A Good High Place

Chapter 6

c H A P T e R S i X A party was given last evening for Mrs. ira Sharp at the home of Mr. and Mrs. leslie Ashcraft. Seven tables were called into use as “500” was played. At the close of the game a handsome silver berry spoon was presented to Mrs. Sharp who has been one of the active ladies of elk Rapids, and deserving of honor since she was a girl of about sixteen years of age. —Elk Rapids Progress, october 5, 1905 deserving of honor since she was sixteen or active in elk Rapids since she was sixteen? The Progress never did let syntax stand in the way of a good story. The mahogany desk with the pigeonholes became mine after Mama died. Mabel had first choice and took Mama’s jewelry, or most of it anyway. And that was fine. She’d be going off to Michigan Normal college. And later she’d marry that Marshall boy, Sam, and wouldhavemoreneedofjewelrythanme. Thedeskwasall iwanted. And the clippings that were inside, upsetting to some people, but i liked them because they said something, even if it was about Uncle George’s drinking: MarshallGreenkilledoneofGeorgeSharp’shorses,orishould say one of his skeletons, that was left in a ditch with a broken leg and couldn’t get up March 2. George has been a guest of Sherriff Kittle once before and is skating close to the edge of the ice again. —Elk Rapids Progress March 12, 1915 THe dAY oF THe BliZZARd. The horses haven’t been called to duty. No school. Snow, as we watch from inside the livery stable, pounds the windows in intermittent fury, driving sideways against the glass so that quantities of the stuff squeeze through the cracks around the edges, float several feet into the barn, drift lazily to the straw-covered floor like huge papery dust particles. We think the struggle is outside ourselves, Uncle George says. likethesnowstorm,ianswer.iwonderwhathe’sgettingatbecause outwardly Uncle George exhibits a decided lack of purpose. it’s hard to picture him struggling against anything. There’s a deliberateness about this and even a smugness. As if he knows something the rest of humanity doesn’t. He goes about life’s duties with the same distracted air with which he fills the blue tin pot he uses to boil coffee. on the days he can hold down coffee. Toomanynightshesendsmedowntothebeergardenwithacovered tinpail,tencents,andapenny.Tencentswillbuytwoquartsofbeerfor him—the penny is mine. The day of the blizzard isn’t one of his good days, but he tries to make coffee anyway, his gnarly hands shaking, the crippled middle finger on his right hand bent and bloated from the time he’d gotten it caught in old Asar’s halter. His joints are swollen; his knees don’t bend right. i know i should help him, but something always stops me. Some secret satisfaction i find in his misery. He gives up trying to get his fingers through the handle, wraps part of a burlap bag around the pot, pours the inky liquid into two silvery tin cups, and hands me one. i didn’t like coffee when i first 42 L.E. Kimball A GOOD HIGH PLACE 43 tried it, but now i do. Something cap and i came to share over the years. Not the same with Uncle George. i guess there are a few people who don’t live inside themselves, Uncle George says, but i haven’t known many. They never complain about circumstances, he says. Never seem to struggle at all. i don’t like it when Uncle George talks this way because i know he’s talking specifics. eventually he’ll come to the point, or part of the point. or worse, he’ll leave it hanging there like some invisible, noxious gas. only thing remaining is for me to guess which one of us he’s referring to. coffee is dripping down the side of my cup where Uncle George has slopped it, so i wipe my hand in the yellow straw, pick up a piece to suck on, then move closer to the woodstove. Uncle George sits on an old oak kitchen chair, but i sit in the dirt closer to the stove. could have used your help today, Uncle George says. He means with indigo, a two-year-old filly, part Percheron, which is where she gets her dappled-gray, nearly blue color. Uncle...