Finally. Apologies again. But at least it's a bit of a longer chapter this time.
I just find it so hard to put it in words these days. It's all there so, it just needs to get out.
John saw the pitying look Mrs McCarthy gave her son, as she set the plate with the piece of pie down onto the table beside John's bowl of soup. Horace missed it. He was too busy scowling at John who tried his hardest to ignore them both.
He was going to enjoy this, every little bit of it.
"Now John, you must eat your soup first," Mrs McCarthy gently scolded him when he picked up the small fork to dig in. He'd never seen a fork that size. She wasn't upset with him though. In fact, she even smiled at him.
He couldn't believe his luck. Something like this was a rare treat and even rarer was it that it was just his, that he was singled out for that treat and wasn't expected to share it with anyone else neither.
He had always counted himself lucky the way Sally and Walls included him in everything alongside their children and none of them ever complained that their small size got even smaller on accounts of him.
Over the years he'd stolen the odd cake or two, and some sweets here and there of course, but even then, he'd always shared it with his ma and his brothers. Even when it was his birthday, they shared whatever treat his mother would have managed to rustle up. And had they'd been there, he would have gladly done so again, but they weren't, so he pushed that thought as far away as he could. He was going to have this all by himself and enjoy every bit of it.
When they had come home from church the previous day Mrs McCarthy had been strangely angry at the woman who had handed her the little box containing the treat.
At first on the ride home she was all pleased with herself. Mrs Grune owns the bakery she explained to John. She bakes the loveliest cakes, they even won her prices she explained. "Wasn't it so nice of Mrs Grune to think of us?" she asked her husband rhetorically. From her tone and demeanour, it must have been quite the surprise. "Who would have thought?" she asked her husband linking into his arm and resting her face on his shoulder contently. McCarthy however didn't say anything and just nodded grumpily as he urged the horses to trot home. John assumed he'd been in a bad mood because of the man from the school telling him he was going to visit in the evening.
Mrs McCarthy's demeanour however changed as soon as she opened the little parcel that she had held so carefully in her lap all the way home. She seemed upset. The box contained three large slices of pie. Perfect triangles, each separated with paper so that the shape didn't get distorted.
McCarthy took it from her and told her to get him five plates. He cut two of the three pieces in half and put the third slice into the pantry. We'll decide later what we do with this, he decisively told his wife. She suggested to give it to Carter and Lee but McCarthy told her No. It'd be like casting pearls before swine, he told her, they'd been drinking the night before and he was glad to say that they were suffering the consequences. Apart from the fact that they were too sick to appreciate it, that sort of behaviour was not to be rewarded, he told her.
When he handed his son one of the pieces Horace grumbled about the size, even though John thought his was a little bigger than everyone else's. If John wasn't there, he'd get a full one, he complained to his parents. McCarthy told him he could have none if he wasn't happy about it, and that shut him up.
John hadn't expected to be included, so he was pleased with any amount at all. On the farm it was the norm that he didn't get any cake when the family had some. He wasn't even given any on the rare occasions when the woman brought some over to the bunkhouse. He knew it wasn't her though. She would have given him some if it hadn't been for her husband, and she didn't dare to go against him. He wasn't always nice to her either.
Billy once tried to sneak some to him but that didn't end well for either of them, so John told him that he didn't like cake anyway and not to do it again. They both knew it was a lie.
"It doesn't mean anything," Horace told him as soon as his mother left the kitchen to go into the backyard, pulling John back into the present.
John tried his best to ignore him. He wasn't interested. He just wanted to have his cake, eat it and enjoy this short moment of bliss.
"I wouldn't get used to it," Horace went on despite not getting a reaction from him, "he won't reward you every time you don't get into trouble in school you know." Emphasising the don't, to make a point.
John continued to ignore him and started to eat the pie. Chewing slowly and as little as possible, letting the sweetness of the pastry and fruit dissolve in his mouth, loving it, trying to concentrate only on what was in his mouth, but nevertheless failed to block out Horace' spite filled voice.
"Phew," Horace blew out some air in contempt, "you know he is punishing me with this because I thought you were in trouble when you've gotten that note." Again, he paused and then continued even though John didn't react to anything he said, "it's not fair you know, I only thought you were in trouble because of the way you looked at Ms Applebee. I saw you when she handed you that note. You thought it as well. Even you thought you were in trouble. What else was I supposed to think. It's not fair, and you know it."
Defeated, John put the fork down, with a forceful clink against the porcelain plate. It was the same feeling that he had when Bert coveted his bow, but at least Bert was his friend, and he had a point.
He glanced at Horace hatefully, clenching his teeth behind tightly pressed lips in an effort to not react to the mean boy sitting opposite him. McCarthy had warned him about what would happen if he ever touched him again.
John knew that at this rate he would not be able to enjoy it, no matter how much he tried to drone the other boy out. If he could, he would have put the pie into his tin of food for later but that meant he would have to reveal where he'd hid it, and he couldn't risk that. Horace was a rat no doubt and would tell his parents. He was wondering if he could ask Mrs McCarthy if she would keep it for him for later, but he was too scared that someone would then take it on him.
"Anyway, it is as I said," he heard Horace say dismissively, letting on he no longer cared, when his words had finally struck a nerve, "It doesn't mean anything. They won't ever like you better than me."
It took a few moments for the words to sink in but eventually John heard them. Surprised John looked up at Horace. His tone was arrogant and self-assured. He'd gone back to reading his book as if he had said nothing of significance at all, but John knew better. It might have not been his intention, but Horace just let him know that he was scared. He was scared of being pushed to the side, and although John could not understand why on earth this spoilt boy could possibly feel like that, it was a feeling that he was only too familiar with. And he didn't like it.
He had felt like that on the farms when they wouldn't let him near his brothers. And he had felt like that every time his mother brought home a potential boyfriend to stay. These men threw their weight around and his mother completely succumbed to their charm or sometimes their might. Sometimes he was left to mind his brothers because his mother was kept busy by her new acquisition, other times they played happy families, but there was no room for him in that act. He could never understand what she saw in those useless tossers she brought home. Sometimes they had a bit more money on accounts of them being there but usually that was short lived, and they rarely lifted a finger to help around the house. When he complained to her, she told him she needed a husband, and his brothers needed a father.
He felt they did just fine without one, but she tried to convince him to play along. It meant she wouldn't have to go out to work, she would tell him. And he did want that. So he did what she asked, until it got too difficult to pretend, and he had to make himself scarce and hide in the streets when they started to beat on him too much. Thankfully, it never lasted too long. They always got fed up and moved on eventually, but he always feared that one day one of them would stay for good. He had met plenty of kids who ended up permanently on the streets for that very same reason.
He hated Horace reminding him of this. But he also was uncomfortable with the idea of him being the cause of Horace feeling like this.
He wasn't like those men. He didn't want to be there in the first place. He'd practically been kidnapped. He was no scrounger. He wanted nothing for free and he sure didn't want them to like him in that way. All he wanted was a roof over his head until the time was right to move on or Jeremiah was going to come and get him.
He was glad McCarthy wasn't too bothersome, and turned out to be an okay master, and he was prepared to stay for a while, but he sure did not want them to cast their own son to the side because of him. He meant him no harm.
That this spoilt brat feared his parents could at some point favour him of all people was beyond John's comprehension. He almost had to laugh at the thought of it. Didn't Carter say he was the apple of his father's eye. Didn't he know he got of much lighter than he did when McCarthy had given them both a hiding.
His appetite spoilt; John angrily pushed the cake over to Horace with a scowl.
"Here. It's only a piece of cake, Horace. You can have it. I don't want it no more and I don't want your stupid fucking parents neither you can keep them too. I've got my own," John snarled and then climbed out of his seat intend to make his way to the workshop.
Horace was appalled at John's language and told him so, and also reminded John that he knew John's parents were dead and that lying was a wicked thing to do.
John laughed at that. "You would say that. Mammy's boy!" but then got more serious again, "just because my parents are dead, don't mean I want yours to replace them with. You heard your da, my da was a hero. You can't just replace that you know, and your ma isn't a patch on my ma."
"You wouldn't dare talk like that, if I wasn't ..., if I was..., if I..." Horace tried to assert himself but got stuck for something to say when he saw John lift his arm in the sling to point out the obvious and countered, "if what Horace? If what, eh? You have any idea how much this hurts? Even you'd have me on the floor gasping for air if you'd hit me there! But I'm not scared. Not of you, nor anyone."
"You wouldn't dare say it if my dad was here." Horace completed the sentence pretending this was what he wanted to say in the first place. "You wouldn't dare to say that about my mother if he could hear you."
"Pah, well go tell him then," John went, "I am not scared of him neither."
But despite what he said, John no longer felt or sounded as sure of himself, because of course he was somewhat afraid of Horace's father. The hiding he got the other day was not something he was looking forward of getting again, but what John was really afraid of was McCarthy turning him out. The man had been looking for an excuse to get rid of him from the start. What if he still felt that way. When he was faced with the prospect of being handed back to the marshal and Mr Harris, he'd been desperate to believe his arm was healed enough for him to make it back to Salesville all by himself, but having had time to think things over, he realised that it was highly unlikely he'd manage to escape or survive such a track on his own.
For a few moments they both just hatefully stared at each other. The more logic thing would have been for John to beg Horace not to say anything to his father, but as so often before John did the exact opposite.
"Go on then, go run to your daddy and tell him? You're a rat, Horace McCarthy. Your pals at school said as much. Nothing but a fucking rat and where I am coming from a rat is the lowest of the low. Go tell him, get it over and done with. So what if he beats me again or turns me out. I don't care. I don't want to be here anyway."
But Horace didn't get up. Instead, he straightened himself out as much as this was possible for someone like him and continued to stare at John with equal wilfulness, and then in a quiet voice challenged him, "Yeah, so why did you beg him to let you stay then the other night."
John didn't give him a reply, but instead averted his eyes, and angrily stared at the pie that lay awkwardly on the plate between them. He knew why he had begged McCarthy then, but he hardly could tell Horace that he needed to stay because there was no hope for Jeremiah to come and get him back if he'd been moved from pillar to post.
The uncomfortable silence that followed was interrupted when they heard the front door open, and McCarthy's heavy boots pounding through the hallway on their way to the kitchen.
Horace quickly pushed the cake back towards John, who by the time McCarthy came in through the kitchen door was sitting on the bench with one leg on either side as he didn't have enough time to get himself fully back into his seat.
"Are you still not finished boy?" McCarthy asked impatiently, when he saw John still sitting at the table. "Did I imagine spending the last few days telling you to stop wolfing your food down? Why, all of a sudden, does it take you so long to eat a bowl of soup and a piece of pie?"
John glanced at Horace who nervously looked at him in return and ever so faintly shook his head warning John not to say anything. John had no intention of letting McCarthy know anything about the conversation they just had but was surprised at Horace feeling the same. There had been nothing he could say that would incriminate Horace in any way.
"I am just full, Mr McCarthy. Please, may I keep it for later?" John asked innocently.
McCarthy paused, taking in the scene in front of him in and watching both boys intently. "What's going on here?" McCarthy wanted to know.
"Nothing dad," Horace replied right away but didn't sound convincing at all.
McCarthy looked at John and gave him a nod indicating for him to speak up.
"Nothing Mr McCarthy," John said with a casual shrug like the professional liar that he was. "I would just prefer to eat this later if I could."
Without another word McCarthy walked towards the table, picked up the plate with the piece of cake and brought it into the pantry, leaving John sadly wondering if he had just lost his treat for good.
The man remained in the pantry for quite some time, rummaging around, mumbling despondently to himself, until he came back into the kitchen still holding on to the plate with the cake, looking at John suspiciously. He then proceeded to first search John's trunk then the two drawers under the day bed that held John's bedding in it with just the one hand, still holding onto the plate with the other. Slowly it dawned on John what he was looking for and what exactly he'd might find if he kept on looking there. The relief that John felt when McCarthy came back to the table on accounts of not having found what he was looking for unfortunately was short lived. Without a word and avoiding all eye contact McCarthy put the plate down on the table and then returned to the bed and proceeded to pull out first one then the other drawer from under the bed while John stood helplessly by.
With an uncomfortably dry mouth and sickening feeling, John watched as McCarthy lifted the drawers out all the way and placed them on top of the mattress above, leaving them there so that he could have a proper look at what was under the bed.
Terrified, John looked at Horace who seemed uncomfortable with his father's single-mindedness as well.
Finally, McCarthy found what he was looking for; the tin of foods that John had retrieved out of the pantry and had hidden underneath the drawers during the previous night.
Only, he also found the three cigars John had sniped as well.
McCarthy looked at John with stern and telling eyes as he put the three cigars in the top pocket of his shirt but still didn't say a word, just yet, which made John feel even more anxious.
Wordlessly, he came back to the table where he put the piece of cake inside John's tin with the other food items and then closed the lid. John watched him carefully. Having gotten himself fully back out of his seat while McCarthy had been searching through his belongings, he had readied himself, for what he wasn't quite sure but that this deed was not going to go unpunished was as clear as rain, but before McCarthy got a chance to act his wife came back inside through the back door.
"Oh my Lord, it is getting cold out there. Such an icy wind for this time of year. If it wasn't only just the end of October, I would say there is snow on the way," she said.
Holding a broom under her arm, she blew into her hands, which were red and looked sore from the cold.
"I just want to get my gloves and scarf and then I go back outside. Those leaves are everywhere," she elaborated, talking more to herself than to the people inside her kitchen.
"You need help?" McCarthy asked darkly.
"I wouldn't say no, if you could spare one of the lads," his wife replied cheerfully, not yet having noticed the atmosphere in the room.
"You can have the boy," McCarthy said staring intimidatingly at John "He'd be a lot safer out from under my feet and in the backyard sweeping up your leaves. Wouldn't you say so too boy?" he snarled contemptuously at John.
John nodded and then swiftly made his way around the other side of the table to get to the back door, keeping as much distance from McCarthy as possible.
His wife wanted to know what he had done, but McCarthy told her not to ask just yet. He was too upset to talk about it right now he told her, and then barked at John to get out of his sight which John didn't need to be told twice. He was out the backdoor as quick as lightning, but Mrs McCarthy called him back for his gloves, cap and coat.
Reluctantly John came back only to realise that McCarthy who had turned his attention to his son, had moved himself right in front of John's bed which meant John had to pass him to get to his trunk to retrieve his warm clothing.
"And what are you doing, Horace?" the man asked his son, his voice full of anger, keeping his eyes fixed on John as he cautiously approached.
"I was going to read a bit," the boy replied somewhat confused and in an innocent tone.
"Oh, so your homework is done already, is it now?" McCarthy asked sarcastically, briefly glancing down at his son before settling his eyes back on John who ducked both times, he had to pass him.
"No, but..." Horace tried to reply but his father was quicker.
"You know what Horace, since you have decided not to do your homework straight after lunch, as you are supposed to, you can go out and help John with fixing up the back yard. If he manages to sweep the ground with just the one good arm, then so can you. Between the two of you, you might just do a half decent enough job in the time it takes me to calm myself back down. What you think?" McCarthy asked, still looking more often in John's direction than at Horace who he was actually talking to.
John was relieved when he reached the door unscathed where Mrs McCarthy was still standing quietly observing the scene and inadvertently blocking his exit. She did not seem happy about the way this conversation was going, and neither was Horace it seemed.
"And what if we can't? Are you then going to whip us again like the other day?" Horace asked his father challengingly.
John had to give it to Horace. Horace was no coward neither or maybe he just knew how far exactly he could push his father before he'd snap.
McCarthy took an audible deep breath and paused, finally fixing his eyes on his son, while John tried to silently communicate with Mrs McCarthy to let him pass but she was too engrossed in what was going on inside her kitchen to notice his urgency. Too confused to even know what she should ask she questioningly looked at John for some sort of an explanation, but he just shook his head and tried in vain to make his way past her.
"No Horace, I will not," McCarthy replied to his son in a strained voice as he slowly lowered himself to his son's level, so that his face was intimidatingly close to that of his son's, "I believe I have already apologised to you for the beating I gave you, did I not?" McCarthy ask him in a quiet but threatening tone and with dangerous eyes, "but if you don't make a move on real quick, I might just give you another licking for being disobedient this time, and I would not feel the need to apologise this time, believe you me," he finally thundered righteously as he straightened himself up again in a fully standing position.
So Horace got up out of his seat as quick as his crocked leg allowed it and hurriedly put on his coat that hung on the back of the door of the kitchen, and when the man barked a final "move", Horace almost jumped out of his skin. He obviously had reached the point where his father would snap or his courage just had its limits, John observed anxiously from the door.
As Mrs McCarthy hurried to help her son into his coat to get him out of harm's way, John finally rushed out the back door and left them to it before McCarthy could refocus his anger on him. The last thing he heard, was McCarthy snapping at his wife in frustration for helping her son with a task that he was perfectly capable of doing himself.
He hated being part of all this. The man's anger towards his son and his wife that should have really been directed towards him alone. He was tempted to march back in and tell him so. They had done nothing wrong, and if anyone should be at the receiving end of his unreasonable rage it should be him.
But then, as the sharp wind cut into his face, reality hit. All at once he realised what he had done. He suddenly felt like such a fool and was cursing his stupidity for having taken the tin back and stealing the cigars. He broke out in a cold sweat and felt the blood drain from his face as he realised the predicament, he would find himself in if McCarthy was not just going to flog him but was going to send him away.
He wouldn't survive the winter on his own and without shelter. He remembered how it had been the cold that often forced him to go back home to his ma before it really was safe. New York winters were no feast by no means either but the winters in these parts were supposed to be legendary. He was reminded of the gruesome stories he had heard from his mother and the other women in the tenements, about the famine back home in Ireland; and Matunaagd talking about his niece, Numees' baby who along many other children and adults withered away and succumbed to the hunger and fever that gripped their tribe during the winters of the last few years.
The best he could hope for in this scenario was that they would place him in an orphanage or jail, but then there would be little to no hope that Jeremiah would ever be able to find him, if he even was looking for him.
Ultimately though he would end up back on the streets. He wouldn't be able to hack it an orphanage for too long that much was certain. 'What about you, John? What will become of you? I don't hear anything about you wanting to bring your little brothers back onto the streets. If it's not good enough for them, why should it be good enough for you? Do you not deserve a place where you are doing okay?' Jeremiah's words filled his heart with doubt and regret as they resonated in his mind's ear. There was a time where he had preferred to be on the streets, before he ever thought of what would 'become of him' but Jeremiah had shown him a different way. Maybe he could try and make his way back to him in spring, but would he still have him? He'd only known him for a few months. He owed him nothing, and by then his own child would be born.
Distraught he imagined McCarthy hitching his horse in front of the house that was to bring him away. Miserable and hopeless, he considered going back inside to beg the man to let him stay even though he knew there was no point. That had never worked for him and only ever added to his humiliation.
When Horace finally came out with the broom that his mother had earlier brought inside, John was still standing on the porch paralysed with shame and fear.
"You better get a move on," Horace said, "dad had his fill believe me," and with that he limped to the other end of the yard and started to awkwardly brush the leaves into one of the corners.
It was enough to get John to move even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, so he joined Horace, using a tied-up bundle of twigs and a dustpan that he found in a large basket on the porch.
Having dragged the heavy basket across the yard, he used the pan to scoop up the leaves that Horace awkwardly had brushed into the corner. They didn't speak and their progress was slow and barely noticeable, but after a while when McCarthy didn't come back John started to relax a little. Maybe the man hadn't hitched the horse after all.
"You think he'll send me away?" John eventually asked in a quiet voice having silently worked along the other boy for a rather long time and no longer being able to hold his fear at bay.
"I thought you don't care?" Horace answered the question with a question. He didn't sound as mean as before just somewhat fed up or even bored.
"I need to stay," John started, but then corrected himself, "I have nowhere else to go. I don't care if your parents like me, but I don't want them to send me away," John replied trying to match Horace's complacency in vain.
"Well you should have thought about that before you stole the cigars," Horace said unsympathetically.
John got back to his work. He was too scared to argue with him, and as much as he hated Horace right now, he knew Horace was right. He should have thought of it before now. It had been a spur of the moment kind of a thing. He hadn't thought it through. Enkoodabooaoo forever told him to slow his heart down. 'Listen to what your heart is trying to tell you,' he used to say to him, but at the same time warned him, 'you can't hear what your heart is trying to say when you are overcome with fear and anger.' He never really understood what he meant by that. How could you slow your heart down? How could you not be overwhelmed with anger and fear, when you were in the middle of it? What did it mean to take control of those feelings? They just happened, did they not?
He had been annoyed about the way those people had been talking about him, calling him slow, expecting him to be trouble. Enkoodabooaoo had named him "Ikimma," but they didn't know that. They didn't expect him to be kind and would have been surprised that this is what they had called him. They had expected him to be a bad influence on the other children and wanted to make sure that he was kept away from them as much as possible. They saw him as dangerous before they'd even got to know him. They talked in front of him as if he hadn't any feelings, as if he wasn't even in the room. Judging him, and judging his mother, as if he could never amount to anything just because of what his life had been like up to now. As if he had any choice in any of it.
He was angry with McCarthy who seemed to agree with them and had stolen his things and locked them in his drawer. He didn't even want the cigars. They just reminded him of Jeremiah and home. It was a stupid idea. Jeremiah would have never approved. He would have rejected the gift because John had stolen it. A thief was not welcomed amongst honest folks and Jeremiah was the epiphany of honest folks. Maybe Enkoodabooaoo and Matunaagd would still have him. They spoke of raids and stealing horses from enemy tribes and white men as if it was an honourable thing to do. Maybe they would see it as a coup?
It didn't change the predicament he was in now though.
"He won't send you away," he heard Horace suddenly say beside him. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts he had almost forgotten he was still there.
"He might give you a whooping. Actually, it would surprise me if he didn't, but he won't send you away," Horace said in a surprisingly reassuring and sympathetic tone.
John looked at him but didn't dare to ask him how he knew this. Horace however answered the question, nevertheless.
"He had words with Blunt," Horace told him with a smirk. "I wasn't there, because he'd asked to talk to him outside our classroom, but Francis, he's a boy in my class was. He was late and overheard them in the corridor. Dad told him that if he ever referred to you as a wayward runaway orphan to anyone again, he'd give him a refund but would personally come up to his house and remove every piece of wood he has put into it, starting with the roof," Horace said with a wide and proud grin, making it obvious how much he enjoyed that knowledge, despised his teacher and was proud of his father.
John looked at him confused. He didn't really understand why this made a difference to his case.
"Don't you see? Dad hates being wrong. As far as he's concerned, he's put his money on you. Giving you up at this stage would mean he'd have to admit defeat and he would never do that. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction if his life depended on it. My dad is funny that way," Horace explained nonchalantly. "You are going to get an almighty whooping trust me, but you are staying," Horace asserted confidently, and John was surprised that Horace almost sounded happy about it.
Since they'd come out, a considerable amount of time had passed so that John was wondering if Horace was right. McCarthy would have had plenty of time to hitch the horse, so he got back to his work hoping that all would be okay, but he failed to see how it could be.
As if on cue, no sooner were all the leaves in the basket, McCarthy made his appearance in the back door and beckoned them to come inside. John found it difficult but kept his eyes peeled on him, looking for a clue as to what was going to happen next, but McCarthy gave nothing away.
They had their supper during which McCarthy more or less ignored him. His wife on the other hand pretended everything was as it was meant to be and even gave him back his piece of pie. John didn't feel like eating it though and pushed it towards Horace, as a way to say thank you for earlier but also to show McCarthy he knew he had done wrong. Horace didn't take the cake though and instead watched for his father's approval which didn't come right away. With a sigh McCarthy pulled the cake towards him and cut it in half and gave one half to John and the other to his son. John still didn't feel like eating it but did when McCarthy instructed him to.
After their meal McCarthy disappeared into the living room, and Horace with him to do his homework while John helped Mrs McCarthy do the dishes. He hoped she would say something reassuring to him, but she did not.
When they were finished, she told him to get himself ready and into bed, bid him good night and then left to join her husband and son in the living room to do their family prayers together. McCarthy did not return, not to give him an almighty whooping as Horace had predicted, nor to pray with him the way he had done the previous nights neither, when he had wished, McCarthy would just go to bed and leave him alone. On this night he hated McCarthy's absence which could only mean one thing and sent John's level of anxiety through the roof.
Lying on the day bed he could hear their mumbling through the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room long after Horace had gone to bed but could not make out what exactly they talked about, but John decided it could only be about him.
Eventually when he couldn't take it any longer, John got out of bed and walked down the hall to the front room shivering with the cold from the air and the fear inside of him. He had no idea what he was going to say but he was never one for sitting back and waiting it out. He needed to make this right or at least try. He needed to know what was going to happen, and before he had even contemplated what he could possibly say to appease them he felt the hard wood against his knuckles and heard himself knock on their door.
"Come in," he heard McCarthy's voice command after the second knock.
John entered almost immediately regretting it. The air in the room was warm from the fire, but John continued to shiver regardless. Mr McCarthy who was sitting opposite his wife in front of the fireplace, closed the large book on his lap he was reading in and looked at him critically.
"What is it John," Mrs McCarthy asked in her kind way of talking as if nothing was amiss while her husband continued to look at him questioningly with raised eyebrows.
"Please Mr McCarthy, I need to know. Are you going to send me away," John whispered fearfully looking at the man who exchanged looks with his wife.
The man put his book on the coffee table in front of him and got out of his seat.
"Is that so?" McCarthy asked standing tall beside the fireplace, and John nervously nodded his reply, his mouth too dry for words to come out he swallowed hard.
"Well, boy, do you want to stay?" McCarthy asked.
Again, John only just managed to nod and whisper his 'yes sir.'
"Well, you have a mighty strange way of showing that," McCarthy said, which didn't require an answer of John, but McCarthy nevertheless paused and looked down at him as if it did.
"Tell me boy, why did you do it?" McCarthy wanted to know next.
Mrs McCarthy paused her stitching, it seemed she too wanted to hear the answer to this, but John didn't know what they wanted to hear. What could he say that didn't make things possibly worse? He couldn't tell them he wanted the cigars not for him but for his friends who he was hoping would come and get him. He could hardly tell them he did it out of blind anger, because it was the only thing he could do when really, he wanted to scream and lash out at them all. He could hardly tell him that it was only fair he'd take something on them when they had stolen his things as well. He could hardly tell them he just slept better knowing the tin of food was under his bed. So he shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window to his left.
He heard McCarthy sigh and Mrs McCarthy who had been quite calm until now nervously say, "John you must answer my husband."
But John just did not know what to say, so he kept staring into the blackness of the night, where not even the moon would give him some company. If he knew what they wanted to hear, he would just tell them, but he was all out of ideas.
"John I am not going to throw you out over three measly cigars," McCarthy said in an exasperated voice and then paused for a moment to give John a chance to respond. When John didn't though, he continued, "but you are right, if the two of us can't get along. If this continues, and I find my family and what I own is not safe with you being here, then you must go," McCarthy said in an even voice, so that John felt obliged to look at him. "Do we understand each other?"
John nodded and was surprised McCarthy didn't make him say 'yes sir', but maybe the man knew his voice would fail him.
"So I ask you one more time, why did you do it?" McCarthy said determinedly, being given an answer was obviously what he understood under 'getting along'.
John shook his head and with a barely audible voice told them that he didn't really know why he did it.
"You did not know?" Mrs McCarthy asked, "but what were you thinking at the time, John? Surely you must have some reason why you wanted the cigars? Were you planning on smoking them? Are you in the habit of smoking cigars?" she wanted to know.
John shook his head.
"Then what John?" she asked, "what were you planning to do with them?"
"Smell them," John said, which wasn't a complete lie, "I like smelling them. They remind me – of home," he replied with shame.
"Ah," Mrs McCarthy went and glanced at her husband who nodded somewhat more pleased but still not quite fully satisfied with the answer that John was giving.
"But why three?" he wanted to know, "why not just one?"
"I grabbed them without looking, when you had your back turned to me," he said, "I didn't count them." This was a blatant lie, for initially he had taken just two, and then put his hand in for a third, knowing that Numees would want one too. Matunaagd didn't smoke or he would have taken four.
"Huh," McCarthy went, "I don't think I need to explain to you that if you ever do this again, you will have to go? Do I?"
"No sir," John meekly replied.
"What about the tin of food?" Mrs McCarthy suddenly interjected. "Why did you take that?" she wanted to know.
Again, John shrugged, not wanting to answer but was told that a shrug would not do.
"I just like knowing I can get to it should I get hungry during the night," he said ashamedly and as much as it made sense to him.
"Why that makes no sense boy," McCarthy exclaimed, "surely you can get to it much easier if it stays in the pantry than if it is hidden under the drawers of your bed?"
John looked at McCarthy as if he had two heads.
"Ah," Mrs McCarthy said knowingly again, having copped on to what had been going on, "You didn't know you were allowed into the pantry."
They both paused, looking down at John who had taken to staring out the window again.
"Right," McCarthy concluded, "this settles it. You will store your tin of food in our pantry. What is in it is yours and you can get to it whenever you want. My wife will make sure it is always well stocked. Wouldn't want anyone say we are starving our apprentice," he chuckled but then got serious again, "no one else will be allowed to take from it, but you too must respect what is ours, and never take anything that does not belong to you neither. Do we have deal young man?" he asked.
John nodded somewhat ashamed and humbled, and followed it up with a meek "yes sir" the way the man demanded it of him. McCarthy had been more than fair with him, he had to admit, even if he didn't want to.
"You are sending him to bed? You are not going to punish him?" Mrs McCarthy asked her husband in a surprised tone as he got up to leave the living room to join the boy in his night-time prayer, having dismissed him a few moments earlier.
"No Clarissa," he told her, "I see little point in it, with a boy like that."
"Huh," his wife went, indicating her surprise and maybe some doubt.
"You see, Clarissa," McCarthy started to explain, when his wife asked for him to clarify, "Physical punishment only works on the premises that the person will avoid doing the wrong thing because of his fear of the physical pain. In other words, it only works on cowards, and that boy in there is no coward," McCarthy said as he pointed in the direction of the kitchen.