After River by Donna Milner Read Free Book Online Page A

it was to me then and I felt a responsibility to do my brother’s words proud. The night of the concert I stood on the stage in the Atwood Elementary gymnasium-cum-auditorium and swallowed.
    Mom sat in the front row beaming at me as I waited to start. Beside her, my father winked and flashed me his white-toothed grin. Morgan and Carl sat in the back row making monkey faces. Nothing would have pleased them more than to see me trip over the words. But neither the silent jeers of my two brothers, nor having to repeat well-memorized words, would faze me. I focused on Boyer’s encouraging smile and began:
    â€˜Oh, there are tales they tell at the Atwood Hotel,
    Between the card games and the chewing of snoose.
    And the stories go ’round, how gold was first found,
    By Daniel Atwood, the Old Bull Moose.’
    I threw the words out into the air, directly to Boyer just the way he had taught me in his attic room. He nodded at each one as if he had caught it.
    His words flowed out of my mouth as easily as my mother’s hands danced across her piano keys.
    â€˜The legends say Dan was a North Country man,
    And so big that they called him Bull Moose.
    From Alaska they say, old Dan ran away,
    To escape from the end of a noose.
    He arrived here by course on the back of a horse,
    And stopped to make camp in the cold.
    As Daniel stepped down on the harsh frozen ground
    He tripped on a huge nugget of gold.
    It took Dan no time to dig that first mine,
    Before long the first shaft was down.
    When the miners all came, old Dan had laid claim
    To the land for miles around.
    But he put them to work, just digging his dirt,
    And he started building this town.
    He built a sawmill and store, the hotel and more
    From the gold that came out of the ground.
    Oh, the miners went down, deep into the ground
    Why they did it I really can’t say
    Dan was generous, I hear, at Christmas each year,
    And gave them the day off without any pay.
    Old Bull Moose they say worked his whole life away
    Just hoarding each cent he could save
    Until he fell to the floor of his company store
    And became the richest man in a grave.
    Now Stanley’s the man, the son of old Dan,
    With his fortune he plays fast and loose.
    He still runs the old mine but spends most of his time
    Making up for the Old Bull Moose.
    So at Christmas this year, raise a glass of good cheer,
    For the gold that came out of the ground,
    And to Stan, who they say, now gives it all away,
    And to Old Bull Moose who founded this town.’
    When I was finished I couldn’t tell if the laughter that rippled beneath the applause was at the words, or me, but Boyer’s smile was enough.
    After the concert, the wise men in their father’s bathrobes, the angels with their tinselled halos, Christmas trees, stars, and sugarplums, waddled off the stage. I followed the flow to the back of the now brightly lit room where parents, teachers and performers milled among tables laden with cookies, cakes, and cups of punch. As I grabbed a paper plate I glanced up and saw Boyer at the back of the room by the exit doors talking to Mr Atwood and an auburn-haired boy about Boyer’s age whom I had never seen before. As I wove my way through the crowd towards them I heard my name. I was torn between the curiosity of what Mr Atwood thought of Boyer’s poem, and wondering why my name had been spoken. I peered over the heads of my classmates and spotted Mrs Royce, the wife of the pharmacist, talking to our neighbours, Ma Cooper and Widow Beckett.
    â€˜Yes, that’s right,’ Ma Cooper said. ‘That was Nettie Ward’s daughter.’ The bun at the back of her head, the size of a cantaloupe, bobbed up and down as she spoke. She was a huge woman, Ma was,the kind of woman who left a wake when she walked out of a room. The only dainty thing about her were her tiny hands and feet. I always thought her feet looked too small to carry her enormous bulk, but every Monday morning she,