle.

We raced on the beach and lay in the sun. He said that I must soak up sunlight. And eat. He held my ankles for sit ups. I did them in a kind of rage. I wanted a chest as leavened as Florent's and shoulders as knobby and broad. I wanted my arms and legs to be as sinewy and clean of line. And as horsy a peter and balls as plump.

We went on grand rambles. My canvas satchel and journal were in my room one morning. I wondered how they had been retrieved and who put them there. I knew that I could not look at the journal. I put it in a drawer and set the satchel in the back of the closet. I did not ask how they came to be there. No one mentioned them.

I showed Florent the drawings on the rocks. We traced their outlines with chalk. A Viking ship with shields over the gunwales and oars and a mast. A reindeer. A man with his peter up. Oho! Florent laughed. Signs for the moon and the sun. Shapes that might be houses. Florent said that the drawings were thousands of years old. They were drawings by the Vikings when they sailed in dragon ships. That was the age of bronze. We made copies and inked them in back in my room and wrote a description of their whereabouts and sent them to Papa.

Florent began to teach me geology. I heard about Agassiz and Lyell and Hugh Miller.

I liked going to Florent's room above the stables. Its neatness and bareness fascinated me. I was fleshing out again and was getting to be as brown as he.

One morning when I went down to the stables Florent had hitched Meg to the buckboard. We were going down to the port. Matilda had packed us a lunch in a basket. I would see what I would see when we got there. Was Papa coming home for a visit? It was not that. Florent was not going away? My heart went sick. Not that either. When we were out on the turnpike going a good clip he said that my curiosity was such a misery that it was mean not to put an end to it in spite of the surprise. He took a paper from his pocket and handed it to me. It was a bill of lading. I figured out its matter. One lightweight camping tent with stays and pegs. One haversack. Two sets of tinware mess kits. The list went on. I stared at him with a howl of delight. I hugged him. Meg tossed