Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy: Chapters 3–5

Sunlight glinted on the gilt spines of the books.

Still, he wondered if there was a single book on those shelves that any human being really liked to read. “The Heresies of the Modern World and the Infallibility of Orthodoxy,” he said into the still air.

And while it was to be recognized that he was still a young boy, yet he would resolve to conquer his debased self so that he would not be an embarrassment to his father but would instead shine brightly as an example of Christian charity to all—much like Willis Hurd.

It probably was in Phippsburg, Maine, and someone would call the new minister and tell him that his son was hanging out the upper story and being a bad example for younger children, who would unwittingly follow his lead and fall to untimely deaths without any of their last words being said, never mind heard.

But he resolved to avoid the one misstep that might send his soul down to perdition.

The merry flight of the bats around the steeple of First Congregational stilled, the blurred stars began to come out, and the first owl call sounded, low and sonorous.

He put his back to all of Phippsburg—Lord, to the entire continent—till with a shrug he sloughed off its heavy stillness and looked for a way to climb down to the water.

He figured there wasn’t anything Adam would have wanted to do more than skip stones, so he began to fling rocks along the wave troughs, trying to skip one clear across the channel to the island lying offshore.

But he liked the smooth, easy way she stood, as if she were part of the contour of the shore.

And that was when Turner suddenly knew that he was late for dinner, that Reverend Buckminster would be figuring that he’d fallen into some rocky chasm or drowned in the sea, or worse yet, that he’d come up with some other way to embarrass the new minister.

And he figured that when he showed up alive after all, his father would stand on the porch and look at him in a way that said Turner would never be the kind of son he had hoped for—it would be as loud as if he had just announced it from the pulpit.

He clambered back up the ledges, retrieved his collar—it took some time to find—and so sprinted home, hardly able to breathe by the time he reached the front porch.

His face took on a kind of faraway look, as if he were seeing something no one else could see, as if he were eager to talk to anyone lower than the seraphim for a time.

The intoning went on, its bulk bloating and bloating so that Turner thought the very ceiling might be pushed up.

The intoning went on, its bulk bloating and bloating so that Turner thought the very ceiling might be pushed up.

He wondered what might happen as soon as he left the dining room, and he was more than a little tempted to dawdle.

She set her rake mightily in the mud, pulled back a layer, put the rake in again, pulled back another peel, and then once more, until the tines scraped against a shell and the clam lay like an ornery pearl, spitting at them.

Turner didn’t have to answer, since just then the dory scraped up on the beach a little above the point, and he jumped out the stern and began to push the boat in.

In front of almost all of them was a dory or two, some overturned, some pulled up long ago for caulking or patching.

“‘Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon.’”

A loud screeching of gulls from behind the pines, louder and louder, and then it was no longer gulls that were screeching but a pack of five, or four, or six, or who knows how many children flapping their arms and running up and down and back and forth, screeching and cackling, and then careening down upon them, cawing and laughing and thrashing up the water until they flopped down like a flock of swarming, birds all come to roost.

A loud screeching of gulls from behind the pines, louder and louder, and then it was no longer gulls that were screeching but a pack of five, or four, or six, or who knows how many children flapping their arms and running up and down and back and forth, screeching and cackling, and then careening down upon them, cawing and laughing and thrashing up the water until they flopped down like a flock of swarming, birds all come to roost.

And they pulled him up and suddenly he was flapping his arms and running down the beach, and Lizzie was flapping hers and running alongside them, together in the midst of the swarm, and calling and calling and running and running, plashing through spent waves, cavorting up the granite ledges, wheeling around stands of pines.

Turner went in, slowly, warily, feeling about as eager to go in as black molasses to flow on a wintry day.

Reverend Buckminster, we came here to ask you to help us rescue the town. You’ve seen the squalor on Malaga.

“And it will not be long before Phippsburg is free from this sordidness, and we can start to rebuild ourselves. Someday soon, the settlement on Malaga Island will be no more."

Turner had been given a new commandment: Thou shalt not step one of thine feet upon Malaga Island, lest thou be smitten, and smitten mightily, saith the Reverend Buckminster.

And it was on one of their climbs, on one of those blue days that was gushing into a bright copper, that Turner reached up and put his hand on something wet and clammy and slimy and moving, recoiled with a yelp, and startled Lizzie beneath him.

He settled himself, took the two oars and fixed them to the oarlocks, then dipped them in and was surprised at how the water took them, almost sweeping one oar under the boat and the other out of his hand.

But the waves kept turning the bow from Malaga, and the oars kept slipping out of the locks, and by the time he had gotten them back in, the boat had skewed all around and was slipping up and down in the troughs.

That is, he would be holding on to her if he could find her after they capsized.

Turner heard them ripping the surface all around him, and felt the diamond spray sprinkle down on him in the moonlight like a benediction.

He might put out his hand into the maelstrom and become a part of it.

The whale flipped its tail up a bit and began to roll from side to side, a great gargantuan roll like the roll of the globe, side to side, until it could slap the swells with the length of its flippers, gleaming silver-white in the moonlight.

Turner figured Deacon Hurd was getting more and more profane as the night wore on.

“Tie a hitch this time,” he called.

But the moonlight played on the sloop so that the boat seemed a lithe, living thing, and if Turner had been in some other moment and not being tugged along behind like a reluctant dog, he might have let himself marvel at the soundless beauty of sail.

“So now you’re impertinent, too.”

He knocked and opened the parsonage door at the same time, understanding that his importance in the town, his importance in the church, and the importance of his mission gave him the right to step in on the minister whom he paid every Sunday morning from his tithes and offerings.

They sat down to the blueberry pie, and Mr, Stonecrop thanked them for it by offering suggestions on household discipline: the ship to be more tightly run, the loose cannon to be tethered, the runaway colt to be penned in.